It’s still coding and maintaining an app for a platform that 3% of the US population uses on their mobile devices. We don’t have or need an app version of home banking for Windows since on a PC people just use the browser.
I absolutely love my windows phone and look forward to windows 10.
Microsoft also is supporting developers who want to make their android and ios apps available for emulation on windows 10 devices. Not that this is a big deal…in 5 years nearly every app will be web based. Kind of crazy how far ahead of its time apples first app store was…
I have enjoyed windows phone and while many big name apps are available, the lack of support/updates is frustrating. Next phone I get will not be Windows based.
is there any apps that are only available in windows store? I have never heard an app advertised as “Window Only” for mobile.
I’m sure there are, probably all developed by Microsoft. 
I think even Halo is on iOS now.
Boom. You figured it out, even if you didn’t intend to 
Now Phone = PC, PC = Phone.
Next time someone asks you to make an app for Windows, just tell them to use the website with their browser. I do this for all my mobile banking right now (my credit union, Capital One, etc.) and have no compatibility issues. If it’ll work on a desktop it’ll work on the phone.
Support for apps is based on their individual developers. Most of apps I’d use that they don’t have, NEST for example, have robust web versions that work exactly the same. Even pinning the website acts as an app would, creating a live tile with logo, etc. This seems to be the direction several big name apps are going along the lines of what @LUC1F3R mentioned.
I’m not going to convince anyone here that Windows is worth while, but for what I use it for it’s awesome and there isn’t anything I could replace it with that would be better from what I’ve seen.
I’ll be picking up that liquid cooled, octa-core 950XL next month for sure :tup:
the browser works most of the time, but I’m tired of the constant “resuming” screens, crashing, and lack of enhanced functionality of the browser. There isnt anything functionwise on windows phone that I think I will miss.
What phone are you on?
928 - my 2nd one. I have to reboot it constantly as well. Overall a lot of little annoyances have led me to determine that I’m done with the platform, at least for now.
Ah, are you on 8.1 at least? I don’t know if Verizon pushed that out to you or not.
I have heard of issues but they seem to all be from carrier branded / subsidized phones especially after the update. Fortunately the industry is moving away from them.
I’ve had none of these problems but then again I’m on a direct-from-Nokia 930.
I am shocked Microsoft didn’t also take the Apple approach and allow them to manage updates on their phones across the board. The Android/Windows platforms that Android updates and then carriers need to release still astounds me with how many different platforms and hardware they need to test.
One problem… Currently it’s a big deal if you’re a credit union if you can say “Find our app in the App Store”. It’s a big way that they show they can offer the “big bank things”. At our last user meeting no CU managers wanted to hear about how awesome our mobile site was. All they wanted was an app, even if that app just wraps the mobile site. It’s all about the status of having the iOS App Store/Google Play Store icon on their site.
Apps are not going to be replaced by mobile sites any time soon
Apple is the only company with the clout to do it. You think AT&T happily agreed to accept not being able to customize iOS with their own carrier specific version? Hell no they didn’t. In fact one of the big reasons the iPhone was AT&T exclusive at first was because Verizon refused to accept Apple’s terms that no carriers would be allowed to bastardize the OS.
Like @JayS said, Apple is the only company that gets away with selling unbranded (unmolested) phones through the carriers. It’s going to be different now with Microsoft emulating Apple by selling phones directly in their stores. This will be the first phone I’ll buy that hasn’t been shipped to me from Asia or Europe, lol.
Of course, unlocked & unbranded Windows phones have always received updates right away unlike the carrier phones that had to wait months.
Ah, no real way around the politics.
The only counterpoint I have to this is that there are so many “show” apps that just skin a mobile site already. @JayS could skin their mobile site, call it an app and they wouldn’t be doing anything out of the ordinary.
There are 2 NEST apps for Windows, both of which are just skins for the mobile site. They’re also 3rd party so then we begin a discussion about them skimming your NEST info… :ohnoes:
Doesn’t anyone remember that Apple tried launching the app store as a browser based app collection?
The benefits to browser based apps are numerous, and the only thing that has prevented them from becoming mainstream is data transfer speed. Many businesses already do this, just walk into att/verizon etc and look at what they use for a pos system. I no longer use apps for fb, twitter, instagram, BOA because the websites are better.
Imagine a workplace with one supercomputer and everyone working on thin clients, its the same idea that you’ll see on mobile devices.
And like i said, i think it has 5 years. But its one of those things that we will look back at like cassetes or dvds or flip phones and wonder how we ever didnt move forward faster.
I think you’re wrong but we shall see…
All those apps you named have backend servers that do all the heavy lifting anyways.
Google Nexus I thought did this model where you buy the phone directly from them and get the first Android updates and not bloated with the carrier app BS. The only benefit Apple has is they are a hardware company. Controlling the device and software as your only base is pretty powerful versus Google that opened up the OS and vendors went HAM at their own platforms which was the biggest cause of issues IMO.
I think its obvious the business world is shifting to cloud based services through VDI and Citrix type apps but no on mobile. It is easier for an app to push their assets in a app file and rely on only data on the wire for speed. There is a race for speed and relying on a mainframe type setup is too costly on resources. Hell, I was in a meeting with a client who was trying to cut their initial render of their app from about 500ms to 150ms. Putting more on the wire would be bad.
Think of going to YouTube, in your sense, the phone requests the UI, images, comments, and video stream for every request it makes unless you really work on caching which is the devil. The native app contains all these views even in a UIWebView that essentially is a web broser in the app, and can load from disk while the app itself is requesting only what it needs (comments, video stream, thumbnail preview, video meta).
Yes, but it certainly wasn’t a new thing Google started with Nexus. Every phone manufacturer has been selling unlocked & unbranded phones it’s just that 99% of people in the US buy them though a carrier instead of from the manufacturer (or their distributing partners) because they got a phone for “$100.” I’ve been getting updates, flashing, updating firmware, etc direct from manufacturer on the day of release for years. Now with over-the-air updates it’s definitely easier, the only wait seems to be releases depending on your region. Which even that can be changed if need be.
And yeah I’ve always felt once a carrier “got its hands” on a phone before selling it they’d just messed it up. Like when Verizon was removing the hot spot functions or Bluetooth capability of phones back in the day. It’s still interesting to read forums where people ask why an update hasn’t been pushed to their phone yet and sure enough it turns out they have a carrier device.
It’s no surprise that most people love the iPhone “because it just works” when they’ve been buying carrier phones for years and dealing with all that crap, then the iPhone is their first direct from the manufacturer phone. Most will people will never make that connection.