Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Microsoft Suggests Windows 10 Mobile Users Switch to iOS or Android as Support Winds Down

lkrupp said:
I remember Steve Ballmer laughing his butt off when the iPhone debuted. People here are quick to point out and revel in Apple’s “failures” but this colossal and monumental failure of Microsoft to even grab a piece of the mobile/wearable market is undoubtedly the tech failure story of the 21st century so far.
Click to expand...

I remember how incredibly clunky Windows Mobile was back then. You needed a stylus for most parts of the UI. The UI was ugly as hell and difficult to read. It was extraordinarily unpleasant to use. PalmOS was worlds better, yet so many people still used Windows Mobile because it was adopted by corporate IT departments.

Windows Phone was an improvement in usability but killed most of the power-user capabilities that made it attractive to enterprise use.

All this said, I'm sad that Windows Phone failed. Apple needs competition to stay innovative. They've kind of stagnated as of late. Hopefully something awesome will come down the pipe soon now that sales are suffering.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Ener Ji
Despite what people say here Android and IOS need real competition.

If these are real computers in our pockets I want to be able to load different operating systems.

Being locked in to either one isn't a great thing on hardware we are supposed to own.

But I guess people here just want to crap on the competition when you should be blaming them all for this stuff.
 
  • Like
Reactions: curtvaughan, Kram Sacul, rjohnstone and 2 others
MacRumors said:
With the abandonment of Windows 10 Mobile, Microsoft has been focusing on other platforms ...
Click to expand...

418 said:
That's funny - Apple have been convincing their users to switch to competitor products of late.
Click to expand...

Just what Apple is doing - encouraging its users to leave; and promote services, bent iPads, Beats, etc.;)

Expect Microsoft and Apple to have a joint press conference as the they announce the demise of Surface and the entire Mac line respectively!:p:D

Apple will be boasting about the immense success of its streaming Music and Video services and the victory over Qualcomm!:rolleyes:
 
lunarworks said:
If they had any future plans to release the speculated "Surface Phone" they just torpedoed it by telling all their customers to move to other platforms.
Click to expand...

Surface Phone has been dead for a while now. Andromeda, which is supposed to be a folding screen small tablet device, may still see the light of day though. We'll see, with Samsung likely revealing their folding phone in about a month it may turn out that the market for such a device doesn't exist.

I did like Windows Phone quite a bit. The live tiles made it useful for me. I wish Apple would take note and give us more ability to control what the apps can show on the screen without launching them first.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Kram Sacul and rjohnstone
The only thing Microsoft did was be the first to create a crappy GUI for Intel PCs and they ported their Mac office suite to that crappy GUI.

That's it.

And even though they attempted many other markets and had an advantage nobody else had, the ability to lose millions while chasing that market, they failed to win any of those other markets.
[doublepost=1547839009][/doublepost]
truthertech said:
Part of the failed legacy of Gates and Ballmer. Gates is hailed as some sort of brilliant mind, but it was actually hard work and one momentous piece of luck with IBM adoption. They bought their original horrible OS for $30K from someone else and then had the great fortune to get IBM to license it, and the rest is history. When your OS is default for the manufacturers, it doesn't matter that it was terrible, and the money still pours in. Just like with Internet Explorer. They had a unique lack of vision, unlike Jobs. Kept tinkering with the horrible MS-DOS and couldn't envision things like GUI, mouse, etc. Windows concept was stolen from Apple and only Apple's poor IP protection in its licensing to MSFT kept MSFT from having to pay many billions.

Gates and Ballmer missed on the two greatest innovations and game changers in tech history- the Internet, which Gates admitted he, after pushing from many employees went home one night to really explore the Internet and realized that they had to shift over to it- LOL. Of course, mobile computing was the other great item that they were clueless about, and they never recovered from. Ballmer suffered the final embarrassment of even after wasting $15 Billion on Nokia to try and get into mobile, not understanding the impact the iPhone would have and predicting its failure.

Doesn't mean they weren't good business people and didn't work hard as they rode their monopoly to great profits, but that was despite not being innovative or visionary. After leaving Microsoft, Gates has a steady track record of not being able to envision the future, but because of his wealth is still hailed as some sort of genius and shows up on talk shows. A smart, but not brilliant mind. Ballmer, an average mind who took advantage of his opportunity of being one of first MSFT employees. Kudos for that.
Click to expand...

Decades later and their desktop OS still sucks balls. I was using Windows 10 for a few weeks and it just blew me away that I couldn't move or rename a file that was open. Still???
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: HenryDJP
Suttree said:
The most revolutionary UI ever invented. Beautiful and utilitarian. It was without a doubt more forward thinking than iOS.
Click to expand...

So why did it fail? And don’t claim marketing. If it was as great as you claim then why did developers leave it? You know, Commodore Amiga users used to claim it was vastly superior to the Apple II and Macintosh but couldn't come up with a reason for it’s failure except that people who bought Apple were stupid.
 
  • Like
Reactions: HenryDJP
Skeptical.me said:
They look like a great alternative I would be interested in, but those prices! Some of them seem to be more expensive than Apple.
Click to expand...
I see your point. I am afraid that you have to be prepared to pay such prices to maintain a certain degree of privacy nowadays. On top of that there is no guarantee that the concept will work in the long run. I'll keep an eye on the development anyway
 
  • Like
Reactions: Skeptical.me
My wife had a Nokia Lumia 928 that she loved. I never saw the attraction to Windows Mobile, but she swore by it and kept that phone for 4 years.
 
Another chapter from "What could've been good" by Microsoft has been finished. Once released, the book will dwarf the Bible, Mahabharata, and The Lord of the Rings put on top of each other.

R.I.P. Windows Phone! Nobody will miss you!
 
  • Like
Reactions: HenryDJP
zorinlynx said:
All this said, I'm sad that Windows Phone failed. Apple needs competition to stay innovative. They've kind of stagnated as of late. Hopefully something awesome will come down the pipe soon now that sales are suffering.
Click to expand...

Agreed. And I don't know about you, but significant iOS changes excites me far more than any new rumored hardware advancements. Unfortunately, despite always hearing so much about how much more customizable Android is.. Few features have trickled over to iOS.
 
  • Like
Reactions: miflgr92
Its easy to poke fun at Windows Phone, but I always liked how they attempted a unique and refreshing UI. The one thing that I recall from 2010 when it launched, was that regardless of the hardware, it was always fluid and quite responsive, very similar to iPhone, where Android, especially early on felt rough in that regard.

Despite that, I think it failed (never really took off) for a few reasons - iPhone is an excellent product and was growing like crazy, Android was available across a huge variety of hardware and price points, and there really doesn't seem to be much room for a 3rd mobile OS to survive.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Kram Sacul
I told my IT Manager back in 2014 he was nuts for getting a Lumia. He chuckled, I said "you'll be on an iPhone by '15". I was right.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back