If you're clicking on this, you probably have already read the article that spawned it and had your faith in WP shaken. Supporting WP has always been a fun game for me. Waiting for that troll to sensationalize one bank app we lost by pointing out the 20 new bank apps... watching them and their troll buddies go silent when the app returns as a much better UWP... pointing out that we do still get hundreds of new apps every day, and demonstrating how far the platform's come since the 2012 figure of "only 120,00 apps" that so many still pretend is where the platform is today. It's been good, easy fun.
There was a long period of being an Android diehard after my TyTn II with WM6.5, but then I got the Samsung Focus Flash and was shocked at how much I missed good battery life, smooth operation and stabiity (something I definitely wasn't getting out of my Nexus 5/LG G3 at the time)... then I was off the droid bandwagon and back on board for the (I'll try to remember this in order) Lumia 520, 1020, Icon, 1520, 820, 830, 635, Yezz Billy 4.7, 525, HTC 8S, 930, 950 and my current 950XL. Seeing the platform grow (albeit slowly) has been wonderful. Seeing us get an incredibly useful implementation of external storage, watching the UI evolve, watching it gain a sense of cross-platform usefulness far ahead of Google/Apple, getting NFC payment back, seeing Continuum's support growing far beyond just being useful for people who want Office... and yes, watching the app count grow by multiple hundreds of thousands over time.
As long as that slow trickle of consumer support would be there, and be a focus for Microsoft... I'd find good in it. Then the news of this "paradigm shift" happens. While I myself may be buying into hyperbole, it looks a hell of a lot like MSFT's pulling the plug on consumers, going straight for business customers... and it's not even appearing they're targeting new business customers, just existing ones (which is dumb for more reasons that I've even got time to explain).
So last week I did something I didn't want to do... and bought an iPhone 6S. Found any kind of IDE/software I needed for college/work and shelved my Surface Book for my MacBook Air too.
Figured it should be fine... iOS has more games anyway, so I can continue Achievement Junkie'ing through GameCenter as opposed to XBL and probably be better off... even got a 64GB so I could continue my crazy downloading habits. iOS10 update... and Apple pulls the plug on GameCenter... then it's immediately evident that the 6S camera at it's best doesn't come close to my 950XL on it's worst day... just took a week to get my SIM card back in my 950XL. Me and the MBA didn't work out either.
So I get to the meat and potatoes of this already too long post... is Microsoft truly giving up on their consumer market? ...at the closest they've ever been to having a massively appealing platform? Putting my sim back in the 950XL it all set on me how much I love the quick camera launch, the absolutely rad cameras themselves, the UI, the tight MSFT service integration, being able to dock my phone into my NexDock/Continuum Dock and write code with #Code or edit photos with Polarr, getting XBL achievements in games that count towards the same GS on my 360, X1, W10 and I don't even want to imagine the slow uphill battle changing direction.
It always felt like MSFT was on the tip on a paradigm shift... but it seemed like that paradigm shift should be moreso towards aggressively marketing the amazing things that can be done with continuum, their awesome cameras, their improved status in the app ecosystem, so on and so forth. It'd be silly to acquire LinkedIn without also pushing for businesses, but why leave consumers behind when there's obvious consumer appeal that our reluctant little community doesn't want to leave?
There was a long period of being an Android diehard after my TyTn II with WM6.5, but then I got the Samsung Focus Flash and was shocked at how much I missed good battery life, smooth operation and stabiity (something I definitely wasn't getting out of my Nexus 5/LG G3 at the time)... then I was off the droid bandwagon and back on board for the (I'll try to remember this in order) Lumia 520, 1020, Icon, 1520, 820, 830, 635, Yezz Billy 4.7, 525, HTC 8S, 930, 950 and my current 950XL. Seeing the platform grow (albeit slowly) has been wonderful. Seeing us get an incredibly useful implementation of external storage, watching the UI evolve, watching it gain a sense of cross-platform usefulness far ahead of Google/Apple, getting NFC payment back, seeing Continuum's support growing far beyond just being useful for people who want Office... and yes, watching the app count grow by multiple hundreds of thousands over time.
As long as that slow trickle of consumer support would be there, and be a focus for Microsoft... I'd find good in it. Then the news of this "paradigm shift" happens. While I myself may be buying into hyperbole, it looks a hell of a lot like MSFT's pulling the plug on consumers, going straight for business customers... and it's not even appearing they're targeting new business customers, just existing ones (which is dumb for more reasons that I've even got time to explain).
So last week I did something I didn't want to do... and bought an iPhone 6S. Found any kind of IDE/software I needed for college/work and shelved my Surface Book for my MacBook Air too.
Figured it should be fine... iOS has more games anyway, so I can continue Achievement Junkie'ing through GameCenter as opposed to XBL and probably be better off... even got a 64GB so I could continue my crazy downloading habits. iOS10 update... and Apple pulls the plug on GameCenter... then it's immediately evident that the 6S camera at it's best doesn't come close to my 950XL on it's worst day... just took a week to get my SIM card back in my 950XL. Me and the MBA didn't work out either.
So I get to the meat and potatoes of this already too long post... is Microsoft truly giving up on their consumer market? ...at the closest they've ever been to having a massively appealing platform? Putting my sim back in the 950XL it all set on me how much I love the quick camera launch, the absolutely rad cameras themselves, the UI, the tight MSFT service integration, being able to dock my phone into my NexDock/Continuum Dock and write code with #Code or edit photos with Polarr, getting XBL achievements in games that count towards the same GS on my 360, X1, W10 and I don't even want to imagine the slow uphill battle changing direction.
It always felt like MSFT was on the tip on a paradigm shift... but it seemed like that paradigm shift should be moreso towards aggressively marketing the amazing things that can be done with continuum, their awesome cameras, their improved status in the app ecosystem, so on and so forth. It'd be silly to acquire LinkedIn without also pushing for businesses, but why leave consumers behind when there's obvious consumer appeal that our reluctant little community doesn't want to leave?
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