They're pretty aware of this. But breaking a duopoly like this requires more than just a "great phone". Microsoft has had and does have "great phones", but without the app ecosystem to back them, it doesn't matter that the phones are great.
The Windows Phone might run faster, have a longer battery life, and just work better than the comparable Android flagship, but since you can get freaking Pokémon GO on the Android, people will buy the latter.
Microsoft is basically waiting for a chance at a paradigm shift in what it means to have a smartphone, so that they can release something you can get nowhere else. In the meantime, they're kinda just treading water and keeping their mobile OS workable and modern.
>Microsoft is basically waiting for a chance at a paradigm shift in what it means to have a smartphone, so that they can release something you can get nowhere else. In the meantime, they're kinda just treading water and keeping their mobile OS workable and modern.
I think that's likely both a good summary and a smart strategy. We can imagine, at least in broad terms, an evolution toward a much more unified set of connected devices. Microsoft has arguably already done the best job of reconverging the tablet and laptop with the Surface Pro but it's not enough to make most people really care.
Of course, the best way to predict the future is to invent it (Alan Kay) so, at some level, it's an opportunity that's up to them to create.
Personally, I'm carrying a Lumia 929, which is one of the last Windows Phones that works on Verizon. I got it for $99 on Groupon.
It runs the latest version of Windows 10 Mobile. When Microsoft releases a cumulative update next Tuesday for all Windows PCs, my phone will get the update likely within about an hour or so.
They'll still sell the Lumia 735. A select few retail stores even carry them in stock. But the phone is from 2014, and they don't officially support Windows 10 Mobile at all.
Verizon takes a "do so at your own risk" approach to Windows 10, because Microsoft doesn't permit carriers to hold back updates for Windows 10, and Verizon wants carrier approval for all software. So they don't have any Windows 10 phones, and the Lumia 735 is officially only supported as a Windows Phone 8.1 device. But the 929 and 735 both run great once upgraded to 10.
It's been a big sticking point for me that Microsoft's current strategy is to target enterprise, like with the HP Elite x3, but they don't have Verizon, the primary business carrier, on board.
A leak in Slack seemed to indicate a while back that there's a Verizon "team" at Apple. My guess is they are incredibly closely integrated on the update process so Verizon can simply rubber stamp the final releases.
> without the app ecosystem to back them, it doesn't matter that the phones are great
Is this true? It sounds true but I wonder if it actually is.
(I for one don't care about apps -- at all. I want a "smartphone" because I want the ability to browse the web, and that's it. I can't be the only guy like this.)
And even if it were actually true that apps are important, if you're MS, can't you jump start the app ecosystem? Android being opensource, how hard would it be for MS to make a phone capable of running Android apps (and yet be a different phone with a different OS of course)? (Also, they have Xamarin).
> Microsoft is basically waiting...
Well, yes, they don't seem to be trying very hard. This is quite strange.
The thing is... they've tried a lot of this. They've paid developers to port to Windows Phone before. It wasn't enough. They'll practically give you free hardware if you tell them you're developing an app. Realize that Google and Apple do not give a crud about you if you develop an app for their platform. Microsoft will fall over itself trying to help you if you develop for their platform, even if you are a little guy making a little app.
Microsoft already HAS developed the ability for Windows Phones to run Android apps. (They actually sent me a free phone just to test the feature!) Sadly, they decided not to release it, and we don't really know why. It could have been that they were worried about developers settling for Android apps instead of making UWP apps. Or Google could've threatened them, which seems plausible too. (Android is kinda "open" source, where yes, it's open source, but Google will do underhanded things if you dare to use it in any way they consider a risk to their dominance.) I can tell you the Android Bridge for Windows Phone worked amazingly, and my demo unit phone still has that version of Windows on it.
The other name it went by is Project Astoria, you can find a lot of the Internet about it. There's pretty much no chance of it being released at this point, unfortunately.
Microsoft and Google each have subtle and not-subtle ways of attacking each other. Google doesn't really feel threatened by Bing, everyone thinks Bing is a joke (even if it is pretty decent), plus Google steals all their best ideas from Bing. But things like the popups Google has on their sites to tell Edge users Chrome is better, Microsoft's retaliatory popups in Windows that tell Chrome users to try Edge, etc. Google has aggressively broken compatibility of their various services with Windows Mobile devices before. They definitely have options if they want to harass the others' customers.
I think it's more that the port of Windows to phones was so broken that they saw that there is no way they will get the platform into a stable state in the next year. It..just..so..broken.
I had a lumia 950 and with the crashes, lack of apps and UX horror I bought a OnePlus after 2 months amd never regreted it.
I heard that Windows Phone 7 was nice and everything went downhill with WP8 but I wouldnt know personally
WP10 is great these days. Switched from Android a few months back, to a Lumia 650, and will never go back to the bloated, resource heavy battery eater which is Android.
Fewer apps, turns out to be a pro, I've found. I'm realizing how much less distracted I am without every app and its dog installed. Also I'm realizing how well most things work via the web anyway (such as youtube), without requiring me to be logged in and sending rich tracking data to Google all the time.
Windows 10 Mobile is more stable than any version of Android I've ever used, and I carried Android from 2009 to 2016. Sure, it lacks apps, but it's just inherently a better written OS.
The Windows Phone might run faster, have a longer battery life, and just work better than the comparable Android flagship, but since you can get freaking Pokémon GO on the Android, people will buy the latter.
Microsoft is basically waiting for a chance at a paradigm shift in what it means to have a smartphone, so that they can release something you can get nowhere else. In the meantime, they're kinda just treading water and keeping their mobile OS workable and modern.