
Bill Gates switches to Android phone - abalog
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-41399823
======
qubex
The total failure of Windows Phone to gain acceptance in the market is a huge
pity. I have a Lumina 950 as a secondary device (for loading with a local SIM
while abroad) and it’s a solid performer with a polished OS, refreshingly
’different’ UI, and excellent basics (build quality, call quality, and battery
life). The basic, core apps I ’need’ in this role are available (WhatsApp,
Facebook/Messenger, Twitter, _& cetera_) and it hotspots very dependably
towards my myriad Apple devices (iPhone7+, iPadPro10.5, 11” MacBook). It even
has some very fascinating features not seen elsewhere (I have a dedicated dock
for using certain apps with an external screen, keyboard and mouse, whose name
escapes me at the moment).

I really wished they had managed to gain a foothold, because as a platform it
really lacks nothing (excepting an app developer base, and actual producers of
handsets).

~~~
jasonmaydie
Every major version was a new os. Their phone strategy was terrible and lacked
commitment. It didn't help that it was started by one CEO and abandoned midway
through by the next CEO.

~~~
gruturo
It failed repeatedly under one CEO, until the next CEO put it out of its
misery.

Ironically, by the time it was terminated it had developed into a very valid
product indeed. Shame - Apple and Android definitely need more competition
from someone with actual resources (sorry to the Sailfish, Firefox OS, Ubuntu
Phone, etc etc).

~~~
ThrowawayR2
> _It failed repeatedly under one CEO, until the next CEO put it out of its
> misery._

The person who was the head of the Windows Phone group while it failed
repeatedly under the first CEO was promoted and put in charge of the entire
Windows division by the next CEO.

Something to contemplate.

------
Divver
Before I joined Apple I was at Microsoft and I did use a Windows Phone. It was
a Lumia 1520.

And honestly the OS was rock solid and worked great (unlike my experience with
the Lenovo Windows work laptop I was given which would keep blue-screening
after going into hibernate for more than 5 minutes. I ended up switching to a
SurfaceBook once that was available and it worked perfectly. Amazing laptop.
Like a MacBook Pro. Except without Bash which sucked so you had to learn
PowerShell to script things (well until recently now I think there’s Bash on
Windows using some kind of emulation trick I guess))

Windows Phone was a solid system with a decent easy to use UI it is kind of a
pity it didn’t take off.

But because the app ecoosysem was so poor after about 6 months I switched to a
Samsung Android phone (there was no Google Pixel at the time), which had worse
battery life but it performed fine.

I use an iPhone now and the biggest thing I miss is the lack of certain
categories of apps that I could find on Android or Windows that I couldn’t
find in the iOS App Store.

And the feature set of iOS usually lags behind Android but after using it for
over a year now it’s really not that bad and I really like the cross-OS
integration features with macOS, tvOS, and watchOS.

Universal copy paste is a killer feature imo.

To be honest I’m happy with both Android and iOS. They both have the same set
of popular third party US apps in their App Stores.

~~~
jobu
> _Windows Phone was a solid system with a decent easy to use UI it is kind of
> a pity it didn’t take off._

Agreed. We developed a couple apps way back in Windows Phone 7, and the UI was
slick and stylish. The developer tools were fantastic - very fast and easy to
create decent apps. Unfortunately we didn't see much ROI for those apps, and
then Microsoft decided everyone needed to redo their apps for Windows Phone 8.
It was an easy choice to drop support for those apps and stop all development
for Windows Phone at that point. The biggest problem people had with Windows
Phone was the lack of apps, and it seemed like MS caused that problem
themselves.

~~~
mobilio
Yup!

But they do this with version 6.5 then "rewrote apps" for 7, and then "rewrite
apps" for 8 and now for 10.

It's easy to understand why devs are pissed-off from that decisions.

PS: I forgot fiasco with 7.5 and upgrade to 7.9 and 8.0

~~~
kettlecorn
8 -> 8.1 was also a similar transition.

There was a period where targeting the 8.0 APIs meant you had access to one
set of features and targeting the 8.1 set of APIs meant you were missing
certain features but gaining others. The constant rewrites was a nightmare
from the developer perspective and prevented any traction being gained.

The story of Windows Phone is full of similar bone-headed decisions in which
Microsoft continuously pisses off people trying to love it.

It's been a while but here are a few things that stand out to me as being
particurarly bad:

Many Windows Phone users came from Zune, so they were super into music. The
Windows Phone 7 -> 8 transition made the music app into a horrifically bad
experience missing so many features it was laughably bad compared to other
platforms.

The flagship for a period of time was the Lumia 1020. Nokia wrote all sorts of
interesting applications for it that were later unsupported or removed when
Microsoft acquired Nokia.

Microsoft shipped no flagship for a really long period of time (other than the
flop of the Lumia Icon available only on Verizon) and so the "super fans" had
the choice of sticking with their Lumia 1020 or 'upgrading' to a cheaper build
quality and worse camera Windows Phone that had better specs. Eventually when
Windows 10 for phone rolled around they promised 1020 users that Windows 10
would support their phones, but eventually they gave in and announced they
couldn't make it work. At that point there wasn't a fantastic successor to the
1020 from the camera perspective, so many users just left.

For a period of time the Lumia 520 was the best low cost ($50 - $100!)
smartphone on the market. People actually really liked it, but once again it
was unsupported when it came time to upgrade to Windows 10. This meant that a
large portion of the Windows Phone install base was fragmented. Microsoft
decided they didn't want to win the low-end, they wanted to win the high end
(high m argin!) so they stopped making cheap phones like the 520.

I think Microsoft's problem is they continuously changed strategies all the
time when they weren't seeing returns. They wanted Windows Phone to be
"Microsoft scale" instantly. It seems they felt that as one of the world's
largest software companies they should be instantly successful and if they
were not then it was better to refocus their efforts elsewhere they could make
more money. When they didn't see instant sucesss with Windows Phone there
would be a leadership and strategy change resulting in whip-lash for users and
developers.

I really think they had to take the under dog approach and make a few users
love them, then a few more, then a few more. At the time there would have been
a class of users for whom the benefits of the platform would outweigh getting
the trendiest apps. Microsoft had enormous opportunity: Android phones were
unusably poor on low end phones, iPhones were really expensive and more
restrictive. The "app gap" to me really seemed like putting the cart before
the horse. Even a company as large as Microsoft can't brute force a grass
roots sort of thing like an app development community. The "app gap" is used
by many to excuse Microsoft's failure to not develop a competitive platform.
From my perspective Microsoft's desire to have instant success, to make a
device for everyone, meant they made a platform that ultimately failed.

The crazy thing is they still haven't pronounced it dead yet. Perhaps they
have a final hail mary device they're going to try, or perhaps some lingering
arrogance means Microsoft would rather leave Windows Phone on life support
then declare it dead.

~~~
pjmlp
Fully agree with your point of view.

For a while WP devices actually had more market share than iPhone on some
European countries, because they were the only affordable alternative to
Android.

With all these missteps they managed to drive both the consumers that enjoyed
WP, and Windows developers that had fun coding apps for it.

I have this gut feeling that since Windows 10 tablets and hybrids are actually
more successful than Android based ones, they would like to try a "mini-
tablet" that can make phone calls.

But they burned us so many times, that most likely it will be UWP apps that
happen to run on such "mini-tablet" by accident, than being made explicitly
for it.

------
dep_b
Windows Phone 8 was probably one of the best OS's Microsoft ever did. It was
fast on cheap hardware and the UI actually had just one idea instead of
several layers of cruft of generations of unfinished new ideas. It was more
open than iOS where it counted and more closed than Android where it mattered.

So naturally it failed.

~~~
nwah1
Windows 10 Mobile is better. Developers can use the same XAML + C# toolchain
for universal apps, but easily deploy to desktops as well. The Edge browser is
much better. It is fast, and shares the same kernel as regular Windows, as
well as Xbox.

The upcoming mobile version will have something called CShell which means that
the interface will be shared among desktop and mobile, meaning that there will
be no differences aside from x86 support.

~~~
201709User
Are we supposed to buy legacy/obscure devices to get it though? They lied
about upgrading my 920 very blatantly.

~~~
Dolores12
If you are talking about Windows 10 mobile on lumia 920 you can upgrade it by
installing their app called Upgrade Advisor[0] in windows store.

[0] [https://support.microsoft.com/en-
us/help/13778](https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/13778)

~~~
201709User
It doesn't work. Why would you waste my time like that? Have you tried it like
I just did? Have you seen the comments there?

------
spinchange
At one point, Microsoft was reported to be earning somewhere in the
neighborhood of $2B per year in revenues from IP licensing agreements with
Android ODMs. I think that's largely fallen away now, but it's not as if
Microsoft didn't get a pound of flesh from this platform, commercially.

[http://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-earns-2-billion-
per...](http://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-earns-2-billion-per-year-
from-android-patent-royalties-2013-11)

------
mattnewport
I recently switched back to Windows Phone after several years on Android and
I'm liking it a lot so far. I switched from a Samsung Galaxy S6 to an HP Elite
x3. The app ecosystem is lacking but I have the apps I really need (Slack for
work, WhatsApp and Telegram for messaging, LastPass) plus several nice to have
apps. I find I don't want a lot of apps any more and would rather use the
browser or cut them out completely.

------
netsec_burn
Long story short: Developers, developers, developers, developers. The same
reason why people won't switch from Windows to Linux is why people won't
switch from Android to Windows Phone.

~~~
MBCook
It’s not only developers (although that was a HUGE Robles and also one of the
big two problems with WebOS).

Every time they made a huge change in the OS (for the better) basically none
of the existing phones go it. So every time they updated they were basically
throwing away the previous platform. If apps weren’t compatible (I don’t know)
they may have been resetting that as well.

Combined with how late they were to the party that was just a death sentence.

------
bmsleight_
Wow, I guess 10 years ago - if I said Mr Gates would be walking around with a
Linux device as his most often used 'computer' \- no one would have believed
me.

What next ?

~~~
drzaiusapelord
Its not like he had much choice. Adopting Apple, his historic competitor,
would have been too much of an ego bruising for him. Linux is more neutral to
MS anyway. MS never had a lock on the server market that linux is successful
in. The home computer front has always been under attack by Apple with varying
results. Especially today where owning an Apple computer isn't just for
'designers.' Pretty much every college student has one.

~~~
pjmlp
> MS never had a lock on the server market that linux is successful in.

Only because Linux happened, businesses were happily moving from proprietary
UNIXes into Windows NT and 2000.

~~~
drzaiusapelord
Linux ate proprietary Unix, not Windows. Windows "servers" domination as
listed by garner and others were tiny office NT4 domains back then, not
internet facing websites and such. The web never really got dominated by MS
and Unix and Linux always strangled MS in the cradle. Even stats by netcraft
are misleading. Sure you'll see a lot of small business IIS crap and Exchange
OWA, but that's no the web in general. The web has always been dominated by
linux/Unix.

------
louprado
This story was originally reported the same day Apple announced that it would
no longer use Bing.[1]. Gates' sudden affection for Android feels like a
transparent way to snub Apple in retaliation and nothing more.

[1] [https://www.theverge.com/2017/9/25/16361628/apple-siri-
bing-...](https://www.theverge.com/2017/9/25/16361628/apple-siri-bing-google-
search-results-spotlight-mac)

~~~
misingnoglic
Apple started using Google, so Bill Gates got back at them by also using
Google?

------
nsxwolf
I always liked Windows Phone. It was a truly unique and refreshing alternative
to iOS, not the carbon copy that Android is.

------
miguelrochefort
Windows Phone was the best thing since webOS. The developer experience was
(and still is) a lot better than for iOS or Android. I'm sure it will
eventually come back.

~~~
MBCook
I don’t know how it could. It doesn’t matter how nice it is the app ecosystem
is too important and they’d be light years behind.

If they emulated Android (like Blackberry)... why not just buy an android
phone?

~~~
ocdtrekkie
The fact that Microsoft is pushing Universal apps so hard, and if you're
making a universal app for desktops, it's trivially easy to allow it to also
work on Mobile. A not-insignificant number of times I've installed an app on
my desktop and then realized I can use it on my phone, or installed a phone
app, and realized it's great on my desktop too.

If UWP takes off, their mobile app support will follow. New Windows 10 S
devices only running UWP apps will encourage this progress a lot.

~~~
lostmsu
> New Windows 10 S devices only running UWP apps will encourage this progress
> a lot.

If anybody will actually buy them.

~~~
WorldMaker
There's a setting now to set Windows 10 Home and Pro to only allow Store apps
as well. How soon until that tempts more of us that do unpaid tech support in
our free time for family and friends to just turn that setting on for them?

------
Jedd
There's a mild delight in noting that Microsoft failed to break into _someone
else 's_ platform stranglehold. Personally I wasn't sad to see it fail to
obtain a place in the market.

Disclaimer -- I've never used a Microsoft phone. Indeed, I only know one
person that had one - and even then it was an employer decision. Nor have I
ever heard anyone wish out loud that their phone was more like their Microsoft
Windows computer, or that it integrated better with their existing Microsoft
systems. People who want to 'think different' could have embraced Maemo, BB,
Sailfish, Firefox, or various other niche platforms. And then observed the
same problem -- lack of people developing applications for them.

~~~
notzorbo3
> Nor have I ever heard anyone wish out loud that their phone was more like
> their Microsoft Windows computer

The one place I want microsoft to succeed is smartphones. Android spies on
basically everything you do. Both android and iOS are vendor lock-in in a way
we've never seen before. Compared to the current smartphone OS offerings,
Windows was (and is) an incredibly open platform.

~~~
Yetanfou
Android itself does not "[spy] on basically everything you do", that role is
given to the Google-specific services and applications you can - but do not
have to - run on the thing. Neither is Android "vendor lock-in in a way we've
never seen before", the source to the basic OS is available after all. The
exception to this is formed by the device drivers which generally come in the
form of "blobs" which are tailored to a specific build of the OS. This makes
it unnecessarily difficult to make use of source builds, a situation which
might be rectified by "project Treble" [1] but the jury is still out on this.

With the source to Android available and decoupled from the device-specific
code it should be easier to create alternative Android distributions. This
should also make it possible to upgrade Android on devices which have been
abandoned by the vendor and those which never got any updates to begin with.

This is not just theory by the way, I'm using a number of Google-free Android
devices myself. They run just fine without those Google bits, they don't spy
more than any other device. This does not mean it does not spy at all but that
problem is present in all mobile devices from all manufacturers and under all
operating systems: the radio interface layer is a black box closed source blob
in all commercially available devices that I've come across.

[1] [https://android-developers.googleblog.com/2017/05/here-
comes...](https://android-developers.googleblog.com/2017/05/here-comes-treble-
modular-base-for.html)

~~~
BoorishBears
The Android that competes with the iPhone and Windows Phone devices in the
market at large is the Android that either has Google Play Services, or
occasionally has a much worse (privacy-wise) Chinese alternative suite.

The Android you get without Google Play Services are more like Firefox OS, or
Ubuntu Phone, or chrooting into Debian and calling that your "OS", interesting
things for developers, but not really what the average end user would consider
a serious phone option that's even on their radar.

~~~
Yetanfou
Those who are interested in the nitty-gritty of keeping a semblance of privacy
generally will not baulk at taking some hurdles to get there, nor do they
expect their devices to work exactly like those within the walled gardens.

Now if there where a way to combine these two worlds - that of the 'it just
works but it knows more about me than I do myself' and the 'it does exactly
what I tell it do do, no more and no less' \- it would be feasible to offer
such a device to a larger section of the general public.

A stripped-down Android distribution - sans Google-specific bits, with some
replacements where needed - which does over the air updates just like devices
on the other side of the wall would be a good start.

~~~
BoorishBears
iOS lets you keep a semblance of privacy without hurdles. The walled garden
even contributes to it's security.

I think more people who have a passing interest in privacy would rather take a
walled garden on some of the best hardware out there with a rather enjoyable,
if not powerful, OS.

~~~
Yetanfou
iOS only allows this if you consider your data to be private as long as it
doesn't leave Apple (i.e. the garden). This does not mean your data can not be
used for profiling purposes, it just means the profiling would be done wholly
within the confines of Apple, Inc. If you trust Apple to not use this data for
anything but your personal good you can feel safe and secure. If on the other
hand you consider Apple to be an (extreme) example of a profit-driven company
you'd do well to reconsider whether you want your personal data within their
reach.

While it is hard - and getting harder - to evade profiling it is still
preferable to minimise the amount of personally identifiable data collected by
commercial or governmental organisations. Using an Android device without
Google-specific code can help here.

~~~
BoorishBears
For the majority of users I'd recommend trusting Apple. If you're in a class
of user where Apple can't be trusted I don't recommend a smartphone. They can
earn profit by being the privacy oriented alternative to Google's OS.

I think the conversation has shifted from my main point. When the average user
hears "Android" or says it, it's "Android + GPS". The GP said Android but
seeing as the most common Android devices competing with the other two OSes
they mentioned come with GPS I find it disingenuous to try and imply that it's
not "Android proper" if it has GPS. If anything Android _without_ GPS isn't
"Android proper" in this context because of the amount of functionality it
provides that people include when they compare those OSes

------
chiph
I really liked my Windows Phone and wish they were still being made. The OS
was stable and fast, and you could resize the squares to make them easier to
hit with your thumb. Battery life was good. I think if they'd gone with
premium hardware they'd make sales to people who appreciate a good looking
phone and one that didn't make them wait for pointless animations to finish.

Now that Microsoft has talented hardware people working on really nice
products like Surface, they could probably do an in-house design on a new
phone. Borrow a page from Motorola/Google's Moto X Pure Edition and put a
wooden back on it - it's grippier than plastic or glass, and looks classier
too.

~~~
KGIII
Acer, HP, and Alcatel still make them. Microsoft doesn't make any and Windows
Phone 8 is dead, I think.

~~~
ocdtrekkie
In fact, it sounds like a Verizon model of the HP Elite x3 is launch-imminent.
I'm hearing mid-October.

~~~
KGIII
Yeah, I may end up switching to Verizon, though I'm not sure how happy they
will be. US Cellular owns the towers near me and Verizon has an agreement to
share towers with them. However, Verizon recently cut about 12,500 people off
because they were using non-Verizon towers too often. (This made some news
sites and the municipalities are less than impressed.)

US Cellular doesn't like to activate non-branded phones, though I guess they
have started doing some. They share the same tech so I don't know of any
technical limitations that would prevent it.

I will need to replace mine. It is running 8 (.1 maybe?) and I guess it can be
upgraded but I'd rather not risk it and it is getting long in the tooth.

I should add that I'm in an unusual position where I don't even carry my cell
phone very often. I often even forget to bring it with me. I don't depend on
it, am not chained to it, and it frequently goes without attention for days or
weeks at a time. I don't actually install anything on it. The stock apps do
everything I want to do, and more. Right now, I think it's in the cab of the
tractor, though it might be in the car.

------
perseusprime11
The lack of a Youtube App from Google killed the Windows Phone.

[https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/microsoft_on_the_issues/...](https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/microsoft_on_the_issues/2013/08/15/the-
limits-of-googles-openness/)

~~~
fenwick67
It's insane to me that there haven't been any anti-trust lawsuits against
Google for this kind of crap they pull.

More examples:

* Deceptive ads all over the web telling people to switch to Chrome

* You can't use any other search engine but Google from Chrome on Android

* The insane amount of Google integration on stock Android

Google has almost total control over a typical internet user's experience

------
perfectstorm
I miss my Lumia 920 with Windows phone 8.1. I feel bad for MS (Nokia mostly)
when I see Apple/Google announcing a feature that has been on WP8.1 for years
(Google lens, tap to awake, ambient/always on display, offline
maps/navigation, wireless charging etc.).

------
thisiscool
In 2010 I nearly joined a company which was building their business on
deploying and managing Windows Mobile devices to enterprises. Glad I didn't do
that!

------
dictum
He also "played around with Firefox a bit" sometime around 2005 (2004?). I'll
take his word for it that he really thought IE6 was still better by then ;)

[http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/4508897.stm](http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/4508897.stm)

------
richardknop
I think Microsoft hasn't given up on smartphones yet. They will give it
another try next year with Surface Phone. Can't just leave such huge market to
Apple and Google. It's worth it for them to keep trying to compete. Maybe
they'll get it right next time.

------
pulse7
He used it secretly before, but didn't tell anybody about it... :-)

------
oldgun
Wonder what model he's actually using. Pixel most likely?

------
SteveCoast
It's possible it's a Microsoft Android phone.

------
bkovacev
Why is this on HN? Articles like these should be on TMZ or some other non-
relevant websites.

------
abdvfuk
Does it also mean, Gates is no more concerned about Privacy or Google
targeting him with ads?

~~~
ape4
You'd think a rich guy would have to be very concerned with privacy.

------
losteverything
I accidentally rode an elevator mr gates was in. Just me, him and an EA from
exec area

He was carrying a laptop. No case.

It was well before cell phone ubiquity and way before smartphones.

I thought "wow, the richest man carries an unprotected laptop, no briefcase,
his hair even uncombed (probably because he just came from heliport)"

I felt "LC" because i cared about a celebrity (and even noted my diary).

Later, the parking guard said it was to be a low key meeting. We all
speculated and believe it had to do with using unused bandwith?during
overnight hours...

I still feel LC because i read the article...

~~~
jstanley
I can't work out which one of these you're referring to:
[http://acronyms.thefreedictionary.com/LC](http://acronyms.thefreedictionary.com/LC)

~~~
voltooid
Lara Croft? Liver Cirrhosis? Leaky Cauldron??

