Click here to Skip to main content
15,892,005 members

Welcome to the Lounge

   

For discussing anything related to a software developer's life but is not for programming questions. Got a programming question?

The Lounge is rated Safe For Work. If you're about to post something inappropriate for a shared office environment, then don't post it. No ads, no abuse, and no programming questions. Trolling, (political, climate, religious or whatever) will result in your account being removed.

 
GeneralRe: Windows Phone Sales Make Me Sad Pin
VLAZ559-Jan-15 5:11
VLAZ559-Jan-15 5:11 
GeneralRe: Windows Phone Sales Make Me Sad Pin
patbob9-Jan-15 5:14
patbob9-Jan-15 5:14 
GeneralRe: Windows Phone Sales Make Me Sad Pin
Impenneteri9-Jan-15 5:56
Impenneteri9-Jan-15 5:56 
GeneralRe: Windows Phone Sales Make Me Sad Pin
James Haddock9-Jan-15 6:00
James Haddock9-Jan-15 6:00 
GeneralRe: Windows Phone Sales Make Me Sad Pin
kcw969-Jan-15 6:02
kcw969-Jan-15 6:02 
GeneralRe: Windows Phone Sales Make Me Sad Pin
MiddleTommy9-Jan-15 6:03
MiddleTommy9-Jan-15 6:03 
GeneralRe: Windows Phone Sales Make Me Sad Pin
Kirk 103898219-Jan-15 6:15
Kirk 103898219-Jan-15 6:15 
GeneralRe: Windows Phone Sales Make Me Sad Pin
Trajan McGill9-Jan-15 7:28
Trajan McGill9-Jan-15 7:28 
I also don't like to see it doing poorly, for two reasons, one is that it is a fairly creative, different alternative, and the other is that I'm for more market variety rather than less.

My opinion is that most people have entirely missed the reasons for its failure so far to capture much market share. It isn't because they are "too late to the party," that means nothing. Apple was too late to the party when the iPhone showed up. Google was too late to the party, Altavista, Yahoo, Lycos and others already had that market covered. Innovation can and regularly does disrupt markets, and I think the belief that one has to be first to market is mistaken.

I think there are two primary reasons:

1) It is called "Windows Phone". That was a stupid decision. "Windows" doesn't have the same appeal as "Apple" as a brand. It says, "boring business product," or at best, "thing I use all the time but don't pay much attention to because it sits in the background." Why would you name a device after Microsoft Windows if you want it to have any appeal in the sort of market that the iPhone is in? Apple didn't call theirs the "OS X Phone", and the largest platform isn't called "Google Phone". They recognized the need for appealing branding that was independent to some degree from their main, existing products, even though their existing products have way more sex appeal, and way more likelihood to get press coverage depicting them attractively, than Microsoft Windows.

2) This one is more obvious, but for a reason that not everyone is aware of: lack of apps. I have a Windows phone, and I'm constantly unable to do things that I used to do all the time on my Android phone, or that my wife does on her iPhone. Everyone knows there is a certain hesitance on the part of developers to jump on board a platform when they don't know yet how many users will be there...and yet there is also a love among developers of being ahead of their competitors on the newest, latest, greatest platform, so there is a bit of counterbalance as well. What everyone doesn't realize is that Windows Phone 8 placed serious restrictions on what applications were even capable of doing, making WP versions of many Android / iOS apps completely impossible.

For example, I used to use KeePassDroid constantly. There is no Windows Phone equivalent. By which, I mean, there is no app I can install to open my KeePass databases without having to grant that application permissions that a password manager shouldn't have. How can I trust one of my most secure tasks-- password management-- to an app written by some random guy on the Internet? Only one way-- by knowing that that application has no ability to communicate my data to anyone. KeePassDroid asks for no network access, nothing except the right to read the files it needs to read. That's exactly right. On the Windows 8 platform, this is actually impossible, because there is no way for an app to access a file you copied onto your phone from your computer! It simply isn't allowed, except for music/media files. This means that I now have to trust app-written-by-random-internet-guy with not only Internet access privileges, but also with the right to access my Onedrive or Dropbox account as well.

It is not an uncommon issue to read reviews of applications in the WP store where people are complaining about features missing that exist on the same app in other platforms, and see responses from the developers giving the excuse that it is impossible to do that on WP.

If you hamstring your developers, then you won't get a good variety of apps, and if you don't have that, then you won't get the users. And if you don't have users, for a long enough period of time that you aren't new anymore, then you will attract even fewer developers.

I believe they've made some progress with WP 8.1, but that may be too little and too late.

I personally think the tiles thing is nice, the execution on the OS itself is not bad (except for copying the godawful "back button does everything" UI problem from Android), but the two issues above have really hindered the platform.
GeneralRe: Windows Phone Sales Make Me Sad Pin
Yortw11-Jan-15 8:33
Yortw11-Jan-15 8:33 
QuestionAs some may know i'm writing a dissertation... Pin
HobbyProggy8-Jan-15 4:28
professionalHobbyProggy8-Jan-15 4:28 
AnswerRe: As some may know i'm writing a dissertation... Pin
OriginalGriff8-Jan-15 4:32
mveOriginalGriff8-Jan-15 4:32 
GeneralRe: As some may know i'm writing a dissertation... Pin
HobbyProggy8-Jan-15 4:34
professionalHobbyProggy8-Jan-15 4:34 
GeneralRe: As some may know i'm writing a dissertation... Pin
OriginalGriff8-Jan-15 4:39
mveOriginalGriff8-Jan-15 4:39 
GeneralRe: As some may know i'm writing a dissertation... Pin
PhilLenoir8-Jan-15 6:01
professionalPhilLenoir8-Jan-15 6:01 
AnswerRe: As some may know i'm writing a dissertation... Pin
Kornfeld Eliyahu Peter8-Jan-15 4:58
professionalKornfeld Eliyahu Peter8-Jan-15 4:58 
AnswerRe: As some may know i'm writing a dissertation... Pin
Ranjan.D8-Jan-15 4:59
professionalRanjan.D8-Jan-15 4:59 
AnswerRe: As some may know i'm writing a dissertation... Pin
Bassam Abdul-Baki8-Jan-15 5:16
professionalBassam Abdul-Baki8-Jan-15 5:16 
AnswerRe: As some may know i'm writing a dissertation... Pin
peterkmx8-Jan-15 5:17
professionalpeterkmx8-Jan-15 5:17 
AnswerRe: As some may know i'm writing a dissertation... Pin
Nemanja Trifunovic8-Jan-15 7:02
Nemanja Trifunovic8-Jan-15 7:02 
AnswerRe: As some may know i'm writing a dissertation... Pin
MT_8-Jan-15 7:17
professionalMT_8-Jan-15 7:17 
AnswerRe: As some may know i'm writing a dissertation... Pin
Kyle Moyer8-Jan-15 7:19
Kyle Moyer8-Jan-15 7:19 
AnswerRe: As some may know i'm writing a dissertation... Pin
Marc Clifton8-Jan-15 9:49
mvaMarc Clifton8-Jan-15 9:49 
AnswerRe: As some may know i'm writing a dissertation... Pin
csharpnerd9-Jan-15 1:57
professionalcsharpnerd9-Jan-15 1:57 
AnswerRe: As some may know i'm writing a dissertation... Pin
Dan Neely9-Jan-15 3:13
Dan Neely9-Jan-15 3:13 
AnswerRe: As some may know i'm writing a dissertation... Pin
Alexander DiMauro9-Jan-15 5:01
Alexander DiMauro9-Jan-15 5:01 

General General    News News    Suggestion Suggestion    Question Question    Bug Bug    Answer Answer    Joke Joke    Praise Praise    Rant Rant    Admin Admin   

Use Ctrl+Left/Right to switch messages, Ctrl+Up/Down to switch threads, Ctrl+Shift+Left/Right to switch pages.