I’m often asked which phone to buy. Brands and model numbers mean little to me. What’s important is the operating system, in which case you have several choices. Among them, I prefer Android (of course). Apple’s iOS is also good, but I strongly recommend against buying a Windows phone.
Rather than unload on Microsoft — and after Windows 8 Microsoft deserves all the derision anyone can muster — I’m going to be specific as to why the Windows Phone is a poor choice.
In a word: Zune.
If you recall, the Zune was Microsoft’s belated hardware reply to the iPod. Once again proving that it’s nothing more than a “me too!” company, Microsoft foisted the Zune upon humanity as the most clever gadget ever to reach the consumer market.
Except for the iPod, of course.
Rather than improve upon the iPod, which was several years established at the time, Microsoft took a buncha engineers, blindfolded them, put them in a dark room the size of a basketball court. They were told to find the iPod hidden in the room and create something just like it. Or perhaps the directions were to create something that felt like an iPod, but which better simply because it wasn’t an iPod.
The Zune was a bust. Late to market, lacking in apps, and over-priced.
So along comes the Windows phone.
Apple was first with its iPhone back in 2007. Then came Google’s Android. Finally, arriving on the field around halftime, was Microsoft.
To prove that it’s serious, Microsoft has dumped hundreds of millions of dollars of promotions at its mobile devices. For example, they paid Lord Knows What to the NFL to promote their Surface tablets. Despite the promotions, the announcers still refer to the devices as “iPads.”
On the phone side, Microsoft is heavily subsidizing their Windows phones, both to manufacturers as well as the cellular providers. So for the consumer, what’s most visible are the ridiculously low prices. I get a phone call, “Hey! That’s Windows phone is so much cheaper than the iPhone or an Android. Whaddya think?”
I think you’re a fool if you buy a Windows phone.
Sure, it’s a phone. Sure, it works to make calls. It has apps. It does all the crazy things you expect a phone to do.
Then again: Zune.
When Microsoft finally capitulated that the Zune had failed, they just dropped it. Fast. No support. No apologies. No Zune.
Do you want that to happen to your phone?
I have in a dark draw a Palm that ran Microsoft CE, bought at around the time when Smart Phones were first happening, didn’t have the money for an iPhone but needed something to get E-mail on. It worked (wasn’t pretty…). Since then have had Blackberry & now an Android each was better (with Android best). The thing is why didn’t MS shave the rough stuff off CE and make it better or at least easier to use. The only quick fiddle I had was with a guy at work it Win phone seemed to be totally at odds with what they had done before. I get the impression of M$ that there are too many “pointy haired bosses” and not enough “Dilbert’s”…
Comment by glennp — October 10, 2014 @ 7:00 am
Part of Microsoft’s problem is structural. It’s not one company, but rather a series of kingdoms, each run by a pointy haired boss. Lots of good, clever engineers work in those kingdoms, but often their genius is never seen because the goal isn’t presenting the consumer with a good product, but rather ensuring that the kingdoms remain at war with each other.
Comment by admin — October 10, 2014 @ 7:18 am
I admit, I bought a Windows Phone last year and have been enjoying it but I’m starting to notice something: Windows Phone is increasingly becoming more like Android as far as support is concerned, except worse. Android has been getting better from what I hear but I still hear about how carriers and manufacturers just drop support for fairly recent Android devices and you’ll never, ever see an update again – unless it’s one you can flash Cyanogenmod to.
I’ve noticed Windows Phone is increasingly going further down that route with carriers either delaying official OS updates (T-Mobile in particular – they released the Lumia Black about 6 months after the rest of the world got it) or completely dropping support for phones with no notice. See T-Mobile who killed the Lumia 810 less than two years after it was released. See Verizon who killed the Lumia Icon just six months (can we do bold in WP comments?) after they released it. The 810 wasn’t exactly a flagship, but the Icon certainly was and now all those people who actually bought one will never see an OS update ever again.
With Windows Phone, the problem is worse than Android. Sure, there’s always the Preview for Developers Program with WP but that only gets you pre-release versions of the OS and that’s only released when Microsoft is ready and only if you have Visual Studio 2012 with the WP8 SDK installed or VS Express for WP and a Windows Store developer account AND a developer unlock on your phone. And even though Microsoft owns Nokia now, you’re still never going to see the Lumia updates through the Preview for Developers Program. You can’t just flash a new WP ROM either thanks to Windows on ARM’s requirement that every device MUST have UEFI firmware, MUST have Secure Boot enabled and MUST provide no option for the end-user to turn it off. Unless you’ve figured out how to crack Secure Boot, you’re never going to get custom ROMs on your Lumia (or ATIV, or 8X… or Surface RT for that matter).
I’m surprised you didn’t bring up the Windows Phone 7 to WP8 “transition” where Microsoft just said “oh, you just bought a WP7 handset? that’s nice; throw it in the trash and buy a brand new one because your phone isn’t capable of running WP8.” And everyone stopped supporting the old handsets, just like that. This is made even more laughable when someone flashed a WP8 ROM and custom firmware to an HTC HD2, a phone that wasn’t even built for WP7! Apparently the phone driver didn’t work and the guy never released the ROM due to legal issues, but he did show it off as a proof of concept. Here’s an article: http://www.wpcentral.com/against-all-odds-windows-phone-8-has-been-hacked-htc-hd2
Comment by linuxlove — October 10, 2014 @ 7:57 am
Great input, LinuxLove. Thank you!
Comment by admin — October 10, 2014 @ 8:02 am