I don't want to go on the cart! Windows 10 Mobile hauls itself from the grave one last time Microsoft unloaded some festive cheer on the last remaining Windows Phone user by apparently extending the life of the doomed platform for another few weeks. Twitter user Longhorn gave a hat-tip to @wenti_man for spotting that the release notes for the very last patch issued to the moribund operating system now show the death …
Perhaps there are still some MS Folk in deepest Redmond still believing that Windows is he one and only true OS and that one day it will run everything in the world.
Deluded?
Sure.
But...
Their recent change of heart over Linux could well see them adopt the Linux kernel in the future (embrace) and adapt it (extend) and hope that pur Linux becomes a thing of the past (extinguish)
I have a feeling that they're considering pulling the plug on Windows if and when the consumer market becomes unprofitable. After all, they're making enough on the cloud services, and if they can get SQL Server a good toehold in the Linux server market, and Exchange / AD in Azure means nobody needs on-prem Windows servers any more, then why not just chain people to those and empty their pockets that way?
I'm not saying that's the way it'll definitely go, just that I'd be surprised if that wasn't an option they were considering.
If Microsoft get hold of Linux they will turn it into the same crock of shite as windows 10. After all a messdos wasnt actually too bad despite its nickname and lack of documentation. Windows 3 was okish, NT wasnt too bad but it has been a down hill slide since then. Not sure what the problem is but if they actually used their own stuff they would fix it
I picked up an incredibly cheap WinPhone a couple years back (US$25 maybe) just to play with it on wifi. It was surprisingly snappy, even more so for having around 1GB of ram and a Snapdragon 200 or so. The UI was easy to see and interact with, especially on the smallish screen. I could have happily used a WinPhone with a better camera as my daily driver if I hadn't already seen the writing on the wall. I had already rode the good ship WebOS all the way to the breakers, wasn't going to do it twice.
Sadly, MS had burned all potential bridges and by applying a phone UI to PCs, servers and laptops, had effectively salted the earth. No consumer wanted anything to do with Windows on the one form factor that it actually made sense. (Ok, tablets were good with metro but the tablets didn't have enough horsepower or battery life so even if the UI made sense, the experience was blech)
Multiple form factors require multiple interaction modes. Until someone figures out a highly flexible, scalable UI framework and can strong-arm the app devs into using it, we'll remain with balkanization between form factors.
And, compared to Apple's "Fort Knox" approach or the myriad of Android permutations, still the best phone to develop for. I still reckon that, had Microsoft branded it something other than "Windows" (or "Microsoft") and thrown money at it as happened with the Xbox, we would now have at least three mobile ecosystems out there.
Alas that so many in the tech/dev spheres at the time still saw Google as the saviour of the IT world, and were unable to get past a grudge that was already a decade old, even then...
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As a phone OS I liked it well enough. What killed it really for me was the lack of 'second tier' applications. Yes, your FaceBook, Twitter, Tumblr and all were there. But your local transport and utility providers, banks and the like only ever really did iOS and Android. They had two do two versions of their app already, why would they do a third for a much smaller player?
Was glad to get back on Android by the end.
Even without an app store I will keep on using my Lumia 1020 as a high end feature phone.
Being online is overrated anyway. To me the social apps have brought so much bad stuff that it outweighs the benefits: cyber bullying, WhatsApp lynchings, decapitation videos and live-streamed mass murders on Facebook, content moderators suffering from PTSD, etc. etc.
I remember the good old days when snuff movies were an urban legend. Today it couldn't get much worse.
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