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Microsoft

Microsoft Fails Windows Phone Fans Again By Delaying Windows 10 Mobile (venturebeat.com) 189

Posted by samzenpus from the coming-soon dept.
An anonymous reader writes that Microsoft says the Windows 10 Mobile upgrade will begin early next year. The company had previously promised a roll out this month. Venturebeat reports: "Windows Phone fans and fanboys have a tough job. They have to stand by an operating system with a new name every few years, significantly fewer apps than the competition, and a distant third place spot in the market. The latest news out of Microsoft isn't making their lives any easier. This week, Microsoft failed to deliver on its promise of rolling out Windows 10 Mobile devices to existing Windows Phone devices in December. The new target? 2016."
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Microsoft Fails Windows Phone Fans Again By Delaying Windows 10 Mobile More

Microsoft Fails Windows Phone Fans Again By Delaying Windows 10 Mobile

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  • Is there such a thing? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by menkhaura ( 103150 ) <espinafre@gmail.com> on Monday December 21, 2015 @07:39AM (#51157835) Homepage Journal

    "Microsoft Fails Windows Phone Fans (...)"

    Is there such a thing as "windows phone fans"? I'd have thought that fans as in coolers would be more likely than fans as in enthusiasts regarding Windows Mobile...

    • Re:Is there such a thing? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by 91degrees ( 207121 ) on Monday December 21, 2015 @07:44AM (#51157849) Journal
      It's a nice UI - aesthetically interesting and a much better design for a touch interface than for a mouse and keyboard. Lumia owners seem to be quite happy with their phones. I can imagine some people really liking them.
      • There you go Menkhaura, a Windows phone fan.

      • Re:Is there such a thing? (Score:4, Informative)

        by ArmoredDragon ( 3450605 ) on Monday December 21, 2015 @08:31AM (#51158037)

        Having owned one myself, I don't particularly care for its UI for a few reasons:

        - You have to wait through animations when you do just about everything (these animations are what a lot of people refer to when they use the word "smooth" to describe the platform; which I'll admit that they have flashy appeal, but it gets old quick.)

        - Android widgets are INFINITELY better than the live tiles. For example, my calendar widget can do a vertical layout and display multiple events in advance and can even scroll through extras, which sits in parallel with my voicemail transcripts where I also see multiple at once. On WP, your options are horizontal rectangle or giant square that nothing else (besides tiny tiles) can fit next to, and you'll see two upcoming events at best. Worst is that WP tiles will just periodically flip so you don't necessarily see what's pertinent, and they're about 15 minutes behind (as per the OS's restrictions.)

        - The app drawer in WP sucks. It's long, has a really big font, and since the icons are mostly monocolor, you may not easily "spot" your app as you're scrolling by if you can't remember exactly what it was called but you remember what graphic it used. This basically means that you have to fill up your home screen and then essentially memorize your layout; otherwise launching apps feels impractical. I think the grid style in Android works much better.

        - The flat UI concept sucks. Yes, I know it's better than the heavy bitmapped crap used in the past, but you can do at least light skeumorph without using bitmaps. Flat specifically means that you have no hints of depth (i.e. no shadows, no overlapping objects, no gradients, etc) which lends to the current fisher-price look as you have to do sharp contrasting colors in order to differentiate objects, which gets old really fast.

        • these animations are what a lot of people refer to when they use the word "smooth" to describe the platform

          Actually, even without the animations, I find the simple transition between apps really nice and snappy. The nice thing about live tiles is you can fit way more of them on a single page than you can widgets on android. There is nothing similar on iPhone.

          On both Android and IOS devices, I always spend a good deal of time just navigating between pages with different app icons. On Windows Phone it is all right there. Even the stuff that is not is literally a swipe and a flick away. I think they really nailed t

          • Bottom line is a Windows Phone is much cleaner and more efficient to use than either an Android or iPhone...

            I'm not sure how that could be argued. You're giving vague descriptions of things just being a "swipe and a flick away" but even the most basic tasks are more complicated on WP.

            Here's a specific example: Task switching. On WP you have to hold the back key for a few seconds, which adds time to what should be a very quick function. On Android you just tap the task switch button; instant, easy.

            And strangely, on WP they opted to put there...of all things...a search button, worsened by the fact that it's hard co

            • Wow you are picky- how about your claim that widgets are 'infinitely better' than live tiles? It's just something you click on to do something. The only way it could be infinitely better is if the live tiles were completely non-functional.

              • Wow you are picky- how about your claim that widgets are 'infinitely better' than live tiles? It's just something you click on to do something.

                Actually it's not. Widgets are fully interactive, i.e. I can tap on individual calendar events and it will open that event, or even scroll through events. You're just thinking in terms of live tiles where there's no interaction at all. It's just there, and if you tap on it, it opens the app. If you want to see e.g. other events, you just have to wait for it to flip through it; it literally does nothing else.

                The only way it could be infinitely better is if the live tiles were completely non-functional.

                Well put it this way: Think of Windows Phone's live tiles as being like linear TV whereas Android's w

            • Because it literally is a swipe an a flick away, swipe to one side you have an alphabetized list of all of your apps. Flick the top down you have a lot of quick options that are editable and access to settings. You hold it briefly, I don't know what you're doing that a less than one second hold is too much time. Most andriod phones have a search button, why is that strange for windows phones to have? It actually brings up cortana, and if you type google in she will take you directly there if you so wish,

              • Because it literally is a swipe an a flick away, swipe to one side you have an alphabetized list of all of your apps.

                With Android you just hit the app drawer key. It's really just as simple, only better because you get a smaller grid layout with very distinctive icons. On WP it's just a big list with small, monocolor icons.

                Flick the top down you have a lot of quick options that are editable and access to settings.

                Umm...actually that's a feature Windows Phone ripped off of Android. In case you've forgotten, 18 months ago WP didn't even that whole shade system. Microsoft's answer was that you're supposed to use the tiles for notification, even though they were often 15 minutes behind. Needless to say it was shitty

    • I don't really see the appeal myself, but I know three people in my office who swear by them (all three of whom are at the lower end of the tech-literacy spectrum, so I doubt it's platform-fanboyism). The UI isn't bad for a mobile platform, I guess, it's just that the software ecosystem is rather poor. If you're not going to need a huge amount of third-party software, then I suppose a Windows Phone might be as good a choice as any?

      The Surface tablets are becoming outright popular around here as well. I see

      • The UI isn't bad for a mobile platform, I guess, it's just that the software ecosystem is rather poor.

        The UI is ugly and unconfigurable. ArmoredDragon's highly informative post just above [slashdot.org] goes into great detail why WP OS is crap.

        But even if it were pretty good, nothing is going to make up for a crappy software ecosystem. This is exactly the reason why Windows (the PC OS) is so popular still even though it's complete shit with the Metro UI: it runs everyone's favorite or at least necessary applications. I

        • Windows Phone not having Tinder is an awesome feature.

          I'm a loud and proud Windows Phone fan. And I *like* the lack of apps!

          Think about the 'must have' apps from 3 years ago. Or 2 years ago, or 1 year ago. Chances are, you aren't using them now.

          Apps are generally just a way to waste time. 99.99% of them are not really valuable.

          I'd rather have my phone in my pocket and live life, than sit there on my phone working the coolest new app.

          Seriously- I've been on this train of thought since I got rid of my iPh

    • I'm a fan. I was using a Moto G and managed to drop it screen first onto marble tile, so I picked up a $50 Lumia to use until I fixed the G. That was months ago, and I haven't bothered fixing my old phone.

      To be fair, my needs are modest. All I care about are the stock social media apps, a browser, a music player, a podcast player and a terminal client.

      • This is a very similar story to mine.

        I figured "what the hell, $40 on amazon... what could it hurt?"

        A year later and I am still using the phone...

    • "Microsoft Fails Windows Phone Fans (...)"

      Is there such a thing as "windows phone fans"?

      Ballmers new basketball team. By orders.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by mcrbids ( 148650 )

      Yes, of course. There are three. Two are paid by Microsoft.

    • I like mine.
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • I don't know about that, it would probably be really slow, not to mention the need to always have some sort of a dock with you. Besides, if that were the case, then Surface tablets would always be used in place of iPads. (Which by the way, I own a Surface Pro 4; wonderful little device, but at least at the moment it doesn't have the business mindshare that iPad has.)

      • Surfaces Pros are infiltrating sales teams like crazy around here (at least around here at the many companies I'm working with). The thing that all the sales people ask for is mobile broadband. In reading your comment it would be nice to be able to pair them super easily so they could use their phones as a hot spot. It works fine with an iPhone, it's just not freaky fast like sales people want.

        P.S. Sales people are the bane of my existence so grain of sale and all that.

        • Windows automagically shows paired Bluetooth Windows phones as available connections. The feature was introduced in 8.1.

          If they really want it, they can do it *now*.

    • Kind of like Continuum?
      http://windows.microsoft.com/e... [microsoft.com]

    • Well minus the x86 processor, that's the direction Continuum is headed?

      The murmurs I heard were to wait for the Surface Phone coming in 2016, designed by the same team that do the tablets.

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by gtall ( 79522 )

        IOS and osx share much already. The fact that they do not share an interface is because phones are not desktops or laptops. Apple continues to reiterate the difference but apparently you aren't getting those memos. See MS for an example of how to screw up when you confuse the two.

      • Microsoft Surface had Apple worried enough for Tim Cook to announce the iPad Pro.

        So 'market driven' is a salient point; the cannibalisation has begun.

        Oh and Apple once produced a touchscreen laptop with a stylus running a tablet OS. The eMate 300 was 18 1/2 years ahead of its time.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Bert64 ( 520050 )

      This wouldn't have been possible until recently, as x86 was too power hungry (and the low power versions too slow)...
      It's been possible with Linux for a long time, but never supplied preconfigured or marketed as a feature.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Kjella ( 173770 )

      If Microsoft had been smart about their strategy, they'd have made the tablet and phone modes for Windows able to revert to a full desktop when a keyboard, mouse and display are connected. Corporate America would **love** a phone with 4GB of RAM and a good Atom CPU that can be plugged into a standard display and use bluetooth inputs to become a small desktop computer. Microsoft would probably have jumped from 2.5% to 20% of the market within two years if they'd adopted a strategy that was based on the premise that Windows adopts to your usage and any Windows device is a computer.

      This is pretty much what they're doing with the Lumia 950/950 XL and the dock, problem is that it's an ARM processor so the only thing that'll run are universal apps. To run traditional x86 applications they need a x86 processor, like the last generation of Surface products. And while a "Surface Phone" using an Intel X3 Atom SoC has been rumored for a long time, it's a no-show thus far. My guess is that Intel is the blocker, despite their CPU/GPU experience they struggle to create a compelling x86 platform

      • Meh, RT was a shit-show well above and beyond not being "something Microsoft wanted to do". I've never seen a company shoot their own product in the foot (or the face, more like) so hard before. There is absolutely no technical reason that RT couldn't run .NET desktop apps; if you jailbreak it, .NET apps written years before RT existed run just fine. Native code required a recompile (but often nothing else); a native Java runtime would have added a bunch more apps immediately (there's a Java-on-.NET runtime

  • Hey now (Score:3)

    by Fear the Clam ( 230933 ) on Monday December 21, 2015 @08:08AM (#51157945)

    The staff of Microsoft lost a lot of time doing that elaborate funeral for the iPhone years back.

  • Things could be a lot worse.

    Consider that the headline might read "Microsoft Fails Windows Phone Fans Again By Releasing Windows 10 Mobile"...

    • I'm honestly rather shocked they released the 950/950XL with W10M in its current state. First of all, let's make something clear: Anybody who wants W10M on a WP8.1 phone can get it, today, no big deal. It's called the Windows Insider program and has been available for many months. You'll get the same version of "Windows 10 Mobile (Preview)" that is on the new flagship devices, and you'll get updates just like they do.

      The problem is, what Microsoft calls a "preview" is what other people call a "beta". Not re

  • The summary and the title sneakily suggest the windows phone has fans. Perry Mason would object to assuming facts not in evidence, in addition to the usual irrelevant, immaterial, incompetent, not having proper foundation laid.
  • I use it on a daily basis but only as a media device - it has decent battery life, and connected to WiFi I can use it to stream audio or play podcasts without drawing down my regular phone. Pocket Casts is twitchy on it, but still syncs so it's easy to hop between devices.

    I don't use it as a daily driver because of some of the software restrictions that impact how I use the phone (restricted app access to SMS and call logs). Apps are a little lacking and many are well behind Android counterparts, but that's

    • Just for the sake of curiosity, what "app access to SMS and call logs" are you looking for? Apps *can* access those; it just requires capabilities that third-party devs aren't allowed to declare by default. We've had the ability to unlock those capabilities for years now - the first "capability unlock" was only for Samsung phones, but was published in 2013 - but relatively few people have bothered writing apps that take advantage of this. I'm curious what your use case for this kind of access would be.

      Also,

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