I purchased a $30 Windows Phone well after the platform was dead, I just wanted to experience it before it was gone.<p>For a $30 phone, it was incredibly fast and smooth. The tile interface worked well (particularly information dense relative to notification dots/counts on icons we're seeing now), the onscreen keyboard is the best I've ever used (even to this day), and the way updates were delivered (direct from Microsoft, not the network operator or OEM) was a breath of fresh air from Android.<p>As anyone and everyone will tell you, lack of apps killed it. In no small part because Google was using their market position to squish it (yes, I appreciate the irony). Google didn't produce Windows Phone apps, which they're entitled to not do, but then Microsoft tried to make apps for Google's services[0] which Google also shut down.<p>Makes you wonder what would happen if Google pulled all of their iOS apps tomorrow, and then blocked third parties/diminished the mobile browser experience on purpose.<p>[0] <a href="https://venturebeat.com/2013/05/15/google-to-microsoft-kill-your-youtube-app-immediately/" rel="nofollow">https://venturebeat.com/2013/05/15/google-to-microsoft-kill-...</a>
Windows Phone 8.1 + Lumia 920 was by far the best phone I have ever used.<p>My friends look at me funny when I say that.<p>There were so many things they did right. Some random things off the top of my head:<p>- Internet Explorer had the address bar at the bottom of the screen. I don't get how nobody else does this.<p>- The tiles work really very well (big one). The usability of shortcuts + active information + dense layout on your homescreen.<p>- The back-button behavior was perfect. It made sense.<p>- Very snappy response throughout.<p>- Lots of pros on the hardware of the Lumia 920 itself but that's a different story.<p>- Best keyboard/swipe setup.<p>- Lots of thoughtful design elements.<p>There's all kinds of stuff that was a joy.<p>I tried Windows Phone 10.1 Dev release and that was horrible.<p>I do wish Windows Phone continued to live though.
Many aspects of Windows Phone were thoughtfully designed, but they waded into a market where customers expected to install arbitrary apps.<p>There were some high-profile holdouts like Snapchat, whose lack hurt the phone (or hurt retention) among the valuable, younger demographics, while everyone else has been conditioned to be used to a zillion single-use apps, from their bank, their fast-casual restaurant, to throwaway games and random tools that try to imbue phones with some productivity utility.<p>A platform with a low market share and confusing (and ever-changing) developer story couldn't compete in this market, even if they kept putting out decent hardware for not a lot of money.<p>They could have reframed the expectations, and marketed it as a business OS, but with a rapidly declining BlackBerry, they didn't want to pursue what seemed like a failing niche. Or, they could have not screwed up Desktop Windows' app story so much, which exacerbated the issues with developing for Windows Phone.<p>Or they could have arrived at the market several years later, when Progressive Web Apps graduate from wishful thinking tech demos to a viable way of authoring software to be distributed over either URLs or app stores. This is the future that Google wants, their medusa-like competitor who tries to balance their desire to preserve and gatekeep the Open Web with their large install-base of Android phones running apps written in quasi-Java that they got sued over.<p>Windows Phone was a technically sound product positioned awkwardly, and they couldn't persuade enough third-parties to deliver on the expectations that customers expected. But they neither doubled down, nor did an immediate reversal (e.g. Surface RT), so in typical Microsoft fashion they let it flail around for years without any strong messaging to reassure users (remember this from Silverlight? Zune? XNA?).
I used Windows Phone for several years. It was a refreshing take on a mobile OS, and to this day I still think it had the best touch keyboard with the most satisfying tapping sound effects.<p>When I finally did put it out to pasture, it was a breath of fresh air though; I really had no idea how much I'd been missing out on in terms of apps and features on iOS/Android, and how many Windows Phone irritations/limitations I'd just been putting up with.<p>That said, today I use only a handful of apps and barely if ever explore new ones - I mainly only use Firefox, Lyft, a mail client, a reddit client, and photos. I see similar 'app fatigue' among my peers, so I wonder if Windows Phone would have fared better in today's mobile market.
Not widely known - MSFT was throwing around cash at developers and brands to make apps for windows phone. Even providing developer shops to code it.<p>MSFT handed us a check and a dev shop to pay with it. We designed the app in their ui paradigm and had fun doing it. Had enough money left over to take the team out for a fancy dinner when it was all done.
Still using a Windows Phone (Nokia 1020) as my main phone.<p>It's mostly the Nokia parts that I really love, like the transit app, and the fact that it's user-serviceable with minimal tools.<p>The app ecosystem is actually less of a problem as time goes on; now that Apple and Google ship reasonable browsers in their phones most services I want to use have good mobile web experiences. The real essentials like Pandora / Kindle / WhatsApp are available and still work.<p>The big pain point for me is Slack's web client, which appears to be gratuitously broken on phones.
My Lumia 925 is still the best phone I’ve ever owned. But MS killed itnfor themselves.<p>Windows Phones were kinda big in Asia. Used to see lots of people in Singapore, Cambodia, Thailand, with them all the time. But the high end phones never came to these markets. People I worked with wanted all the new phones but MS didn’t release them in Singapore for over 12 months. People gave up and went android and iOS.<p>I went Android then iOS. There’s a lot I miss about windows phone. And Poki is still hands down the best pocket reader app.
I feel like Microsoft has a string of devices which could have been good to great, and they keep just missing the mark somehow - windows phone, ms band, surface hub, heck even zune was as good as an ipod at a lower price point.<p>Not sure why they keep dropping the ball, lack of focus? Not willing to stay the course? I get dropping zune as the market had moved on, but band was getting good reviews when they dropped it and wearables are still growing. And for the life of me I don't understand why they don't have a motto of a hub in every college class - that device is so perfect for facilitating remote class attendance.
My only experience with Windows Phone was when I had to port a Cordova app (made with AngularJS) to it. It was a really bad experience for me. The terrible hacks to get the Angular app to even run in the webview on Windows Phone 8.1 was shocking and the performance took a big hit. Bundling and distributing a test version was so complicated without a huge enterprise setup that it was simply not feasible. Windows Phone 10 improved all of that a lot but there were still security hacks necessary for the app to even run. I can only hope developers which created native apps had a better experience than I did.
I'm still using Windows Phone - an HP Elite x3. I always preferred it to Android but I've refused to use Apple products for many years and when I decided I was done with Google products I went back to Windows Phone. I'm not big on apps anyway and I've mostly found it a positive not being able to succumb to the temptation to install time wasting or privacy hating apps. The biggest inconvenience is not being able to use the app for one of our local car sharing services but there is an app for car2go so I've just been using them instead. The official LastPass app is really bad too but I get by with it.<p>Not sure yet what I'm going to do for my next phone. I've backed the Purism Librem 5 so holding out hope that will actually ship and be a usable option. Biggest challenge for me there would likely be not having WhatsApp or Telegram (Windows Phone still has both).
I love my Windows Phones, even ended up buying WP 10, when the upgrade from 8.1 wasn't possible.<p>My Windows Phones have gotten more updates than all my Android devices summed up together.<p>The 100% native apps experience, C++ and .NET Native, meant they were more responsive that Android devices on the same price category.<p>And the development environment runs circles around the chaos of Android tools.
Sorry to hijack, but the real hero in much of the progress described in the article and in mobile OS overall, is non other than Matias Duarte with webOS. Innovation includes features such as Synergy, Just Type, gesture bar and the card interface.<p>Highly suggest you watch the launch video from CES 2009:<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dw3cHOEnwTw" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dw3cHOEnwTw</a>
Microsoft and Nokia had a really good balance of software and hardware, and it's still a unique contrast to what Google and Apple are doing. I really liked their colourful cases (although the N9 did it best), and I'm still envious of the dedicated shutter button. Why hasn't anyone else done this? It makes way more sense than that goofy "press the volume button to take a picture" hack that Android and iOS have been doing. For one thing, the shutter button is actually on the right side of the phone. With the volume button, they don't even know if it's at the edge. (It probably isn't). And they keep coming up with these weird things like flicking your phone at the lock screen to open the camera app. No, Google, just add a button.
Windows Phone was fun to develop for (not). Especially their native C compilation setup was a nightmare, we had to rewrite most of our code that worked fine on Android and iOS to be ANSI C compatible so that the Visual C 6.0 compiler liked it enough.
Jumped on Windows phone back when Microsoft started throwing in the towel (some of those sales were just too hard to resist). I know at some point I'll need to leave (probably back to Android), but for now my Win 10m idol 4s is holding up.
Speaking of challenging iOS and Android, not really heard too much from either Firefox OS [1] or Ubuntu Touch [2] - seems as if both have officially been dropped despite looking promising. I think the big two need some competition in the mobile OS space but there doesn't seem to be big support from the actual market itself.<p>[1] <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firefox_OS" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firefox_OS</a><p>[2] <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ubuntu_Touch" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ubuntu_Touch</a>
It's a shame that Windows Phone never took off. Microsoft are known for functional but clunky desktop software, but Windows Phone with the Metro UI is, in my view, one of their best UIs. It doesn't feel like a Microsoft product and it's quite refreshing that they took a different path from the UI approach of iOS and Android. The simplicity of the live tiles is a neat way of combining widget-like behaviour and launching an app. A single swipe from the home screen gave you a A-Z list of your installed apps (not a grid of icons like iOS and Android).<p>Contrast that with Android phone approach of separate app widgets, separate app icons and even separate home screens. If you love to tweak to the nth degree, you'll love such features. For the rest of us, it all feels stodgy and overcooked for a smartphone.<p>Interestingly, Windows Phone design guidelines contained ideas we'd also see later in Google's Material design guidelines e.g. such as the emphasis on animation as more than just mere decoration.<p>Here is a presentation from the Windows 7 design team that describes the new Windows Phone UI. It's from 2010:<p><a href="https://www.slideshare.net/stevecla/windows-phone-ui-and-design-language-3511859" rel="nofollow">https://www.slideshare.net/stevecla/windows-phone-ui-and-des...</a>
I stuck with WP as long as I could and I still miss it. The polycarbonate Nokia were tough as hell and felt solid in your hands.<p>IMO the OS was really solid. If they just stuck with it and kept building, albeit targeting the people that didn't use a lot of apps, I think they could've found a niche. They had close to 25% share already in countries like Italy and Brazil and were popular in India, Africa, etc.
First of all, I owned four of the top line Windows Phones as the hardware progressed and have been an MS oriented dev/arch throughout my career.<p>I switched back to an iPhone when MS started playing with the email and calendar apps, making them horribly less useful. Around January of 2015. The 6 plus had just come out.<p>WP hardware was excellent until 2014 when it was clear MS had abandoned the platform. They fell behind quickly at that point.<p>I knew the Midwest MS evangelist and went to a couple of dev sessions on WP and the philosophy was to pump any garbage or duplicate app into the App Store. I argued they should spend money on the top 100 business apps and just make them better than iOS or Android. MS was never going to beat Apple at cheap games.<p>Buying Nokia looked good on the outside but it was clearly a disaster.<p>$6 billion could have enabled a ton of devs to build a ton of apps.<p>I was sad to see it go, but in the end, my iPhone never really gets in my way. I can email, message, call, and surf the web plus have a few other handy apps that just work.
I feel the same way about my Blackberry Passport's BBOS 10. The UI is so nice, functional and polished. A real shame it was cut down in its prime.
I still use it, and will continue to until I can't anymore. I'm on my third Windows Phone, which I bought just a few weeks ago. I've tried to switch to android, but after a few weeks I missed pinning tiles, and the simpler gallery and superior keyboard
I used windows phone for more than 3 years. Lumia 630, 730 and 550. To be honest it is way better than android and iphone in terms of usability. I concur with OP that metro UI and all dark theme was the best and unique. I recently switched to android because of lack of updates in the basic apps that I was using. It is still my backup phone. Ohh forgot about the keyboard and unified messaging system. Loved cortana. One thing is I want to point out that all email clients and calendar app should learn to do things right way outlook apps in windows phone did. If you don't believe me use the native outlook and calendar apps you will start hating the google clients. Great jobs phone team at Microsoft!
I had and used a Lumia 640 for quite a while and it was a really nice phone aside from the app situation. I still have it around and fire it up occasionally to see if there's another Insiders build update for it - if I lose or break my current one I could easily see using it for a few days.<p>I also can't feel that I overpaid for it, I got the phone while they were doing a promotion that also included a year of Office365 Personal - and I think I may have paid less for the phone than that subscription price would have been alone.<p>The app situation though, the app situation was grim even in browsers. I think Edge on it has improved significantly as it has elsewhere, but for a long time you had (pretty crappy) Edge and (pretty crappy) other browsers based on I'm not sure what. I knew Chrome wasn't ever going to be on there, and Mozilla's previous little adventure into other mobile devices had... not worked out for them, but I was hoping someone like Dolphin Browser would manage to port onto WP - it's webkit based, has or had its own implementation to work from (Dolphin Jetpack, so they could update when the phone's built-in webkit was slower), not tied to any Google Play services, etc. The death of Project Astoria (the Android-to-Windows Bridge) signaled the death knell for that and probably WP as well.<p>There were other security lockdowns that I found annoying (e.g. I upload my call logs and SMS to be able to view calls on a calendar and SMS in email), but the combination of "no apps" and "also no browser able to handle mobile website versions properly" was a real killer.
I switched from Android 2.something to Windows Phone and the entire experience was a breath of fresh air. It performed as well and as smoothly as iOS, but had easily the best UI out there.<p>It's difficult to remember now just how awful the UI of Android 2 was, and Google let it stagnate entirely with an ill-advised focus on tablet. By the time I returned to Android it was on version 4 and light years ahead of where it was. The performance was (and still is) subpar, though.
Regarding "Dark Mode" for Android on OLED devices as discussed in the article, while Google/AOSP may not ever plan to have that there are a lot of steps that you can take to get closer to it. Launcher changes (backgrounds, entirely new launchers, icon packs like TwoPixel[0]), browser changes (Firefox addons like Dark Background and Light Text [1][2]) possibly manufacturer-specific changes (doesn't Samsung tweak a lot of stuff for AMOLED display?) and even replacement firmware.<p>[0] <a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.mowmo.twopixel" rel="nofollow">https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.mowmo.twop...</a><p>[1] <a href="https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/dark-background-light-text/" rel="nofollow">https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/dark-backgrou...</a><p>[2] <a href="https://github.com/m-khvoinitsky/dark-background-light-text-extension" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/m-khvoinitsky/dark-background-light-text-...</a>
The only things i liked about Windows Phone were the menu/launcher and the keyboard. Firstly the keyboard was the most accurate swiping input keyboard i have ever used, to this this day. The second is that the Windows tiles and list just make so much sense, surprisingly especially on a 7-8" tablet. Have even put the MS Launcher onto my Blackberry DTEK60 and thoroughly enjoyed that experience.
To me, windows Phone was a nightmare. I previously had a symbian and every interaction with windows phone made me regret it. Windows Phone was so locked and worse than symbian!<p>You could not install another web browser (on symbian I was using opera or opera mini).<p>There did not exist file explorers (apps could not get permissions to explore local files).<p>Consequently, it was impossible to open html files (Edge, the only available browser did not understand the file: protocol). I kept some data in html files on my phone to always have them with me even when offline...<p>The dedicated search "button" was the worst idea ever: it had no use when offline and was barely interesting when connected.<p>It would automatically turn mute when connected to a bluetooth speaker but would forget to unmute when disconnected.<p>The volume control was even more confusing than android one (volume was represented as a number, sometimes, max was 12, sometimes it was 32...).<p>The only good thing (the reason I chose windows phone rather than android) was nokia's GPS app. But it was already ther on symbian!<p>Good riddance. I don't miss you windows phone!
Dark mode may be the #1 feature I want from any app or device. I tend to shy away from anything I can't enable it on. I have an Android phone and each version gets brighter.<p>I am in the apparent minority that knows that a screen isn't a piece of paper and not in the majority of people who still believe myths about keeping the light on when you watch TV.
A lot of the article just wasn't true.<p>System 7s redesigned happened because the old design was tied to fixed resolutions - the original iPhone's and the iPad's. Skeumorphism didn't scale with different screen sizes<p>Apple's extension system was already being used internally with Apple's hardcoded integrations with Facebook and Twitter used it.
I wish Windows had allowed other web browsers early on. By the time Microsoft allowed native code, the few alpha projects of FireFox had been abandoned.<p>These phones do have UEFI+ARM. Has anyone unlocked the bootloader? I feel these would be an ideal open source OS mobile platform for something like Plasma.
I also miss it and am disappointed Microsoft did not more aggressively pursue Windows Phone. It was fast, unique, and offered legitimately good competition to Apple and Google.<p>Continuum remains a fantastic idea, frankly I am surprised Apple hasn't adopted something similar with iPhone.
Nokia Lumia 1520 and 930 are two of the best phones I’ve ever used. More than the tiled interface, I liked the consistancy and the coherence across the OS. The OS followed a certain set of design principles throughout and what few apps were available integrated well with it. Things like the various Hubs were very nice and useful. I’ve always liked the idea of scopes from Ubuntu Phone, and the Windows Phone Hubs were built along the same idea. I’ve always felt that there should be a central app for each category which all providers should integrate with, instead of having individual apps[1]. For example, I usually want to watch a video, not YouTube/Netflix/Amazon Prime/whatever. The Video Hub or Scope should aggregate videos from all the available sources. The same concept can be applied to a Music, Messages etc.<p>Coming back to the point, coherence is something Android sorely lacks. Unless you are using a phone with near stock Android[2], the apps are always out of sync with the rest of the OS in terms of the design language. And many apps don’t even follow the Google design guidelines. While there were not many non-Nokia Windows phones, given their track record on Windows desktops, I don’t think MS was going to allow that sort of interface customisation.<p>The lack of coherence enforces my view that Android is some sort of Frankenstein’s Monster hastily cobbled together without putting much thought into the design - internal or external.<p>I wish Windows Phone had survived, if only to provide some competition to Android. Let’s face it, iOS and Android don’t really compete in any meaningful way. Google is happy to stick to the volumes while Apple keeps the premium segment.<p>And I wish I hadn’t sold my Lumia when Nokia/MS didn’t enable 4G/VoLTE for my carrier. At least I’d be able to use it as a secondary phone.<p>[1] The individual apps can be there for people who like them, but they must plug into the central hub.
[2] With Pixel Launcher not being released for other devices, it is not clear what “Stock Android” meany anymore — Google is fragmenting Android themselves. Can you imagine the outrage if MS kept certain Windows features exclusive to Surface?
I really liked the tile aspect of the Windows Phone home screen. Being able to resize the tiles and then get various levels of contextual information based on the size of the tile was pretty rad, and I haven't seen anything like it since.
Like many others here, I still rate my Samsung Omnia, running Windows Phone 7 as the best phone I've owned.<p>The mistake MS made, for me, was abandoning the existing WP7 phones for new WP8 phones, no upgrade path, and taking so long to release WP8.
I kept windows phone 10 up until this week.<p>I actually like that it pushes me to use mobile sites instead of apps.<p>Apps are closed ecosystems with app stores that charge a high markup. Sites are free and open.<p>I can use Uber Lyft, and Facebook without apps.<p>But with discipline you can do this on Android too.<p>Pros:<p>Beautiful Live Tiles
Simple interface
Unified look
Dark Mode
Less bloatware<p>Cons:<p>On Windows 10 mobile, the phone would freeze up or even restart as much as once per day<p>Drivers and software seem less optimized and performant even with powerful hardware<p>Never found a mobile site that allows depositing checks<p>No Firefox<p>So as of this weekend I'm now using a fast, stable, cluttered, and ugly Samsung phone loaded with bloatware.<p>I'm hoping LineageOS can make this more tolerable soon.
Lol, funny timing to see this. I pulled out my HTC Touch Pro 2 phone today because it has a keyboard and wanted to do some quick ssh stuff from remotely. Maybe not technically windows phone, since it was called windows mobile then with different design goals.<p>Had to charge it for longer than recent phones needed, but it came up well (except bluetooth). Fortunately WiFi worked with my current phone's hotspot.<p>After that had to find a solution for ssh client. Wound up using a midlet runner found on xda-developers and an ssh jar file. The keyboard usage was interesting after foregoing it for about a decade.
I work for a large wireless company and I am a volunteer for the new device employee testing program (you get new phones and try them out before they go to market and give feedback, fun... sometimes). I was very pleasantly surprised with the Windows phone and I had trialed a LOT of other phones over the years. I actually thought they were on to something with the tiles, very easy to read with a quick glance. It is too bad there is not a good 3rd options IMO, right now you have basically iPhone and Android. I think it would be good to have another player out there.
All I say is competition is good.<p>I don't want to live in a world where Android is the only mobile OS out there. This is also true for the desktop space, Windows dominance is an issue, especially since the web didn't really fulfill its promise as an app platform, something Linux would have benefited from greatly.<p>WP browser was also sub-part when it comes to JS/HTML5 support compared to like Firefox on Android at that time. A good mobile browser is just the most important thing for a smartphone.
I still use my Lumia 950 as my every day cellphone. When it dies, my plan is to just go back to whatever the most basic dumb phone will be at the time. I've experienced Android and iPhone and neither of them hold a candle to the experience I've had with Windows Phone / Win10 Mobile, so I'd rather just reset back to a point where there weren't things like apps or mobile internet if I can't keep mobile-friendly Windows on my phone.
Honestly I miss WebOS on the old Palm phones the most. That phone had everything except hardware speed going for it. Everything including gestures (cards), notifications, wireless charging, and universal search were 10 years ahead of their time. The software was just too much for the hardware at that time.<p>Windows Phone was a close second to me. The worst thing about this all is that it seems impossible for a third vendor to be successful unless PWAs take off.
A colleague of mine has a windows phone with the dock that lets him use the phone as a desktop computer.<p>It's super freaking cool.<p>It's sad that this direction is not being developed more.
I was always surprised windows didn't do a real attempt on dockable phone -> PC interface. It has so many consumer and enterprise points of entry.
I had one, an HTC. In grand scheme of things, right after the iPhone 3 it was the best phone I ever owned. It was slick, fast and the UI made sense. But there were no apps... The last few years I am using Android, not so impressed. I made it a habit to switch between providers, so I dont develop a strong association with either...
> Unified messaging – Microsoft’s messages hub let Windows Phone users chat via SMS or messaging apps like Skype in a single thread without needing to juggle separate apps.<p>This. I never used Windows Phone but I.Am.So.Tired of having to check inboxes for WhatsApp, Email, Tinder, Bumble, Slack and every other app on my iPhone or Android device.
I still use mine, I'm not a big user of apps generally so I can just about squeak by, the tiled UI is still far and away the best available for phones.<p>I hope the Windows everywhere initiative eventually works out, they got a lot of things right about the touch experience but they couldn't follow through on a lot of it.
I would love to see Microsoft release a Windows skinned Android phone which comes with all the Office apps, etc, but natively supports all the Android apps.<p>This would then help consumers transition to a Microsoft future. It would however be a blow to the Windows mobile operating system but that ship may have already sailed.
I miss Windows Phone. Screen Glance, live tiles, bottom address bar, search button, menus at bottom (until they put in hamburgers in W10), Etc.<p>It was a great phone OS, let down by MS's own declining support of it and the App Gap (which didn't really affect me much, so the first point hurt most).
Windows Phone may be dead, but Windows 10 is continuing the path to run on both Intel and ARM and on all form factors with the same codebase, so finally the next desktop PCs may be smarter than smartphones and equally mobile, at least their core.
I bought a cheap windows phone for my mother four years back, even after 4 years, it works like the day I bought it (fast, no heating issues..), The big fonts and tile interface makes it easy for her to use it without her glasses.
While the app Drude mimics the messaging hub by combining fetched notifications in on view, it's a question of when but whether the hub will finally be brought to Android and iOS as well.
i never owned one but i really liked their idea of having apps display some data in the tile without having to open them up. Really sad that other phones haven’t learned from this.
The most annoying/stupid thing i found is one can not change sound volume using Settings. One can change sound volume using hardware buttons only.
Microsoft squandered an opportunity to make an alternative mobile OS at a time when it was possible to do that. In 2010 when Windows Phone was released, the app store concept was only a few years old and many people did not have smartphones yet.<p>These days, I don't see how a new operating system could possibly succeed unless it had all of the popular social media apps on day one.
I really like Windows Phone. Microsoft killed it themselves though, by killing the project (I forgot the name) that made it possible to run Android apps on Windows Phone.<p>All their other mistakes are dwarfed by this single screwup. It's like they wanted it to fail.
Windows Phone was a beautiful platform for consumers and developers. What Samsung did for Android, Nokia Lumia line undid it for MS. Fautly hardware, devices with one major OS version lifespan, shipped late to the market.<p>Nokia is the company that got stuck in 2005.
I miss Nokia. Those were the days the biggest mobile manufacturer actually did things beneficial to users! Compare that to Apple today. No headphone jack which is probably more used every day even now than their proprietary shit port was ever used. Oh and the silly notch!
WiFi password sharing was severely criticized when Microsoft introduced it. But then Apple put in in iOS and nobody batted an eye.<p>There are some ideas that just need time.