Windows Phone drowning in a sea of Androids

[N8ter]

But, the majority of users out there want APPS....APPS....APPS!!! That's what is selling all those Android phones and IPhones. My oldest could care less about my Windows phone and how easy it is to use. He just wants an IPhone cause that's what all the other kids have because all those "great apps" sell the thing. I know many WP users out there are also into the APPS and have stated that Windows needs to get more competitive in the app market. Well, maybe that's true to some degree, but I feel in the end with WP8 and beyond if they keep developing the reliable OS they have even now and with them finally getting it on the LTE bandwagon, more hardware makers and the other carriers beside ATT are going to get into the windows phone more and more. The tech people all out there already say it's the best OS. I'm holding out with my Trophy that by the end of the year even Big Red will show us some new WPs! Will WP eventually be able to overtake Android or IPhone to be the top OS out there? Maybe not. Probably not for at least quite awhile. The others just have too far a head start with all those "GREAT APPS" that is going to make it a long uphill climb for windows to overtake. If they can keep putting out the product they're now putting out, I'll keep with them. I won't even care if they stay number 3. There's going to stay a market out there for all three OS's I would feel.

#3 is so far behind 1 and 2 that they are barely a factor (notwithstanding the fact that they aren't even #3, Blackberry is and is likely to sit there for a long time given WP7's trending marketshare). WP7 is #4, and they're even lower in World-Wide marketshare because then you have to factor in Symbian which still has high world-wide marketshare and I think even Bada has higher marketshare numbers than WP7 there. RIM is stronger in overseas markets than in the US these days. Apple and Android are still strong world-wide.

The issue with apps and lagging developer support among top apps is obvious, but people seem to have rewritten history.

Microsoft launched the platform and it was missing so many APIs that many apps were literally impossible to port over. WP7 was launched like a Beta Google Product. That's why. They didn't really add most of the APIs needed until Mango, and that was basically a year after launch.

Even then, we ended up getting inferior ports compared to other platforms. It took them this long for Skype and it's clearly inferior to the Android/iOS version. WhatsApp and IM+ are clearly inferior. Tons of apps are like this. Even Adobe Reader is terrible compared to the iOS/Android versions.

That's where the root of the problem lies.

They hyped the launch and developers weren't able to get in at launch, so now that the platform has been out for a while and those same developers see that it isn't really growing at a decent rate, they feel it's not worth the effort to port and support their app on this platform.

WebOS had the exact same issue a few years back when it launched IRT developer mindshare, but their platform was much more finished than WP7 when it launched to consumers.

This is the same thing that's hurting them with consumers. You still see comments everywhere saying WP7 doesn't have needed features, even though Mango likely rectified much of that for many of those users. The launch tainted its perception in the minds of consumers a bit, and that's hard to shake when there are establish (and high quality) alternatives on the market.

This is not like flubbing a Windows Release or the RROD XB360 issue when it lauched literally a year ahead of the Wii and PS3.

 

[canesfan625]

Statements about developers thinking it isn't worthwhile arent entirely accurate. Interest in the platform is clearly growing. We should be careful when comparing to android because while support is still strong it has been shown that android has slowly been loosing developer support. If IM+ is your basis for comparison id say the platform is coming along slowly but surely.