

Microsoft Needs to Get Coherent for Windows Phone to Survive - peteratt
https://medium.com/editors-picks/9b574be11d16

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bhauer
Your second point is right on the money. Failure to integrate with my Windows
household is my chief complaint [1] with my Windows Phone (a Nokia Lumia 920).

You cite USB ports, but I think that's going after the wrong kind of
integration. Here's what bothers me most: my Windows Phone doesn't just
seamlessly join my Windows "HomeGroup" network, and it should. Doing so would
be a killer app in my household. All Microsoft devices should adopt a
HomeGroup (or an evolution thereof) model, where sharing of resources is
expected.

When I take a photo around the house, it should not only be automatically
uploaded to Skydrive as it is now. Since the phone is on my wifi network, the
photo should be immediately dropped onto my file server's Photos library.

When I fire up the music application, it should (a) be able to play anything
from my file server's music library, and (b) act as a DLNA remote to my
various PCs, including the one in the living room hooked to the big speakers.

It should be comfortable joining other "HomeGroups" or similar ad hoc private
networks. If I am out and about with my Windows Phone 8 and Surface Pro--and I
am usually carrying both--the two should play well together--over an encrypted
private channel--whenever they are both on the same wifi network. If I receive
a Skype message, I should _not_ have to dismiss it on both devices; they
should each know I've been notified. (This last bit speaks a bit to my desire
for "personal application omnipresence"\--a model where applications run
single instances with multiple responsive views, all exclusively for me [2].)

Integration remains the most lacking and frustrating element of multi-device
lifestyles, and it's not a problem exclusive to Microsoft, but it's one that I
specifically want Microsoft to address.

[1] [http://tiamat.tsotech.com/lumia-920](http://tiamat.tsotech.com/lumia-920)

[2] [http://tiamat.tsotech.com/pao](http://tiamat.tsotech.com/pao)

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peteratt
It's really odd that Nokia is the _main_ promoter of Windows Phone. There's no
other option for them, so as there's no other option for Microsoft. Get your
act together, Redmond people, or you will become the next IBM in 10 years.

