I'm curious about how Microsoft would have done a mobile system on par with Apple had Windows Phone 7 or it's equivalent had been faster to market, but Microsoft probably would have been in...
I'm curious about how Microsoft would have done a mobile system on par with Apple had Windows Phone 7 or it's equivalent had been faster to market, but Microsoft probably would have been in antitrust waters again if it was anywhere near as successful as Android, and the alternate universe me would have been have been belly aching about how open source was locked out of the mobile space, and carrier lock-in is destroying perfectly good phones.
Windows Phone as an OS was actually pretty OK, but the app landscape was a barren wasteland. It was in this catch-22 scenario where devs didn't bother to make applications for it because of the...
Windows Phone as an OS was actually pretty OK, but the app landscape was a barren wasteland. It was in this catch-22 scenario where devs didn't bother to make applications for it because of the low user count, and users wouldn't adopt because of no applications.
I was a part of the ecosystem from the beginning and stayed until the very end (probably past the end honestly). Microsoft's failure was due to them panicking and losing any vision for the OS....
I was a part of the ecosystem from the beginning and stayed until the very end (probably past the end honestly). Microsoft's failure was due to them panicking and losing any vision for the OS. Initially the vision was presented as a mobile OS with extensible areas that app developers could integrate into. Unfortunately they never really executed on that idea. But they did eventually arrive in a good place where the OS itself replaced a lot of the features you'd have to download on other phones. I particularly liked them having a QR scanner, and music identification service.
However instead of building out the features of the OS or refocusing on the extensibility idea they started with they stagnated. They rebuilt the OS 2 or 3 times and talked about fixing the "app gap". At this point they were already dead, their platform wasn't unique in any way and it was obvious they were going to lose the app war.
The solution they should have went with was to focus on the original extensibility idea and provide as many features as possible to be built into the phone. I think it's dumb on android that I have to pick apps just to text, measure, sketch, or set an alarm clock. translate things or do other utility like functions. Most of the time any preinstalled apps are the bare minimum and still lack essential features. Focusing on providing built in, fully featured functions would go a long way.
All that being said they also generally just made bad decisions, like not supporting areas they were doing well in, buying nokia, and launching the platform in the midst of UWPs development.
Microsoft should have just bought Palm and tried to make the Pre into a thing. Android is seriously the worst thing that could have happened to mobile. They just slavishly copied iOS, only by...
I'm curious about how Microsoft would have done a mobile system on par with Apple had Windows Phone 7 or it's equivalent had been faster to market
Microsoft should have just bought Palm and tried to make the Pre into a thing. Android is seriously the worst thing that could have happened to mobile. They just slavishly copied iOS, only by making a bunch of accommodations that Apple found distasteful to unscrupulous cell phone carriers to get buy in.
At least Palm and Microsoft tried to do interesting things that differentiated them and seemed to care about having a good product. Google just decided to go all in on normalizing customer-hostile, user snooping, shit-ware peddling carriers as who gets to define the mobile environment. How many years did it take before they finally released the Pixel and put a version of Android out into the world that wasn't bloated up with crap out of the box? And it was only ever a limited flagship product for techies at that.
Yeah I think Gates is missing the point with android, what windows had envisioned--based off what windows phone is/was--can't be the counter part to apple. Android imo was successful because it's...
Yeah I think Gates is missing the point with android, what windows had envisioned--based off what windows phone is/was--can't be the counter part to apple. Android imo was successful because it's opensource, each manufacture allowed to put there own spin on it. I don' think MS would go for that.
Genuine question, how does google make money off android? Can't be licensing right? Is it really just the app store, 400$ billion, in apps. That's nuts.
But also, it just sounds kind of greedy. "That was a natural thing for Microsoft to win." I mean jeez, it's not some game, right?
It makes me wonder what exactly is his motivation? Why should MS be the ones with the “standard non-Apple phone form platform,” what makes them so worthy.
That's not it, it's a very surface-level approach. They preinstall their apps - to have Play vendors must also have their search engine, Chrome, YouTube and other stuff installed ootb. This...
Genuine question, how does google make money off android? Can't be licensing right? Is it really just the app store, 400$ billion, in apps. That's nuts.
That's not it, it's a very surface-level approach. They preinstall their apps - to have Play vendors must also have their search engine, Chrome, YouTube and other stuff installed ootb. This translates to ad revenue as well, and they are also getting an enormous boost in adoption of their services and a lot more data on the people using Android. And data is worth a lot alone.
Oh come on... Microsoft couldn't even beat Apple in the MP3 player market especially when the Zune was a worthy, albeit poorly marketed competitor that wasn't launched outside North America. If...
In fact, Gates is still kicking himself for taking his eyes off the ball and allowing Google to develop Android, the “standard non-Apple phone form platform,” as he describes it. “That was a natural thing for Microsoft to win.”
Oh come on... Microsoft couldn't even beat Apple in the MP3 player market especially when the Zune was a worthy, albeit poorly marketed competitor that wasn't launched outside North America. If anybody had the resources to challenge Apple's stranglehold on the market it could have been Microsoft, yet their hardware was poorly marketed and their MP3 playing software was actually worse than iTunes (which is an accomplishment in itself considering how crap iTunes is on non-Mac systems.)
The greater irony of Bill Gates's statement is that Microsoft had mobile operating systems like Windows CE, Pocket PC and multiple versions of Windows Mobile out on the market years before iOS yet they couldn't even come close to Symbian, the gold standard of mobile OSes over a decade ago.
I'm curious about how Microsoft would have done a mobile system on par with Apple had Windows Phone 7 or it's equivalent had been faster to market, but Microsoft probably would have been in antitrust waters again if it was anywhere near as successful as Android, and the alternate universe me would have been have been belly aching about how open source was locked out of the mobile space, and carrier lock-in is destroying perfectly good phones.
Windows Phone as an OS was actually pretty OK, but the app landscape was a barren wasteland. It was in this catch-22 scenario where devs didn't bother to make applications for it because of the low user count, and users wouldn't adopt because of no applications.
I was a part of the ecosystem from the beginning and stayed until the very end (probably past the end honestly). Microsoft's failure was due to them panicking and losing any vision for the OS. Initially the vision was presented as a mobile OS with extensible areas that app developers could integrate into. Unfortunately they never really executed on that idea. But they did eventually arrive in a good place where the OS itself replaced a lot of the features you'd have to download on other phones. I particularly liked them having a QR scanner, and music identification service.
However instead of building out the features of the OS or refocusing on the extensibility idea they started with they stagnated. They rebuilt the OS 2 or 3 times and talked about fixing the "app gap". At this point they were already dead, their platform wasn't unique in any way and it was obvious they were going to lose the app war.
The solution they should have went with was to focus on the original extensibility idea and provide as many features as possible to be built into the phone. I think it's dumb on android that I have to pick apps just to text, measure, sketch, or set an alarm clock. translate things or do other utility like functions. Most of the time any preinstalled apps are the bare minimum and still lack essential features. Focusing on providing built in, fully featured functions would go a long way.
All that being said they also generally just made bad decisions, like not supporting areas they were doing well in, buying nokia, and launching the platform in the midst of UWPs development.
As I recall it, they pursued the Continuum dream until the very end. That's not exactly stagnation, but not a good decision either.
Microsoft should have just bought Palm and tried to make the Pre into a thing. Android is seriously the worst thing that could have happened to mobile. They just slavishly copied iOS, only by making a bunch of accommodations that Apple found distasteful to unscrupulous cell phone carriers to get buy in.
At least Palm and Microsoft tried to do interesting things that differentiated them and seemed to care about having a good product. Google just decided to go all in on normalizing customer-hostile, user snooping, shit-ware peddling carriers as who gets to define the mobile environment. How many years did it take before they finally released the Pixel and put a version of Android out into the world that wasn't bloated up with crap out of the box? And it was only ever a limited flagship product for techies at that.
Yeah I think Gates is missing the point with android, what windows had envisioned--based off what windows phone is/was--can't be the counter part to apple. Android imo was successful because it's opensource, each manufacture allowed to put there own spin on it. I don' think MS would go for that.
Genuine question, how does google make money off android? Can't be licensing right? Is it really just the app store, 400$ billion, in apps. That's nuts.
But also, it just sounds kind of greedy. "That was a natural thing for Microsoft to win." I mean jeez, it's not some game, right?
It makes me wonder what exactly is his motivation? Why should MS be the ones with the “standard non-Apple phone form platform,” what makes them so worthy.
That's not it, it's a very surface-level approach. They preinstall their apps - to have Play vendors must also have their search engine, Chrome, YouTube and other stuff installed ootb. This translates to ad revenue as well, and they are also getting an enormous boost in adoption of their services and a lot more data on the people using Android. And data is worth a lot alone.
Oh come on... Microsoft couldn't even beat Apple in the MP3 player market especially when the Zune was a worthy, albeit poorly marketed competitor that wasn't launched outside North America. If anybody had the resources to challenge Apple's stranglehold on the market it could have been Microsoft, yet their hardware was poorly marketed and their MP3 playing software was actually worse than iTunes (which is an accomplishment in itself considering how crap iTunes is on non-Mac systems.)
The greater irony of Bill Gates's statement is that Microsoft had mobile operating systems like Windows CE, Pocket PC and multiple versions of Windows Mobile out on the market years before iOS yet they couldn't even come close to Symbian, the gold standard of mobile OSes over a decade ago.