What lack of apps? Here are a couple..

[mikewp]

Start with the one currently pissing me off the most?

Bought the season pass to MotoGP. I can log in and watch the race on my laptop. Yaaaaa, ok.
With the app, I get:
Live Timing

Follow the action as it unfolds with the extensively updated Live Timing feature and watch lap times progress as the riders speed through each sector of the track. Weather info, split times and sector tracking allows you to see exactly how the riders are performing throughout each lap and chart the riders as their teams and mechanics do. This is the most detailed analysis tool ever provided in MotoGP?.

*For the first time ever this winter Live Timing will be made available through the app for preseason tests. Live Timing for winter tests may differ in format to Grand Prix Live Timing.

Real-time Tracking

Follow any rider in real-time around the track - zoom in on the action on the enhanced and interactive circuit maps to follow a specific rider or pull out for a wider perspective to see the whole field. Change angles and perspectives as you wish during sessions and races. This feature is not available for preseason tests.

Video

Enjoy exclusive preseason content and the best moments of every session from all three classes of Grand Prix competition from every round of the World Championship, shortly after the action has concluded. See exclusive action clips, interviews, After The Flag, Paddock Girls, behind the scenes shots and much more. Highlights of qualifying and races are available with commentary in three languages.

Latest News

Be the first to get all the latest preseason news, plus updates during race weekends and between Grands Prix throughout the season.

Photos

The best preseason content and more than 200 new photos per Grand Prix.

Live Audio Commentary

Follow all the MotoGP? sessions with Live Audio Commentary from the motogp.com commentary team. Audio also available in OnDemand.

Live Text Commentary

Follow all the key moments of each session and race, with rider and incident updates.

Live & On-Demand

Follow all the action through the app with key data from all sessions and races via Audio commentary, Timing and 3D Tracking - all Live & OnDemand!

MotoGP? Guide

Check out all the statistics and information about the events, riders and teams for the 2015 MotoGP? World Championship (available soon). The guide has been significantly enhanced for the new season to feature additional photos, videos and brand new statistics for the riders, bikes and teams.

Events Info

Get all the information you need for each circuit, including statistics and records, videos and weather info.

Whether you are a fan, a rider, a motorsport professional, a journalist or a MotoGP? team member the MotoGP? Live Experience application is the ideal resource for following the World Championship.

The App experience is HANDS down wayyyy better than the Internet site. Pretty incredible. I can have a multi-screen (up to 4) up and follow the main action as well as specific riders, live timing, etc.
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Sony Playmemories. Wirelessly transfer photos to a device supported by an app. Not a huge deal, especially now that I have my 930 and rarely use my RX100. I will be using it in a few months to take shots that 930 can't take, but I'll have my new laptop with me so will just yank out the SD card to do my transfers.

LINE app, works, but isn't as functional as the Android app. Can't figure out why that should be the case.

I'm not a heavy app user at all and I'm finding it pretty frustrating. Bet others here have many more examples. The days of saying I can get the same thing on a web site are slowly disappearing. Pretty bizarre really. Do apps really provide a better mechanism to support advanced services over what a website can provide, or, is it just a way to keep existing and win new customers. Good thing I have an Android Tablet for the MotoGP. I suppose it is going to be a necessary evil to carry an Android device. Not giving up on Windows. Love the OS and services; however, I don't have a good feeling that Windows 10 is going to change the playing field no matter how easy they make it for a developer to create a Windows App. Hope I'm wrong. If that happens (low adoption by developers), I hope they get Windows 10 working where it will run Android apps.

There...I feel better.

 

[stevemind]

Oh well

 

[matty032]

I don't see any improvement with apps due to Windows 10. I never realized the hatred people have for Microsoft and Windows especially. I don't get it.

 

[mikewp]

They have 2 serious issues. 1. Developers and IT hate Microsoft. A culture of hate has developed over such a long time that I'm confident that many fairly new developers and IT staff have no idea what they hate. 2. Their marketing is terrible.

1. What can they do more to address #1? Giving away 10 for free buys the some time. People will continue to run what they are used to and giving away 10 for free takes away the incentive to move. The company is doing quite well in enterprise services. They seem to be working overtime to address Developer needs and I'm not sure I see the IT problem but I'm not in IT either so don't know how Apple or Google systems are better than MS. It would seem they need to act more decisively and quicker addressing customer concerns. They have been doing that on many fronts, but are seriously lacking in other areas. For example, Skype. Whoever is in charge of that program should be fired, last year wouldn't have been quick enough. What a POS. We are talking about a multi-billion dollar purchase and quite a bit of goodwill and all of the momentum the program ever had is gone. I still use it though and even purchased a Skype number. I have read about many other examples that seem to really **** people off.

2. Better Marketing. They really need to change their image. Can they? One problem is their name. Microsoft. Is there a name that says 80s as much as Microsoft (there is, I know )? They try to differentiate themselves from Apple and Google, which is a mistake. It's like trying to make fat people feel better about themselves the way they market to "regular" people. Unfortunately, to MS, "regular" women are dull and frumpy and guys are out of shape dullards (oh, they have the trending beard and dark rimmed glasses, but it still doesn't work...maybe they need some full sleeve tattoos). I'm exaggerating somewhat, but some of the marketing comes across that way, the rest of the marketing is just plain b o r I n g.

IMO,MS could come out with the best phone (Camera, battery, screen, sd storage, RAM, etc) ever at a cut rate price at the time time Windows 10 is released and it would still fail to gain significant traction. I doubt that is going to happen so we are left with the same result...Windows 10 on a phone still failing to gain significant traction.

Here is a question, did MS get all of Nokia's camera tech? If so, I wonder if they are going to continue to research and improve or is the quality, right now, as good as it's going to get?

I used to think that apps were not a big deal, but they are becoming so with capabilities that can't be found on the internet web site. Does any developer care to share what the limiting factor is in creating a browser based program that works on all platforms that can do everything an app can do on specific platforms? I mean..I seem to be able to login on any computer anywhere in the world and bring up Office/Outlook online. I can access and use those programs using the browser on any platform phone if I wanted to. Are apps with us because they are a money maker for many or a way to bring customers to your company by providing a little bit of "crack"?

I figure they are a play or two away with 20 seconds on the clock. If they don't score, it will be time for an Android app hail mary to get them into overtime. Or...I'll always have to have some sort of Android device with me to get that last 5% (or probably higher as apps become more important).

 

[runamuck83]

I'm IT and I don't hate Microsoft. Quite the generalization you're making

 

[mikewp]

Of course it is a generalization. When talking about almost anything in this world and including a group of people, one is making a generalization. We make those generalization by what we see in the world. What I see, in print, internet, developers, businesses, at work (lots of hatred based on legacy hate from old timers), is a "general" hatred towards Microsoft. If that "general" hatred didn't exist, we (me in this case so as not to make any sort of generalization), as Microsoft supporters, wouldn't be so frustrated.

So, good for you runamuck83! And I mean that. We (ok, I) need IT, developers, business leaders with your attitude! You are very lucky if you are not a minority in your team.

By the way, good going picking out just the basic theme and addressing that with a rice cake response. MS is where it is now because of some real problems. Government machines and enterprise systems were solely the MS domain. Not any more. MS pissed off customers and Google came in with some good deals..once an entrenched system, it is very difficult for the government to change (Not sure what kind of deal MS is making with Windows 10 for the government, but I'm guessing it is also going to be free). Google has made some strong inroads into the enterprise. Some (many?) government divisions are also going to apps that provide some capability over their Internet site and guess what gets built? Apple. A couple years back, our IT builds included Chrome browsers. MS is addressing problems in a big way (And man did they do a good job getting into the cloud early on)..finally..competition does that, but they have a big hill to climb. The good news is that in the long run, everything goes in cycles, So with a huge and continuing effort, hopefully MS can make it back and be the leader. Right now...from what I'm seeing....I see a culture of hate that MS is going to have to slog through by making the best products and giving the customer exactly what it wants.

Edit...And right now, one of the things the customer wants is apps! For example, I want the full experience of Moto GP on my Windows Laptop, but I'm stuck with the much less functional internet site (which means I have to use my Android tablet). So while MS is slogging through the hate and trying to rebuild goodwill, I'd be more than happy to run Android apps if whatever "Plan A" MS has fails.

 

[matty032]

I have to agree with Mikewp. You go on any technology site and the hatred for MS, and love for all things Apple is just amazing. There are a few small sites that try to be fair, but the sites most people read are anything but fair.

 

[illidanx]

A couple of years ago I liked MS a lot. I lined up to bought a Surface RT on its first day, I bought Lumia 1020, I wrote apps for windows phone. But slowly, I am becoming frustrated with how MS progresses. They are too slow. They tend to keep doing the wrong things and restarting thing. WP7 is a restart, WP8 is a restart again and now W10 is another restart. They don't seem to care to add the little but important features in their products. On windows phone, we miss static IP address, SMS export, dynarec and a lot more that I could not remember at the moment.

 

[matty032]

Not to mention IPSEC VPN, audio to FTP, IE would cut part of the webpage off, VNC...

 

[mikewp]

It takes a long time to turn around a very conservative Microsoft battleship. Software especially, services, culture all takes time (Not sure they could have pulled off the total house cleaning that Elop pulled off at Nokias phone division).. They are still in the process. I was able to forgive the abandonment of the platforms when the OS moved from 7 to 8. Part of getting the ship turned..made sense. RT was a tactical move that may or may not have backfired. Pissed off people, yes, but will more people stay with Microsoft as a result? I wouldn't call 10 a total restart, but then maybe it is a significat restart for developers? They got rid of Ballmer and seem to have some motivated people in place...How much of the old guard is still standing in the way of progress?

Now, they need to really get their collective fecal matter together and get creative, respond quickly to customer (developers and users alike) needs. Quit pissing people off in their help forums and provide real solutions, Change up their marketing, etc, etc.

People with some clout (thinking people like one particular person that thanked another in this thread) ought to stop being an apologist and start using any clout they have to hold Microsoft's feet to the fire.

For you illidanx, I hope you will stay with the platform and see how Windows 10 plays out.