Microsoft's support for their mobile phone OS

[LeMarchand]

Is it any wonder that they're having problems shifting units when they can't even be bothered to develop apps for their own OS? Just clicked on a link about their new Staff Hub: "Just download the app, available for iOS and Android".

 

Of course, they could have a masterplan that involves a UWP app when (if) the x86 phones come out.

[sted]

lets be honest as good as windows phone is (and as an os id much rather have that than ios/android) its a dead system its a shame but there are so few apps for it and that dosent look likely to ever change its almost wrong to sell phones that use it

[LeMarchand]

They do seem to be flogging a dead horse, but I don't understand why they are so keen on differentiating the mobile OS. It's not as if they can be making that much from their percentage of app sales (especially when they develop apps that don't run on their own platform). Surely it's not impossible to run the full fat version in that form factor? These guys seem to think it is: https://www.akyumen.com/default-item/holofone/

[Patrick]

I had a Windows phone at launch with a HTC mozart and it was nothing but an uphill battle with apps since the word go. Most developers just weren't interested in porting/designing new apps for the platform. Especially indie developers. I tried it for a few years but all the latest and greatest apps would be released for iOS and Android, which all my friends would have and i'd have to either use an alternative or do without. I'm on iOS now but i did much prefer Windows Phone, especially the calendar and other features and i would go back if the apps were there at the same time, with the same quality as other platforms.

[john]

It is sad that it is going this way but I don't believe its totally dead yet, we swapped out Blackberrys across EMEA & Asia for Windows Phone and staff have in the main been quite pleased and we have found apps for nearly everything raised as a I'd like an app for this etc.. for Business the have been good and based on cost, locked down, security and management they tick many boxes, the nearest alternative that ticks most of the boxes when we evaluated Android, iOS, New Blackberry and Win Phone was iOS but the cost of handsets was the killer for that and the fragility of them. If / when they totally end the product range I'm not sure where we will end up, Android has its own risks for business but getting better as they have started to have more business focus on them, maybe we will have to stump up the $$ for entry level iPhones but not sure Finance will like that one.

 

I can see very much why for personal users they are struggling, several apps I have used on my personal Win Phone have stopped being updated and dropped in recent times which is sad but I am still wtih it and using it daily and not having too much pain just have to use an iPad a bit more often than in the past.

[LeMarchand]

I'm not personally overly affected by the "app gap"; the only "gap" in my collection is a barcode scanner that looks up UK prices. It just seems as if MS can't even be bothered with their own OS and prefer to develop apps for the other 2. Which makes it seem like they haven't got faith in their own product.

[googlemad]

With a 1.76% market share you can't really blame them!

[mavhc]

They have Windows on ARM now, with 32bit Win32 emulation, so all mobile Windows devices, laptops etc will be ARM. Along with Continuum, they're just biding their time now until that's all ready, you won't be buying a Windows Phone OS, just a Windows OS in a 6" computer with a sim card.

[3s-gtech]

It looks very much like MS is going to (finally) unify mobile and desktop OSs (though mobile will work in a different mode I expect, Start tiles only etc). They've been promising something similar for a while, and Windows 10 Mobile sounded like it'd be iOS to Mac OS, but not to be. The fact that Windows 10 now runs on ARM Windows hardware partners now designing ARM cellular PCs - CPU - News - HEXUS.net I think they're going to unify entirely. About time, as it's the only option left for MS on portable devices.

[LeMarchand]

With a 1.76% market share you can't really blame them!

 

But it's not going to grow if people start thinking they haven't got any faith in their own OS!

 

They have Windows on ARM now, with 32bit Win32 emulation, so all mobile Windows devices, laptops etc will be ARM. Along with Continuum, they're just biding their time now until that's all ready, you won't be buying a Windows Phone OS, just a Windows OS in a 6" computer with a sim card.

 

That would be my ideal - though no doubt out of my price range initially! I don't understand why they haven't cracked this already. Pretty sure someone (not MS) announced a phone that would run Windows 7 many years ago. It never came out, but they seemed to think they were close to it back then.

[localzuk]

They've just announced they're stopping development of Minecraft on Windows Phone too. So not only are they not making apps, they're actually stopping making the ones they were making!

[mavhc]

Well, Intel promised they'd be doing low power x86 chips, which never worked properly, and no one liked Windows RT, so they waited a bit and wrote an emulator.