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Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella admits giving up on Windows Phone and mobile was a mistake
(www.theverge.com)
this post was submitted on 24 Oct 2023
603 points (96.6% liked)
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name a few. please.
I'm open to being wrong but you need to provide evidence to sway me, because I've used windows phones and developed for them when they were desperate to get games in their app store and it was wretched early on. like comically bad. so whatever firmed up over the years, please, enlighten me, I'm genuinely curious where they were years ahead.
Fuck man I loved windows phone like the guy you're commenting too, and I agree with him. I could have commented and told you all the features I liked that were ahead of its time, about 8 years ago, but ... It's been so long I can't remember shit anymore! Hahaha
Edit: the Camara was fucking awesome. Physical Camara button was pretty dope too, never caught on with other phones so who knows if I'm alone in saying that
Google Nexus (and now Pixel) has always allowed you to double tap the power button to open the camera, and then use the volume buttons to take the photo. Or you can use the volume buttons to zoom in and out.
Isn't this the same? Dedicated buttons that launch the camera and take photos?
Similar but slightly inferior UX. No double-tapping, just a full press (I think) then you can half-press the camera key just like a normal camera to focus, then fully-press to capture. Small, but something I miss, like how if I switch to Android (save for some models) I’ll miss the Palm/iPhone ringer switch - but holding volume down is also something Android-y I miss.
Samsung Galaxy phones are the same way, honestly I think you can even set up an iPhone to do that. It's not the same ... The lower was on the bottom right side of the phone, and was in a perfect position to hold your phone like a camera and snap a picture.
physical cam controls would be pimpin.
It missed custom apps but all the default phone apps were really great. The "people" app already had everything the android's "contacts" app implemented in subsequent years (everything it has today) and also integrated with social networks so if you accessed a contact you could see all their posts from every social media in a custom timeline.
The "me" app also integrated all your social media notifications into one app, allowing you to post to all of them from the same place, see replies and that sort of stuff.
I don't remember what it was, but the "mail" app had a feature that was my favorite thing in the whole WP7, but by the time WP8 came out Google had already managed to make it not wok with Gmail.
Calendar, Camera, even the keyboard. All those default apps were filled with amazing little things. Many of which we STILL don't have in android today.
In third world countries the difference was even bigger. The keyboard suggested local words and names of local places (no system does that these days), the Nokia maps were far more reliable than Google's (my town had been split in half by a new train line and Google maps messed up their data with that, as some streets that used to cross the whole town now had multiple unconnected segments - if you tried to follow Google directions to a McDonald's in one of those segments, it would send you into a slum in another segment).
Plus, the whole UI was cool and the flipping tiles were quite useful.
this was a response worth reading. TY for the deets.
Dark mode and live widgets.
Edit to add: https://www.howtogeek.com/809114/5-ways-windows-phone-was-ahead-of-its-time/