I strongly agree with your sentiment. As a Surface Book and Lumia 950 user, I have watched the Surface product line receive good attention and necessary quality improvements. Meanwhile, the phone space is all but ignored, with a curious caveat: for whatever reason, Windows 10 Mobile continues to see gradual updates and improvements. The core applications (email, music player, browser, calendar) continue to improve. So I remain a Lumia 950 user because, frankly, it does everything I need a mobile device to do.
But I am an edge case and broadly speaking, people want much more glamour from their mobile phones. At some point a few years ago, I think Windows Phone was up to about 5% share but it seemed Microsoft's work on mobile was put into slow motion. It's no wonder share has decreased since.
Continuum is a very good idea, but the progress on making it solid, reliable, and high-performance is astonishingly slow. I don't know the technical realities of the Broxton cancellation, but that really put a big kink in the notion of a real, solid Continuum experience. For the time being, it seems Microsoft is just hoping that HP can explore Continuum innovation with devices like the Elite x3. Virtually no one has even heard of an Elite x3.
Windows phone fans have been absolutely clamoring for an ultra-high spec glamorous phone. I think this is an artifact of everyone knowing one of the key drivers of phone adoption: make devices that catch other peoples' eyes and force them to ask, "What is that?" Word of mouth is a key part of adoption. I know when I purchased one of the first Lumia 920s (you might remember them as the very colorful Windows Phones from a few years back), many people would ask me about it. The 920 was hardly a success compared to iOS and Android, but it was probably the most successful Windows 8 phone, and I think that's in large part to it being something that people noticed.
Evangelists of the Windows platform have been eagerly awaiting a Surface Phone because they know it would be such a device. It would be a conversation starter. And frankly, despite it being a hard hill to climb, Microsoft hasn't been trying on mobile for years. They're not even interested in starting the conversation.
And that's a bit boggling and frustrating. I know several people bored of iOS, uninspired by the iPhone 7, and similarly disenchanted with Android devices. These people aren't vocalizing the words as such, but they are open to something new. If by some magic you could drop a Surface Phone onto the market with a rock solid Continuum experience, and put serious marketing effort into it, I think you could earn back that 5% share, and then work to grow from there.
Yeah that's exactly the thing. There's always been something missing. In the beginning there wasn't any apps and hardware was lackluster, but at least Microsoft was putting everything into the platform. Then Nokia shined in knowing how to market a consumer device and make a brand out of Lumia... but still the critical apps were missing and Microsoft's many turns with OS'reboots created an platform that was always trying to catch up with themselves.
Now W10/W10m is basically everything we want it to be, I mean there's some amazing stuff in the new API's and composition API stuff but no one is using them. Continuum in theory could be a game changer. The concept with tiles despite being several years old now is still something that feels fresh and ahead of the curve compared to iphone and android. but Microsoft can't launch and market a flagship phone that pulls everything together.
Just make one gret flagship phone that says "We're in it to win it" and a budget phone that'll mop up the budget/mid-tier. We'll see, maybe that's what they're working on but time is running out
«for whatever reason, Windows 10 Mobile continues to see gradual updates and improvements.»
Well the big obvious thing is that this shows how the efforts put into making the UWP truly Universal seem to be playing out. Certainly a lot updates and improvements benefit every device and the low overhead benefits a "low usage" platform like mobile.
That said, I'm still kind of weirdly optimistic and I think this quiet, continual improvement really is a good sign. I know some criticism existed that Windows Phone 7 and Windows Phone 8 and Windows 10 Mobile were "half-baked" early/at launch, and there's an interesting question about how much Microsoft just wants the platform to "catch up" and "feel solid" before a bigger marketing push.
For instance, one thing that I think has unfortunately been under-cooked has been Windows 10's efforts in the People hub, especially given where Windows 8.1 eventually built up to before some of it getting broken up in 10. The new "My People" functionalities shown at today's event seems to prove that a lot has been going on that space and is due for the Creators Update. I was hoping they'd at least give us a small glimpse of the mobile experience for it, but I realize the gee whiz factor of showing it off on a desktop taskbar.
There was a definite signal in Microsoft only using an HP mobile device on stage. Could be Microsoft is confident in deeper OEM support for Windows mobile devices.
But I am an edge case and broadly speaking, people want much more glamour from their mobile phones. At some point a few years ago, I think Windows Phone was up to about 5% share but it seemed Microsoft's work on mobile was put into slow motion. It's no wonder share has decreased since.
Continuum is a very good idea, but the progress on making it solid, reliable, and high-performance is astonishingly slow. I don't know the technical realities of the Broxton cancellation, but that really put a big kink in the notion of a real, solid Continuum experience. For the time being, it seems Microsoft is just hoping that HP can explore Continuum innovation with devices like the Elite x3. Virtually no one has even heard of an Elite x3.
Windows phone fans have been absolutely clamoring for an ultra-high spec glamorous phone. I think this is an artifact of everyone knowing one of the key drivers of phone adoption: make devices that catch other peoples' eyes and force them to ask, "What is that?" Word of mouth is a key part of adoption. I know when I purchased one of the first Lumia 920s (you might remember them as the very colorful Windows Phones from a few years back), many people would ask me about it. The 920 was hardly a success compared to iOS and Android, but it was probably the most successful Windows 8 phone, and I think that's in large part to it being something that people noticed.
Evangelists of the Windows platform have been eagerly awaiting a Surface Phone because they know it would be such a device. It would be a conversation starter. And frankly, despite it being a hard hill to climb, Microsoft hasn't been trying on mobile for years. They're not even interested in starting the conversation.
And that's a bit boggling and frustrating. I know several people bored of iOS, uninspired by the iPhone 7, and similarly disenchanted with Android devices. These people aren't vocalizing the words as such, but they are open to something new. If by some magic you could drop a Surface Phone onto the market with a rock solid Continuum experience, and put serious marketing effort into it, I think you could earn back that 5% share, and then work to grow from there.