6 ms·

Windows Phone is not that bad. Google has done a good job trying to starve WP users of their services, but I think we can all survive without Hangouts (Telegra

Windows Phone is not that bad. Google has done a good job trying to starve WP users of their services, but I think we can all survive without Hangouts (Telegram, etc) and Google Voice (who cares anymore) at this point.

pjmlp 12y ago
I got a 630 for the alternative number I use, and was quite impressed with it, specially in regards to the Android devices on the same price range.
nailer 12y ago
Gmail only has a very limited public API, which (according to Google) isn't enough to make a fully fledged email client. So non official Gmail apps futz it with IMAP, which doesn't logically map to search based email.
jarcane 12y ago
WinPhone8.x is a fantastic mobile OS. The interface is great. I've dealt with some bugs since switching to the developer preview, but that's to be expected, and my experience running production code was always rock solid. But the app situation is abominable, and getting worse. The Xbox program seems to have been all but abandoned. Microsoft seems to have largely given up even monitoring the app store; half the top/new games on the lists for the last several months have been blatantly pirated material, either blatant copies of whatever iOS/Android fad is running at the moment, or actual emulator ROMs of old console games running in a buggy, half-broken wrapper. They don't even have an actual category for reporting copyright infringement on the report form. They've also made some missteps on a fair few occasions regarding their own apps, especially with the move to 8.1; replacing or breaking the existing functionality like the Xbox Games portal and the Music app. On the technical side, there's also some issues regarding app support and limitations on both hardware and software. Manufacturers have to agree to very strict tech specifications in order to license WP, so very few other than Nokia have ever bothered to take them up on it. WP apps are heavily sandboxed and limited in a way reminiscent of pre-multitasking iOS, and the official line from MS seems to be that the only acceptable way to build WP apps is in C# with .NET on Visual Studio. Period. Very grudgingly, HTML5 apps are supported. Other options are possible, but largely only through workarounds, which often are grossly undocumented or hacky. Even MS' own other languages, like VB.net and F# are not officially supported, save as libraries in the latter case. (though again in the latter case, MS seems to not believe anyone should want to build full apps in pure F# at all.) The OS and the interface themselves are great, and some of those limitations are no doubt part of why by forcing a more predictable environment. But a lot of it just seems to be MS repeatedly shooting themselves in the foot, and I dread to think how much worse it would get if MS had any actual leverage on the market.
- V-2 12y ago
  If they cared to see their app ecosystem grow, they wouldn't charge developers 100$ (which is actually 1$ more than this greedy evil empire of Apple does :)) for a licence you need even to install your app on your own darn phone
  - jarcane 12y ago
    I was really aggravated by this. You can't even test shit locally without the license, VS throws a fit and demands you buy one, and then even if you cancel it it flags your install to nag you relentlessly to buy the bloody thing over and over again forevermore.
    - V-2 12y ago
      Remember "Developers! Developers! Developers!"? :)) Whatever happened to it This uninviting attitude of theirs was one of the reasons why I ultimately became an Android dev (once I decided to move into mobile apps), even though I had C# / WPF background so picking up Windows Phone would be the most natural next step... And Java admittedly sucks in compare to C#
  - minthd 12y ago
    Really ? Their OS really shines in low cost devices aimed at the developing world(it's supposed to be much better and cheaper than whatever android can achieve). I would imagine a $100 is a substantial barrier for developers there.
    - deleted 12y ago
      [deleted]
    - tartuffe78 12y ago
      In my experience developing for both, Android is much easier to develop for. Part of this is the 3rd party services that support Android (Crash logging, analytics, etc.), but even the Play Store's crash report dashboard is so much better than the half-baked crash reporting the Windows Phone and Windows Store have. Unless you are developing for iOS you can't have all of the devices your users might have, being able to solve issues remotely is huge. Especially when you are dealing with hardware issues on all of the Windows hardware out there.
aen0 12y ago
I'm been using a Windows Phone for 1 month (from iOS). Surprisingly, the pure OS part is not bad at all (even with some perks like BT aptX, default maps app with offline mode). Store is missing a bit of stuff (mostly first class games) but I was able to find a replacement for everything else. And one thing huge (IMO): the performance/price is pretty amazing with the low/mid level entry Lumia. (I have the Lumia 735, iPhone 5 before).
- aceperry 12y ago
  I'm amazed that anyone going from an iphone would find the Windows phone to be acceptable. I would agree that the price/performance is pretty good for the low end Lumias. I have the 530 which I got for only $35, half off during the last Christmas season. I would not have paid full price for that phone though. Windows phones actually lost marketshare during 2014, so they had a fire sale at the end of the year.
s_kilk 12y ago
It's not the worst certainly, but after a few months of daily use I concluded that the OS was mostly tuned for the show-room (read mobile-phone store) rather than actual use. It was slick, with really pleasing touches all over the place, but I felt the core functionality was lacking.
- aceperry 12y ago
  I don't think WP lacks core functionality. It's the best looking phone OS today IMHO. But the design limits you to using only a few apps before it gets unwieldy. It's suitable for the casual smartphone user, not the power user.
aceperry 12y ago
"Google has done a good job trying to starve WP users of their services" I don't think Google has done anymore than MS to cripple WP. With WP, you can use Bing maps, Outlook, skype, cortana and all of the other MS apps that MS fanbois love. Only thing is, the implementation of their own services isn't as good as Google's services. A friend of mine is a MS fanboi, and he was shocked at how bad WP was.
reiichiroh 12y ago
I have a Lumia 830 and Windows Phone has some unconventional NFC implementation so it won't (ever?) work with the YubiKey. Apple can get away with this, but Windows Phone certainly can't.

pjmlp 12y ago

I got a 630 for the alternative number I use, and was quite impressed with it, specially in regards to the Android devices on the same price range.

nailer 12y ago

Gmail only has a very limited public API, which (according to Google) isn't enough to make a fully fledged email client. So non official Gmail apps futz it with IMAP, which doesn't logically map to search based email.

jarcane 12y ago

WinPhone8.x is a fantastic mobile OS. The interface is great. I've dealt with some bugs since switching to the developer preview, but that's to be expected, and my experience running production code was always rock solid. But the app situation is abominable, and getting worse. The Xbox program seems to have been all but abandoned. Microsoft seems to have largely given up even monitoring the app store; half the top/new games on the lists for the last several months have been blatantly pirated material, either blatant copies of whatever iOS/Android fad is running at the moment, or actual emulator ROMs of old console games running in a buggy, half-broken wrapper. They don't even have an actual category for reporting copyright infringement on the report form. They've also made some missteps on a fair few occasions regarding their own apps, especially with the move to 8.1; replacing or breaking the existing functionality like the Xbox Games portal and the Music app. On the technical side, there's also some issues regarding app support and limitations on both hardware and software. Manufacturers have to agree to very strict tech specifications in order to license WP, so very few other than Nokia have ever bothered to take them up on it. WP apps are heavily sandboxed and limited in a way reminiscent of pre-multitasking iOS, and the official line from MS seems to be that the only acceptable way to build WP apps is in C# with .NET on Visual Studio. Period. Very grudgingly, HTML5 apps are supported. Other options are possible, but largely only through workarounds, which often are grossly undocumented or hacky. Even MS' own other languages, like VB.net and F# are not officially supported, save as libraries in the latter case. (though again in the latter case, MS seems to not believe anyone should want to build full apps in pure F# at all.) The OS and the interface themselves are great, and some of those limitations are no doubt part of why by forcing a more predictable environment. But a lot of it just seems to be MS repeatedly shooting themselves in the foot, and I dread to think how much worse it would get if MS had any actual leverage on the market.

V-2 12y ago
If they cared to see their app ecosystem grow, they wouldn't charge developers 100$ (which is actually 1$ more than this greedy evil empire of Apple does :)) for a licence you need even to install your app on your own darn phone
- jarcane 12y ago
  I was really aggravated by this. You can't even test shit locally without the license, VS throws a fit and demands you buy one, and then even if you cancel it it flags your install to nag you relentlessly to buy the bloody thing over and over again forevermore.
  - V-2 12y ago
    Remember "Developers! Developers! Developers!"? :)) Whatever happened to it This uninviting attitude of theirs was one of the reasons why I ultimately became an Android dev (once I decided to move into mobile apps), even though I had C# / WPF background so picking up Windows Phone would be the most natural next step... And Java admittedly sucks in compare to C#
- minthd 12y ago
  Really ? Their OS really shines in low cost devices aimed at the developing world(it's supposed to be much better and cheaper than whatever android can achieve). I would imagine a $100 is a substantial barrier for developers there.
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
  - tartuffe78 12y ago
    In my experience developing for both, Android is much easier to develop for. Part of this is the 3rd party services that support Android (Crash logging, analytics, etc.), but even the Play Store's crash report dashboard is so much better than the half-baked crash reporting the Windows Phone and Windows Store have. Unless you are developing for iOS you can't have all of the devices your users might have, being able to solve issues remotely is huge. Especially when you are dealing with hardware issues on all of the Windows hardware out there.

aen0 12y ago

I'm been using a Windows Phone for 1 month (from iOS). Surprisingly, the pure OS part is not bad at all (even with some perks like BT aptX, default maps app with offline mode). Store is missing a bit of stuff (mostly first class games) but I was able to find a replacement for everything else. And one thing huge (IMO): the performance/price is pretty amazing with the low/mid level entry Lumia. (I have the Lumia 735, iPhone 5 before).

aceperry 12y ago
I'm amazed that anyone going from an iphone would find the Windows phone to be acceptable. I would agree that the price/performance is pretty good for the low end Lumias. I have the 530 which I got for only $35, half off during the last Christmas season. I would not have paid full price for that phone though. Windows phones actually lost marketshare during 2014, so they had a fire sale at the end of the year.

s_kilk 12y ago

It's not the worst certainly, but after a few months of daily use I concluded that the OS was mostly tuned for the show-room (read mobile-phone store) rather than actual use. It was slick, with really pleasing touches all over the place, but I felt the core functionality was lacking.

aceperry 12y ago
I don't think WP lacks core functionality. It's the best looking phone OS today IMHO. But the design limits you to using only a few apps before it gets unwieldy. It's suitable for the casual smartphone user, not the power user.

aceperry 12y ago

"Google has done a good job trying to starve WP users of their services" I don't think Google has done anymore than MS to cripple WP. With WP, you can use Bing maps, Outlook, skype, cortana and all of the other MS apps that MS fanbois love. Only thing is, the implementation of their own services isn't as good as Google's services. A friend of mine is a MS fanboi, and he was shocked at how bad WP was.

reiichiroh 12y ago

I have a Lumia 830 and Windows Phone has some unconventional NFC implementation so it won't (ever?) work with the YubiKey. Apple can get away with this, but Windows Phone certainly can't.