[pavlov]

I was a fan of the original Windows Phone 7 and since then used WP for years (until work requirements caused me to switch mostly to other platforms).

I've been trying the Windows 10 betas on a fairly high-end Lumia (1520), and I just can't understand what Microsoft is doing. The entire system has apparently been rewritten using the "Universal" APIs (the same thing as Windows RT/10 basically).

That must have sounded great on paper, but the reality is baffling. Everything that was working great in WP8 has been replaced with half-assed implementations that feel more like second-rate Android OEM apps.

Worse, there don't seem to be any new features in Windows 10 Mobile that could offset the pain of the UI downgrade... Except that weird new mode where you can connect your phone to a keyboard, mouse and display and use Windows Universal apps that way. Is there a single Windows Phone user that asked for that?!

I loved Windows Phone 7 because it was a holistically designed system that made perfect sense on a phone. All that seems to be gone in Windows 10 Mobile, replaced by Microsoft's traditional "Windows everywhere!" platform strategy bloopers.

[pavedwalden]

>>Is there a single Windows Phone user that asked for that?!

This guy! https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9851687

[xorcist]

WP8 was also a rewrite, for exactly the same reasons. It wasn't great, but if it was kept stable for long enough then maybe partners would eventually come back to build that ecosystem.

I guess the reason for this constant rewrite-itis is that Microsoft is still really, really strong on the corporate desktop side, and they desperately need some way to leverage that on mobile. Otherwise they are just too far behind to avoid being yet another OEM.

As you said, it probably looked good on paper. They do have deep pockets however, and probably afford both one and two more rewrites and still compete. They've done it before.

[dspillett]

> Is there a single Windows Phone user that asked for that?!

Sounds like a wonderful feature to me.

One of the things that annoys me about Windows Phone currently is that it won't play with bluetooth keyboards (like the android phone I use as my backup device does). Sometimes when travelling it is useful to be able to rattle off some messages longer than are convenient to write with the on-screen keyboard without needing to have my tablet or laptop with me (OK so I need to be carrying the little bluetooth keyboard with me, but that takes less room when folded away than the laptop or tablet).

Using it as a mini PC is going further, but in a way that I might also find useful. Hopefully in going further they have not neglected the simpler use case on their way past though...

[anonymfus]

Bluetooth keyboards are supported since 8.1 Update 2.

[dspillett]

That I'd not picked up on, thanks for the heads-up. I'll give it a try next time I have some "fiddle time" going spare.

[joshuapants]

> I've been trying the Windows 10 betas on a fairly high-end Lumia (1520), and I just can't understand what Microsoft is doing. The entire system has apparently been rewritten using the "Universal" APIs (the same thing as Windows RT/10 basically).

It's worth noting that Windows Phone 10 (or whatever the current name is) is not being released alongside desktop Windows 10. It'll be released at least a few months later, so I would expect a lot more polish and cohesiveness moving forward.

[josh2600]

The simple problem at Microsoft and at most large organizations is that stock options and bonuses are paid out for new features, not fixing existing bugs.

[luuio]

Source?

[keithnoizu]

Annual Commitments. There are tons of half complete projects and tooling pieces that are finished enough to check off the annual commitment objective. I constantly got nagged for tweaking and improving a backend system shim layer for transporting test data between systems instead of adding new check mark mission complete items to my list.

I'm not sure what it like under the current review system but I very much perceived this to be an issue when I was there. I'd even seen large top level objectives altered purely because it was too far along in the year when they were proposed and making those changes would have impacted another groups ability to make their commitments. Some groups in microsoft are great but there are some systemic problems over there.

[s73v3r]

One of the big promises of Windows Phone was that you'd be able to use the same apps as on your desktop, so in a way, yeah, they kinda did.

[rsync]

"I've been trying the Windows 10 betas on a fairly high-end Lumia (1520)"

Do I read this to mean that older WP phones that ran WP7, etc., can then be reloaded by the end user to use other WP OSs, such as WP10 ?

That seems surprising to me for some reason. Did you have to root it, or the equivalent of rooting ?

What else could you load on a phone like this ?

[pavlov]

This is the only part of Windows 10 Mobile that Microsoft is doing right. Practically all Windows Phone 8 devices -- even the 89 euro ultra-cheapies like Lumia 520 -- can be upgraded to 10 without rooting or any other special tricks.

Currently it requires you to install a "Windows Insider" app, but the final version will presumably be available as a regular OTA upgrade just like 8.x updates.

[paulsnar]

You can't on WP7 or older devices because of kernel incompatibilities. But pretty much everything that can run WP8 can be upgraded to the official WP10 beta through OTA.

[VOYD]

I asked for that.

[pavlov]

What's the use case? Where do you have a display, keyboard and mouse but no computer attached and no laptop at hand?

I never have this problem where I'd want to blow up my phone onto a bigger screen (with full mouse-based editing capabilities). But I guess it might be more common than I imagine.

[DanBC]

When I look at what I was doing with a computer in 1993, and what I mostly want to do with a computer today, it should be really easy to do with a phone.

It's kind of weird to me that my phone is so massively powerful but gets used only for a bit of web-browsing and light game playing.

It doesn't feel like a 21st century solution.

[pavlov]

But does that mean you should do everything on your phone?

The 1993 computer probably cost at least 2000 USD. Today, you can get a phone, a laptop, a desktop computer, a tablet and a smartwatch for less than that. That's five devices with different form factors!

Is there really a group of users whose single device is a phone and they want to connect that to PC-style peripherals?