Windows 10: Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella Admits Windows Phone Failed

Can you name a few apps which people use daily that are unavailable for Windows Phone?

 

None of my local networks news and warning apps work on my Windows Phone. Some stores in my area have apps that when used your earn discounts and the only work on Android and Apple. The Walmart Pharmacy has a app and it only works on Android and Apple.

 

That's true, not all specialty APPs are made for W10 phone as of yet. Around here they are mostly for Android because iPhone is not very popular (read that as too expensive).

 

I would like to see these apps come available for the Windows Phone. Even if they don't I'm still very happy with my Lumia 640XL and have no plans of going back to Android and I don't see me ever switching to any Apple devices now or in my future.

 

I have APPs for couple of local news sites and my bank is working on one.

 

Wow Jimbo, how'd you know I'm 50? Unfortunately, this is true as far as my generation. We have taken a beating, and although work/life is coming back, it's still bad out here. Although I do agree that the days of working airplanes is very yesterday. I expect those you see are the next generation of the overworked who believe saying yes to every project will somehow get them ahead and secure in their position. At least until their first layoff, or first reorg when they find their position removed and find themselves doing work they had done two years earlier. (Not that I'm cynical or bitter. Just jaded.)

To your point on devices though, you are so spot on. The only time I use my phone for apps is sitting in a doctor's office, to your earlier point on being 50, and waiting to be called in. Otherwise I have a full laptop with me, albeit with an 11 inch screen, but not a netbook.

 

I have an Android phone and in my experience the dedicated apps from news orgs and store chains, etc, are a mixed bag; some provide better functionality compared with a browser and some don't (and some are worse). I've tried and dumped quite a few of them and open the sites in Chrome or Dolphin instead. I wouldn't let the lack of these specialty apps prevent me from getting a Windows phone if the core functionality and integration with the desktop is there.

 

There's always Facebook APP !!!

 

- talking hardware..*Nerd
- maybe they just felt that they were already handling quite a lot of firmware development..
- Windows10 and the UWP. the Xbox S, Wristband and HoloLens as well as the Surface series (- all of them amazing products!)
- they've already issued reassurances that Windows10 will continued to be developed on all fronts..

- talking flag-waving..*Party
- as for Windows phones generally - it's no good asking me - I'm already sold on them..
- I rate my Windows phones as streets ahead of anything Android that I've owned..
- it feels more personal, I guess I like the fact that it meshes so well with the PC, Xbox One, Office and Bing
- a lot of it has to do with the way it all functions seamlessly via a single Microsoft Account..

- it all hangs together so beautifully.. *Cool

 

Very well said. *Thumbs

 

I have a Lumia 925 with Win 8.1. I use Outlook on my desktop and the phone syncs without intervention to my Contacts and Calendar. For making calls, texting and email the phone does the job. Internet Explorer doesn't work well. Android and Apple have far Apps but more difficult to sync with the Windows desktop stuff. Overall the Lumia does the job for me.

 

They actually did innovate the smartphone landscape with Windows Phone 7. It was a smartphone that did something android and iOS didn't: Put People First. It was a smartphone that didn't need an app for this or an app for that, it ALREADY did that. Everything was so tightly ingrained with the OS, from social networking to web content, it was genuinely what a smartphone is and should be these days. It brought forth a UI design that didn't focus on bubbly, wobbly icons but large bold text used to navigate through the UI with beautifully done detail that had just the right subtle hints of where to point a user on where to go.

Then Microsoft handed it to a research focus group that uses iOS and android and quickly found out that the masses were turned off by this innovation. The masses wanted and app for this and an app for that and bland and simply iconography and "easy to use" interfaces. So they made that and made it was Windows 10 Mobile. It really is now a "me-too" platform. It doesn't offer much differentiation from iOS nor android because it was designed to be familiar to those who are used to both platforms.

Five years ago, a Windows Phone would have smoked an iPhone and android phones doing all the trivial tasks people use these "smart" devices for, like posting to social media, finding a nice restaurant near by, and just being so well built it did everything quicker, easier, better, Windows Phone style. Today, it's a platform where it can't compete in any category because you need an app for everything to do anything (if they're there), the search experience is heavily depreciated (let alone the Bing Local Scout feature that barely remains today in the Maps app), and EVEN on an octocore processor and three gigs of RAM, Loading... screens are still there along with 0x000 errors of "something went wrong" when you open a first party app...

It's said Microsoft gave up on the mobile front, they haven't. It's just the consumer space gave up on Microsoft's efforts in doing something different and better.

 

@Coke Robot: Very interesting point of view. It makes me sad, but on the other hand, my Lumia 640 just seems so natural to me, while iPhone is just...not so good. I had an Android once, and I won't be comming back. I don't have money for any iPhone anymore - and for getting a well performing Android I would need comparable money, so no, thanks.

 

What MS failed to understand and still does to some extent is that the consumer will buy what it feels best suits its needs. Not what some big corporation tells it that it needs.
MS should have learned this lesson when they rolled out W8 and the ensuing backlash. The thing is they are virtually unchallenged in the OS market for PC so they had time to modify their approach and make changes, albeit slowly, but they did come around and we have W10.

In the mobile market you have a vastly different environment. There are major players with major market share already in place. If you don't give the consumer what he wants it really should come as no surprise that your product does not catch on. The sheer volume of choice in the mobile market means you are in a cutthroat environment and bad choices get shown up fast. The only reason MS still has any skin in this game at all is because of their very deep pockets. It's a shame that with those very deep pockets they still don't seem to be able to make a phone that very many people have any interest in.

 

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Smartphones and Mobile Devices - Microsoft - Global
- look closely.. *Cool