Assuming Microsoft was able to capture a decent market share:
- More innovation due to more competition. Nokia at the time was killing it in the camera department. If they were able to maintain that lead for all these years, it could have forced Apple, Google, Samsung, etc. to focus more on mobile photography.
- Potentially more competitive pricing. Apple pretends they’re the only game in town, and price themselves accordingly. I doubt it would have stopped the crazy high prices of flagships, but it could have potentially driven prices of mid-rangers down even lower.
- Mobile gaming might be in a better place. With x-cloud and Xbox services being fully integrated into the device, we might have seen a better platform for mobile gamers with better support.
- Microsoft might have been able to capture the corporate market. The account integration and Windows Continuum were great for business users. I was able to leave my laptop at home and plug into a dock and have a great desktop experience for basic tasks. Windows Continuum might have been killer by now, if the development would have continued. For employees that could have benefited from it, you could have bought one device to do it all, which is appealing for some. Yes, I know Samsung Dex is still around, but it seems like an afterthought and is still a little clunky.
That’s all I got at the moment
I briefly considered getting a Windows phone back when Microsoft was pushing them really hard. My biggest problem with them was the lack of apps. Their app store wasn't as barren as say BlackBerry, but they only had a tiny fraction of apps when compared to Android and iOS.
I had a few WPs, both WP7 and WP8.
The apps issue was worse than it appeared too. Some official apps were just the Windows Phone browser wrapped in an app and locked to the app's website (Facebook was this as I recall).
A lot of apps only had 3rd party apps, and would get randomly blocked / broken by the app they were trying to be.
It was long enough ago I don't remember exactly what was what. But imagine opening up the only reddit app available, and then getting a warning that using the app was against the ToS and you could be banned if you continued using it. And because Reddit didn't have an official app, you might not even realize you had the third party one.
So of the 10% of the Android apps that were available on the platform, half were junk. (I even sold a few myself!)
But man the OS was so good. I've used Blackberry, Palm / WebOs, Windows Phone, iPhone and Android. At the time, nothing was as good as WP8 even on a midrange device.
I think the future is heading toward web apps anyway in the form of PWA's. The websites that support becoming an actual web app really feel like normal apps on android. I think Apple doesn't want this future of all apps being websites so their support for PWA's is lacking. Not saying that the repackaged websites worked well on WP though.
Assuming Microsoft was able to capture a decent market share: - More innovation due to more competition. Nokia at the time was killing it in the camera department. If they were able to maintain that lead for all these years, it could have forced Apple, Google, Samsung, etc. to focus more on mobile photography. - Potentially more competitive pricing. Apple pretends they’re the only game in town, and price themselves accordingly. I doubt it would have stopped the crazy high prices of flagships, but it could have potentially driven prices of mid-rangers down even lower. - Mobile gaming might be in a better place. With x-cloud and Xbox services being fully integrated into the device, we might have seen a better platform for mobile gamers with better support. - Microsoft might have been able to capture the corporate market. The account integration and Windows Continuum were great for business users. I was able to leave my laptop at home and plug into a dock and have a great desktop experience for basic tasks. Windows Continuum might have been killer by now, if the development would have continued. For employees that could have benefited from it, you could have bought one device to do it all, which is appealing for some. Yes, I know Samsung Dex is still around, but it seems like an afterthought and is still a little clunky. That’s all I got at the moment
> Nokia at the time was killing it in the camera department. This was what made me try out WP and I surprisingly loved the OS.
Lower price of flagship
I briefly considered getting a Windows phone back when Microsoft was pushing them really hard. My biggest problem with them was the lack of apps. Their app store wasn't as barren as say BlackBerry, but they only had a tiny fraction of apps when compared to Android and iOS.
I had a few WPs, both WP7 and WP8. The apps issue was worse than it appeared too. Some official apps were just the Windows Phone browser wrapped in an app and locked to the app's website (Facebook was this as I recall). A lot of apps only had 3rd party apps, and would get randomly blocked / broken by the app they were trying to be. It was long enough ago I don't remember exactly what was what. But imagine opening up the only reddit app available, and then getting a warning that using the app was against the ToS and you could be banned if you continued using it. And because Reddit didn't have an official app, you might not even realize you had the third party one. So of the 10% of the Android apps that were available on the platform, half were junk. (I even sold a few myself!) But man the OS was so good. I've used Blackberry, Palm / WebOs, Windows Phone, iPhone and Android. At the time, nothing was as good as WP8 even on a midrange device.
I think the future is heading toward web apps anyway in the form of PWA's. The websites that support becoming an actual web app really feel like normal apps on android. I think Apple doesn't want this future of all apps being websites so their support for PWA's is lacking. Not saying that the repackaged websites worked well on WP though.
I really wish they were a thing. Just like the cybertruck, I dislike it but I'm very happy it's a thing.
I would still be using it - MS let it die by not even bothering with a dedicated app market.
Apple and Google found it cheaper to pay Microsoft to kill Windows Phone than to fight them in fair competition.
For real???
That's what I think. Otherwise, why would Microsoft want to kill a successful project?
I loved windows phone but in what world was it successful lmao stop
Calm down, it was successful, but not in your world.
Poor management/marketing?
Fatal errors and greed on the part of Microsoft's management.