[shangaslammi]

Yes, but the effect of ecosystem lock-down is huge compared to 5-6 years ago. It's not about who makes the best phones or phone-OS anymore. People are invested in their respective app ecosystems and all their photos, contacts, documents etc. are in Apple's or Google's cloud.

I'm not saying that Microsoft doesn't have a chance at all but I think the odds are against Windows phones ever reaching a significant market share no matter how much capital and R&D they stack behind it.

[harrytuttle]

I don't agree. Most of the general users I know forget their email password every time they fuck up their phone and just buy all the apps again.

This is the norm. The only thing people give a shit about is their data (and that is usually when it's way to late and they're about to lose it), not the apps.

[joshstrange]

Who in their right mind would do something like this? Even the most technologically illiterate person I know understands how their Apple ID/Google Account works and that their purchases are tied to it. As for forgetting one's password, this is why just about every login form on the internet has a "Forgot Password" link/button.

This is NOT the norm.

[eitally]

I disagree. My wife doesn't use the Apple appstore, at all. If she wants or needs an app (or if I think she does and endeavor to put it on her phone), I have to do it myself. I never remember her Apple ID password, even though I set it. I am certain she doesn't know it, either.

[Alphasite_]

No it's not. People may forget, but they don't rebuy things repeatadly.

[hobs]

Hi there, as a former phone support/trainer for apple support, people definitely buy things repeatedly!

I had one customer who thought each phone was effectively a burner, and he threw them out when he got a new one. He also made sure the apple store activated his phone (before all went that way) as he thought it was useless to have a computer with the phone (because why was he buying the phone then?).

This story and many like it popped up again and again until I realized that the majority of users are completely ignorant of even the smallest details of how the device or its internals work, its is mostly a fashion statement.

[mikeash]

Surely the Apple Store would set up the new phone with his existing Apple ID, though? Even if they didn't, most people only have one e-mail address (that they know of?) and so will be forced into using the same account again whether they like it or not.

[hobs]

Just like the commenter at the same level, many times the customer would not bring in their previous phone and have little to no idea about what their email address even was.

The apple store will definitely attempt to gather that info, but at some point it is new account and have a great day!

[jacalata]

You can create a new email address in the setup wizard. I know of people who set it up there and literally don't understand what they did, and don't attempt to remember it.

[fnordfnordfnord]

Somebody gave one of my students a fairly (< 1yr old) new laptop the other day because they got it loaded up with viruses, (virii?) There is a market segment with more money than brains, it is large.

[singlow]

Word is from Latin - Latin plural is viri. The double i would only occur if the stem already ends in i, such as radius: radi- + -us.

http://lysy2.archives.nd.edu/cgi-bin/WORDS.EXE?virus

In English the plural is viruses.

[itsameta4]

In Latin, "virus" is a mass noun, like "stuff", "water", or "poison", its original meaning. There is no attested plural. Being of originally Greek origin doesn't help matters.

In English, there's never a reason to use anything other than "viruses".

[lloeki]

> Latin plural is viri

Actually, virus is a "mass noun" (uncountable) and has no plural. If it ever had a nominative plural it would be vira, and out of anything, viri is its genitive singular.

[dragonwriter]

> Word is from Latin - Latin plural is viri.

No, that's the Latin plural of vir; viri means "men" not "poisons" ("virus" means "poison" in Latin.) [1]

http://www.google.com/#q=translate+viri+from+latin+to+englis...

[singlow]

Oops. I mistook the genitive listing in Whitaker for a plural.

[bad_user]

I don't see how (a) one example of stupidity is representative for the populace at large and (b) how this particular example is relevant at all.

If one person is ignorant in one domain, that doesn't mean that person doesn't excel in another domain. Stupidity is relative.

E.g. my father can't use a computer and thinks his computer is broken whenever he has minor problems with it. On the other hand he has a perfect track record in managing government institutions and the family's business and he's also extremely good at handling money and being a cheap bastard. He never learned to use a computer simply because he can delegate such tasks to his subordinates (or me).

And yet you've placed him in the bucket of people with more money than brains, simply because somebody on this planet sold his computer because it was virused.

[slurry]

Viruses.

[NZ_Matt]

People spend hundreds of dollars on DVDs and Books that they only use one time, apps probably fall in a similar category for a lot of consumers.

[andrewfong]

Six years ago, most smartphone users were heavily invested in their Windows Mobile or Symbian app ecosystems, or in Blackberry's messaging ecosystem.

That said, to pull off an iPhone- and Android-style upset though, Microsoft would need a correspondingly huge difference in user experience though. The UI on Windows Phone is nifty, but it's not enough of a game changer for most people. It'd really have to be something like successful execution of wearable computing or the convergence described here: http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/08/want-t...

[GFischer]

The user experience is significantly worse for some cases, where Microsoft could have grabbed market share (though I don't know if it would have been worth it strategically).

I've posted several times about the awful experience:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6012362

I had some very ugly experiences setting up one for my cousin (I stupidly didn't lie and registered her as being from Uruguay and under 18), which made the phone behave like a brick ("sorry, no apps available in your country", "sorry, you have to be over 18 under laws from another country to use most of the features of this phone").

Changing the Live account did not work, I had to reset the phone and create another account for her, lying about her age and country so the phone could work properly (she wanted to use Skype and WhatsApp, not exactly the most demanding use case).

[discodave]

Except in the six years ago case 'most smartphone users' was a much smaller part of the entire phone market.

Even blackberry's didn't have nearly as high a share as iOS or Android.

[300bps]

IPhone 3G, iPhone 4, iPhone 4S, Lumia 928. Those are my last four smart phones.

I didn't feel locked in at all to the "app ecosystem". Honestly web and email were paramount and everything else is secondary. At some point in the future I believe native apps will be passe in favor of a complete move to web applications making the underlying platform completely personal preference.

...oh.and at one time I was locked into my Palm Pilot. After that my Blackberry. Tell Apple to look at Palm or RIM if they want to know how long being the popular phone on the market lasts.

[matwood]

Not just the phone market, but any consumer market. Consumers are fickle and can love something one day and hate it the next.

[lttlrck]

Why did you switch if web and email are paramount? I am genuinely interested.

[300bps]

Because Windows Phone does web and email better than iPhone.

The primary way it is better is that the screen is so much bigger. This is easy to dismiss, but it makes a ton of UI hacks done for the iPhone needless. For example, the fact that the address bar isn't on the screen all the time is a hack to compensate for the small screen. Then that leads to a need for the hack where you click the top of the screen in the browser to rapidly scroll to the top. Sometimes that's a nice feature, but only if your screen is so small that they can't always display the address bar unless you've scrolled all the way to the top. Sometimes it's the most annoying thing in the world - like when you've scrolled past 7 pages of information reading in the browser and then accidentally click the rapid scroll-up button. There is no rapid scroll-down button to undo that.

My wife has an iPhone 5 and honestly it feels like a tiny little toy when I use it. The screen is ridiculously small.

Now for the other nice things... I can copy music to it without the iTunes bloatware. I plug my phone in, something pops up and then I just copy music to it. With Windows Phone, I have two copies of my music - my computer and my phone. With iPhone I had three copies - what was on my computer, what was on my phone and what the iTunes library. Keeping three things in sync was a massive pain.

The integration to Skydrive is much better than iCloud as well. My Lumia 928 has 32 GB of storage but with SkyDrive I get an additional 125 GB (of which 25 GB was free). I can seamlessly access pictures, video and music right from it as long as I have a signal.

The Nokia maps are the best maps application I ever used. Much better than either Google Maps or Apple Maps. Speaking of signal - the maps application have online and offline capabilities. So if I have no signal whatsoever there is a local copy of map data on my phone so I can still get directions.

I have three young kids and my Windows Phone has a KidZone. I put certain apps in there and then put it into the KidZone mode and my kids are locked into those apps unless they type my password. No more deleting icons accidentally, no more sending emails on my behalf accidentally, no more doing anything I don't want them to do like they did constantly with my iPhone.

This is long enough - the bottom line is that Windows Phone is superior in every way that matters to me to any iPhone I ever owned.

[loxs]

Well, Android has all of this, and then some more. Except maybe for the Nokia Maps. Haven't used it and can't say, but Google Maps on Android is FAR better than the iOS counterpart. So why Windows Phone and not Android?

[300bps]

Android and Windows Phone are both far superior to iPhone at this point. Between those two it comes down to personal preference. Windows Phone seems much more polished to me than Android. But I would be happy with a Galaxy S4. The only non-contender in my mind at this point is the iPhone. It has nothing going for it in comparison to the competition.

I have a Jelly Bean tablet with a 10.1" screen that I use every day and am happy with it.

[drbawb]

> The screen is ridiculously small.

To which I'd say the screens on WP8 and Android flagships are ridiculously large and poorly calibrated.

I feel as though I'm in the minority: but it pains me to use anything larger than an iPhone 4S. (The iPhone 5 included, sadly.)

I'd love to leave the iOS ecosystem, as I agree with your other criticisms. I long for the days where I can use foobar2k to manage my portable media player again -- but there's _no where for me to go._

The iPhone isn't a "little toy" to me, it's the only flagship phone I can use comfortably.

I feel left behind, as if I'm some sort of refugee from the display wars. -- Who will cater to me? Sony seems to be on the right track. At least their giant-Xperia has finally relocated the controls to be a bit more ergonomic.