this post was submitted on 02 Apr 2024
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RIP in peace Windows Phone 10. Still the best home screen setup ever.
Say what you will about Microsoft, lemmys, but Windows Phone 10 had great performance and battery life. It's a shame that it was nuked because MS couldn't bring themselves to go all the way on the Android bridge.
I'm a mobile developer and back around 2011 I was hoping like hell that Windows Phone would make it big. When you look at Xcode (for iOS), Eclipse (for Android and Blackberry) and MS Visual Studio (for Windows Mobile and Windows Phone) for mobile development, there was absolutely no comparison - it was Visual Studio all the fucking way. But Microsoft just decided to completely shit the bed and give up on mobile altogether. I still don't get it.
Around that time WebOS (under Palm) had the Mojo SDK, it was pretty slick.
I've heard nothing but good things about WebOS but I never got the chance to try it out.
I loved it, it's a shame that phone failed to find it's market. Luckily Matias Duarte eventually incorporated the best parts into android. Swipe navigation is almost identical to webos
They also messed up Nokia before killing Windows Phone. Nokia's Symbian used to be a serious competition to android.
Symbian was a fantastic OS, but it never competed with Android in any meaningful way. Nokia was already circling the drain when Microsoft bought them and first Windows phones (Lumias) were fucking awesome. And then fucking moron Nadella killed Windows Phone.
The Windows Lumina phone was a battery-draining buggy version with a smaller screen than the Linux version N9, When they turned that into Windows (Lumina 800), they had to use a smaller screen and less memory as Windows couldn't handle the hardware as MeeGo could.
N9 was perfect in every way except that it was abandoned. I miss that phone every day I use Android
Yet, that is the real Linux phone killer move by the former, Microsoft CEO for Nokia. Also the move that killed Nokia phones.
When Microsoft bought Nokia, Steve Balmer (ex-Microsoft) was at Nokia helm. His work with Nokia was so much in the interest of Microsoft that he was rewarded with head chair of Microsoft not much time later.
You mean Elop? Ballmer was MS CEO when MS bought Nokia, but they were doing fairly well in the beginning. Fucking moron Nadella took over and killed Windows mobile. Despite publically admitting later that it was a mistake, he's still a fucking moron.
And MeeGo as well, which was a more modern base and even better UX than Windows Mobile in my opinion.
Nokia's Symbian was shit and you're the only person I've ever heard saying anything positive about it. To be a serious competitor to Android or IOS you need to have as much apps on the store and Symbian had very few.
I am saying that it was probably sabotaged by Microsoft leaning leadership at Nokia.
Also, despite being Linux core, Android itself was shit in the beginning. Gingerbread (G) was the first edition that won favour with buyers. Hardly any takers of android for its first six versions (A to F). Not even the techy nerds were buying Eclairs.
Around 20 years ago, iOS used to outclass everything by a big margin. Android, Nokia/Symbian, RIM, etc were closer to each other than to Apple. And now ...
As of 2024, fresh competition to android is needed.
Honestly windows phone was sabotaged by both 3rd party developers who refused to port their apps to the platform, despite how easy it became AND did things like kill their own APIs to stop other developers from developing ports themselves, as well as by Google by not allowing their services on the platform.
The hardware was honestly top notch, even compared to my current S21 ultra. They were fairly pro consumer, having removable batteries, SD card slots and a 3.5mm jack right up until the end, even after the other big manufacturers removed them. And after the major update (the WP 8.1 update iirc) the software was really nice, intutive and pretty. I miss arranging and resising tiles, I miss having my pictures or album artworks showing up on the homescreen and I still use the Microsoft launcher on android to get the app drawer like I had on my WP.
Windows Phone was mostly sabotaged by first-party developers. Microsoft has a history of abandoning their mobile phone OSes after very short periods of time and nobody trusted them not to do it again. As a result few app developers bought into the ecosystem and smartphone enthusiasts told their friends not to get Windows phones, causing modest sales, causing Microsoft to immediately drop the platform.
As everyone expected them to.
What launcher are you using currently? I have Launcher 10 but I'm always looking for a new WP10 styled one to use
Yes, it was a shame, and it only died mainly due to the lack of available apps in the store and bad management. MS took too long to release it with Android and iOS already well established in the market.. It was also the OS that resisted the longest in the Pwn2Own Hacking Contest in these years. While Android and iOS went down in less than a minute, before the hackers could access the data, on WindowsPhone they hit their teeth on a rock, after half an hour they could only access the cookies.
Microsoft fucked up in the smartphone market so many different ways. The misunderstood the UX paradigms that would work, refused to change when Apple had obviously stolen their lunch money, stayed the bad course they were on when Android stole Apple's lunch money and then didn't even notice it has slammed Microsoft into some lockers because that's how little windows phone mattered. By the time Microsoft did like... Actual good market research and focus testing to build an actual good mobile os (maximally ironically based on their Zune UX which had failed previously because Microsoft was infinitely too slow to the mobile audio market) it was exactly as you said. The perfect mobile OS just 5 years too late to matter. More than anything what they needed to do was prove the apps you actually needed were present on their store and pay OEMs money to make windows phones to establish market share to make up for having a lower count of apps. They failed to do so. Now their actually genuinely brilliant mobile os only exists as a series of android apps that no one really gives a shit about.
You can still get it with android launchers. Was toying with them the other day. Launcher 10 I believe is pretty close.
I actually use Launcher 10. I love it minus the weird glitch where the letter selector from the all apps list occasionally not working. Best Android Launcher around
I was always shocked how smooth windows phone was. This system had potential but well.
There's a few android launchers that emulate the metro ui. I use the Square Home one and I have no complaints.
I've got Launcher 10. It's my favorite of the WP10 likes I've seen and used. And I've used a ton lol
Looks pretty clean, and with a proper search in the app drawer. If I wasn't so lazy and set in my ways, I'd switch :)
Sorry about making a repeat post earlier, I hadn't seen the other posts that suggested using launchers. I think my sync might be a bit slow with syncing posts.
If I try it out and don't like it, will my Nova Launcher screen go back to how it is now, or will I need to set it all up again?
If you dive into Nova's settings, you should be able to make a backup of your setup. Should just be able to restore your backup. That said, I don't use Nova much to confirm but that should be how it works
Edit: Dur I'm dumb. If you don't uninstall Nova, you can just swap between launchers because they're just apps. No backup needed as long as Nova doesn't get uninstalled
Awesome! Thank you!
can't get an windows 10 emulator for android?
I use Launcher 10. Close enough to a Windows Phone
You can use launcher10 or any other launcher that looks like windows phone home screen.
That's the launcher I use. It's the best available from what I can find
Different people have different tastes. I use Trebuchet 8. But person I replied to was asking about Windown Phone experience on android.
What is Trebuchet 8? I didn't see it in the play store for my Galaxy Flip 4.
Best I can find is it's pre coupled with lineage is and you can extract it from the OS or some such but beyond that I'm lost
I don't remember where I found it, but it is LineageOS' launcher