

Ask HN: Is Windows Phone underestimated? - galfarragem

Hello, I&#x27;m planning to buy my first smart phone (yes, it&#x27;s true). Despite being a Windows user in my laptop (and IOS in my Ipad), I am not a &#x27;fanboy&#x27; of Microsoft - very far from that - but I think their phones are better than the market &#x27;says&#x27;. I was an early adopter of Chrome, as I saw a lot of potential in it, but they got their market share quite slow. I have the same &#x27;feeling&#x27; with windows phone. What is HN opinion?<p>Disclaimer: I don&#x27;t have any connection with Microsoft - It&#x27;s just genuine curiosity. I write this because every time I make more specific questions, I read in the comments that I&#x27;m paid to ask them, last one was about Meteor.
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dottrap
Hardware is decent. Better responsiveness on their lower end hardware than
Android on better, more expensive hardware. Still find iPhone tighter.

Development is not the pain/mess it is on Android. (See Android NDK for real
pain.) However, Microsoft makes it arbitrarily painful to develop because they
still refuse to support/conform APIs and protocols found on _every_ other
platform from desktop to mobile, such as OpenGL (ANGLE doesn't count) and
OpenAL for games, to Zeroconf (aka Bonjour on Apple platforms, but compatible
implementations are found everywhere but from Microsoft and WinRT). Their C
compiler still officially hasn't moved beyond C89 which is 2 standards out of
date and particularly important for a lot of cross-platform open source native
projects. (They've recently fixed it so they can at least compile Git, but
refuse to make an honest attempt to make their compiler compliant to C99/C11.)
And they arbitrarily broke compatibility with a lot of their Windows APIs
making sure they alienate both developers from other platforms as well as
those already in the Windows ecosystem.

Recent market analysis shows their marketshare is shrinking...around 2%
worldwide. (Because the number of iOS and Android increases, not because they
are losing customers.)

So just from marketshare numbers, I don't expect things to get substantially
better than Microsoft even though I think their phone may be better than the
Android counterparts. (Microsoft's culture is better suited for competing with
Google, but in their current position, their best features in the phone make
them compete with Apple which isn't going to end well if you remember their
history, like Zune.)

And because development for WinRT is painful enough, most developers aren't
going to bother for such a minor marketshare. (And monetization in the Windows
Store is not much better than Android in aggregate...which means it is bad.
Nowhere close to iOS.)

Android+iOS already gives developers what they are looking for. Android has
mass marketshare. iOS has monetization and the ability to make apps that 'wow'
people.

So if you want to buy a phone and just want the phone, go for it as it isn't
that bad of a phone. But don't expect the marketplace or ecosystem to go along
with you.

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Avalaxy
Yes, it's very much underestimated. The OS itself is very good. Very good
usability, very secure and has some awesome features (can't live without the
live tiles!). The hardware is really good as well.

In my opinion it's crazy that most developers still skip the platform. There's
really no excuse not to make your app cross platform nowadays, Xamarin has a
really good offering for example. At least in Europe WP has a market share of
10% where iOS has 18%, so they're not that far off! In the US the difference
is bigger though, but the world is larger than the US.

------
joshuaellinger
I've been using Windows Phones for a while after using iPhones for a while.
The (former) Nokia hardware are solid and the entry level devices are being
given away. Check out Cricket -- they are on the AT&T network but can't
advertise it.

My basic take is that, so long as you don't have a big interest in Apps, it is
a better device. It makes full use of the real estate and feels more like an
integrated platform than a collection of functions.

But the App situation is still a mess -- no one builds for it. If you have
anything you really want, check in advance.

~~~
galfarragem
> _It makes full use of the real estate and feels more like an integrated
> platform than a collection of functions._

I think you nailed it. These (and price) are the reasons that are making me
consider it: I like small phones but I want them to be easy to interact with
(large buttons).

> _But the App situation is still a mess -- no one builds for it._

I don't have interest in apps - for that I have an Ipad - I will use it almost
as an old mobile phone. Anyway Windows 10 might be a game changer on this.

