Only because Blackberry's decline was so dramatic [1]. WP is growing very slowly. Plus, "3rd place" doesn't just mean "only one place behind". It means at least 15% market share behind, which is about 5 times what WP8 has now. Pretty big gap.
FF OS or even Ubuntu Touch could easily surpass it if they find the right partners, and especially if they focus more on the low-end, which FF OS seems to be doing right now.
Then 'eat that' iOS too. The iPhone's system-wide rotation lock is pathetic. It can only lock to portrait mode — and yes, that requires forcing the fullscreen landscape mode in Safari back to portrait.
You may not want Windows Phone to be the third ecosystem, but it's got the best chance of the players currently in the market to be that third player.
Blackberry isn't going anywhere, and the other choices are simply upstarts with little (if any) commercial backing.
Microsoft has a critical enterprise presence in many large companies, and CIOs like the idea of a mobile platform that ties in elegantly to their other systems. Nokia's brand has a global reach and is helping Windows Phone outsell iPhone in 7 markets and Blackberry in 26 markets ( http://www.zdnet.com/windows-phone-outsells-iphone-in-seven-... ). Windows Phone also has a huge developer base, as it uses the same tools that millions of .NET developers already use. IDK if they will be "the" third ecosystem, but they aren't going to be going away any time soon.
Finally, Windows Phone is well-designed and easy to use, much easier than Android to manage. There's always a market for well-designed, easy things to use, especially with older people.
Blackberry 10 is really good OS and Blackberry itself has faithful and amazing user base. I wouldn't be exited by .NET developers either. From 7 platforms I have developed for only J2ME is worse experience than WP (sorry:)). While I can see how illusion that WP is winning is created when it is fed from MS cash cows and BlackBerry is basically underdog now.
In any case I would like to see more diversity not less. Diversity is not harming automobile industry - shouldn't harm mobile industry either.
yeah, suck on that body of work by a bunch of people that I don't know. screw you consumer product...how dare you not be 100% what I want 100% of the time. Luckily, every other cell phone NEVER LETS ME DOWN IN ANY WAY.
I guess Microsoft has been spending months writing KLOC trying to accomplish the same feat. Those silly people in Redmond!
Or, perhaps, their designers have decided that an orientation lock doesn't create the experience they are looking for. Just because you can have a feature doesn't mean you should have a feature.
The point is that MS didn't write a single line of code for this feature in the past years even though the users want it. But as th system is closed source, there's nothing to do about it.
Ahh! On Android that's called the launcher. The part where you can put widgets and shortcuts is the home screen and where your apps are listed is the app drawer (it literally used to be a drawer.)
On iOS it's SpringBoard or home screen.
I can only speak about the former, but If it rotated it would screw up the layout pretty badly as normally the screen is taller than it is wide, so widgets would be truncated and icons wouldn't fit either.
Don't abuse the text field in the submission form to add commentary to links. The text field is for starting discussions. If you're submitting a link, put it in the url field. If you want to add initial commentary on the link, write a blog post about it and submit that instead.
21 comments
[ 1.6 ms ] story [ 51.1 ms ] threadAndroid and iOS are the de facto standards against which Firefox OS should be measuring its progress.
Other than that, winphone will never be the third ecosystem.
FF OS or even Ubuntu Touch could easily surpass it if they find the right partners, and especially if they focus more on the low-end, which FF OS seems to be doing right now.
[1] http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/5192a95969bedd70220...
I'm now waiting for the fall to come to see if any decent iOS or Android phones come along.
They still don't have it.
Windows Phone does not have one. At all. Not even "does not lock the way I want".
Blackberry isn't going anywhere, and the other choices are simply upstarts with little (if any) commercial backing.
Microsoft has a critical enterprise presence in many large companies, and CIOs like the idea of a mobile platform that ties in elegantly to their other systems. Nokia's brand has a global reach and is helping Windows Phone outsell iPhone in 7 markets and Blackberry in 26 markets ( http://www.zdnet.com/windows-phone-outsells-iphone-in-seven-... ). Windows Phone also has a huge developer base, as it uses the same tools that millions of .NET developers already use. IDK if they will be "the" third ecosystem, but they aren't going to be going away any time soon.
Finally, Windows Phone is well-designed and easy to use, much easier than Android to manage. There's always a market for well-designed, easy things to use, especially with older people.
Apple has that market. Windows doesn't bring anything exciting to the table.
Sounds like somebody who has never used a Windows Phone.
This guy has used a Windows Phone before, and he has some things to say about it -- you might have heard of him, some Wozniak guy? ( http://www.theverge.com/2012/4/28/2983312/steve-wozniak-wind... )
Yes, Apple has that market -- for people who have $549 to spend, or spend money on some bloated post-paid contract.
iPhone 4s - non-contract price, $549 (previous generation)
Nokia Lumia 521 - non-contract price, $149.99 (current generation phone)
In any case I would like to see more diversity not less. Diversity is not harming automobile industry - shouldn't harm mobile industry either.
Or, perhaps, their designers have decided that an orientation lock doesn't create the experience they are looking for. Just because you can have a feature doesn't mean you should have a feature.
With FOS, you can modify the OS.
As a Nokia E70 (Symbian) user, this always buggers me. What if I want to search for something (and for that, use the long-edge keyboard)?
What is the rationale here?
I can only speak about the former, but If it rotated it would screw up the layout pretty badly as normally the screen is taller than it is wide, so widgets would be truncated and icons wouldn't fit either.
From http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html :
Don't abuse the text field in the submission form to add commentary to links. The text field is for starting discussions. If you're submitting a link, put it in the url field. If you want to add initial commentary on the link, write a blog post about it and submit that instead.