Microsoft gives up on Windows 10 Mobile

[HarryT]

Microsoft appears to have abandoned its smartphone operating system ambitions.

The company's Windows 10 chief has tweeted that developing new features and hardware for the Mobile version of the OS was no longer a "focus".

Joe Belfiore added that he had also switched to Android himself.

Windows 10 Mobile tried to attract users by letting them run the same "universal apps" on both their PCs and handsets, but the concept failed to catch on.

The OS accounted for just 0.03% of the global market - based on smartphone shipments - between April and June, according to research company IDC.

...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-41551546

That's a pity. I have a Windows Mobile Smartphone as my work phone (provided by my employer) and as a phone I really like it. The battery lasts forever (I recharge it about once every two weeks, as opposed to my iPhone, which I recharge every day) and I like the UI.

[Dutchbook]

I agree, Windows 10 Mobile is a very well designed OS and pleasant to use.

I considered buying one, but I wanted the certainty that if I hear something about a new app that seems interesting, I'm able to buy it. With Android and iOS, you have that certainty. With Windows Mobile, you didn't.

Its quite a paradox if you look at how dominating Windows is on the PC market, and only 0.03% market share on the Mobile market, even though the quality of the OS is right up there with the best.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Dutchbook

I considered buying one, but I wanted the certainty that if I hear something about a new app that seems interesting, I'm able to buy it. With Android and iOS, you have that certainty. With Windows Mobile, you didn't.

A very reasonable point. For work, I just use the built-in apps (mainly email).

[GlenBarrington]

Originally Posted by HarryT

A very reasonable point. For work, I just use the built-in apps (mainly email).

On a mobile technology forum I follow, someone pointed out that most of the Windows phones that sold were very inexpensive, and sold at a net loss to Microsoft. This person said that few of the high end Windows phones were sold, and people who buy very inexpensive phones are unlikely to buy additional services and apps. The business model was upside down, and unsustainable.

I have to say, as a 'creator' (photography, and blogging about photography), I find the recent moves by Microsoft exciting and they meet my needs very well.

The root level support that ACDSee (a photo app) provides for MS OneDrive is very useful and has significantly changed how I view manage, and store my photos. And for $100/year (US), I can have 5 1TB cloud storage accounts I can share with family and/or collaborators, and each come with the FULL Microsoft Office suite, and of course the online office versions as well. This is the best deal I could find in cloud storage.

I have been using LibreOffice for the last 5 years or so, but I have to say, MS Office is still better, and I have access to OneNote, Outlook, Access, and Excel and they all work together in a very useful manner.

From my perspective, the loss of Win 10 mobile is a small price to pay for increased resources used to try and figure out how to make my creative efforts more productive.

[onewiththeanswer]

That's a pity, I also really enjoyed the design of the phone. I was looking forward to changing my device due to battery life problems and I definitely considered the Windows Mobile as an option. Well, at least they are going to continue to release bug fixes and security patches for those who didn't wait for feedbacks.

[Gotadimple]

Originally Posted by GlenBarrington

I have to say, as a 'creator' (photography, and blogging about photography), I find the recent moves by Microsoft exciting and they meet my needs very well.

The root level support that ACDSee (a photo app) provides for MS OneDrive is very useful and has significantly changed how I view manage, and store my photos. And for $100/year (US), I can have 5 1TB cloud storage accounts I can share with family and/or collaborators, and each come with the FULL Microsoft Office suite, and of course the online office versions as well. This is the best deal I could find in cloud storage.

That's quite a bargain. MS Office Suite for single PC use is $79 by annual subscription and includes 1TB cloud storage. So for $21 more you get ACDSee plus 4 addition 1TB storage. Shopper King!

[leebase]

Originally Posted by GlenBarrington

The root level support that ACDSee (a photo app) provides for MS OneDrive is very useful and has significantly changed how I view manage, and store my photos. And for $100/year (US), I can have 5 1TB cloud storage accounts I can share with family and/or collaborators, and each come with the FULL Microsoft Office suite, and of course the online office versions as well. This is the best deal I could find in cloud storage.

Here here! I too was surprisingly converted to Office 365. I was running out of space on the free tier of Dropbox and before I plunked down $100/yr I checked out the alternatives.

I was shocked to find for that same $100, I would get 5 accounts (it's a family plan) each with:
- 1tb of OneDrive
- OneNote (saves $100/yr on the cost of Evernote)
- FULL LICENSE FOR OFFICE (all of Office: word, excel, powerpoint, access, outlook)
- Office for Mobile (which is free anyway)
- Office 360 web versions (think Google Docs but with a subset of Word/Excel...much better formatting)

It's a fantastic deal. My high school (now college) kids were thrilled to get "real office". They hated working with OpenOffice...mostly because only OpenOffice Docs is any real "almost just as good" part. The Powerpoint replacement is nowhere near as good, nor is the replacement for Excel. And there is no replacement for access.

Sorry...back to the topic at hand

[GlenBarrington]

Originally Posted by Gotadimple

That's quite a bargain. MS Office Suite for single PC use is $79 by annual subscription and includes 1TB cloud storage. So for $21 more you get ACDSee plus 4 addition 1TB storage. Shopper King!

That's not what I meant, sorry for the confusion. ACDSee is a separate purchase, but you can manage and edit your photos (even Raw, as well as bit mapped files like jpgs) on OneDrive as if they resided on your HDD. That's a big deal to many photographers, and simplifies storage and management of photos.

[barryem]

I have a Lumia 640 that I bought for $55 when Best Buy had them on sale. I think it's an AT&T phone but I'm not really sure. I bought it to keep on my nightstand with a few videos and some music and some audio short stories for those nights when I can't sleep. It does an excellent job of that. It's a nice device.

The problem is the paucity of apps. Those that came with it are fine but I need more and the apps in the store are poor at best. With a lot of looking I've found apps that'll work for me but they're buggy and poorly designed. And that's the problem with Windows phone. Not enough good apps.

It's a shame MS never could work that out.

Barry

[rcentros]

Originally Posted by barryem

It's a shame MS never could work that out.

Microsoft did some petty things that kind of helped kill Windows Phones in business. Cisco (and other VoIP switches) use a specific .wav codec for voice mail attachments in email. Microsoft didn't want to support that particular codec. So they tried to pressure Cisco into changing their codec. Cisco declined, saying that this codec *is* the standard in VoIP (Android and iOS support it, as did Windows Phone through v7.5). So the corporation where my brother works stopped a high-end Windows Phone migration in mid-stream (when they found out Microsoft had no intention in supporting this particular .wav flavor), and they went with Samsung Galaxy phones instead. This was a common reason Windows Phones were not adopted in corporations that used Cisco (and other brand) VoIP phones. Just pure pettiness and stupidity.

https://forums.windowscentral.com/wi...wav-files.html