That's been my problem with my lumia 830. Every time I reset the device the lumia apps start downloading and I have to go in the store and cancel them. I don't like them nor do I want them on there. Has anyone tested if these apps don't download when the reset? It may be they pulled them from new users getting them but lumia phones are still capable of getting them after reset.
That is by design and has been since Wp7, as Windows phone did not and does not have a back up system that backs up everything on the phone. Furthermore unlike Windows Mobile 6.x you cannot run a back up app and make local back up or to an msd card. The primary reasons the store apps download from the store, 1) that is to ensure that a less space is taken up be it on the phone during the backup process or in the cloud as all new users were only given a set amount. If everything was allowed to be backed up it will take awhile and plus not everyone has unlimited broadband or mobile internet.
2) Reduce processing is done in the background when auto backing up as invariably everything would need to compressed and then uploaded to onedrive for the back up if they are to fit a lot of back ups into the allocated space. Likewise reduce the time the data is migrated, as prior to Cyan (Wp8.1) you had no option to connect to WiFi to restore - it all had to be done via your mobile internet - ridiculous oversight in my opinion.
Sure but if you want the OEMs to bite you need to give them more freedom. Designing phone hardware is not an easy job and if their facilities require updates and they require changes to their circuitry, they are less likely to take a chance on a platform. And this also gives OEMs a way to stand out and be different because they may do something no other OEM is doing. It's like the world of PCs, more open and allowing manufacturers to design laptops and devices that made their manufacturing process work for them.
In regards to hardware possibly but that also means baking in support into the o/s for multiple form factors, given essentially all the Windows Phone side has been "streamlined" that will take longer to accomplish such as a HTC Touch Pro 2 running WP10. It (the touch pro 7) was killed because landscape support in Wp7 was absolutely woeful.
Furthermore giving OEMs freedom is going to result in a lot of fragmentation:
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This what I meant, where is that "unified" experience they were adamant about?
It's gone and now these phones are out there it cannot be undone so therefore the only real solution to this problem if OEMs is to use onscreen buttons for every thing be it an android phone or a windows phone. As after all the hardware requirement was relaxed so OEMs could reuse their Android Shells. Unfortunately some of them have literally have done that as you can see above.
Sure, but if windows becomes less dependent on firmware, this allows firmware updates to be separated from OS updates. You will get the latest Windows OS and any firmware for specific hardware features controlled by the OEM can be updated separately. When was the last time you updated the bios or any firmware on your PC? I have an actual app from MSI to do the firmware updates, but there never are any. The OS will make sure all SOCs are supported and obviously firmware will already come with the device you purchase. Any changes will be enhancements. Have you ever gotten a windows update that required your PC to have a firmware update to function or increase speed?
That is not going to happen, do you know how bloated a phone image would be if it included all the firmware for every single phone?
Not to mention the more code you inject at bootlevel the higher risks / chances of things going wrong. Which is why firmware are kept as minimal in code as possible. It's easier to test, reduces the size of eeprom / nand whatever required and not to mention reduces costs too. If your churning out a million devices, saving a penny here and there on a single device adds to a lot of savings. But of course a line needs to be drawn on how far you can reduce cost of a phone without destroying the quality of the device.
A desktop PC is not the same a mobile device, two different kettle of fish. One is tied to a power port (unless you use a UPS) and the other an extension of a person. Furthermore at most on a phone you probably lose quite a lot of photos, videos, notes and some work. On a desktop PC?
You would lose pretty much everything if you screw up the bios. Your only method of recovery would be to take out the harddrive / ssd and put it in a usb enclosure or put in as a slave drive. On a laptop or notebook, it's not quite so simple as more and more laptops have become ultrathin thus the use of glue, m2 ssds and soldering ram to the motherboard has become common place. Thus putting the main storage in a non user serviceable position, the average user is not going to know how to access it. Never the less with the advent of sites like YouTube and ifixit - guides can be found for the more common models on disassembly.
The end result is to have all apps going through the windows store. See, today if you want an app you have to go through the web searching and you may not even find the right one or even the best one. Then you search the web to see which app is best and all that. This will maximize app exposure for people who typically made w32 apps. They can put it in the store and don't have to worry someone will find them on the web. Now there's ratings and comments right in the store and updates can be issued without having to have to build an update client right into the app. It's not a short process this is why they have their 2 year plan.
Not all Win32 apps will go through the store as some have been abandoned and no longer maintained or the company / devs who developed them have been bought or have gone bust. Plus a lot of apps would need to be "restructured" in how they install thus possibly limiting how they function or rendering them useless. Generally, a Win32 program installs in several directories being ProgramData (Not the same as program files), local locallow and possibly roaming. (The latter two are however usually barely touched, they are found under C:\Users\[your username] and are hidden).
Alright I apologize if I sound condescending. But I'm talking about windows from a consumer perspective. You go to work you don't use groove or anything else, you should be working. Their windows is setup for the needs of the company, not the individual consumer. I know many people who use only Apple products so yes, you can leave Windows on a consumer level for your own needs. If you do not find the alternatives as good, then your essentially saying that Windows is the best still even though they are half-assing everything, so it can only get better. But you do realize what a massive undertaking this is for them. And pulling certain apps that will be replaced is in fact a good idea because you don't want new windows users to become dependent on them.
That is exactly my point, Groove is a consumer facing first party app and a music app is that is almost everyone will use to listen to audio files (as it is pre-installedish). The rapid growth is only going to happen in the consumer space thus pulling certain functions, services or apps before they are replaced are always seen as moronic decisions. As you will simply lose a lot of users during the "dead space" period, the transitional phase is hard enough but when you forcibly inject a dead space period. The user has no option but to look at other alternative service(s) and thus once they hooked on alternative service(s) said user will most likely not come back as no one wants a repeat of scenario. This is why building brand loyalty and trust is so important in the phone sector, Microsoft's recent decisions regarding Windows Phone have destroyed that brand loyalty completely for a lot of people. Then you have the Whole Saga with RT devices. But that is another topic for another thread.
A bridge is not built over night but can be destroyed in an instant.
And yes it's good to give constructive feedback. It's just the tone most people set is extremely negative as if it's the end of the world. Just maintain a positive vibe. I remember Google pulled reader and stopped supporting it. At the time I was not very happy but I found some really great alternatives as a result. Now I use Readiy and i'm a happy camper. I will always use windows on my desktop as long as it is still viable for me to keep a Desktop. For the longest time I only used a laptop and typically used linux, but decided to build a gaming rig. Microsoft does need to satisfy the stock holders no doubt, but you're forgetting they need to satisfy the OEMs too. They were responsible for a lot of losses because of Windows 8 and now Google is a threat and is trying to steal the OEMs for laptops and other uses as they build up their own OS.
It may feel like a negative vibe from some, if it is intentional then it is intentional however not everyone's first language is English therefore may not intune with the context or semantics of their tone of writing. They can not satisfy OEMs but it is the OEMs who need to adjust, let me explain when Microsoft first revealed the Surface they saw it as direct competition and as such to allay those fears Surface was only offered in limited markets but at large quantities. As a lot of OEMs had become content in churning out the same old crap, year in and year out. When Surface picked in a big way - don't forget the first gen had a massive write down. Therefore the 2nd gen had limited availability in terms of stock as demand grew they widened the stock availability and with the Pro 3 have increased to a lot more markets. As after all MS is still any other company and will always look for growth where there is traction.
So here they are building an OS that will work across so many various platforms, building development kits and APIs to make things easier for developers, and trying to make sure the OS is also the most secure one they have built so enterprises can make the move. They can't drop their current solutions and need to make sure they are the best you can get on every platform, especially the most popular platforms.
Yet they (MS) did, removal of placeholders thus making the sync client work the same as it does on other platforms, removal of rooms, removal a few key Lumia apps. They are on the popular platforms because that is where the money is but it doesn't make sense (in the traditional sense) whatsoever to support a nascent watch o/s out of the gate.
Enterprise / Corporations move in paces that will make a tortoise look like the hare, a lot are still on XP and rolling out 7. Yes, some may be kicking the "Windows 10" tires but it is not all of them and that will be along awhile before every corp is running on 10.
On top of that they have the huge insider program which is also an undertaking on its own.
The insider program is.. well a mixture of their paid developer programs and I don't say that lightly, I'm fully aware that this is a massive undertaking.
They are also working on apps for the future OS not for the old one.
Yes, I'm aware but you cannot just build for the future but you need to build for the here and now as well. Windows 8 was an example of that, it was too forward thinking. Growth only occurs in the present.
Look up project M or Midori when you get the chance or some of their MSR projects.
There priorities make sense for them. Balmer ran the show and they fell behind.
Some of his decisions were questionable; yes however they generated huge amounts of profits under Ballmer's tenure.
Stock holders want vision and that's what Satya is bringing to them.
No. They just want profits if they wanted Vision there wouldn't been calls for Microsoft to become another IBM spinning off the consumer facing divisions such as the xbox.
Consumers will always take hits with progress of technology, it's just the way things work. Technology moves rapidly and when people get mad that their 2 year old phone won't be supported or other stuff, that's sad but it's the reality of tech. You either adapt or fall behind. Their previous music app may have been better because they put more effort and time into it but they have a lot of competition that are doing things differently and they are taking users away.
Yet, the reorg has taken a bulk of that resource away - they could have been allocated to work on accelerating first party apps. Tech will taper off at a certain point, nothing advances or grows indefinitely. Going back to Music, they had MixRadio which they could have combined into Groove but it was deemed time consuming from a legal perspective. As I understand the licenses were none transferable (I could be wrong). Not everyone is open to technological change, hence why the term "luddites" exist. However there is a difference of not being open to change and being highly critical of said change as invariably not all change is "good". You wouldn't want a sewage plant on your doorstep would you?
Even if it meant alleviating a problem that impacted a lot of people.
If their other solution didn't bring users in they can't stick around with it.
This is where telemetry or big data comes in but it is not always clean cut as the data shown. There are always external factors. No model can encompass every single environmental or foreseeable factor. If it were possible that would be both amazing and alarming at the same time. Windows Phone didn't pick up wasn't not because of the UI but of carrier incompetence, sales people pushing other platforms and Microsoft cannibalising it's sales along with some very questionable decisions.
So giving feedback is the best thing we can do no doubt. But give feedback to Microsoft. They are the ones that need to know this stuff. (and I know you did but speaking in general).
Of course, if people aren't highly critical of Apple, Google, Microsoft, OEMs, technology etc there is never going to be scope for improvement however having said that. Most people are only highly critical of Microsoft and not Apple or Google which is completely wrong on all levels.
However there comes a point when you have been persistent in your feedback and it is not being listened to, votes to bring back the Zune Sync client for instance had several thousands of votes on uservoice. It was acknowledged and declined.
https://windowsphone.uservoice.com/forums/101801-feature-suggestions/suggestions/3342058-continue-to-use-zune-for-media-sync-in-wp
They should at least improve the Windows 10 client so that it does what the Zune sync client did, such as WiFi Syncing
Zune Support | Wireless syncing from your Zune software | Zune Software
So you can understand why some are extremely negative or rather skeptical.
And nothing wrong with mentioning things you dislike in the forums but man lets keep these forums cheery.
After all it is a public forum
and I know what you mean.
We get enough negativity in the media. It's like people took a personal blow because MS was part of the Apple keynote. Yes, they are a software company. Keeping good relations with competitors is actually a good thing.
Microsoft will never shake off that stigma, I wonder what would have happened if Apple was presenting something at a major Microsoft event... lol.
Hey I considered iphone for my next phone but since my lumia 830 is still meeting my needs I don't really need to replace it. And I am enjoying mobile 10 on it. I've given my feedback on some of the things I dislike.
I know people keep saying that they have been waiting for years. But that was with Balmer. I'm curious what Satya pulls off.
In actuality it was the decisions to use Windows CE as the kernel as opposed the NT Kernel that has put everything on the back foot. It wasn't Ballmer at all. If anything Ballmer was the catalyst in getting the three screens and the cloud going, not Satya. This doesn't happen over night let alone in less than 24 months. It is a culmination of projects and coding hours from the past iterations of the o/s.
Use what ever meets your requirements
.
And my honest opinion is that continuum will fail unless MS puts screens/keyboards in coffee shops, airports and anywhere else people like to work. It may work better in the enterprise world where people are issued phones anyways. I could care less about it because I have a better desktop when I'm at home. But that's just my opinion.
Why must Microsoft put peripherals in coffee shops and the like?
You do understand the warranty implications of such a method and not to mention the support costs lol.
If anything they need entice coffee shops to do it and they will as long there is net profit from doing so. Ideally the solution would be something akin the HD-10 where a user has just to tap on a NFC puck and they are away. Said puck is either tied to the membership / loyalty card and is administered by a online scalable back end via which monetization can be made.
Furthermore it needs to be an open standard otherwise it will never pick off.
Lastly Windows 10 for phones bring a lot more under the hood changes, it remains to be seen if they will be available at first release. Here is one such example
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/usbcoreblog/archive/2015/05/11/new-in-windows-10-usb-dual-role-on-mobile.aspx.
Also have a look at the WINHEC Shenzen docs & presentations on channel9.msdn.com when you have a chance.
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