Not sure - I reserve judgement as the first person I actually know has bought one this week. Gimme a play and I'll have an opinion

I thought their share was decreasing? I quite like the APPEARANCE of the interface, its a nice change from the android/iOS style, but overall, is it really a functioning OS? Does it have the developer following? Not quite…

I had a mess around with a windows 7 phone when they first came out and thought it was pretty good but not good enough to make me swap from android.

I dont think its going to die off completely but I dont think it will really challenge android /ios

I don't think it'll ever be the top seller out of the 3 majors, but I see a lot of people with WP at the moment.

I think its going to be the Apple of the desktop world. An insignficant also ran, that a very small minority of people of a certain type make a lot of noise about.

I have a Lumia 920.

If you have any doubts, get hold of one and try it out for a few days - you'll love it.

bought one two of weeks ago. it showed a “Wow” factor on the people around me (or i can say that they where amazed on the looks/UI) but still they want to invest on android / ios phone, and the only reason that i heard is because of the apps/games. I understand that the good apps/games for now are limited for win 8. but i think this is one of the reason for low market sales.

well I'm not really pro on this, just based it on what happened.

Absolutely. I'm looking into getting my first smartphone and if a windows 8 phone hit the price/features that I'm after (down to the hardware guys) then I'd jump at the chance to use one.

Not a chance. Current owner of WP 7.5, owned Android since 2nd versions, had Galaxy S2, S3; some experience with iOS. While Android and iOS are both functional and fun to use WP 7.5 is just plain boring and cumbersome. Trust me - I tried for last 3 months to use it. Lack of apps, cumbersome and not productive interface, lack of basic functions, mediocre camera (Lumia 800) and other weird little and significant things. I am selling this one and going back to S3, not a chance I am going back to Windows device until whole interface and functionality is re-branded.

No, I would never go back to WinMo, it used to be the best but too many wrong decisions and it's turned into a useless mess.

Still needs a lot of refining, the UI and general phone use is brilliant, but it misses a decent notification center and my biggest bugbear lies with the Beeb refusing to code an iPlayer app for it.

I don't think it'll die, iOS is stale and normal folk are tentative about Android as it's so open, their opportunity is now if ever.

I don't want 500 billion apps. I just need the basics - good GPS / Navigation, Browser, MP3 Player, Cloud storage, Camera and probably 1 or 2 others things. I don't even need games, don't play them ….that's what a desktop PC is for!

If they can get these things right I might make the jump this summer, but I'm starting to get sucked into the Google eco system ….Gmail, Gdrive, Contacts….so we'll have to see, this rather than android or iOS apps library is what will sway me.

My Lumia 800 was the smartphone I've hated least, lasting for a year before I replaced it… with a Lumia 820. I've never managed to stomach a smartphone OS enough to upgrade it before. Android is dreadful, WebOS is too buggy to use, MeeGo is dumb.

But does it have a chance? Without apps? That remains to be seen. Making it “easy” to port Win8 apps to WP8 means they may manage to shore up the app library with desktop developers, but is it enough? Outlook seems hazy.

We will know by the end of the year.

I've tried to help kill the ‘there are no apps’ problem with my app, AppSwitch. It suggests replacement apps for ones you might already have on your iOS or Android phone:
http://www.windowsphone.com/en-gb/store/app/appswitch/cef45bf9-c72f-4320-9aa1-949c2c86e2a5

It's more a win for Nokia than WP but here are some photos I just took on my Lumia 920 (5:30PM) - I'd like to see another phone compete with these :)

Got my lumia 920 a couple of weeks ago, and im loving it, best phone out right now

It depends on Microsoft's tenacity. Of course there will be space for three OS:s in the market place. I believe sharing the kernel with the rest of MS's line up is a very shrewd move. It also depends on how MS plays out its strategy. Most of what we see in online mobile phone communities are focused on the pure consumer market. One of the areas were I perceive WP has an advantage is security. Perhaps that is why the military in my country have chosen WP as their platform. So perhaps MS can play their computer penetration to leverage buy in in the corporate arena.

That said, I find it ironic that MS emulated the iPhone to such a degree that they gave up their Windows Mobile community following to Android. They had the the computer hackers and the corporate segment and gave it all up. The were also pen based devices, which MS gave up to emulate Apple. What was the total WP penetration in 2012? Samsung sold 10 million S-pen Android based units alone. It could be that Microsoft isn't fleet footed and creative enough to compete. Too much of a “follow me” strategy, perhaps?

cameronlite
I've tried to help kill the ‘there are no apps’ problem with my app, AppSwitch. It suggests replacement apps for ones you might already have on your iOS or Android phone:
http://www.windowsphone.com/en-gb/store/app/appswitch/cef45bf9-c72f-4320-9aa1-949c2c86e2a5

It's more a win for Nokia than WP but here are some photos I just took on my Lumia 920 (5:30PM) - I'd like to see another phone compete with these :)

The Nokia 808 Pureview could compete with this… If Nokia can get a WP8 based 41mp, zoom phone of the 808's caliber out the door, I'll get it.

Obscurity
I thought their share was decreasing?

A lot of those figures were from MS's limbo state prior to WP8 being released (manufacturers were stopping the production of WP7 devices but hadn't released WP8 devices) so weren't keeping up with the increasing mobile phone pool. Some polls also include markets WP hadn't been released in.

WP won't get to be number one but it will be a significant player. The Western markets are entrenched, there's too many users stuck in the ecosystems to move so you'll likely see the same market shares next year unless Apple or Google have a huge fall from grace. The big market share gains are to be made in emerging markets and as that is categorised as cheap entry level phones which Apple have stated they will not be making then it gives MS a better position to capitalise on it.

cptwhite_uk
I don't want 500 billion apps. I just need the basics - good GPS / Navigation, Browser, MP3 Player, Cloud storage, Camera and probably 1 or 2 others things. I don't even need games, don't play them ….that's what a desktop PC is for!

If they can get these things right I might make the jump this summer, but I'm starting to get sucked into the Google eco system ….Gmail, Gdrive, Contacts….so we'll have to see, this rather than android or iOS apps library is what will sway me.

Nokia Maps is great (used for a lot of satnavs) Browser is great, IE is usually hated on by everyone (including me) but it is super fast on here, Nokia Music is awesome, unlimited free music through playlists with no ads at all!! SkyDrive is integrated well into the system and can choose to sync photos videos etc, camera on the lumia 920 is amazing, its the second best available, behind the 41MP PureView 808 also by Nokia, but on symbian :(

Got a Lumia 800 Windows 7 phone, loved it. Went back to Android for a while, hated it. Now on a Windows HTC 8X and love it. But I can't seem to sell the concept to friends, and this leads me to believe that Android and Apple will eventually defeat Windows phone.

Gadgety
The Nokia 808 Pureview could compete with this… If Nokia can get a WP8 based 41mp, zoom phone of the 808's caliber out the door, I'll get it.

Except the 808 :p

Love my Nokia Lumia 800, and have done since I got it. Every app I need is now there - it took a while for The Times/Sunday Times newspapers to catch up, but they finally did!

I've been seeing more and more people with it, more and more people talking about it, and more and more people asking me about it. I think Windows Phone is going to show some good gains in 2013 - of course it's not going to shoot up, people are too invested in their existing platforms, but I think we can see a big shift.

I had an iPhone, then switched briefly to a Blackberry, and then got my Nokia. It beats both - and while I've never owned an Android device, having used them in store and been asked to help my brother setup his, my goodness that UI is confusing. I really think at the low end, where parents and the slightly older generation are looking for a cheap smartphone, they'll find Windows Phone far easier to get around than Android.

Roll on my Lumia 920, just waiting for Three or Vodafone (basically anyone but EE…) to launch it!

I'm very pleased with my HTC Trophy 7, not even considered a high end phone by any means, but it's great.
My brother is changing from Android to Windows for his next phone, I certainly hope it just gets better and better :)

I was a fan of the old windows os from the orange spv onwards. Have an iphone for work and did own a sony xperia s for a while but after 6 months, had to sell it and went back to windows with a HTC 8X. Dont think I will be trying android again.

Love my Nexus 4 and I am a tinkerer when it comes to phones so Android suites me greatly, I was in a shop with a mate helping him pick up a tablet but while I was there I had a brief go on a WP8 (I believe it was the lumia 920,dont quote me!) I really liked it, really smooth and lovely on the eyes and I certainly hope I can get some of that moved over to my N4 :).

If I wanted to keep my phone stock then I am certain a Windows Phone would be for me :).

I think a lot depends on the native text input, I don't like this on my iPhone and like it less on my Galaxy S2, so I'll reserve judgement until I've had a chance to try this out. Also app support needs to improve too.

Tough market, but hopefully MS will stick to it for at least a couple of years to give the app market the chance to grow (and get more hardware partners). They managed to break into the console market, no small feat, so if they can't break into this market, we'll probably be stuck with a two horse race.. if that.

No one needs “500 billion apps”, but some people may highly value a couple of niche apps that is particularly well developed on a particular platform. Though quantity does not guarantee quality, I'd say that the odds are increased.

Hardware wise, the 920 is lacking two features I'd ideally like: removable battery and micro SD slot. . The recent trend is not favourable though, I only hope that Samsung won't drop those from the future Galaxy.

Rather than a binary choice making you choose this or that (though you can of course choose to have neither) multiple choice is the much better for the consumer and the industry as it drives progress and innovation better. For this reason alone Windows phone and Blackberry need to survive.
Microsoft are a software company trying to get into hardware whereas Apple are a hardware company who happen to have some decent software so both come from a different base.
Convergance would seem to be the answer with seamless integration of one software package on all devices … phone, tablet, desktop, laptop. For Apple that could hit sales being a hardware manufacturer with premium priced products for Microsoft and Google convergance/integration is less of a hit hardware wise. If Microsoft could say get to Windows 10 and its absorbed Windows phone and Android/Chrome merge then they could both be onto a winner.
There is also clear indication that not everyone is drawn to ‘The Cloud’ so hardware with expandability (micro sd, usb, etc) could prove vital for whoever (if) decides to keep it.
I like the look of Windows phone devices, a splash of colour amongst the ever increasing bland looking aluminium.

It works, sure. But it is all a bit mee-too. I was deeply suspicious after the appalling performance and lack of updates from phone 6 and 6.5, and the adoptors of phone 7 were kicked firmly in the goolies by phone 8.

To overcome those sort of commercial behaviours it does not need to be merely ‘just as good as’ what people already have, it needs to do something entirely new that no-one else has.

I must admit, with my limited exposure to it I'm very Meeeehhhhhh. But then again I think iOS is limiting and poop so what do I know

bobharvey
It works, sure. But it is all a bit mee-too. I was deeply suspicious after the appalling performance and lack of updates from phone 6 and 6.5, and the adoptors of phone 7 were kicked firmly in the goolies by phone 8.

To overcome those sort of commercial behaviours it does not need to be merely ‘just as good as’ what people already have, it needs to do something entirely new that no-one else has.

Windows Phone 7/8 is everything but me-too. Android was a me-too response to the iPhone, WP is not. Also, please bear in mind that WP7/8 are not extensions of WinMobile but completely separate oses.

The windows phone is not bad, but I think MS need to get a little more popular before they really stand a chance.

Windows Phone could easily become the third big player in the mobile world. IMHO, Apple has plateaued out (even with the possibility of an iPhone mini coming) and a lot of Android users are not too loyal to that platform as many may think.
I don't expect an explosive rise in the customer base, like when the iPhone came out 5-6 years ago, more of a steady increase in the market share comparable to Samsung's arrival into the mobile market about a decade ago.

For me I think it is price. Windows Phone 7.5 should be continued more due to its low cost. I've got an 800mhz device here I'm deving against, it cost £80, brand new, off contract. Sure, it might only have 256meg of ram. But you know what, it works, smoothly. The Nexus 4 is a great device, mostly due to its price tag. Why not really try and force the prices down?

The main difference between it and my 920, is this app I'm writing goes cold to loaded in about 1.8 seconds on the lumia, which I think is network IO bound, on both the 710 and the Omnia 7 it takes about 3 seconds.

A lot of people simply don't care about that. I've needed none of the new APIs in WP8, its the exact same code. Then I'll take about 80% of that code and add in the new 20% for a shell designed for tablets and desktops, before submitting to Windows 8 market place.

I can get a lot of device types, with the exact same code.

Then we've not even got on to the IDE. A friend of a friend who devs for iOS was simply staggered to see the way I write a simple LOB app which is doing a bunch of networkie things. The speed at which I got a bunch of differen't objects representing network events and the speed at which the code ran. This is due to a series of better design choices in the language and the platform. In windows phone you can't make a ‘blocking’ read to any IO, you have to know how to program syncronously. This ment that not only was it quicker for me to write the code for WP, but it was better performing code than iOS.

Comparing it to Android is really rather unfair, because of fragmentation a lot of the automated profiling tooling I take for granted simply can't be there, the language features and libs are a real “choose the ones you want, don't bitch about whats missing” but sadly, that makes the apps take longer to load.

I can see why windows phone has so many apps, considering how few users it has. I don't think any are missing really. Windows phone 7.x users are getting 7.8, which in theory will bring a lot of the shell features they want. In fact as is the only thing missing from my old windows 7 phones are offline maps.

Yes I think the market share will grow and become a much more significant player. However MS promoted the OS with the supposedly best phone (Lumia 920), only for it to be exclusive to a network touting 4G but offering pitiful coverage. MS cannot afford to have their best devices tied to the 4G rollout, the OS is late already, it can ill afford further delays.

Regardless W8 uptake elsewhere will help drive sales if MS can successfully market to interoperability.

cptwhite_uk
I don't want 500 billion apps. I just need the basics - good GPS / Navigation, Browser, MP3 Player, Cloud storage, Camera and probably 1 or 2 others things. I don't even need games, don't play them ….that's what a desktop PC is for!

If they can get these things right I might make the jump this summer, but I'm starting to get sucked into the Google eco system ….Gmail, Gdrive, Contacts….so we'll have to see, this rather than android or iOS apps library is what will sway me.

Completely agree with the first sentence, though I have a caveat. Personally, I very much disagree with the second.

Second point first, Google as an operation know far too much about far too many people, and as a company that is utterly about ad revenue, I'm determined not to give them any more about me than is effectively unavoidable. Specifically, and personally, I will not, now or ever, be using Google apps where personal info is involved, like mail, contacts, calendar, etc. Not on a PC, or on an android device. But that's me, not the mass market.

I do agree that all I want is a relatively small core of useful apps, not to have the device bunged full or all sorts of drivel that's mildly amusing or innovative for 5 minutes, then a waste of time and space.

But …. my core collection of 10 or 20 “useful” apps will likely be very different to yours, and to many/most people's. I do want a recipe book/database, a decent Sudoku game and one or two others, a personal finance app (with VERY limited permissions granted or a rooted phone and a good firewall), and a few others, but have no interest in football scores and not much in mobile email, can manage without GPS/Satnav, and have no use for a fishing app.

Personally, I'd rather see a select choice of 10,000 apps that have been carefully vetted, than 1, 000, 000 apps where most of it is drivel, or sitting on a borderline between gratuitously invasive of my privacy and outright snooping malware.

A far smaller but more focussed and quality collection of apps is better, IMHO, than the utter morass of a minefield that is Google play apps.

If MS were to manage that, along with a more granular and controllable permissions system, then for me that would be the determining factor. I'm not holding my breath, though.

I've got a 920 here for a months trial. I need a smaller Sim card, but it does feel nice.

Shame on you Saracen … as an Admin surely you should have at least one fart app. ;-)

I prefer pay as you go or rolling month contracts, these usually put any high end phone at an exhorbitant price. I like the HTC 8X in blue, it would cost me around £400 on PAYG, thats to much. If it was nearer the price of a Nexus 4 16GB and easily available i think it would sell by the bucketload.

As far as I know the carriers in the states are not happy with Microsoft's acquisition of Skype. That they are replacing Xbox Live Chat and Windows/Live/MSN Messenger with it re-enforces the notion that MS is 100% behind Skype.

Carriers don't want to be reduced to dumb pipes, they value their power. That's why as far as I hear they are actively pushing everything other than Windows Phone.

On its own merits I think WP7/8 is nice, although I personally wouldn't want one. I have more interest in FirefoxOS and Ubuntu for phones.

Unfortunately shoe horning on Metro onto desktops has gotten my back up. I was neutral to Windows Phone, now I find myself wanting everything with Metro on to fail. It's a shame I was happy to have a third player when they came back with WP7. Now I kind of wish Blackberry would come back and own business phones.

Myss_tree
Shame on you Saracen … as an Admin surely you should have at least one fart app. ;-)

…..

Well, the apps I mentioned were examples, not an exhaustive (;)) list.

Out of interest Saracen, what would you want from a recipe app, rather than a website?

This isn't wanting an exhustive list, just with my code monkey hat on, what is wrong with a HTML website? When cooking I find myself generally in a place with wifi, or at the very least mobile service, so offline isn't a worry?

One of the things I find very interesting is the fact we had a massive HTML hype cycle, App Stores have killed a lot of this.

Great news for anyone interested in gaming, Ive just seen a video put up by gameloft saying that they are putting their latest and greatest games on WP8, that includes MC4, Nova3, RF2013, Asphalt 7 and a load of others (12 in total) this is awesome news, I hope to see temple run next

TooNice
No one needs “500 billion apps”, but some people may highly value a couple of niche apps that is particularly well developed on a particular platform. .

Exactly. I've got a few of those. Only hoping that the common kernel will entice developers who are eyeing the market, to see that common kernel and hence bring out versions for both the PC and the phone.

Gunbuster
As far as I know the carriers in the states are not happy with Microsoft's acquisition of Skype. That they are replacing Xbox Live Chat and Windows/Live/MSN Messenger with it re-enforces the notion that MS is 100% behind Skype. Carriers don't want to be reduced to dumb pipes, they value their power. That's why as far as I hear they are actively pushing everything other than Windows Phone.

Not only that. Where I am the carriers are blocking verbal communication over IP, unless one pays an extra high fixed fee. The carriers are also saying that in the future data traffic will not be unlimited, and in addition much, much more expensive. Hopefully there will be work arounds (I know there already are some, but it remains to see if the apps survive).

cameronlite

bobharvey
It works, sure. But it is all a bit mee-too. I was deeply suspicious after the appalling performance and lack of updates from phone 6 and 6.5, and the adoptors of phone 7 were kicked firmly in the goolies by phone 8.

To overcome those sort of commercial behaviours it does not need to be merely ‘just as good as’ what people already have, it needs to do something entirely new that no-one else has.

Windows Phone 7/8 is everything but me-too. Android was a me-too response to the iPhone, WP is not. Also, please bear in mind that WP7/8 are not extensions of WinMobile but completely separate oses.

I'm sure there are bits of both me too, as well as some own innovation. As far as the “me too” I've seen is a) simplify as Apple did b) standardize, as Apple did, c) limit hacking, that Android didn't to the same extent hence part of the success on XDA, which used to be Windows Mobile-land d) abandon the geeky pen and go finger friendly, as Apple did. In their book I'm sure this is seen as a start from scratch, and a move away from the segment they did have. Even so it still involved a lot of “me too” because they went with what gave success to Apple in the market place. That's my understanding at least.

Gunbuster
Carriers don't want to be reduced to dumb pipes, they value their power. That's why as far as I hear they are actively pushing everything other than Windows Phone.

On its own merits I think WP7/8 is nice, although I personally wouldn't want one. I have more interest in FirefoxOS and Ubuntu for phones.

I agree that carriers hate losing power, but they are already gross in how they abuse their ownership of the wireless spectrum for profit anyway. I hope they burn. I don't think they are trying to prevent Windows Phone adoption over it though, because Google also has a competing voice communication platform.

Windows Phone will never be more than a niche because as a devleoper, it sucks to me. I don't use visual studio, I don't want to ground up write an app to a custom phone API, and I don't want to be chained to the way Microsoft wants to sell on their store. It isn't developer friendly, and without market adoption it doesn't have potential profits to attract devs either.

Ubuntu Phone is much more attractive to me - because Canonical is trying to give ground to carriers and OEMs (and are even more open about it than the Android licensing terms) and because they provide first class web apps or qt / qml, apps I write for it can go anywhere, I'm not locked into their way of doing things (I assume it will be as cross platform friendly as Android is now for development purposes, with all the goodness of bundled multi-device emulation as good as Android has it) and I can expect Ubuntu to take some fraction of the market where the vast majority of new entrees will be coming from in coming years - not the high end niche market dominated by ios, but from the cheap $0 upfront contract phone or the $100 walmart smartphone.

Also, since Ubuntu phone can plug into screens and play full desktop, I think it is much more business class than even Windows Phone (I imagine Microsoft will eventually make WP8.5 allow the plugin-get-full-windows experience with Office RT at some point, but who knows when they will get around to that).

Firefox Mobile, for the simplicity, I don't think has a market. Ubuntu is already entering targeting low powered devices, and with native apps it can actually hit that target - running javascript + html5 as the program environment is extremely inefficient and resource constrained in mobile. And Ubuntu phone still has the option to use all the firefox web apps - hell, I bet its default browser is going to be firefox. The same firefox running Firefox mobile. So there is no value proposition in the Firefox Mobile platform, but that is fine, because your web apps are targeting everything ever anyway.

So I don't think Firefox Mobile will get much market share unless Mozilla gets some aggressive contracts, but that doesn't really matter because they aren't trying to create a locked in ecosystem, but are trying to push the adoption of web tech as an application platform. Windows Phone is doomed to being ios without the Apple marketing and polish and without the marketshare. Android can still expect to take the market in even greater leaps and bounds as Google refines it and keeps it the middle of the road proposition between the others. I imagine in the long run, something like Ubuntu Phone has the prospects to go much bigger (I really think the basis of qt as the application platform for everything-ever (it even supports Android through necessitas now) is a great one. I wholly admit I always look for work in qt5, and really think it is a great platform going forward for pretty much everything. The creator and designer are really well implemented development platforms that work everywhere and port everywhere, and it uses the better of recent tech innovations (pervasive json, javascript, and less xml, manual makefiles and ifdefs).

My expectation is that in 2015, the phone market share (barring Apple dramatically cutting prices, Google royally screwing up consumer trust / making Android 5 suck / having version upgrade stagnation again) will be 15% Apple, 70% Google, 6% Ubuntu, 4% Firefox, 3% Windows, 2% Blackberry 10. Google has momentum right now I think most people are underestimating - it is about to, I think, become a huge breakout game platform in and of itself, and the permissive app markets attract developers better than anything else. And Java is a dumb easy language to use.

Zanny
Windows Phone will never be more than a niche because as a devleoper, it sucks to me. I don't use visual studio, I don't want to ground up write an app to a custom phone API, and I don't want to be chained to the way Microsoft wants to sell on their store. It isn't developer friendly, and without market adoption it doesn't have potential profits to attract devs either.

You don't have to use Visual Studio. But it is the best IDE by a long shot when combined with ReSharper and C#, nothing comes close from productivity.

You obviously haven't looked at it, which given their market share is fair, and given the fact you don't want to use visual studio would suggest that you don't do much on the MS platform. (side note, MS should just buy JetBrains, without InteliJ I wouldn't do java, no amount of money is enough to use eclipse).

Also by Custom API, I take it your wanting to program against some other custom API. Which is fine and dandy, but there are always limitations. You have to be mindful. Without going language Jihad, the .Net stack is arguably the best of the hybrids for writing code quickly, maintainable with good performance. I was asked the cost of porting something to Andriod, by the time I'd found some alternatives for TPL and RX we realised it was just too damned slow to run. This was a desktop application.

You talk about ubuntu phone, but right now, today, I've got code base on a phone which is 80% of the same on a desktop. The only other 20% is the UI. The UI is completely differen't because the desktop has a keyboard and the phones just a few inches. You can't get more re-use than that.

As for dockables, well we've seen with the padphone how badly that concept works.

Zanny
first class web apps or qt / qml, apps I write for it can go anywhere

Now I know your trolling. Find me one HTML5 app on Play with 4 stars or more. People say “oh facebook messed up” well, find one good example of it. Then compare that with the number of non-html5 apps that have 4+ stars. QT is an odd one, again, ask someone the worst thing about Skype? However I have actually seen OK stuff made in QT, just not complex. The other problem is, from a platform point of view, why embrace it? Each platform has certain features, the way notifications are handled, the idea of widgets/live tiles/static icons. You have to handle these still. Then come the market place rules, these are not as simple as Apple or Google, these are per region. Oh you want to use those APIs in your app? Sorry, can't be sold in India or UAE (I try to keep sales relivent in the BRICs as a lets no go bust tomorrow strat).

You trivialise it to be about frameworks, its not, it's more complex than that.

Zanny
Also, since Ubuntu phone can plug into screens and play full desktop

But who is really wanting to write code to do that? Surely it would be a seperate App, its a seperate concern after all. Would you say MainWindow would be SOLID across the two paradigms? (I mean SOLID principles)

We just need to look at the windows RT tablet to see how confused that area is. Frankly the Surface RT I have might as well be called the Office 2013 fondle. That is its main use. Yet you know there are TWO versions of one note? Why? Because neither one is quite right for any scenario, you pick the one you want best. My point is here that sure, there might be common code underneeth (there isn't much actually, as much of the code is just in UI functions) but it is so differen't between, I think it is much more business class than even Windows Phone (I imagine Microsoft will eventually make WP8.5 allow the plugin-get-full-windows experience with Office RT at some point, but who knows when they will get around to that).

I see nothing at all asking for Ubuntu's Ideas. In fact I see quite the opposite. They as a company have lost all street credibility, their spyware enriched OS is a bad a choice as a toolbar for IE. The idea of the firefox OS is pointless as even the Chrome store doesn't get a mention, despite being something that is here today, already working cross device.

We do, however, see a big push towards ‘the cloud’ as this ultimate panacea of synchronisation. Rather than the idea of transfering cost of technology for a desk to the phone. Why not just having everything synced together? I mean the desk is still going to need KVM right? Why not spend the extra £50 an through in a terminal too? Heck I'd imagine 50+% of all work computers could be simply a Pi, if it wasn't for the OS being slow (better lately!) and the lack of any powerful office suite.

I suppose I am saying Ubuntu are really making a portable betamax player, it might be impressive that they've been able to do some of it, but why on earth would that be someones workflow.

TheAnimus
Out of interest Saracen, what would you want from a recipe app, rather than a website?

This isn't wanting an exhustive list, just with my code monkey hat on, what is wrong with a HTML website? When cooking I find myself generally in a place with wifi, or at the very least mobile service, so offline isn't a worry?

…..

Essentially, control. And for me, yes, offline is fundamental. I don't want to be halfway through cooking dinner when my ISP chooses to drop my connection for an hour.

But by control, I am primarily talking about MY recipes, not ones stuck on there by other people. I need to be able to add new recipes when I come across them, or adapt existing ones if I change or refine it.

Obviously, it needs the basics, like ingredients, method, times/tempd etc, but it would also be helpful to be able to build a menu for a period, say a week, and to generate a shopping list of ingredients needed.

That shopping list needs to be easily editable, too, and ease of use is critical. If it's too fiddly or fussy in the UI, it's going to end up more of a pain than a help, and won't get used.

And if it could be done in a sleek way, I'd find it useful if that shopping list could refer to a pre-defined list of ‘stock’ ingredients, and perhaps flag them as needed without actually adding them to the list. But I need to be the one that determines what is or isn't ‘stock’.

For instance, if making a spag-bol, I would want carrots on the shopping list, but not salt, pepper and olive oil.

And by the way, I have an Android app that gives me most of what I want, and a fair bit I don't need.

But basically, it's a combination of the kind of recipe book most cooks have, but in electronic form. And with that shopping list type of feature as well.

Other apps I'd use include what boils down to an inventory list of books, another of CDs, etc. I have that on PC, and syncing between my PC and my phone/tablet does interest me, but syncing to a website or to cloud storage does not. I probably don't represent the mass market, but I have no interest at all in syncing or storing any data online, on things like Dropbox, or various “drive” products, free or chargeable.

In all honesty, I'm better off with a recipe book on a tablet, which is precisely where it is. The main reason, maybe the only one, for having it on a phone is that I might have a phone with me on a shopping trip, but I'm not likely to be lugging a tablet.

Much the same type of logic applies to a CD or book inventory app. Mainly, I want those on a PC database (and they are), and the point of phone access is for me to be able to check what's in my collection while out shopping. So syncing to my master database is the point of having that on a phone.

To be honest, I could do anything I want from those apps on a PDA, and I don't need a smartphone. But, try finding much choice of PDA on the market these days. Smartphones have pretty much killed them. But for my purposes, I don't even need wifi and certainly don't want to be paying mobile data rates when the data I want is MY data, sync'd from MY PC.

But I caution you, Animus, even in code monkey hat, I'm not a good person to ask about provide any form of market research feedback on smartphones, because I'm not a fan of them.

Saracen
But I caution you, Animus, even in code monkey hat, I'm not a good person to ask about provide any form of market research feedback on smartphones, because I'm not a fan of them.

That's what makes you so suitable. Market research would be rubbish if it only looked at people who were already fans of existing products.
And long gone are the days when we thought people wouldn't buy a bit of hardware for some killer application.

I've just been given an 820 to evaluate for my company as an alternative to our blackberry's and so far I've been impressed, it looks like it should do the business thing really well. THe interface is very different and wil take a bit of getting used to but I think its good. There's no point in being another OS like Android/iOS, its refreshing and the devices are really smart, the screen changes are slick and its a powerful tool, certainly for business. I think it might take a while but I reckon they could grab a decent chunk of market share, will it be as big as Android? Not sure about that but it'll be interesting to watch it develop!

Windows Phone is an excellent OS that deserves to be successful. Its a joy to use, so simple but very effective, not to mention its the first mobile OS since apple's to actually do something different with the UI.
I still never understand the whole app store argument. So there are ‘only’ 100,000 apps on it - so what? There may well be a few apps that are useful that you can't get on WP but its hardly the end of the bloody world. The vast majority of apps are just throwaway crap that people use a few times then never look at again. Also you can probably carry out the same function using the web browser in a lot of cases.

I only use a few apps regularly and all of them could be done using the browser (train times, cinema listings, guardian news etc).

Saracen
In all honesty, I'm better off with a recipe book on a tablet, which is precisely where it is. The main reason, maybe the only one, for having it on a phone is that I might have a phone with me on a shopping trip, but I'm not likely to be lugging a tablet.

Which is where some kind of syncing thing would be ace. The ‘cloud’ is often used just because it's so easy. Whilst we've seen ****ups from one that means I'd never use them, because simply it implied a gaping security design, not all are like that. Aditionally you could have a cloud provider like Mega, which is going to do everything it can to not understand the content your hosting. Obviously whilst he is doing it for piracy, some companies do similar. One found that data which couldn't be taken offsite was OK, because AES 4048, the private key never left the site!

kalniel
That's what makes you so suitable. Market research would be rubbish if it only looked at people who were already fans of existing products.
And long gone are the days when we thought people wouldn't buy a bit of hardware for some killer application.

Well yes and no. He isn't what I'd call low hanging fruit.

Your ideal customer is someone who will give you all the information about them, constantly use the thing “on line”, whilst selling it heavily to their friends.

Not someone that realises they are the product

Microsoft are very good at catching up in a market. As much as I think android is top dog at the moment, you cannot wright MS off. The apps will soon explode, thanks to MUI and the cheap price Windows 8 was marketed for….the times ahead are interesting to say the least.

Personally, I think Apple will end up suffering the most. They have already been battered by Android and Samsung and now Microsoft are starting to throw their weight around.

I have had my Nokia Lumia 820 for over a month now, and don't regret getting a Windows phone for a second. I am, however, amazed that Android has such a high market share.

my last phone was an HTC Desire (original, not HD or anything). It was fine. And, to be honest, i'm not a massive app person on phones: i save that for my ipad. The windows phone sounds good when making calls, the linking of various phone books is a little confusiing at first, but pretty handy once you get the hang of it, and overall; Yeah, i like it lots.

TheAnimus
You don't have to use Visual Studio. But it is the best IDE by a long shot when combined with ReSharper and C#, nothing comes close from productivity.

You obviously haven't looked at it, which given their market share is fair, and given the fact you don't want to use visual studio would suggest that you don't do much on the MS platform. (side note, MS should just buy JetBrains, without InteliJ I wouldn't do java, no amount of money is enough to use eclipse).

Also by Custom API, I take it your wanting to program against some other custom API. Which is fine and dandy, but there are always limitations. You have to be mindful. Without going language Jihad, the .Net stack is arguably the best of the hybrids for writing code quickly, maintainable with good performance. I was asked the cost of porting something to Andriod, by the time I'd found some alternatives for TPL and RX we realised it was just too damned slow to run. This was a desktop application.

You talk about ubuntu phone, but right now, today, I've got code base on a phone which is 80% of the same on a desktop. The only other 20% is the UI. The UI is completely differen't because the desktop has a keyboard and the phones just a few inches. You can't get more re-use than that.

As for dockables, well we've seen with the padphone how badly that concept works.

By custom API, I mean learning another Android API. I already know that one, and would rather not spend weeks or months figuring all the finalities of another platform out. The point of Ubuntu phone is that if you have a qml UI for it, you should be able to use the native qt functionality that already abstracts platform to avoid writing to a custom API. And I'm curious what platforms your project targets, because if you target Android it has an entirely different build procedure to go against than a desktop Java app. I would absolutely expect anyone trying to make a multi-platform app to have a cross platform base with API and UI glue on top, I'm just saying I'd rather spend as little time as possible on that glue.

Find me one HTML5 app on Play with 4 stars or more. People say “oh facebook messed up” well, find one good example of it. Then compare that with the number of non-html5 apps that have 4+ stars. QT is an odd one, again, ask someone the worst thing about Skype? However I have actually seen OK stuff made in QT, just not complex. The other problem is, from a platform point of view, why embrace it? Each platform has certain features, the way notifications are handled, the idea of widgets/live tiles/static icons. You have to handle these still. Then come the market place rules, these are not as simple as Apple or Google, these are per region. Oh you want to use those APIs in your app? Sorry, can't be sold in India or UAE (I try to keep sales relivent in the BRICs as a lets no go bust tomorrow strat).

I'd say the worst thing about Skype is that it encrypts the binary and has no documentation or easy way to tell what its sending over the network, and has a proven track record of allowing wiretaps and foreign spying on calls. I never took issue with the qt based interface on Linux - it isn't very intuitive, but that is the fault of the designers more than anything. The Windows interface is rubbish, but that is Microsoft's doing. Haven't had experience with the Mac one.

I like Google Docs, Google Drive, Dropbox, the new Mega is ok, Youtube has some nice features, and they are all web apps. The native clients Google uses are wrapper apps they have had for a while, but web apps are still first and foremost websites you just treat like applications. html5 has plenty of potential, I just don't think it's inefficiencies make it viable in a lot of application domains.

But who is really wanting to write code to do that? Surely it would be a seperate App, its a seperate concern after all. Would you say MainWindow would be SOLID across the two paradigms? (I mean SOLID principles)

We just need to look at the windows RT tablet to see how confused that area is. Frankly the Surface RT I have might as well be called the Office 2013 fondle. That is its main use. Yet you know there are TWO versions of one note? Why? Because neither one is quite right for any scenario, you pick the one you want best. My point is here that sure, there might be common code underneeth (there isn't much actually, as much of the code is just in UI functions) but it is so differen't between, I think it is much more business class than even Windows Phone (I imagine Microsoft will eventually make WP8.5 allow the plugin-get-full-windows experience with Office RT at some point, but who knows when they will get around to that).

A lot of the things you do on small touch screens you do on big hardware devices. Read email, read websites, compose emails / twitter, watch video, upload / share pictures. If you have a bluetooth keyboard, you can compose documents fairly well on a mobile form factor if you don't misspell a lot so you don't have to constantly read the document you write. Even then, 7 - 10" tablets are the perfect size for document reading I think, with really high PPI at least. That class of applications encompasses 99% of the use cases of an average joe consumer, and having one base app that has two interfaces, on a powerful enough mobile device to just plug in or miracast into displays / keyboards / mice / headsets / etc for productivity, will almost certainly be the only computer 95% of the target audience of consumers will want computing devices for. For business, having one device works really well too, you can get one phone computer from the company that allows communication anywhere, you can take your work with you, and plug into any terminal in the office to actually do work. The point is that on one device you can preserve environments and workflows across the form factor fold. The difference is that Windows RT (and 8) don't try to discretize a mobile and working UI, because you can run apps on either, for either, and it makes the fullscreen force touch nonsense rubbish on the destkop and the traditional workflows rubbish on the go. The reason I like Ubuntu phone is that (I hope) you don't run the desktop apps when you don't have a desktop environment, and vice versa. To run any application in either, I hope Canonical mandates different interfaces to fit different use cases.

I see nothing at all asking for Ubuntu's Ideas. In fact I see quite the opposite. They as a company have lost all street credibility, their spyware enriched OS is a bad a choice as a toolbar for IE. The idea of the firefox OS is pointless as even the Chrome store doesn't get a mention, despite being something that is here today, already working cross device.

We do, however, see a big push towards ‘the cloud’ as this ultimate panacea of synchronisation. Rather than the idea of transfering cost of technology for a desk to the phone. Why not just having everything synced together? I mean the desk is still going to need KVM right? Why not spend the extra £50 an through in a terminal too? Heck I'd imagine 50+% of all work computers could be simply a Pi, if it wasn't for the OS being slow (better lately!) and the lack of any powerful office suite.

I suppose I am saying Ubuntu are really making a portable betamax player, it might be impressive that they've been able to do some of it, but why on earth would that be someones workflow.

I don't trust the cloud, and many people don't. Internet speeds aren't good enough to keep everything remote. They might be, but I see device power and data density getting much higher faster than the US can overcome the monopolistic mess that is American networking. This is coming from someone in the US, though - the internet here is awful, so I can't use the cloud. Sadly, while I would wish the rest of the world would move on and leave us in the dust, we still have way too much influence in hardware adoption to let that major shift happen without us getting our crap in gear and opening up wireless spectrum and laying some fiber lines.

And I don't much like Canonical either, to be honest. I just think the platform is a good idea. It is where computing will be in 3 - 5 years, people won't look at laptops anymore, and you have one device you connect to anything you need that has the horsepower to run it and use peripherals for a tiny pocket computer that does everything and is the only device for 90% of consumers. I'll still have beefy desktops for compiling and rendering, but most won't need that, and the phone will be enough.

kalniel
That's what makes you so suitable. Market research would be rubbish if it only looked at people who were already fans of existing products.
And long gone are the days when we thought people wouldn't buy a bit of hardware for some killer application.

As Animus said, yes and no. I take your point, that if you want to find out why people don't buy your product, ask those that don't, not those that do, or you just preach to the choir.

What I was getting at, though, when I said “not a fan” was really saying that I not only have no need for a smartphone, but no desire for one. And not only no desire for one, but plenty of reasons for actively not wanting one that, so far at least, has outweighed the uses I would have for one.

TheAnimus
….

Well yes and no. He isn't what I'd call low hanging fruit.

Your ideal customer is someone who will give you all the information about them, constantly use the thing “on line”, whilst selling it heavily to their friends.

Not someone that realises they are the product

That pretty much nails it. I don't want to be the product, and actively and aggressively resent being it.

One of my personal pet detestations is personalised and targeted unsolicited marketing, in just about all it's forms. The worst, by a country mile, is pestering phone calls. BT lost my phone business (personal and business, landline and mobile) about 15 years ago because they would not stop phoning me at home, despite repeated requests not to, and two letters to Sir Iain Vallance about it, until finally I lost my temper with one such marketing caller and treated the poor cow to about 5 minutes of non-stop invective, much of it liberally interspersed with expletives, which would no doubt hsve given the bleep mschine a nervous breakdown if they had one.

I've said more thsn a few times in discussions, and have told various companies I do business with, that I don't want unsolicited marketing communications from anybody, about anything, under any circumstances. They usually think they have some information that's in my best interest to have, some irresistible offer, and that that justifies contacting me even if I've said I don't want to be contacted.

But they're wrong.

If BT were ringing me to tell me they have an offer of free unlimited phone and broadband for the rest of my life, I would STILL not want to be pestered. They can give their offer to someone else, and leave me the *bleep* alone.

When I say I don't want to be marketed at by unsolicited marketing, I really mean it. And I really don't care who they are or what the offer is, I do not want to be bothered.

There's a local pizza firm I order from once a month or so. Have done for years. So, I gave them a mobile number a while back, for delivery purposes, and then I start getting pestered with text messages with offers. So I had a quite and polite, but very firm word, asking them to stop. They said they'll sort it and get my number deleted. If I get any more such messages, they've had the last puzza order they will EVER get from me. I won't keep asking like I did with BT. These days, I don't have the patience or tolerance. I'll just get a new phone number …. and a new pizza supplier, who will not, under any circumstances, get my phone number.

So, given that that's how strongly I feel about intrusive marketing, guess how I feel about, for example, geo-targetted advertising, on a smartphone, because the device is snopping on my location and sending me adverts based on it. About the only way I can be sure a GPS chip is not tracking my location and uploading it is to not carry anything with both a GPS capability and a communications link.

Personalky, I value my privacy VERY highly, and short of a radical redefinition of who has control over what in terms of marketing data, it's going to take one hell of a killer feature(s) on a smartphone to get me to carry one, even if someone gave me one.

Anyone know if you can still use a smartphone as an offline PDA if you remove the SIM card. That'd work for me, ;)

And that's why I'm not a good candidate for giving feedback on desirable features in phone apps. I'm far from convinced I'll ever find anything powerful enough to overcome my reservations. Right now, my phone is probably one of the dumbest phones on the planet, and while it can manage a text message, just about, that's the extent of its cleverness. If it comes to a choice of carrying a smartphone or not carrying a cellular phone at all, because I can't buy a stupid phone next time I need one, I'd probably choose to carry no phone at all.

For me, the main point of a mobile phone is for emergencies, and to allow immediate family and close friends to get me when I'm out and about. It is emphatically not to allow companies to market to me 24/7/365, but that seems to be the driving force behind many aspects of smartphones. It's a Faustian pact - we get a few slick new gizmos to play with, and we sell, no make that give away, any chance of remaining out of corporate databases for it. They even get many of us to pay daft sums for the latest must-have designer fashion accessory version of the contraptions. Someone, in a boardroom somewhere, must really be having a good chuckle over that.

george1979
There may well be a few apps that are useful that you can't get on WP but its hardly the end of the bloody world.

To me, the whole point of having a smartphone is to run apps that I consider useful. It might not be the “end of the world”, but what's the point in getting a product that is sub-optimal for oneself, if there are alternatives which offers a better match?

Saracen - just tried removing SIM card from my Galaxy S3 - erm interesting, very few apps including the calendar etc. work with no SIM card…

Saracen, I can confirm that my Windows 7.5 phone definitely works without a SIM just fine.

TooNice
To me, the whole point of having a smartphone is to run apps that I consider useful. It might not be the “end of the world”, but what's the point in getting a product that is sub-optimal for oneself, if there are alternatives which offers a better match?

Unfortunately, for most people, the primary reason they have a smartphone is so they can bang on endlessly about features and how it's better than xyz other device.

By far the most popular smartphone operating systems are iOS and Android and both are utter garbage because they prioritise features and gimmicks over battery life, reliability and working as intended.
The only reason I exclude Windows Phone is that I have not had to suffer it (yet). I'm sure it'll have the same kind of issues.
I don't blame the companies for doing this either. They produce a product that sells and the masses are so stupid that they would rather have a device that doesn't work properly in that it is unstable, often does stupid things that you wouldn't expect and has short battery life. Provided it is thin, has over 150,000,000,000,000 apps (whether they have a use for them or not) and has OMG quad core 2GB RAM specs or “don't you love it when it just works” smugness even though it simply doesn't “just work”

badass
Unfortunately, for most people, the primary reason they have a smartphone is so they can bang on endlessly about features and how it's better than xyz other device.

By far the most popular smartphone operating systems are iOS and Android and both are utter garbage because they prioritise features and gimmicks over battery life, reliability and working as intended.
The only reason I exclude Windows Phone is that I have not had to suffer it (yet). I'm sure it'll have the same kind of issues.
I don't blame the companies for doing this either. They produce a product that sells and the masses are so stupid that they would rather have a device that doesn't work properly in that it is unstable, often does stupid things that you wouldn't expect and has short battery life. Provided it is thin, has over 150,000,000,000,000 apps (whether they have a use for them or not) and has OMG quad core 2GB RAM specs or “don't you love it when it just works” smugness even though it simply doesn't “just work”

I have to disagree - my Galaxy S3 crashes rarely, has fair battery life (1 charge a day but I do use it a lot) and has a decent camera, maps and does what I want. Bear in mind that I do use wireless, bluetooth, gps and the screen throughout the day. Perhaps some people would class that battery life as dismal but I'm happy

Yes it does and I will buy one as soon as they make a phone I want. At the moment there are no Windows 8 phones with a 1280*768 screen, removable battery, microSD slot, NFC and 4G. First one out of the door gets my money.

Phrontis

badass
Unfortunately, for most people, the primary reason they have a smartphone is so they can bang on endlessly about features and how it's better than xyz other device.

Funnily enough I don't know anyone who does this. Everyone I know who has a smartphone (which is pretty much everyone these days) picked what they got because of a particular feature. In my case (S3) I liked the large screen because I do a lot of maps and browsing - both better on a larger screen

badass
By far the most popular smartphone operating systems are iOS and Android and both are utter garbage because they prioritise features and gimmicks over battery life, reliability and working as intended.

Utter tosh. Heck, Apple's been roundly slagged off because the latest iOS revision didn't add a lot of features (and removed GMaps). Samsung's PR also makes mention of “power saving mode” that their kit has.
And as for “working as intended”, I'd prefer “working as I expect”. And my S3 suits me fine in this respect and I'm sure someone else will say the same for their iPhone.

badass
I don't blame the companies for doing this either. They produce a product that sells and the masses are so stupid that they would rather have a device that doesn't work properly in that it is unstable, often does stupid things that you wouldn't expect and has short battery life. Provided it is thin, has over 150,000,000,000,000 apps (whether they have a use for them or not) and has OMG quad core 2GB RAM specs or “don't you love it when it just works” smugness even though it simply doesn't “just work”

Now here you've got a point. I get quite annoyed that the sheer size of an app store is taken as evidence of it's goodness (or otherwise). An app store with 10000 fart apps or screensavers is obviously less useful than one with a mere 100 decent apps.
And as for size, I despair that manufacturers seem to be pushing a “Reductio ad absurdum” approach to design - thinner is NOT necessarily better. I suspect most folks would prefer that any thickness saving in components was used to include more battery. I've got to wonder if the end game (especially with flexible batteries and screens) is something A4 paper size and thickness that you can fold and unfold exactly like a bit of paper. :o

Getting back to the question - yes I can see Windows Phone having a chance. I can't see it displacing iOS/Android but with the right amount of marketing (and some very decent devices) I could see it taking a very honourable third place. Personally I'd probably take a Lumia 820 or 920 over an iPhone5, but that's just personal preference.

3dcandy
…. and has a decent camera, ….

Add “for a phone camera”, and I'll concede that. Otherwise, we clearly have different definitions of “decent”, or different expectations of a camera.

@ 3candy and cameronlite …. re: SIM card removal, interesting, and thanks to you both.

@saracen just had another play, in the interest of fairness and the calendar app works, but it does like to check online as I use google calendar as well. I hazard a guess and think if the accounts are tied it would work just fine. Camera, alarm, note taking, e-reader apps are fine (except kindle which checks for your purchases, throws a fit then works) and on the whole I'd say a good 90% of my apps work. The ones that don't absolutely require a network connection to function. So, I'd say, on the whole, a half decent smartphone *could* work for you if you wish and not use the whole caboodle. Re: the camera, it's functional, lightweight and much more portable than my DSLR and the photo's are decent if a bit flat, but then again I tend to use instagram for it's filters or another app to add filters.





Obviously not to everybody's taste but a couple of examples…

Nice photos, as in subject matter, framing, etc. But …. low-res examples, Jpeg'd, quite a bit of noise, etc.

Very good for a smartphone, but against even a half-decent compact, let alone a DSLR?

But we're going to end up way off-topic if we go there. I guess the point of a camera in a phone is that you've probably always got it with you. For what I'd regard as snaps, that's fine. But for anything I actually want to photograph, I'd want to step up a notch or two. I have both 35mm and digital compacts, for those times when the SLR or DSLR aren't appropriate. How's the optical zoom on your phone? ;) :D

They're not low-res, instagram adds filters. Those examples have noise, contrast and blur filters applied. My point is that I personally use them creatively. But yes, there is a point in all this, as this app is NOT available for WP yet. It's an app with a vast amount of traction which is sadly missing. And I see your point about no optical zoom as well. But, the photo's are also GPS tagged, so I quite often take a quick snap which then gives me the ability to gps tag my other photos in one quite simple step. Taken at the same time, just for comparison…

640 x 480 is hardly high-res. I could see they were processed, but that hardly makes easy to assess what the camera is capable of. One of my digital compacts has a GPS chip and geo-tags images …. with 14MP, and a 16x Leica lens, among a host of features, many of which I'll probably never use. SLR it ain't, but it's pretty decent for a compact.

It won't make phone calls, though. :D

I just bought one - very impressed so far.

Saracen
640 x 480 is hardly high-res. I could see they were processed, but that hardly makes easy to assess what the camera is capable of. One of my digital compacts has a GPS chip and geo-tags images …. with 14MP, and a 16x Leica lens, among a host of features, many of which I'll probably never use. SLR it ain't, but it's pretty decent for a compact.

It won't make phone calls, though. :D

I chose that size from flickr simply to show what could be done. Instagram also resizes them I'm afraid so it's a bit of a moot point but it's not all about the photo's, it's about a huge app (user base wise) bought by facebook that currently appears to have no date for release on this platform - possibly the most glaring missing app as far as I can see. Yes others might disagree, but I use it a lot, and for this reason at this time I don't think WP is fairing too well in the grand scheme of things. Mileage of course might vary, and of course the best camera you have is the one with you etc. etc. but it appears that a large majority of apps are slow to appear on the platform so far…

Back to the main points though, I've got a range of apps that I use and like, most of which appear to have no direct replacement if I was to move from Android at this time. I got my phone on a decent contract at a decent price, something at that time I couldn't do with a WP phone. Also at that time WP8 wasn't released and the decent Nokia's were also in short supply. I really couldn't see any reason to wait or change my mind and on the strength of people seeing my phone I now know at least 10 people who have bought S3's. 5 of these were iPhone 4 users, a pretty big swing you'd agree. So, for me, it does appear that currently WP8 is too little and too late for me personally. However, if things continue to improve I'd imagine it would and possibly should overtake Blackberry in time and then be the 3rd choice OS

Zanny
By custom API, I mean learning another Android API. I already know that one, and would rather not spend weeks or months figuring all the finalities of another platform out. The point of Ubuntu phone is that if you have a qml UI for it, you should be able to use the native qt functionality that already abstracts platform to avoid writing to a custom API. And I'm curious what platforms your project targets, because if you target Android it has an entirely different build procedure to go against than a desktop Java app. I would absolutely expect anyone trying to make a multi-platform app to have a cross platform base with API and UI glue on top, I'm just saying I'd rather spend as little time as possible on that glue.

ah you mean learning an API other than Android? That doesn't really bother me, because I despise programming in Java now. It was fine 10 years ago, but nothing has evolved since then, its like C++ but without the performance benefit.

Which comes to my point, most apps (well good apps) today are not API + GUI.

Model - View Model - View is one of the better ones, but MVP/MVC are common too.

In this its only the model which is completely common, the view models, will have some reuse, but its entirely SOLID style or sometimes AOP. So ultimately the View is going to have to be re-written a lot for different uses.

Right now I've got something which is Desktop Windows (Vista or later), Windows Phone 7.5 up, Windows 8 Modern UI, and iOS.

iOS is a complete bugger. I hate developing against it, I've tried to do as much using .Net to keep the development time down, but it is still ghastly syntax and slow.

I haven't looked at android due to the cost of fragmentation, I've not evaluated xamarin yet, but from what I've seen it doesn't solve the problem. There are plenty of Apps which aren't well made, had little money behind them on Andriod that just don't work on say a Nexus 7, despite how many they sold.

Zanny
I'd say the worst thing about Skype is that it encrypts the binary and has no documentation or easy way to tell what its sending over the network, and has a proven track record of allowing wiretaps and foreign spying on calls. I never took issue with the qt based interface on Linux - it isn't very intuitive, but that is the fault of the designers more than anything. The Windows interface is rubbish, but that is Microsoft's doing. Haven't had experience with the Mac one.

Most people don't care about wiretypes, I don't consider skype any more private than I do a PSTN. I would say its a mix of designers and interface, I would also wonder why Microsofts doing has anything? The new Modern UI one is rather good for my Mum, if there was a cheap RT tablet my gran would have one, as it stands she can't work skype on Android herself.

Zanny
I like Google Docs, Google Drive, Dropbox, the new Mega is ok, Youtube has some nice features, and they are all web apps. The native clients Google uses are wrapper apps they have had for a while, but web apps are still first and foremost websites you just treat like applications. html5 has plenty of potential, I just don't think it's inefficiencies make it viable in a lot of application domains.

None of these really do anything powerful thou, I mean the google docs is sluggish enough on my Nexus 7, and it is just sifting files. Compared to say SkyDrive which is a native app (and has MUCH better TOS than Google!).

Which is the issue for me, HTML5 just isn't viable.

Zanny
A lot of the things you do on small touch screens you do on big hardware devices. Read email, read websites, compose emails / twitter, watch video, upload / share pictures. If you have a bluetooth keyboard, you can compose documents fairly well on a mobile form factor if you don't misspell a lot so you don't have to constantly read the document you write. Even then, 7 - 10" tablets are the perfect size for document reading I think, with really high PPI at least. That class of applications encompasses 99% of the use cases of an average joe consumer, and having one base app that has two interfaces, on a powerful enough mobile device to just plug in or miracast into displays / keyboards / mice / headsets / etc for productivity, will almost certainly be the only computer 95% of the target audience of consumers will want computing devices for. For business, having one device works really well too, you can get one phone computer from the company that allows communication anywhere, you can take your work with you, and plug into any terminal in the office to actually do work. The point is that on one device you can preserve environments and workflows across the form factor fold. The difference is that Windows RT (and 8) don't try to discretize a mobile and working UI, because you can run apps on either, for either, and it makes the fullscreen force touch nonsense rubbish on the destkop and the traditional workflows rubbish on the go. The reason I like Ubuntu phone is that (I hope) you don't run the desktop apps when you don't have a desktop environment, and vice versa. To run any application in either, I hope Canonical mandates different interfaces to fit different use cases.

The problem for me is I don't see much of Ubuntu Phone in a real world working environment. By this I mean its not there yet, it can go either way.

I'm not sure I understand the problem enough. As is with a surface you can nicely hook it up to a KVM it works rather well. The main issue that gets me is that the TFTs I have aren't touch friendly. That becomes limiting. The more I study people with limited computer use, the more I think it will become touch screen + mouse/touchpad. People before used to treat them as an exclusive or. I don't think people will.

For me I just don't get the benefit of having a phone physically interface with that, drive all that, at least not for the next 5 years.

Zanny
I don't trust the cloud, and many people don't. Internet speeds aren't good enough to keep everything remote. They might be, but I see device power and data density getting much higher faster than the US can overcome the monopolistic mess that is American networking. This is coming from someone in the US, though - the internet here is awful, so I can't use the cloud. Sadly, while I would wish the rest of the world would move on and leave us in the dust, we still have way too much influence in hardware adoption to let that major shift happen without us getting our crap in gear and opening up wireless spectrum and laying some fiber lines.

So how about an NFC transfer of state. Bonk your phone and boom everything is there, bonk back or slow cloud sync if you forget too?

Trying to make the phone a jack of all, to me just adds cost and complexity. I mean after all you'll need a keyborad, a screen, a mouse. All of these are big things, it would be very cheap to put a computer in. Hell my TV in my bedroom has more computing power than a phone from just a few years ago.

Zanny
I just think the platform is a good idea. It is where computing will be in 3 - 5 years, people won't look at laptops anymore

Completely disagree.

I will never want to work on a phone, unless we have some kind of amazing folding technology, I'll always have a laptop sized thing, for a keyboard and a screen. Sure it might be even more wafer thin, have more battery life, but I can't rely on where I end up having a ‘dock’.

wheres the demographic for windows phone worldwide. You can't rely on one continent that figure you shown for the UK is there a link? In my opinion i believe they could increase their market share only if they keep partnering with popular apps and get exclusive access to new apps first before the other mobile platforms.

3dcandy
I chose that size from flickr simply to show what could be done. Instagram also resizes them I'm afraid so it's a bit of a moot point but it's not all about the photo's, it's about a huge app (user base wise) bought by facebook that currently appears to have no date for release on this platform - possibly the most glaring missing app as far as I can see.

…..

Well, except that our discussion about the camera was specifically about the camera, and whether it was “decent”, or just decent for a smartphone.

As for Facebook and all that entails, I will admit to a militant disinterest in everything Facebookite. Don't use it and don't see that ever changing, not least because I'm not prepared to give them the info their t&c's require, and don't see why I should bother to make up stuff just to join, or to be honest, the point in joining if you do.

So I have no view on anything to do with that.