Flashback: a decade of Microsoft's failed attempts to conquer the phone market

24 July 2022
The Kin phones were an odd experiment, but Windows Phone 7 was supposed to capture the phone market the same way that Window had the PC market.

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A Reddit comment about Marques Brownlee and other American techtubers with their Apple/Samsung/Google bias...

"The duo had its fair share of problems at launch, and it still lacks in some key ways. But I just feel like MHKBD loves to trash any non Samsung phone, Including the duo, And his talking points become weaponized by people that have never used these devices. He knows his audience is a Western audience that is going to be almost entirely made up of Samsung and Apple users and as a result, LG, Google, Microsoft,one plus, Sony , are predictably dismissed or at the very least given just faint praise.

It's not just him but the same incentive structure exists for most Western android based media outlets. 93% of Carrier store purchases go to Samsung and Apple devices in the United States karma and so their audience is people that have already bought one of those phones and want to feel validated"

    they're already late when they decided to go into smartphones. dragging Nokia to their failure only adds to Microsoft's already long list awful moments. Now they are going to repeat the same mistake with AR/VR software and hardware. Another risky bet they are NOT into yet is vehicle software.

      Loved the Metro UI, loved the tiles... such happy days using Windows Phone, of course, without forgetting your flaws. I had a Lumia 730 back in the day. The combo of Metro UI + Nokia's ClearBlack OLED display was great.

      For me, Windows Mobile UI felt so futuristic.

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        • Anonymous
        • 7kg
        • 25 Jul 2022

        Lumia and windows Phone was great. Just lack of support of apps made it to disaster

          I had the Dell Venue Pro. It was the best phone I ever had. Physical KB portrait. Fast, I miss it so much.

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            • Swaraj
            • DkA
            • 25 Jul 2022

            I like how the UI screenshot look like it was released yesterday . Timeless..

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              • Anonymous
              • 6wN
              • 25 Jul 2022

              My sister had HTC HD7 with Windows. In that time is was good but now nobody can beat Android. One thing that confuses people is different user interfaces. But if I had to name the best of best then One UI is the best.

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                • blue
                • 0CN
                • 25 Jul 2022

                Anonymous, 25 Jul 2022Microsoft takes great ideas and burns them down to the gro... moreNot all large companies. The world is run by large companies which are innovative enough to push it further. Microsoft did not have a proper strategy at the time and repeated changes of it did not help either.

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                  • Anonymous
                  • 7k0
                  • 25 Jul 2022

                  Microsoft takes great ideas and burns them down to the ground.
                  Mixer was the latest proof. Minecraft is able to survive because they kind of work different than Microsoft, otherwise they'd be gone down the same path.

                  Large companies have too much bureaucracy to churn out anything revolutionary unless it is related to their core business.

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                    • Anonymous
                    • 7kj
                    • 25 Jul 2022

                    I was gonna buy myself a Nokia Lumia 625 in 2013 then after seeing a lack of app support, I bought an android.

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                      • Anonymous
                      • i2d
                      • 25 Jul 2022

                      Anonymous, 25 Jul 2022I have to ask, since I've seen a few people say this: ... moreTiles ruined it .

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                        • Anonymous
                        • i2d
                        • 25 Jul 2022

                        Loved Lumia such potential

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                          • blue
                          • 0CN
                          • 25 Jul 2022

                          Anonymous, 25 Jul 2022I have to ask, since I've seen a few people say this: ... moreFirst of all, I like the simplicity of it, instead of multicolored chaos of android in those days. Also the system of live tiles was much better than anything android offered or even offers these days. And finally, I liked the continuous main screen, instead of swiping through screens on android.
                          For example, nowadays I use only one screen with the most important apps, but I still hate the color chaos of android. Not to even mention iOS.

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                            • AnonD-1037771
                            • 0Ca
                            • 25 Jul 2022

                            As an android user, when I first used a Lumia phone I remembered loving the design of the phone, but absolutely hating the tiles interface. That and no apps for it made me stay as far away as possible.
                            I absolutely loved Symbian, but then Nokia did the worst thing possible: went with microsht instead of android. Now, they're just another cheap chinese brand.
                            This is what happens when you listen to a money driven manager - the lowest of the low - that cares only about profit. The manager position should be banned from all companies. It has been proven that a company can actually do very well without those scums. Just look at Valve .

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                              • AnonD-731363
                              • SH3
                              • 25 Jul 2022

                              At our stores here in Slovakia we had for sale many windows powered phones but they never sold well.
                              Even the flagships which went down in price like Nokia 950 XL or so from more than 600 to as low as 150. Even for price where we loose on every sale nobody wanted windows powered phone.
                              I really hope Huawei and Harmony will be far more sucessfull.
                              TZhey deserve that since USA stood their dirty foot on them for no valid reason.

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                                • Nik
                                • xPP
                                • 25 Jul 2022

                                The vision is quite good but the market is very poor. The marketing strategy is not that good. On the dev side I had pain in the head experiences on developing apps and games to their platform. Fix and support before is hard.

                                  Carol, 25 Jul 2022Best creativity for phones started in 2007 with the first i... moreThere is website called Gsmhistory, it was written by people who participated in Revolution of Mobile,
                                  http://www.gsmhistory.com/

                                  Its must read website if you want to get genuine history.

                                  What you said is true, Nokia had touch screen phone since 2004, Maemo was full touchscreen phones, there was Sony ericson, lg etc touch screen phone, some was even capative touch like LG prada, these phones had apps, multitasking, full browser with flash support, and lot of advanced features compare to first iphone.

                                  The only Thing Apple had was Webkit browser

                                    Anonymous, 25 Jul 2022I have to ask, since I've seen a few people say this: ... moreFor me personally, it was much more intuitive than ios and android at the time. More fluent than Android.
                                    It also had great integration of services with the people feed showing all my social media feeds in one timeline, facebook, twitter, linkedin etc. Live tiles had me not needing to open apps to see what was new in them. The design language was consistent throughout the OS.

                                    Many design features of windows phone is coming more and more in bot iOS and android to this day, like live tiles/widgets and more minimalitic design that doesnt try o be comesthing it isnt.

                                    It severely lacked apps though so it wasnt really usable for many people.

                                      Anonymous, 25 Jul 2022I have to ask, since I've seen a few people say this: ... moreThis is reality. IRL only one person in my entire life said they actually liked Metro UI on desktop or mobile. People tolerated it on Zune as an alternative to iPod, but the Zune just does 3 things... Play music, video and pictures. iOS was completely closed and Android was completely open. Windows Phone settled somewhere in between and ended up just being a worse experience for either scenario. Realistically, WP was too closed to ever compete with Android and too late to ever compete with iOS. It was doomed from the start. Windows Mobile before had had been completely open. There was no chance of continuity from the previous users. Who was WP really for?

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                                        • Anonymous
                                        • iF4
                                        • 25 Jul 2022

                                        blue, 25 Jul 2022I had three Lumia phones myself (610, 630, 650). I truly lo... moreI have to ask, since I've seen a few people say this: " I truly loved the UI, there was nothing better." My own experience of Lumias was the direct opposite, couldn't stand the UI. What was so good about it?

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