One heck of a week for W10 Mobile. What's everyone feeling?

[fulnix]

I feel better about Widows phone than I do android. That's not saying much but I guess I'm one of the few hopping I won't have to try android again. It always let's me down. MS and Windows Phone only let's me down every few years. From 5.1 to 7 then to 8 recently to 10. I've switched devices to stay current and hopefully there will be a device so I can stick with Windows Phone, I still love my current 950xl. My past devices served me well (Blackjack, Blackjack II, Jack, Focus & 920). I am a fan and will probably stick this through until the end.

 

[tale 85]

This is a question I've been asking myself for a couple weeks now. Looking at my Idol 4S mit Windows 10 and thinking "Why?" I don't really use it as a daily driver right now, but there's something inside me that can't just walk away completely... yet.

Over the last couple years we've all been waiting for "our new Windows Phone". Most are still waiting, playing with Insider Builds on old hardware hoping that the beloved "Surface Phone" is, in fact, a reality. But for who? We can't honestly think Microsoft is going to suddenly blow the doors off the Mobile world with a game changing device, driving Apple and Samsung out of the market.

So is Microsoft abandoning the Windows Phone "fans"? It's more like we're holding onto a segment of the market that only exists in out eyes. The consumer market has declared it's winners and is moving on. Windows Phone /10 Mobile / for Phone, for us will be a byproduct of the Enterprise shift. We're welcome to come along for the ride, but if we stay there's really no need to keep asking "are we there yet?". I don't even think we know where it is we're going.

 

[robwards]

I started looking at other phones last week after concluding my 950 will soon be left behind and obsolete. I watched loads of reviews of android and ios handsets on youtube. But I have now ditched the idea. Back in love with the 950 and looking forward to the update.
I go though this every so often, but I can never quite leave my 950.

 

[chsoriano]

I have been a Windows phone user since Windows Mobile (the OS) was around. In 2010, I was excited by the redesigned and refreshing mobile experience introduced by Windows Phone 7 and hopeful for the future. After having used a Samsung Focus, HTC HD7, Lumia 900, Lumia 920, Lumia 1020, Lumia 950XL, and an HP Elite X3, I finally pre-ordered a new device: Samsung Galaxy S8+. And I'm excited to be buying a brand new device that has great specs from the current generation of hardware (barring the cameras in the Lumia devices, they were generally "last year's hardware" when released).

I will continue to use and enjoy the MS ecosystem via multiple Xbox One S's, Surface Pro 3, Windows 10 desktops and tablets, and probably more via O365/Groove/and Xbox Live (until I feel compelled to use other services). But I feel like losing customers and fans like me and those of us here is not good for Microsoft's platform in the long run. I believe they really do need to launch an innovative mobile device in the future to ensure their platform remains relevant and compelling for those of us experimenting with other devices and platforms. I would love to want to come back in the future.

 

[garak0410]

I was a LONG time supporter of Windows Phone when it existed as Pocket PC on a Dell and eventually got a Cingular 8125:



Really enjoyed this phone...played endless hours of Age of Empires on it. Used Windows Mobile Device center to keep it in sync with my Outlook. It was an all round good phone. Then moved to the HTC Fuze:



This phone still featured a slide out keyboard and I got into flashing ROMS's from XDA so I could be on Windows Mobile 6.5, which I actually liked and lived with it's quirks. I used it long enough to use the first Windows Mobile Store that helped with not having to side load all the time.

Windows Mobile was a geeks dream, at least for me.

I joined a pre-launch Windows Phone Series 7 forum (if I could remember the name, might be able to find it on Archive.org) and was so active in there that I won a Zune HD. I was excited about Windows Phone. Yet by this time, I had made a short detour to Android (going through the Captivate, Infuse and Skyrocket) before finally getting a Lumia 928, when I felt that Windows Phone 8 was ready for prime time.

I loved Windows Phone 8 and jumped into the whole Windows 8 "ecosystem" with Surface RT, Windows 8 and everything. I made it work and I loved it. When my work offered to pay for my phone (Verizon), I went with the Lumia ICON and loved that phone so much.

In the fall of 2015, when I was starting feeling the app gap and seeing apps pulled, I felt that my relationship with Windows Phone was coming to an end. I waited patiently for the news to come if the 950xl would work on Verizon and when it was verified it would not, I moved back to Android and I am here to stay for the foreseeable future.

I still fire up my ICON to stay up on the Insider Builds and I do prefer the Windows Phone UI, but yes, it DOES come down to apps. There would be no Windows if we didn't need applications (Office, AutoCAD, Photoshop, Steam, etc.) And yes, the app gap is real as I can't get these often used apps on Windows Phone: Spiceworks, Neato Robot Vac, Alexa, YouVersion (with "Events), Cardboard/Daydream, WalMart Pickup Checkin, Feedly (official app), Phillips Hue, Lightroom, Mothership/Chore Monster, PocketCasts, Silver Dollar City App, among others...it really does come down to apps. I also like a smartmatch and I was an early adopter of both Band's but alas, that is over and I've moved to Android Wear and really like it.

I wanted Windows Phone to succeed and to pretend it is still "something" right now is truly acting in denial. Trust me, I've been there. I agonized for months moving from my ICON to Android. But the writing was on the wall. Windows Phone was dying and there was no need to hang on.

If they do make some kind of come back, I'd be back.

 

[celticmagick]

I'm concerned but I'm not going anywhere unless I have no other choice. Even then, I'll find some generic phone and use it. I can't stand Android or iOS.

 

[captblaze]

time to lose the Insider program (for me) too many good people lost their livelihood and identity when Satya's magic algorithm starting sweeping long term employees under the rug for H1 visa holders and yes even us insiders. since the big boys and girls in Redmond don't seem to want to keep phones as an extension of their product line, so be it. as for me... punching out and trying to live on a flip phone

 

[cr_buck]

With Microsoft dropping support for a good portion of devices, pulling their own from stores, and the remainder are not found in any stores it makes being a fan even harder. Even Microsoft is treating Windows Mobile like a second class citizen.

 

[BigwaveMx]

No matter any news for me....I feel lost since I dropped and broke my L950. I can't buy a new device. Sadness.

 

[LexaSap]

Well today I am mad at Windows 10 mobile. My phone was dead this morning, causing me to oversleep. I was 2 hours late at work and I had no idea why my phone did not wake me this morning. It would not turn on again. It seemed like the battery was empty, but no response at all when trying to connect it to the charger. In the end I removed the battery for a little while and then it turned on. The battery was 100% full, so therefore no response to the charger. Turned out win10 mobile was updating during the night and for some reason it did not start again during rebooting. Now I have to work late @#^%@^#%@ #stillveryhappywithmylumia950

 

[Naushaba Khatoon]

I'm thinking I'd still rather have a W10M device.

I have an iPhone 6 plus I use for work and I have had it a month....it's not growing on me. In fact, I am carrying two phones. I have considered selling my 950's and getting a good Hemdroid phone but I have not been able to bring myself to do it. I can use a Anroid because the App I need is ios or android. I can forward the phone calls and the app works on both......I have an android I used for a week to make sure it all works, I still do not like them. It's hard to put into words, I don't like the mail apps, even outlook on android is different. I have not found anything on android remotely close to Cortana, she works good for me!

I here this new update isn't going to be any big deal, I am fine with that, keep fixing the bugs MS.

Cortana is there on android, and in my country India, she can do more stuff on android than on my lumia 550, such as tracking trains, train running status, etc.

 

[TheWinPhan]

I've never been the person who allowed a barrage "bad news" dissuade my feelings for Windows Phone or Windows 10 Mobile. I'm 100% WinPhan and continue to enjoy the experience everyday. Like most of you, I do have concerns with how much momentum for Windows Phone, was lost with Mr. Nadella's new vision. That however, does not change how I feel about my devices or the OS. I'm proud to be a WinPhan...period.

 

[anguilla1980]

I'll stick with it, I love my 950XL.

I've been using Windows mobile non-stop since 2002 and as a phone since 2003. I did development for several years back in the days of XDA. Look how dead XDA is now for W10 mobile: https://forum.xda-developers.com/windows-10/development

I have no plans to jump ship anytime soon. I have what I need.

Here are all the Windows phone devices I have had off the top of my head, there are 3 or 4 more:

Hitachi G1000 > Audiovox PPC-6600 > HTC Mogul PPC-6800 > HTC Touch Pro PPC-6850 > HTC Touch Pro 2 PPC-T7380 > HTC Arrive HTC-T7575 > HTC Titan II HTC-PI86100 > Nokia Lumia 1520 > Nokia Icon 939B > Lumia 640 Dual Sim > Lumia 640XL > Lumia 950XL

 

[garak0410]

Cortana is there on android, and in my country India, she can do more stuff on android than on my lumia 550, such as tracking trains, train running status, etc.

As good as Google Assistant is, I set Cortana as my primary assistant on my Android phone and it works great. I like being able to get my reminders across all my devices, including XBOX.

 

[mggm100]

I'm just going to watch and wait. Right now I'm still enjoying WM on the 950 XL. I came to Windows Phone out of curiosity after I became somewhat bored with Android, and I'm not feeling moved to return to it at the moment.

Several week ago my Sirius Stilletto II died. I ended up getting an iPod Touch 6G to replace it because the Sirius app can do a fair amount what the Stilletto II could do, not everything, but a good deal of what I did with the Stilletto. (I used it like a DVR and listened to programs at times convenient for me.) Anyway, now that I'm getting familiar with iOS 10, I'm not feeling as negatively about moving to an iPhone as I had in the past.

I enjoy having a Win 10 system with phone, tablet, and desktop. But if MS isn't going to keep that concept going, I'll probably lose interest in WM, especially since my resistance to iOS seems to be diminishing.

 

[mggm100]

I put Cortana on my iPod Touch for the same reason.

 

[Giddora]

Seems like a lot of news got dumped this week on the W10 Mobile front. Most of it ambiguous, some of it a let down.

How is everyone feeling about this? We've got the Galaxy S8 Microsoft Edition, an announcment that most Windows Phones have been axed from future updates (normally this is routine news but with it's 2-year update cycle that is a lot of now axed models), and even Windows Central seems to be a bit on edge with the UWP article (which was extremely well written IMO).

Do you think this is a sign of things to come? Is MS just wiping the slate clean before they take their next mobile step? What the heck has this week made you feel in regards to W10 Mobile and how MS is handling it?

There are no official information on which phones will get the update and which phones will not

 

[drachen23]

I fell in love with the OS when I tried Windows Phone 7 series. The UI was so fresh, beautiful and well thought-out. My old Android phones were slow, janky and ugly in comparison. Apps were always a problem, but around Windows 10 Mobile, UI problems started to surface. Suddenly the apps looked refugees from Android. Hamburger menus, UI in less reachable places, garish colors all over the place. The DNA of what made WP7 so promising was still there, but it was diluted as the focus went from a tight UX to cramming Windows 10 on a phone factor device. I still like the cleanness of the OS, the concept and execution of Live Tiles and the dev tools are spectacular compared to Android or iOS (I'm a developer and dabble in app development from time to time).

The one-two punch for me was losing Amazing Weather in the same month that Microsoft announced the Galaxy S8 Microsoft Edition. Everybody's giving up on it. At this point, utility wins out and I'll be back on Android for the first time in 7 years sometime next week with an S8 (non-MS edition). I know the OS is a step down in terms of UI and the hardware is a massive step up but I'll finally have apps again. If the Surface Phone is awesome, I'd love to jump back, but it would take more than just some amazing hardware or even WM10 going back to the clean, user-centric and consistent UX-centric philosophy of WP7 to bring me back. It would take developers taking the platform seriously again. MS failed wooing them several times and even with the massive install base of Win10 desktop, the store is a ghost town.

I hope MS solves that issue, but their track records isn't great and a new piece of hardware isn't going to cut it.

 

[andrew-in-woking]

I remember seeing the O2 XDA for the first time. Someone I met at a work conference had one and they showed me getting their emails and everything else it could do. At the time I had a Nokia 6310i and immediately saw that this device was going to change things. I got one of the small devices running Pocket PC 2003 some time later and progressed from there.

It seems so strange now that we were still using styluses on smartphones in 2006/7. The poster above who said that everyone else has moved on is largely correct. I don't think you can blame Microsoft today for much of what is happening. The mistakes were back in 2007 to not adequately respond to the disruption in the market caused by the iPhone and subsequently Android. Also the disasterous Nokia purchase.

My personal view is that Microsoft is sticking to it's path of merging all operating systems but that it underestimated how long this would take, and therefore how badly it would affect things like market share.

If they had made this move in 2007, directly after the iPhone came out they may have stood a chance of getting a good third or possibly even second place in the market. If the equivalent of Windows Phone Series 7 had been based on the One Core idea at that point. However, this would probably not have been technically possible given the time so you have to cut Microsoft some slack for going with an existing asset for a quick solution (Windows CE).

The network effect is very powerful which is what Apple and Google are trading on so if Microsoft want to get back into he smartphone market with any degree of success, they will have to do something extremely disruptive, not unlike the introduction of the iPhone in 2007.

That said, a new business model could be just as disruptive as a new product. For example, if Microsoft offered complete business technology solutions as a service, that encompassed all communication and mobile working software, hardware and devices, I think it's possible that they could break back into the B2B market and from there into the consumer market, as happened with Windows and PCs back in the 1990s.

 

[brettmilden]

I am excited to see a few enhancements with Creators update on PC! I am an insider on WP Lumina Icon on Verizon. Looking for a replacement phone that works on Verizon network, 20 megpixel camera and I buy today! I am optomistic that MS will continue Mobile. If not tell us now so we can move on. If so also tell us so I can hold on for the future. I don't want Apple or Android!!!