WP's Future: Hopeful or Bleak

[fatclue_98]

Here's a funny one. One of my field supervisors was in my office this morning going over schedules and such. I was about to send him a calendar invite for a meeting next week when he told me that his data was not provisioned. I grabbed his Android and immediately turned on "data". He was bewildered that it was so simple and he felt foolish. He's had the phone for about 3 weeks and didn't tell anyone, but that's another matter. I pulled out my 635, and sent him the invite. He marveled at how fast it was since his home page hadn't even finished loading. I told him it was no big deal, my phone's a Windows Lumia. His reaction? "Oh yeah, but that's a Windows Phone, you can afford that on your salary".

Are people that ignorant? Could we be looking at this all wrong? If people are thinking Windows products are expensive and salespeople are telling them "you don't want that", could it be a perception problem? I know us techies are in tune with what's going on but there's 300 million people in this country who are probably just as out of it as my guy. As a side note, my supervisor knows how to work the Android apps. He scans field docs to me and downloads spec sheets onsite. He's been trained in very sensitive hospital equipment, by yours truly, and he's no dummy. But this morning's events really got me thinking.

 

[AngrySprintUser]

Personal reasons why I am considering an iPhone now for my new phone.

​To set the proper tone here is my device history: T-Mobile Shadow, HTC Touch Viva, HTC Touch 3G, HTC Touch Pro 2, HTC HD7, Dell Venue pro, Lumia 521, Lumia 925, Lumia 635.I have also attempted using the Nexus 4, which I was still left with a lackluster feeling of the disorganized Android OS and the main reasons for my choices are the user experience and hardware. Now the WP OS user experience I have no issues with, on the hardware side of the equation, Microsoft has essentially failed maximizing the availability of the best hardware to all their customers by offering these so call "exclusives" to specific providers which has started since they revamped the Windows Phone OS. Now they have made some strides in trying to provide the phones in different tiers Low, Mid and High. This allows different markets to enjoy most if not all features of the OS. Now for those of us who have picked specific providers based on proper research instead of bouncing around. Apple, HTC and Samsung have been able to provide almost every provider their High & Mid tier phones and exclusives would be a specialty version of these devices. If Microsoft keeps up this strategy, most people will never have a reason to look forward to the next device or the next level of the WP OS. Apple has steadily built that following by making mistakes but those mistakes have still kept almost their entire fan base loyal. Samsung decided to use a shortcut getting there and building their fan base. Microsoft wants the WP OS to spread but the hardware methods are steady but restricted only to some people instead of everyone. A good example has been the Surface tablet range , improvements and expanding, The original Surface Pro, good first attempt, Surface Pro 2 improved on the original and Surface Pro 3 is learning from past improvements & mistakes and making it a damn good device. I know with the tablet, Microsoft had control from start to finish and I'm sure then have some say on these exclusives between providers and manufacturers.

To outline my complaint about exclusives
Lumia 1020 - AT&T
Lumia 920 - AT&T
Lumia 930 - Verizon (Icon)
Lumia 1320- Cricket wireless
Lumia 1520 - AT&T
HTC ONE - Verizon (initially)
Samsung ATIV S - Never made it to carriers in USA
Samsung ATIV SE - Verizon
Samsung ATIV Neo & Odyssey - AT&T & Verizon
Samsung Focus & Focus 2 - AT&T
HTC Titan & Titan 2 - AT&T


There is no reason I have to chose a specific provider to get the phone I want. The iPhone initially started down that route and figured out it was in their best interests to make it available to all consumers.
Samsung, HTC, Blackberry all made sure that their best products were available to as many of their customers as possible. Microsoft is not doing so with these manufacturers . As disappointed as I am at this time, I do have patience and hope that something down the road will make this an excellent experience for all but that flicker for the iPhone is still back there.

I'm not gonna say stick with WP, just avoid the iBend 6

 

[spaulagain]

But Windows 10 for laptops and hybrids is optimized for keyboard and mouse, so probably developers will also optimize their apps for keyboard and mouse.
Store apps for touch devices will be an afterthought for third party developer, in the same way that touch interaction is an afterthought for Windows 10.

That's ridiculous. Windows 8 was optimized for mouse and keyboard too. You could use both in W8 with no problems, the difference was the "Metro" environment was all this full screen stuff and felt disconnected from the desktop. But it wasn't "unusable" for mouse or keyboard, and neither were any of the apps.

Windows 10 is about merging those two interface methods into a more seamless experience. Then adjust the UI SLIGHTLY to accommodate each input method accordingly.

In general, a touch friendly UI is also friendly for mouse and keyboard. The only case where that's truly not the case is for advanced applications like PhotoShop, Illustrator, AutoCAD, Visual Studio, etc.

I've been using Live Interior 3D Pro for Windows 8 about a month now. While it's built with the touch focused UI, I've been using it almost solely with mouse and keyboard. It's been super easy to use as a result, and is actually better I think because the UI is bigger and more clear. It's not a perfect UI, needs some aesthetic polish, but it works great for all input methods.

 

[rodan01]

That's ridiculous. Windows 8 was optimized for mouse and keyboard too. You could use both in W8 with no problems, the difference was the "Metro" environment was all this full screen stuff and felt disconnected from the desktop. But it wasn't "unusable" for mouse or keyboard, and neither were any of the apps.

Windows 10 is about merging those two interface methods into a more seamless experience. Then adjust the UI SLIGHTLY to accommodate each input method accordingly.

In general, a touch friendly UI is also friendly for mouse and keyboard. The only case where that's truly not the case is for advanced applications like PhotoShop, Illustrator, AutoCAD, Visual Studio, etc.

I've been using Live Interior 3D Pro for Windows 8 about a month now. While it's built with the touch focused UI, I've been using it almost solely with mouse and keyboard. It's been super easy to use as a result, and is actually better I think because the UI is bigger and more clear. It's not a perfect UI, needs some aesthetic polish, but it works great for all input methods.

Windows 8 was optimized for touch, but usable with mouse. With 8.1 they improved things for mouse, but the OS still needs more tweaks.
For example, in 8.0 to close an app you had to drag from the top to the bottom with the mouse, that's usable, but not great. In Windows 8.1 they added the window title bar, that's a good change.
To access the menu in store apps you had to right click. In 8.1 they added the bottom bar with the three dots in some apps to improve usage and discoverability.
Many more changes like those are needed in the Modern UI to improve the experience for keyboard and mouse.

The usage of Store apps in laptop and desktop PCs is really low, in fact the the Surface RT tablet is by far the most used device to run store apps, although sales of the devices were insignificant.

In the awful Windows 10, Microsoft will unify the development platform in WinRT. So, desktop apps will be developed with the same APIs that tablet apps use. Probably they will introduce widgets optimized for mouse interaction, like menus, toolbars, etc., to make possible productivity apps like Photoshop or line of business applications.

So, yes, this could improve the app situation because more developers will adopt WinRT for productivity and consumer apps. But, this could be a problem too, because as the usage of WinRT apps increase in the desktop developers will forget about tablets and phones that are insignificant in market share, and they will optimize for keyboard and mouse. Specially if the OS itself changed from being optimized for touch, to being optimized for mouse and keyboard, basically an horrible Windows 7 with tiles.

 

[etad putta]

It's less than bleak, it's virtually non-existent. At a 2.5% market share it's obvious no one cares and with windows 10 most likely being a year or more away it's adios amigos.

 

[tgp]

It's less than bleak, it's virtually non-existent. At a 2.5% market share it's obvious no one cares and with windows 10 most likely being a year or more away it's adios amigos.

The 2.5% statistic is WP's share of smartphone sales in Q2 2014. So far the predicted turning points haven't produced the desired effect. I would say now that not much will happen at least until devices with W10 are released, which will probably be up to a year from now.

Now that Q3 is over, it will be interesting to see how it fared in sales.Statistics should be released before too long. Q4 will likely be better in hard numbers, but all phones sell well in that period. It won't necessarily increase market share.

 

[fatclue_98]

It's less than bleak, it's virtually non-existent. At a 2.5% market share it's obvious no one cares and with windows 10 most likely being a year or more away it's adios amigos.

Nobody could ever accuse you of viewing the world through rose-colored glasses, that's for sure.