MS threw in the towel unfortunately. Now we are stuck with Apple and trash. People desperately cling onto this false ideology that Android is good and Apple is bad when they are at fault for ignoring Windows Phone which was better with their excuses that “I need thousands is fart apps or I can’t use windows phone”
The "developers developers developers developers" company did an incompatible rewrite of their API what, 4x over? At one point even Osborneing themselves, announcing the new incompatible version of Windows Phone just before putting out the first devices that used the current version. You can only screw over your app makers so many times; sure you may not need thousands of apps, but Windows Phone didn't have YouTube, didn't have WhatsApp; at some point it's just untenable.
MS created a YouTube app. Google got upset cos it wasn’t compliant. MS removed the app temporarily and re-released it in the months later when it was compliant with Google, including new features that lacked in the older version.
The app existed for most of windows phone life. It didn’t get cut off. It was removed from the store for several months while MS fixed it. Anyone who had the app still had it.
I’m surprised Microsoft isn’t making a second go for a phone actually. With all of their WSL work, they could release a Linux / Windows phone and say this is like the original PC, but also a phone, install what you want on it, and also it integrates seamlessly with Azure for power users that want to program on their phone, and also integrates with AD for Microsoft enterprises focused on securing their corporate devices, not to mention the Office Apps and so on. They could even partner with Valve and release the Steam store on their phone, it could be similar to the Steam Deck, but a phone also… Not to mention the possible integrations with ChatGPT as a voice assistant and all of the benefits that come with that.
TLDR; the phone market is ripe to be disrupted and Microsoft is the best positioned to do so.
I'm typing this on my Microsoft Surface Duo 2. It's the best phone I've ever had for actual work. It's not all your describing, but the fact you don't know about it goes to show how far behind Microsoft is at marketing their tech.
You can plug all that stuff into iPhone and Android phones too, but very few people are excited about it. Samsung even made a laptop shaped accessory for their phones, I can’t find it but this company is making something similar: https://nexdock.com/samsung-dex-laptop/
I don’t think the power rangers transforming phone product is a good product for most people. If you asked me to choose between a regular M3 MacBook Pro and a full DeX phone based docking setup built around a top-line smartphone, I’m going to pick the MacBook’s 4x more RAM, 3x bigger CPU, 6x bigger GPU, and much better thermal dissipation. Why settle for a much less powerful device that is fiddly and annoying to “set up” for real work?
I also have a Steam Deck and the only thing I’ve ever plugged it into is a power adapter. If I was gonna plug it into a monitor, I’d use my vastly more powerful desktop PC instead.
> when they are at fault for ignoring Windows Phone which was better
Hell no it wasn't. The UI/UX was a complete unmitigated disaster, the choice of device models was ... very limited, and barely anyone made apps for it, much less games, with Microsoft not doing nearly enough to woo developers over.
Apple and Android, in contrast, had a decent UI/UX, healthy app stores, and Android a wide ranging hardware selection from "too bad to put it in a bargain bin" to "holy smokes people actually spend that much money on a phone that's not Apple?".
The UX was superior to Android and iOS. All the main apps were available. But people couldn’t live without their fart apps and all the junk in Android store.
Main issue was MS couldn’t release flagship phones world wide. Their flagship phone showed up in Asia 13 months after release. No one is going to wait year to get a flagship outdated phone.
