Windows 10 phones are not dead yet. Acer, Alcatel OneTouch just made some new ones Two Windows 10 Mobile smartphones have been shown at the CES event under way this week in Las Vegas. Acer's 5.5-inch Liquid Jade Primo, first announced in September last year, is a premium device set to be available in February at prices "from €569". The phone runs on a Qualcomm Snapdragon 808 CPU with 3GB RAM and 32GB on- …
Likely been in development too long, and now too late to can it. They wouldn't make a windows phone now, given Microsofts all out push to try and be part of everything Android. Windows phone has seen pretty much 3rd class citizen these days iOS and Android get all Microsoft love.
Essentially it's all but abandoned.
djstardust,
I like it. I've just advised my Mum to get one, because it's cheap - much easier to use than Android at the £120 price point, and will get security updates and has the stuff she needs out of the box. Last time I used Android, I thougth the stock email, address book and particularly calendars were awful - yes I know you can replace them - but I can't be arsed.
On the other hand, I've advised another friend to go Android for her daughter, because she'll want the apps. And even now, the Windows Phone appstore is rubbish. There aren't even any decent torch apps, and nor have MS built one into the OS (which they bloody well should have by now).
I'll be sad if MS kill it off, as it's great for just a simple phone that does email and satnav well. And it's what I choose to use. The browser's improved, but I still tether my tablet for anything more than just quickly looking something up.
But if they want to sell devices at over £500 - they've either got to use that stonking camera technology that Nokia developed, or radically improve their Crapstore.
Just to add, my Mum has an iPad, which she loves. But the charity she consults for just gave her an iPhone, and she hates it. Says her Windows Phone is better and easier to use, even though she should already know how to use an iPhone.
Actually that's why I went Win Phone. I had a work iPhone, and also love my iPad. But I found the iPhone to be a better mobile computer than it was a phone. So even though the company foot the bill, went for the £150 Lumia 750 - rathern than the £600 iPhone when the iPhone died. 2 of our eight 5s went wrong within a few months, and EE broke the law by saying we had to go to Apple to get them replaced (due to Apple rules) - both those replacements barely made a year after that, and 2 of the others went wrong pretty soon after. But we may have just got a dodgy batch, as my experience of iPads has been far better.
You wouldn't believe how much money this charity piss up the wall. Since retiring she was consulting for them, but now they've merged, have new rules and so no consulting. She's now an employee on 2 days a week.
Had to do about 10 hours of that crappy online based IT modular training shit to be allowed on their network. Except you're not allowed to do the training unless you have network access, and you're not allowed network access until you've done the training! What fucking genius came up with that? Is their IT Director Franz Kafka?
All wasted on crappy, otherwise unemployable, middle management form-filling wankers. And saving money on the people who go out and deal with the families and children they're supposed to be supporting.
Still she did get to be an expert witness in a tribunal against her old employers - to get support for a family. So that made lots of it worthwhile I suspect...
the setting screen (swipe down from top) has a torch, now.
It's worth remembering that Blackberry started as a two-way pager for on-call IT.. remote desktop could be the "killer app" for Windows.. especially when Telco's charge so much for tethered connection when travelling
>and will get security updates
No, it won't, well it will, but not for very long. Once they can Windows Phone 10, which might even happen before the end of this year, who knows - knowing MS, they will stop all dev immediately, thank the early adopters for the cash.
Give it a few years. I expect to actually see this all over the place when very slightly mobile workers such as myself get bought a company phone instead of a company laptop. Once it actually works (assuming it ever does - which I'll admit isn't a shoe-in) this is something that would keep many, many accounts departments very happy as they get to reduce the number of devices they have to shell out for.
@AMBxx Correct about niche products, they are quite valuable. But I think Slurp is trying for the mass market not a couple of niche markets. In that case, one could call WM a marketing failure - not necessarily a technical failure. What most see is iPhones and Androids but nary a WM in the wild.
What I understand to market a new phone OS requires convincing four groups to support it: consumers, developers, carriers, and manufacturers. If there is little explicit user demand, the developers, carriers and manufacturers will be very tepid in supporting. A few models will be released and a few carriers will use them but it will be languishing. Part of the problem is most consumers either want a generic or semi-generic smartphone or an iPhone. To many this means whatever cheap, decent Android phone is available and they really do not care about the OS other than the app store is well stocked.
"remote to demo server from phone connected to laptop."
Or just use the laptop?
Continuum's got a bit of a battle to show itself to be useful. And it's just not the game-changing saviour that the Windows Phone faithful may believe it to be.
I can see it being one of those features that, for the overwhelming majority of owners, will be tested once just to see how it works and then never used again.
I can see the appeal, but it's only going to be rewarding when there are more 'desktop' class applications using the new api (or some way is found to emulate the older api on arm - Wine on Windows?). I might be tempted if that were the case (the latter not the former).
At least the coming convergent Ubuntu phones will be able to run most if not all current linux desktop applications through xMir. Beyond that, they've got as much of an uphill struggle.
There's nothing wrong with a niche phone, I still use my nokia n900 (I'm used to the ridicule at this point).
> mobile workers .... a company phone instead of a company laptop ... reduce the number of devices they have to shell out for.
They will still have to shell out for the docks and the screens. Continuum phones will be high end so there will be little saving versus laptop + mid-range phone. As for 'mobile' workers, will they have to carry the screen, dock, keyboard with them ? can they set this up on the train/plane and be as useful as a laptop ? will he ARM only software be useful enough ?
Continuum (and stuff like it) is surely the future of personal computing. You'll have one personal pooter, always in your pocket, presumably with data backed up to the cloud, and you'll just dock it or connect it to screens networks and input devices as you go about your day. Phones are now as powerful computers as normal laptops were 5-10 years ago, and people worked on them perfectly easily.
How long it takes for the technology to make this a seamless process is anyone's guess. With enough investment and industry cooperation, we ought to be able to do it this year. In reality I can't see it being more than 5-10 years away.
That's the (usually false) promise of convergence. It sounds like a good idea, but then you start figuring out how much the converged device is compromise for all the multiple things it does, and then you do the math and find that you didn't save as much as you thought, and it stops seeming such a good idea.
If your data is in the cloud, or synced via the cloud, then there's no particular need to use a single device, you can access it from any device. So how much cheaper is that dock+screen+peripherals than a separate machine anyway? So now how much is it worth to not have a single point of failure? Left your phone somewhere, or lost it? Problem. Now start thinking about upgrade cycles; if you don't want to change your dock and peripherals on your phone upgrade cycle, then you're locked in as far as your next upgrade is concerned. Fancy an iPhone next time? Tough. And that industry cooperation you're talking about - good luck with that; Continuum-type technology means selling less devices overall, so the idea that industry would cooperate to create standards to facilitate that seems fanciful.
And a final argument against convergence is that we seem to have been doing the exact opposite; most people seem to have more and more devices - phones, tablets, e-readers, smarwatches, ultrabooks, PCs. Many of those are prime candidates for convergence, but guess what? We seem to prefer having separate devices that do less things, but do what they do well, and we can afford to do just that. Are we going to suddenly change? I'd rather have a PC and a phone than a phone and an otherwise-useless dock any day, mate.
You're right, convergence may never happen. It requires cooperation from the manufacturers, or one big one to just make a seemlessly connecting bunch of stuff with well supported stable interfaces that they don't plan to change.
But it's all perfectly possible now. Any decent modern smartphone has enough power to store Gb of data, run an HD screen, and power reasonable looking games or office software. That's simply unarguable. And that tech is getting cheaper all the time.
It may be that the tech becomes so cheap that it's easier to just have a tablet in every room, and something with a bigger screen and keyboard so you can type properly.
But I doubt it. Because it's just as much effort to integrate all the software, so that you can get your stuff migrated on to all this stuff and set it up. Given most people are incapable of configuring their current devices properly. And the demands of software are still growing, plus this stuff takes building, and natural resources, and transport and sales costs. So there must be a minimum price somewhere, unless we get matter transformers. Or giant robot factories in the asteroid belt.
I already cast stuff from my phone/tablet to my telly. And to my speakers. I have separate PCs, but I don't game on them anymore, so my only requirements are for office, media and web browsing. All perfectly doable on phones and tablets . And a computer is still more expensive than a monitor. Although it could soon be that a £5 full PC on a chip is possible, so all screens are smart.
Losing your phone is admittedly a problem. Being portable it's at high risk of breakage and loss. But that's a piece of tech that's always going to need to be smart, as smartphones are just so useful. So it would probably still end up being cheaper to just have a spare, and whatever non-portable peripherals you feel you require. I suspect most people will be happy to do most of their personal computing on a tablet, whcih the phone could slot into, or could be smart. Then only work will require a keyboard and screen. And they'll either act as remote controls to things like media and games systems, or even be the system.
Specialist stuff will probably always be different, gamers will probably always want 10% more performance for double the price - but most people's computing needs are pretty modest.
No, once your data is in the cloud you'll want to access them from a trusted device, not from *any* device. End-to-end encryption is not safe if one of the end is not trusted and could be compromised. Thereby a small yet powerful enough device can make sense. There's the "dock" issue, of course - it it could be made wireless with most devices you can find around you, it could work (although there could be some security issues as well).
But it's not true people like to carry around many separate devices. Smartwatches are still mostly a product looking for a consumer, and some "tablets" ate into ultrabook and laptop sales. I'm very happy with my Surface because I have only one device to carry around - I would hate to carry both a tablet and a laptop with me.
On Convergence - Convergence seems like a good idea but requires one device to what 2 or 3 devices do very well individually. Part of the problem, almost always ignored, is human anatomy. Entering text efficiently requires a keyboard. Keyboard sizes are fixed by the anatomy of the human hand. The main par of typical keyboard is about the same size a that of a typewriter (I am that old). That size was fixed by human anatomy in the 19th century. Optimum screen resolution and preferred screen size is largely determined by correct keyboard positioning and human vision. Human anatomy rearing its head again.
From a purely technical, computer hardware point of view, many devices can be convergent - it is mostly programming. But the human interaction for various activities imposes certain physical requirements that are are somewhat contradictory. A device with largish keyboard with a decent screen ends up being approximately the size of a laptop. Or one must carry around components to make a small, smartphone sized device usable as a laptop. I tend to suspect conventional laptops and smartphones will be around for quite sometime because of this.
There have been various mainstream x86 Android phones and tablets. I don't see why MS couldn't do it. But I get the impression that management hate Windows Phone, and despite all the money, effort and time spend on Win Pho, Win Mobile, Windows CE and the like - they only agree to spend the money once they're already way behind.
Which is a shame, because Windows Phone 8 is actually not a bad OS, and with a little more love could have been really great. I've not looked at 10 on phones, but Orlowski has been really quite rude about it, and having met him at a Register do, he was using Win Pho 8 as his everyday phone, so must like the OS.
It's a shame.
...you'd be surprised at the market share of the Lumias (and other Windows devices) in the non-English-speaking world. Windows-based phones own about 10% of the Italian market, for example. (Then again, Italians seem to be rather better educated on privacy issues too.)
Android has its pros and cons, but privacy isn't something one tends to associate with Google. Localisation also tends to be very hit and miss, especially for the custom skins / launchers. Microsoft, on the other hand, do localisation very well. They're also pretty good at privacy, even if you do sometimes have to dig down into the Settings app to disable some of the "newbie-friendly" features.
As for the app situation: every Universal Windows 10 app supports ARM, and there are already more of them than there are Windows (Phone) 8 apps. If your app isn't there, there's always SSH or the remote desktop option. And Continuum means you can do the latter on a larger display.
Also, a little basic research would show that Continuum can be used entirely wirelessly, using Bluetooth mice, keyboards, and a compatible HDTV (which is pretty much any TV with the word "Smart" on the packaging). The "Desktop Kit" -- or anything like it -- is therefore not required.
Most users of the feature are unlikely to be attempting to write a novel or 300-page report on the thing anyway. As someone who's had to wear glasses since I was six, not having to squint at a recreation of a hi-resolution desktop on a 6" display is a *very* useful feature. Not all of us IT folk have perfect vision.
This is very much a v1.0, but it'll be interesting to see if the rumoured "Surface Phone" comes with an Intel CPU. If it does, and they've smoothed off Continuum's likely rough edges, I suspect it's going to do quite well. (It'll also be interesting to see how well it handles gaming, though lag may be an issue if using Miracast for the display.)
> Continuum can be used entirely wirelessly, using Bluetooth mice, keyboards, and a compatible HDTV (which is pretty much any TV with the word "Smart" on the packaging).
You still need to carry these around or 'find' them where you want to do work: on a train, plane, in a client's office, ... Yes, it will work with a TV ... as long as the rest of the family stop watching it.
Said nobody ever.
Patch Tuesday, rollback Wednesday, exploit Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. Hardware firewall, software firewall, antivirus, malware, adware, spyware, spam - and that's just out of the box. Regular crashes, random crashes, screens in red blue and green. Updates that are incompatible with the software and hardware you already have for no reason. Updates that are incompatible with previous updates. Updates that replace stupid stuff from prior updates you removed on purpose - over and over. Bugs, faults and design horrors so persistent they have pet names?
Is that what you want in a phone? No. What you want in a phone is that when you put it in your daughter's hand and say "if you need me, call" that when she has to call the thing will ******* work immediately on the first try.
> Remind me again - what percentage of the smartphone market is running a version of Android that is not controlled by Google?
That depends on what you think you mean by 'controlled'.
There are many manufacturers that build versions from the open source and do not include Google services: Amazon, B&N, Cyanogenmod, even Nokia/Microsoft with Nokia X. These have nothing that is 'controlled by Google'. Users can still access Google services if they want to.
The only 'control' by Google is when manufacturers want to include Google services, just as every other service provider requires.
So, anyone can build a phone using the free and open source operating system. If they want to include Google services in the product they must agree to the terms and conditions. The public can choose which they want to buy.
Google does not control its OEMs as much as Microsoft does. In the case of WP8, for example, MS not only controlled the design of the phones including buttons and GUI, but also which SoCs each OEM was allowed to use. The public can only buy what Microsoft allows.
> Are you on a personal crusade to slag off Windows Phone
He wasn't slagging off Windows Phone at all, he was speculating about a notional 'phone that works like his Windows PC'.
He probably doesn't want a phone that nags him to 'upgrade' to the latest OS either.
No, I'm a debian user who writes software for several platforms (mainly C and C++) and recognizes that OS evangelism is ultimately self-harming and makes everyone who joins in stupid.
And I am most definitely not a fan of Microsoft's Escher-inspired licensing system.
> Is that what you want in a phone? No. What you want in a phone is that when you put it in your daughter's hand and say "if you need me, call" that when she has to call the thing will ******* work immediately on the first try.
And you are suggesting that, if it does the above, it can't do anything else?
In the specific case if giving an offspring a phone, I would imagine it will less likely be the continuum-capable high-end anyway.
However, unlike some other OSs, WinPhone will update the phone location regularly and allow locking, ringing etc. in case of loss. These are useful things to have and they are there out of the box, along with maps etc.
Oh, and the phone calls from my Nokia are high quality indeed.
Maybe this has to do with enviromentalism? So, government tsks at Microsoft and says 'what are you doing to reduce carbon emissions, eh? Better buck-up me laddie-ohs!' to which MS responds by stoppping making phones, and instantly improving their 'green' credentials according to measures used by an insufficiently clueful bureaucracy...
I'll get me coat. Mine's the one with a chocolate-flavoured antarctic avian in the pocket...
The impossibility of getting security fixes for mid-range and budget priced Android phones is going to drive those consumers who cannot afford to pay through their eye teeth for iPhones to seek alternatives. This is the market for Windows Phones.
Also there are a lot of older people who have PCs but do not yet have smart phones. The idea of "a new smart phone they already know how to use" is attractive, even if not totally accurate.
Google and the hardware vendors could have to get together and eliminate the problem of getting security fixes on non-flagship and older flagship phones, but they haven't up to now.
"The impossibility of getting security fixes for mid-range and budget priced Android phones is going to drive those consumers..."
Typically such consumers are blissfully unaware - and even unpatched mainstream smartphone it is unlikely that significant users will experience a hardship at all or directly identifiable as their smartphone unpatched vulnerability being the culprit, to where they will realize they need to go to another smartphone type. In the case of a tech literate consumer of budget or used phones like myself, I choose to use a nexus phone or an used phone running cynaogenmod that, once installed, is super easy to do a monthy update of, with the latest AOSP patches.
One main purposes suggested by Nadella was that you could buy just a phone and have a desktop too for 3rd world countries where they cant afford both. But now we see that even the limited continuum desktop requires a flagship class 550 pound phone, and perhaps liquid cooling. Not to mention you need a monitor, mouse, keyboard and $100 adapter box. The poor might be better served by something like a Moto E and a chromebook for a lot less. Sure you could suggest "in the future" is the goal but even then how useful is a phone as a desktop, really. It will never be a true windows desktop and at best be a very poor one, besides the initial novelty trick, but then easilly ends up dropped in the crapper losing all your files. Even a $30 chromecast or hdmi link from an android smartphone can give a useable "desktop" if that's what you think you really need.
'The poor might be better served by something like a Moto .... '
Then again, they may be better served by putting food on the table (if they own a table).
That aside, if I thought for one minute that the internal politics and empire builders at MS would allow the continued development of the phone, then I might be interested, however I have seen too many MS endeavours sink without trace. I suspect this may be one of them.
It is worthwhile that Microsoft Windows smartphone devotees have another choice for a platform that is in negative growth, but unfortunately for Microsoft supporters in Mobile sphere, the company will not be dominant as in 1990s and early 2000s, except in Desktop OS, with tens of millions of installations and users, but alas is also shrinking rapidly - about 43% in just last 2years according to IDC, Forrester and every other reputable and considered objective Market Research Firm and Mobile analysis institution in USA and Internationally.
Anyone here who has made an informed decision on mobile OS, is happy with price point, and has it meet their subjective needs - well done. And anyone who has issues with their choice - those are your issues with the OS, not theirs. There is no "wrong" choice, just levels of suitability for different users.
Each category can be easily attacked - iOS for the foolishness of paying a very hefty premium for a lifestyle accessory that is luckily also a smart phone, Android for the worrying number of users running old and extremely insecure versions coupled with wild variation in updates from OEMs, or Windows Phone for the scarcity of the app store/continuum apps coupled with general doubt about longevity given the low adoption rates. I sometime sorry that online commentary on mobile OS choice veers away from level technical assessment into religious fervour...
downvoted
Your description of iOS is faulty: It is NOT a hefty premium for a lifestyle accessory, it is the fastest platform out there, period, so "derserves" a premium. Not to say that it is leaky, just like WP and Android.
There is no secure phone OS anymore, since BB10 packed-in - it seems like you all want to share all your details with corps, faire enough. Thanks, I do not and will not have a choice, once my BB10 device dies ...
WP will not survive 2017, 100% sure, I doubt it will be around in January 2017. I hereby declare that I will donate 50 euro to FSF if Windows Phone survives January 2017, and 100 if it survives December 2017. The donations will be made in the name of the RegisterComment@rds ... please do remind me, should I forget (I won't)!
PS: "Survives" meaning Microsoft has not announced it will stop development on the platform.
PPS: Can the register do something, here, for visibility ?
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