[kedikedi]

Very interesting article to read after 15 years and it seems to have aged like milk so to speak :) I think the main thing is that the author approaches the problem very logically (just comparing features) yet the users don't follow their logic. While I agree that windows mobile 8 was brilliant*, smartphone domain suffers horribly from network effect. Windows phone came too late into the game and couldn't move quick enough. Only a few of the cool things were available even at its peak. Then it unfortunately died out.

I missed out on windows mobile 7 which is the one this article mentions but I used windows mobile 6 and windows phone 8. Windows phone 8 was heavily inspired by windows mobile 7 aesthetics so I think they are comparable in ux.

[crop_rotation]

Unlike enterprise products, consumer market values products with minimal features, and the simplest things tend to win in the long run in any industry. Having more features in the consumer market on it's own mostly never is a winning strategy. A lot of the products that I really liked which were featureful lost to simpler products. Talking to my non tech savvy friends I got to know that they vastly preferred products with minimal features. They just don't want to see more options and have better things to do with their time.

[toast0]

> I missed out on windows mobile 7 which is the one this article mentions but I used windows mobile 6 and windows phone 8. Windows phone 8 was heavily inspired by windows mobile 7 aesthetics so I think they are comparable in ux.

UX wise, 8 was a lot like 7. 8 added a few UX features, but the big differences were tecnical: NT kernel vs wince, which allowed for dual and quad core phones, which made background execution better, although it was highly restricted by policy; a new application framework for better or worse (a staple of the windows phone era), etc.

I'll leave out the rant about what Microsoft did wrong with the platform. I will note though, that the fact is iPhone only dominates the market in a handful of countries; Android dominates worldwide, but clearly Apple is fine with the status quo, because they haven't tried to approach the low cost market at all.

[xoa]

>because they haven't tried to approach the low cost market at all.

There's a reasonable argument to be made (and that has recently been getting some discussion, could swear there was a big HN thread on it but can't find the right search terms) that actually in a sneaky way this isn't quite true. Yes, for brand new devices Apple has maintained a high MSRP. But the current iOS also supports phones going back 6 years now, and iOS 15 is still getting security updates (last one less than a month ago [0]), pushing support all the way back to the iPhone 6S from 2015. And the rate of phone improvements has been steadily flattening, same as in standard computers before it. As a result, the "low cost market" arguably is getting addressed to some degree by robust support for high end but now older iPhones. An entry iPhone 11 can be had for around $250 or less, SE 2nd gen even lower. That's still a solid device, is still 2 gens newer than the last fully supported iPhone, and 4 gens newer than currently security supported. And Apple can still make some revenue on these via app sales and services.

If this is a conscious strategy it seems like a very good answer to the conundrum of what they do as updates become less utterly compelling and more and more people stretch out lifetimes. They can focus on producing mid to high end top tier devices, which brings better economies of scale, logistics, etc, but then by supporting them well those same devices will still be competitive with new low end devices a few years later.

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0: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT213673

[charrondev]

> a new application framework for better or worse (a staple of the windows phone era)

Not just of the windows phone era, but also of the windows 8+ Era as well. Microsoft has been through so many new application frameworks at this point. It definitely hurt them a lot on Windows Phone though as application compatibility was the biggest miss. They failed to convince developers to come to their platform.

IIRC correctly they even had monetary incentives for developers to come to the platform and some of the applications that were developed died due to the framework changes (and a lack of developer will to invest further into a comparably small user base).

This is pretty well seen on Windows desktop today as well. Many of the most popular windows applications are now embedded browser engines like Electron. Even if developers were willing to eschew cross-platform compatibility which windows UI toolkit should they bet on? Which will be easiest to hire for in 5-10 years?

[garaetjjte]

WP7 limitations were almost entirely by policy: no native code, no background execution, lack of any shared filesystem for apps. (also WinCE SMP did exist)