Posts by mo_roodi

Lenovo exec: Nope, not building Windows Phones

Windows 10 Mobile sort of broke things

I've used a Nokia Windows Phone for about 2 years now, and when I first got the phone (switching from Android) I was really impressed with how well the software ran on such comparatively slower hardware. Windows Phone 8.1 worked really well. Most things "just worked" and you could even overlook the lack of apps because usually some enterprising developer had you covered (or the mobile version of the website ended up pinned to my home screen).

Then Windows 10 Mobile came along. Now my Nokia "sort of" works. Everything sort of behaves as it should. I use Windows 10 on my laptop and I really like Windows 10... And personally I believe UWP has legs (although it's yet to find them). And the 1 developer platform to rule them all is a very good idea (so much so that Google and Apple are both attempting the same). But Windows 10 Mobile needs a little more thought and attention.

I think if Microsoft spent a little time and effort tidying up Windows 10 Mobile, and instead of making a lot of phones create a single "surface phone" that can truly prove the merits of the platform (they've already done that with the surface tablet and surface book) and really stop comparing themselves to Apple and Google (or stop trying to BE Apple or Google) then they could have a really promising platform. Of course that's not going to happen because there's hardly any money to be made in the mobile space for MS.

Microsoft has always been about the software. That's where they made their name, and that's pretty much where their revenue is going to keep coming from. Buying Nokia was a bad move on their part because they're a software company... I think SatNad's ideas of re-focusing MS on software rather than messing around with hardware (with the exception of the surface line) is a good one. And I think they're on the right lines at the moment to try and make Windows the "go to" developer platform - Look at their approach, the idea is it doesn't matter what you're deploying to, you can develop on Windows...

And they should keep Windows 10 Mobile going of course because there's still opportunities out there for it. It certainly could become the new BlackBerry...

This flashlight app requires: Your contacts list, identity, access to your camera...

Not enough granular control!

I think part of the problem is the granularity of control which the OS provides, and there's probably the laziness/bad habits on the part of the developer.

For example Android permissions are split into individual permissions and permission groups. For example I want to be able to access the flash on the camera... I can either use the "flashlight" permission or the "camera" permission group. The same goes for storage. I can either use the "storage" permission group, or I can request the individual storage permission for example read/write external storage.

If for example my app starts life reading external storage because it stores something on the SD card but later in it's life it needs to write to the external storage... Wouldn't it be easier for me to just request the storage permission group rather than starting off with read then asking the user to change the permission level of the application in the future?

I also think this is where the laziness comes in. The developer could go through and work out what permissions the application needs explicitly, or they can just request the broader groups, in the case of the flashlight application though this will mean that the store will show the app wanting access to the camera.

The same probably applies to quite a lot of other apps. Rather than working out the explicit permission that the app needs the developers have probably just requested the group permissions. For example the Arriva Bus App mentioned - These are the permissions that aren't connection and location related:

Photos / Media / Files

modify or delete the contents of your USB storage

test access to protected storage

Camera / Microphone

take pictures and videos

Other

read Google service configuration

All of these permissions can be explained by a simple "share" function which may let you share and image to a Google account...