I'm still enraged at the fact a company can afford dropping entire fleet of devices at once and not being obligated to perform at least the minimal steps to retain their usefulness.

You're leaving the field for good, have no competing product in your own roster and you can't even provide a bootloader unlock? How is this reasonable? Where aren't anyone boycotting MS for this anti-ecofriendly move?

Windows phones had a nice hardware and would be useful still at least in some capacity if the software stack could be fiddled with. Now they are just trash.

Yes. I really would want a bootloader unlock, and unlimited side-loading for Windows Phone 8-10. One last update that enables this would be so awesome, although you'd also need a Visual Studio version that doesn't require a dev account, but there's probably hacks for that.

I just like collecting old and obscure HW and actually use it. WP8.1 is unusable: Store shut down, no new apps. Logging in with your live account doesn't work anymore. If you were already logged in, you could keep using it for quite some while, but in January, the calendar stopped syncing with your live account, and since then, it will regularly wipe all appointments you add, so it's completely unusable, even without cloud sync. MSN weather is also broken, and I can't get an alternative app.

Today you can show people how tech from 30 years ago worked. The same isn't true for anything made today, or 10 years ago.

For Windows 10 Mobile, app sideloading with any signature has been implemented since the beginning. You can just install a .appx(bundle) directly, with no dev account system being present unlike WP8(.1).

True, that part was specific to WP8(.1), which is actually my favorite. It just seems so lean and no-nonsense, very unmicrosofty.

This happens all the time with hardware, and software (abandonware, old games ...) Yeah it's quite infuriating that large corporations have so much power and ordinary people don't. That's why movements like FSF and the right to repair movement are so important. We have to take back some basic rights.

Interestingly there are laws to prevent this with automobiles - OEMs must produce parts for x years after the vehicle is sold.

I wonder if we need similar laws for electronic hardware?

I don't know in the rest of Europe, but in Spain there is a new law that forces companies to keep spare parts for at least 10 years. I think this is too much for mobile phones, but I find it pretty correct to laptops and other consumer electronics.

Here in Brazil there is a law about providing support for 5 years. If the company don't have a way to fix the problem (lack of parts or same product fixed), they need to give you another better or equivalent product or give the money back.

Yes

Lots of us did "boycott" Microsoft when we chose not to buy Windows phones in the first place. I thought they were nice devices but, after the iPhone came along, followed by the explosion in Android devices, and between them they gobbled up all the market share, Microsoft were never a serious player in that market. The "entire fleet" of devices they ditched was a drop in the ocean from any perspective, including an ecological one: Apple, Samsung, and the like have a far bigger impact there.

I'm not saying you're wrong to want some support, or at least the ability to unlock - quite the opposite - but I find your reasoning a little faulty.

>you can't even provide a bootloader unlock? How is this reasonable?

We lost that chance when we didn't treat smartphones like computers when it started performing functions of a computer, Then Appstore/Playstore happend and now they are literally the first computer for majority of world population but rather than bringing regulations to treat phones like computers, Manufacturers are now allowed to make computers like phones.

They can be fiddled with at will, the boot loader stack has been cracked for those a long time ago.

Microsoft didn't bother to fix it. (look at the WPInternals project, through which this is possible)

For the Surface RT, they didn't push firmware updates to fix the bugs allowing to unlock it either.

Sorry, but I'm not speaking about reverse engineering. WPInternals doesn't work reliably on all models and it's understandable. As others said already in sibling comments, RE shouldn't be necessary at all.

To be fair we need a regulation that will force companies to unlock bootloaders when the device hits end of life. But ideally, they should give ability to bring your own bootloader from the start.

I hate regulation, but what else can you do if voting with your wallet doesn't work, as majority of people don't understand the issue or don't care and companies have no incentive to behave responsibly.

They have a great PR machine about carbon neutrality and all that, who is going to notice some old phone destined to a landfill.

I boycott Microsoft since ~2001...well as much as possible...

I still use my Windows Phone, no need to trash it.

I have both a Nokia Lumia 735 and a Microsoft Lumia 535. Both still function as phones. Both have Windows 10 Mobile on them too. I liked the OS, and I spent nearly 8 months on them (again, after a hiatus of years) at the end of 2018/start of 2019. But iOS just suits me better these days. Ironically I have an iPhone 6s... it refuses to die and it still getting updates! It makes what Microsoft did with Mobile pretty sad.

> The team has ported and reverse-engineered drivers to get Windows 11 running on a Windows Phone and even written their own ones, too. “I wouldn’t say we were quite fast to do it, we took four years to get to the current state, but it’s actually impressive we got here with not much documentation on hand,” says Monce.

They're of course free to work on whatever they want. If they decide they next want to work on more-open things, one option is http://postmarketos.org/ , and this can include upstreaming drivers to the mainline Linux kernel.

All I want is a phone that is as capable, reliable and fast as the iPhone and which has a port that I can connect to a USB-C Dock with keyboard, mouse and display to get a fully fledged high-speed open Desktop Linux or macOS just as if it was a regular capable notebook PC.

I tried out many of the alternatives (DeX, Pinephone etc.) and they all don’t meet the requirements and have some form of compromise involved.

How close is the Pinephone though?

The Raspberry Pi is "usable" as a desktop, so I can't imagine the PinePhone being too different?

the pinephone is the best option in terms of its platform design, but it's just so underpowered

Librem 5 is significantly more powerful and also capable to provide convergence. The greatest thing is that you don't just get mobile apps on a big screen but actual desktop apps.

> a port that I can connect to a USB-C Dock with keyboard, mouse and display to get a fully fledged high-speed open Desktop...

My Huawei P20 pro would do this for android. It had a sort of desktop mode, you could attach keyboard and mouse via bluetooth (probably USB as well), the phone screen would become a touchpad.

Not an open platform so much as a skin on android, but still pretty neat.

Samsung almost had it when they supported Linux on DeX, which ran Ubuntu. Unfortunately, they've removed that feature now.

Motorola had something like that, the Xoom phone, sadly failed.

Samsung probably it's the closest thing, but it's still android with a PC shoehorn UI / UX.

None of these options have made the form factor a failure if they were not paired with adequate hardware and software.

You could always carry a stick PC of some kind.

This is not the same as having just one device which can do everything.

The funny thing about that is nowadays a lot of people use both devices at the same time.

Thanks MFA.

Also a few other things I can think of:

* making calls when also using your computer

* browsing while watching/gaming fullscreen

* passive gaming while working

* bringing the phone with you and leaving the laptop/pc for a short period of time

* browsing reddit on the laptop/pc and also on your phone at the same time

I don't really understand why W11 has such a mobile focus when they aren't doing anything with it.

Hopefully they don't intend to repeat the folly of trying to produce a single UI consistent across mobile and desktop.

Perhaps one day we'll see some elegant magic that's usable across the spectrum from pocket to desk devices, but it would suck if it means any future generations of desktop OS dumbed down chasing (likely mythical) unification.

> Perhaps one day we'll see some elegant magic that's usable across the spectrum from pocket to desk devices

Here it is: https://puri.sm/posts/converging-on-convergence-pureos-is-co...

It's much better than Windows 10 in this regard. And it looks like in this video [1] there are some adaptive features when you use a touch interface.

[1] https://www.windowscentral.com/check-out-windows-11-surface-...

full W11 on the external screen, vm WM11 + apps on the device.

I'd plain give up on getting revenues from consumer apps, and settle for the enterprise market, which is so poorly served, and so pent up with latent demand for business systems integration, I don't think that's a poor deal.

edited auto correct cm > vm

My guess is because it runs on tablets, which has a lot of the same UX concerns as mobile.

I don't think it does. From reading through some of the history of this project, there is already years of work getting Windows 10 (not mobile) to work on a Windows phone, and there are a lot of applications and even a new shell to allow that. A lot of what is shown in the video is those applications, not bare W11.

I've been using W11 for a week and most of the giant weird touch interfaces are gone.

Windows 11 doesn’t really have a mobile focus. It’s for desktop and tablets. Microsoft is pushing quite hard their 2-in-1 design with their surface series, and Windows 11 is really a great improvement for that kind of device. They may be great alternatives to iPads for some type of work if they continue in this direction.

They are doing great on that area, around me when I see a tablet that isn't an iPad, it is most likely a 2-1.

Samsung S tablets seem to be the only ones still standing in what concerns Android.

Microsoft Surface/Surface Duo or similar will be the first truly convergent device.

I don't know how to articulate this, but I want a phone that suits its niche as well as the Surface fits my need for bringing VS and my administration tool chain around with me. I still think this is a software problem : something that OneNote with the ability to embed interfaces into it across notebooks to manage eg active directory issues and information protection policies, alongside the content and correspondence and the one press voice / video / screen sharing (notebook sharing ideally not my screen just the notebook I've opened for the issue please)

I think that's because a lot of laptops are touch enabled.

Also, Microsoft's own Surface line has detachable screens so that they can be both landscape and portrait oriented. I think a few other laptops also have the capability to use the touch screen exclusively.

a friend is using a Dell detachable (I think that's the moniker) and brought it to show me the other weekend. Very robust construction and easily accessible memory and drives and the keyboard was good as well. This might be the one https://www.notebookcheck.net/Dell-Latitude-13-7320-Detachab... )

compared with ten years ago, how much easier is it to manufacture a mobile phone?

I'd very much prefer to use a vm phone subsystem hosted by W11, on a pocket sized device. Putting WM10 on Github and charging for app review and signing is the business model I want to see.

After using Windows 11 for the past week on a device with touch support, I would really like to see what a modern Microsoft mobile OS would look like. They seemed to have learned a lot from their past failures. Of course I know that won’t happen, but it would be great to see new mobile systems.

They already did that, Windows Phone. It was amazing. It's just MS killed it off because they suck at delivering hardware.

I was stuck on Samsung Note 5, waiting for the latest Lumia phone to come to Singapore, after 8 months i caved and went iPhone, it eventually came out 13 months after it released in the US...

Apple can literally do a world-wide-day-1-release but MS releases in like 2 markets, and after 12 months its up to like 7 markets...

Windows Phone “failed” in the US as well. If it came out there on time, that doesn’t appear to be the issue that caused the killing off.

There was lots of people here in Asia using Windows Phone, but I know so many people here who moved to Apple or Android due to lack of MS support in general.

Windows Phone is their old attempt, I would be interested to see how their modern design would adapt to mobile devices.

I didn’t realize these phones were open enough to even attempt something like this.

They weren't, not by design. A lot of them just have bootloader exploits, and even back when WP was still supported, they didn't really bother to fix it. They're an ideal target for Windows 11, as all the hardware components already have drivers for Windows and bootloaders available.

Cool, effort to get Windows RT on mobile has begun long before this. Had a Lumia 640XL that ran Windows 8 RT with GPU acceleration.

Direct link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?&v=YSaJfudt8S4

(dang might want to update if he reads this)

It is very impressive. I can not even get my mothers win10 to work on an hp i7 laptop. It is very slow and needs patches all the time. It is actually useless.

Does it have an SSD? It's like 50 bucks. I don't think Windows can run anymore on hard drives.

I don't remember. And she is only using it for browsing. Every now and then I have managed to switch off the auto update. But it switches it self on again. Thank you for the advice about SSD I will keep that in mind.

SSD is necessary. If you go to Slickdeals and set filtered alerts, you can get an SSD for dirt cheap within a few months. Switching to SSDs for me from W7 and W10 has been huge.

I still hope Microsoft returns to the mobile vision they had with Windows running on the phone, a Continuum dock to turn it into a PC, and Android apps to close the app gap.

It seems like they keep pushing on all these technologies, although maybe for different reasons. Windows 11 is still one OS for all form factors. It runs on mobile devices (albeit for tablets.) And now it has the Android apps.

Just... make a new Nokia phone with WP11! Save us from the dichotomy of surveillance capitalists and forty-dollar-dongleists.

Yes, it's funny how everything that was lacking on Mobile is slowly falling into place. However, support for Android apps would have to be stellar I guess, as getting developers on board after the quadrillionth reboot of your mobile platform isn't exactly going to be easy. ;-)

> Save us from the dichotomy of surveillance capitalists and forty-dollar-dongleists.

I doubt Microsoft is much better in this regard though.

I must admit, it doesn't look that bad!

It makes me miss my old Windows Phone. I prefer Linux on the desktop, but the old Nokia Windows Phones were quite excellent phones. If my old Nokia had gotten an official W11 update I would seriously consider pulling it out of the drawer again.

Especially as a student around WP8 times it was good value for money. One could either buy a flagship Android or an expensive iPhone to get a good phone, as a cheap Android was laggy and not very fun to use. But a Nokia Lumia at the same price point as a cheap Android would be very snappy and nice to use.

WP is still my favorite mobile OS years later. I've tried both iOS and Android. They're both awful in their own ways and they make me miss WP.

WebOS was amazing as well. That’s my number 1 followed by WP

People like to mock Windows Phone, but it was a great OS. The only problem I had with it was it's lack of apps and that wasn't Microsoft's fault, but the fault of the closed tech ecosystems we have been forced to accept.

I kinda wish MS just released an open source version of it so development could continue instead of ending the project completely.

I liked the OS, too, but Microsoft didn't do themselves many favours by resetting the dev platform several times and not having upgrade paths between major versions. What momentum they had cratered every few years.

You're right that didn't help, but that wasn't the big problem.

Time and time again I saw independent developers making fantastic third-party app replacements for the most popular Android/iPhone apps, like Snapchat. Time and time again I saw them deleted from the Windows Store via a takedown by multimillion/billion dollar companies that didn't want to make a WP app.

I'm sure money was a consideration, but malice was a much bigger factor, and I wouldn't be surprised if Google money played a role in it. A lot of people did not want to see a third mobile OS platform and did what they could to ensure it failed.

Yeah, that definitely didn't help, either. Snapchat's one I can't really blame them for not allowing third-party apps for given its use, but some others were definitely playing games.

It might have survived one of these issues, but both was crippling. Poor app support and constant churn of APIs can't end well.

One of the reasons MS can't do this, even if they wanted to (ha ha!) is the patent encumbrance. There are so many patents in this field, it's kinda crazy.

As if MS isn't a heavyweight itself. Yes, if they wanted to, they absolutely could do this.

Whatever we can say about how MS handled Windows Phone development, the OS itself was designed very well - my mother had no issues navigating and reading information out of it (on small HTC 8S), especially tiles. Now she struggles with Android Go on some cheap no-name device.

I still own Nokia 1320 which - if I'm not mistaken, was one of first "phablet" sized devices and I was quite fond of it up until applications have stopped working. Now it just works as any pre-smartphone device: I only pick up calls, send text messages; battery had to be replaced on 4th year which just confirmed the durability of electronics today and planned obsolescence. Back then I've managed to run some beta of Windows 10 Mobile but in the end, my Nokia didn't get it.

Sadly the easiest answer is just to get your Mom an iphone. Not the best but it will solve 99% of the issues and will last five years+ if you get a new model.

Like other commentor said. Look for deals on iPhone SE 2020 or iPhone 12 mini or any other lowest iPhone mode since 2018 fall release (iPhone 11 and iPhone XR). Any of them will last for many years. Battery replacement might be needed after 3 years.