So M$ wants to get into the "smart" phone market. No thank you.

[HopeHoops]

Do you really want a phone that you have to reboot after every three calls? :shrug:

Disclaimer: This is primarily (not entirely) intended as a joke. I have no interest in ANY so-called "smart" phone.

[dmallind]

1. except I've been running XP, Office etc for 6 years or so with IIRC two reboots

both my fault.

[HopeHoops]

3. XP was a little wierd, and frankly, Win 7 is fairly stable (other than it reboots for updates)

Vista is royally fucked and pretty much everything prior to XP was fucked, although 98SE was easily best of show prior to XP.

Even on the server side of things you could never count on stability. NT 4.0 SP4 was about the best there ever was and even it would fuck up for no reason, usually at the most inconvenient time.

[Lance_Boyle]

24. You forgot the best MS OS *ever* - Windows 2000.

2000 (based on NT) ran circles around the old "home" OSes (95-Windows ME), and was arguably better than XP (which added not much to the 2000 codebase other than shiny googahs and a cartoonish interface).

[HopeHoops]

30. 2000 was also a server-based OS. I still think NT4.0SP4 was the best.

But hey, that's kind of a "What year of Camero was best" issue.

[dmallind]

42. thankfully I skipped Vista. New laptop is 7. We shall see. NT

[jberryhill]

46. Just switched to 7 from several years of XP professional

I know how you feel.

I'd heard about all of the issues with Vista, and skipped it.

7 seems to be working fine.

[TheWraith]

2. Uh, Microsoft's been in the smartphone market for 9 years.

Prior to Android and iOS taking off, Windows Mobile was the most popular smartphone OS on the planet. It was also extremely stable and reliable, despite the jokes.

And I can't imagine why you wouldn't be interested in a smartphone.

[HopeHoops]

5. I need a phone that places calls and receives calls. Fuck texting and browsing.

Why the hell would you want to squint at a 3" or 4" screen to browse the net? I like my 27" flatscreen with the 19" secondary, although I'm on a 17" laptop at the moment. I can wait to hit the net until I get home. People are fucking rude with their phones pretty much everywhere you go - driving, shopping, eating, everywhere.

[Coyote_Bandit]

6. That texting and browsing

phone capability is pretty much wasted on those of us who are vision impaired.

[TheWraith]

7. Right... that makes about as much sense as the people who hated computers.

"A typewriter and the post office is good enough for anyone!"

A 3 or 4 inch screen to browse the web is actually really useful at times.

[madinmaryland]

23. Actually, when I am taking a crap, I don't need to be connected to the web!

[HopeHoops]

33. Me either - that's when I read the newspaper.

[HopeHoops]

34. Hell. I learned to type on a manual typewriter in the early 70's and was an early computer geek.

Apple II, C=64, first IBM PC, Osborne, Amiga, Macs, and a shitload of Windows and Unix/Linux boxes. I've got a powerhouse machine running Win7 and I STILL love to say that I hate computers.

:evilgrin:

[madinmaryland]

22. +1000!! My sentiments exactly. I guess what I want is a "standard" cell phone

that makes and receives calls.

[HopeHoops]

31. JitterBug makes them, but we already all have basic phones with a great rate.

Verizon (and other companies) keep calling to get me to upgrade/switch and when I tell them the details of our plan, which we established over ten years ago, there is silence on the other end. They can't touch it.

The phones ARE capable of some other shit, like text messaging (which I had them shut off) and I think some kind of web browsing, but we don't have that on our plan and don't want it.

[jp11]

21. Agree with you on MS and their mobile devices, but for some a smartphone

doesn't have the appeal that it does for others. I personally have no interest in a smartphone because I have no need for one at this time, ie not on the road all the time where I'd be encumbered carrying numerous devices. Plus I have devices that do all the things a smartphone does already, acquired over time and each is very often better suited to their purpose than a smartphone is.

[Tesha]

37. It was *NEVER* Microsoft. By far, the most popular smartphone OS was Nokia's Symbian...

...and its "S60" user interface. It may still hold
the title (just barely) in numbers of units shipped,
but Apple has displaced it in total revenue and
Android will soon replace it (if it hasn't already)
in number of units shipped.

Right now, Nokia is in the midst of replacing
Symbian with Microsoft Windows Phone (7+),
but it's a "Hail Mary" play for Nokia and may
not succeed.

Tesha

[Dreamer Tatum]

4. So, you don't WANT one, and you're entirely ignorant of M's role in smartphones...

...hm.

Maybe you should refresh your browser sometime. Also, it's 2011.

[HopeHoops]

8. Geeze. Doesn't anyone who posts in GD have a fucking sense of humor? It's a joke.

And don't get all piss-headed with me. I've probably been in the industry since before you were born.

[TheWraith]

10. It's like making a joke about hospital food. It might have been funny the first time...

Or when it was relevant, many many years ago.

[HopeHoops]

15. Vista's still out there and it still isn't stable. I've got boxes running 98SE, XP, Vista and Win7.

98SE is actually pretty reliable, but I mostly use it for legacy devices (like parallel ports) and to run the MAME games that don't work right on other versions of the OS. I've got older boxes in the basement, but I haven't even booted any of them in three or so years.

Besides. It is like owning a Yugo. If you have one, you are allowed to joke about it. A religious Mac or Linux user isn't on the same footing. I've got A newer Mac and at least two functional Linux boxes (not booted right now), but I do depend on M$ machines.

[Cronus Protagonist]

40. My Vista is perfectly stable

YMMV, but mine is fine.

[tridim]

9. HH, still stuck in the 80's I see.

At least you're consistent.

[HopeHoops]

12. Bet my machine blows the hell out of yours!

Win 7 Ultimate 64, i7 6-core X980@3.33GHz, 24GB RAM, 3TB internal and 6TB full-time external (with more if I need it). How's that for the fucking 80's?

[tridim]

14. I use the same OS and it never crashes.

Why does yours?

[HopeHoops]

17. In an earlier post (this OP) I said Win 7 is pretty reliable - it DOES reboot for updates.

That kind of pisses me off when I've got about three dozen windows open across multiple user names and come down in the morning to find it sitting at the login screen, but auto-update actually works with Win7. It will fuck the HELL out of a Vista box that was installed with the OS prior to SP2 becoming standard, even if you have upgraded to SP2. You pretty much have to have SP2 for damn near everything on Vista now. SP3, not so much, but at least SP2 - and they make it a bitch to find SP1 (required to install SP2) on the M$ web site. I downloaded the full version a while ago and hung on to it. We've got six Vista laptops and two of them have required a complete re-install from the image partition because something infected them (kids clicked on something they shouldn't have clicked on and invited the malware to have a field day).

And I did make a mistake in my prior post - my mini came with Linux factory installed, so I do have a Linux box that's booted. I mostly use it in bed.

[Lance_Boyle]

25. You do know how to make it *not* reboot itself for updates, don't you?

:shrug:

[HopeHoops]

29. Of course. I've got it shut off on the Vista boxes, but it actually works well on Win 7.

The problem with Vista is two-fold. If it is an earlier Vista installation, Windows Update often locks up and trashes the machine. Even if it IS working on the machine, it just decides to take over and eat the processor to "do its thing" and, perhaps by design, ALWAYS when you are in the middle of something important and have to get it finished in short order. I've got Win7 set to do that shit at 3:00 in the morning and mostly for the security updates, but there are other fixes that are useful. It just works on Win7. The only pain in the ass is when I leave a bunch of shit open on the machine before heading up to bed and come down to find that it has rebooted. It just takes time to get back to a productive state.

[Dreamer Tatum]

16. All that and you had no idea Microsoft has been in the smartphone market for years?

Ummmm....yeahhhhhhhh.

[HopeHoops]

18. No interest. The news today says the iPhone 5 might have a curved screen. Yawn.

[Dreamer Tatum]

19. You should see my computer setup, by the way.

It's the same as yours, only with 10% more of everything.

[HopeHoops]

26. Well that's cool. To be fair, I DID buy my tower almost a year ago.

The laptops are all aging a bit. The one I'm on now is, shit, 4 1/2? I forget. Vista box, as are the other laptops. Mine's the oldest. When I ordered the tower, I loaded it with all of the top options for the things I cared about. I forget what it was that they offered that I didn't want, TV tuner or something. I haven't used a modem in so long I don't even remember if they offered one, but I've got several other machines with modems if I need one. One of the first modems I used was a 120baud acoustic coupler. Damn were they a pain in the ass.

It is almost funny now, but I got a tower back when the P90 was second-to-top in power (P120 had just come out) and loaded it to the hilt as well. That's not exactly a powerhouse machine anymore, but I do still have it - 24MB (after upgrading it). I think it had an 800MB drive, or maybe I put that in later. I forget. 'Twas a long time ago.

And if you DO have a machine of mine's caliber, you shouldn't have any trouble running VS-2010. It's a resource hog, but it doesn't stress my machine.

[Bubba Kush]

20. My wife is actually waiting for iPhone 5 - I said why bother?

The android will do just fine, easily beating iPhone in many different ways.

I love my Epic...

[Cronus Protagonist]

11. I've been using MS Smartphones for several years now

Nothing but the best for me. And each new phone is automatically updated with all my content, addresses, numbers, etc. using Windows Vista. And my phone has Flash (sorry to some iPhone users). Oh and it also multimedia text messages (sorry to some iPhone users).

The only thing on my "want" list is a mobile copy of Firefox so I don't have to download ads on the phone, which is a total waste of bandwidth.

[TheWraith]

13. Try using Opera Mini as your browser.

Not only is it massively fast, even on a slow connection, it'll solve the problem of most of the ads.

[Nye Bevan]

27. After using Windows Mobile for several years I switched to iPhone

when it became available on Verizon. It was like moving from Medieval times to the 21st century. Everything just works. Nicely and intuitively. My Windows Mobile phone was slow, buggy, and took forever to boot up. No going back for me, ever.

[Lucian]

28. Wait...what?

Windows smart phones have been around for years.

[HopeHoops]

32. There was a news story on one of the news sites. This was a joke thread and nobody got it.

I'm aware that they've been around for years. The story was about their (once again) effort to take on the iPhone.

[Lucian]

36. Android has taken on the iPhone and beat them.

iPhones are irrelevant now.

[Cronus Protagonist]

41. My next phone will be either an Android or a Windows phone

I'm not too happy with the android hardware I've seen... but I have a year on this MS phone left, so there's room for improvement.

[Nailzberg]

35. You know how glitchy my iPhone 3G was because Apple wasn't supporting it anymore?

Frozen screens, black screens, constant reboots, no access to number pad during calls. Apple could care less about a customer with a a 2-year old product, I was told to upgrade my phone, they had no plans to make 3G work anymore.

[Cronus Protagonist]

39. That's Apple's modus operandus

Under Steve Jobs. It was so much better when Steve was briefly kicked out on his ass. And when I bring this up with Apple users, they uniformly (lol) state that they will buy the next new product Apple makes no matter what it costs.

Apple clearly has the best customers in the biz; its a shame they treat them so poorly.

[Tesha]

45. Your biases are showing very clearly.

One of the reasons that Apple has some of the happiest
customers in the business (as shown in survey after
survey) is that it treats its customers very well.

Tesha

[HopeHoops]

44. Did you see today's Dilbert? (Tue, 24 May) - You'll probably appreciate it.

http://www.dilbert.com/strips/comic/2011-05-24/

[Xithras]

38. Phone 7 is actually an excellent smartphone platform.

Microsoft has been making smartphones for the better part of a decade, and were Blackberry's biggest competition until iPhone and Android came along.

With 7, Microsoft started from scratch, fired their entire development team, and started over again with some of the brains behind the XBox and Zune UI and applications. They ended up with a very good phone that is very easy to use, and is easily the technological equivalent of either the Android or iPhone. I've used one and was very impressed.

In spite of being a good mobile OS, it's not going to succeed. MS is in the unusual position of being the little guy in this fight. Before the iPhone, smartphones were mostly marketed towards major businesses, so their name doesn't have much pull with consumer-market smartphone users. Even Blackberry, which did have some market penetration outside of the business world, is getting pummeled nowadays. It's a two-way fight between Apple and Android.

The problem, nowadays, is the app catch-22. iOS and Android have apps for nearly everything. Phone 7 doesn't. Users don't want Phone 7 because it doesn't have any apps, and developers don't want to port to Phone 7 until there's enough of a user base to justify the time and expense. Unless Microsoft develops some serious incentives to get developers porting, I just don't see their marketshare expanding. Not because the technology is bad, but because they're so late to the game.

If MS had released Phone 7 back in 2007-2008, there's a huge chance that we'd all be talking about iPhone/Phone7 marketshare instead of iPhone/Android martketshare. As it is, at this point, they're playing catch-up in a market where nobody really cares whether they're even playing.

[JCMach1]

43. +1 at last the truth...

took awhile in this thread.

Windows Mobile OS's were actually pretty good and had few of the drawbacks of their big cousin OS.

[Johonny]

47. I agree

reviews tend to point not to it sucking as to the lack of users.