Lack of apps is what killed the platform. I had a Windows phone and it became increasingly frustrating to use, because none of the popular apps were available on it. Windows phone had a much nicer UI than any android skin available back then, but it lacked apps, and that's what ultimately killed it.
It was so annoying 😂 not a single app you were used to at the time was available for download. Only shitty web knock offs. I had a windows phone for a few months back in 2012 when iPhones were already growing for 4 years with apps so it was like taking a step back owning a windows phone. It was suoer frustrating 😂
@@TheSjuris I'd have to say, after using an iphone for a while, android is so much better. A lot of iphone people haven't used an Android phone since the 2010s, when they had weird UIs and quirky features. It's a completely different story today, and android is exceptional at everything, much more than iOS (speaking from experience, and as a software engineer).
Lack of support of first party apps too... Nokia has developed amazing apps for their lumias because ms didn't. Nokia made them general available later.. but it was too late already.
@@benwagner7422 to be fair. Microsoft did attempt to compensate with some apps and they all got shut down. For example, Google would always shut down their apps etc .
#3 is the primary reason. The only reason any mobile OS failed was because of apps. #2 is a good reason and they learned early that they shouldn't have went that route...lol
As a former Nokia Lumia user, I find this story heartbreaking. The OS had real potential and the way a Windows phone worked was not bad, but the lack of app support, amongst other things, was a big downer. However, I was a loyal Windows phone user and only replaced mine in 2020. I still miss the Metro interface and the keyboard though.
Same here my friend, windows phone was and will always be truly special. A true diamond in the rough. Truly, a magnificent work of art down to the beautiful UI
I still remember when I got my first job. I bought a Windows phone. Pokemon Go became popular, and everyone played it besides me, I was literally watching my friends play Pokemon Go while going on a walk and I couldn't play it. Never regretted buying a phone more. It barely had any popular apps.
I remember owning the Nokia Lumia when it came out. It had a gorgeous UI and amazing user experience, but the app support just wasn't there. Eventually switched to an iPhone 6s.
Yep, the UI was vasty superior. They learnt from the mistakes of iOS and Android. Were just far too late and far to slow. Google were releasing major updates every few months, Microsoft once a year.
Ngl by later stage of windows mobile ,it wasn't their fault .Google just wasn't ready to collaborate are it wouldn't mean loosing business . But on the other hand microsoft didn't really care enough to optimise their existing pc apps and make deals with software Devs even if it meant a drop in profits . Even in 2024 Microsoft still doesn't have a proper app store or proper touchscreen ui which is equivalent to ipados !
The stupid thing is, Bill Gates actually describes a modern smartphone in his book, the road ahead, published in the 1990s. But he didn't call it a smartphone, he called it a wallet PC.
That's the thing that's always been the problem at Microsoft, they have great ideas their execution is so poor. Balmer is right, they dropped the ball integrating the hardware and software but they also lacked the integration that made Apple so successful in the mobile space.
@@gywghhb Yes, in fact Gates was talking about the "wallet PC" as early as 1993, a full 14 years before Jobs introduced the iPhone. The wallet PC was intended as a pocket device that would perform many different functions. The intention was that making phone calls would one be function of the device, but not the most important one. So the only difference between that and a smartphone is the emphasis on the phone functionality rather than the wallet functionality.
I was a Nokia developer (on the Symbian side) when Steve Elop forced Nokia over to Windows Phone (the infamous "burning platform" memo). At the time most Engineers were arguing for a switch to Android. The push for Microsoft was coming from (as far as I can tell) Elop himself, and that decision basically trashed Nokia as a phone manufacturer. I think the issue was a bit more complex then you suggest here and wrapped up with the Metro UI. Microsoft thought that if people saw the same or similar interface on both PCs and Mobiles, that would give them an edge. Reality is that the interface failed on PCs, so that itself strategy failed. Also the approach seemed less optimal for Windows (others may disagree) - for example, the wasted area down one side of the screen that just had an arrow. I also remember some strange issues if you re-entered an existing app - it might do so as it was a new instance. Whatever, I remember it being said in company briefings that if we went with Android, we would have to pay Microsoft more in patent compensation than it would cost to get use Microsoft Phone software. I think that would have been worth it.
I am still amazed this was never investigated for fraud or even embezzlement. The Nokia/Microsoft deal seemed like such a conflict of interest. It felt like MS got their people installed as decision makers to make the deal go through, and then a lot of the people approving the deal were on the board at Nokia and made money off of the big MS purchase. The whole thing felt very weird and shady to me
Thing is you say MS wanted to have a phone and PC on the same UI etc but even today Windows Phone doesn't even work at all. It supposed to connect to your phone should you leave it somewhere else but if the phone has a pin/thumb print unlock it won't work until YOUVE UNLOCKED IT so then theirs no point in using such a feature because most people have a lock for their android phone
Having worked at Microsoft during this time as a designer I can confidently say it was two things. 1) late to market and not innovating enough 2) having a CEO such as Ballmer at the helm.
Windows Phone Failed, because they built a completely new os instead of just updating windows mobile 6.5 with a new UI. windows mobile actually had the best homebrew and dev community back then. XDA was originally all windows mobile mods tweaks before android was released.
Also worked with Microsoft at the time. There were a LOT more issues than Ballmer. It's easy to say it was Ballmer than say the others at fault. There's a lot of blame to go around outside of Ballmer. Carrier relationships, business partnerships, OEM relationships and then developers. I don't think Windows was late per se I think it's because of their standing in those communities at the time that resulted in it's failure. And don't get me started on the advertising budget blown on stars and athletes to promote windows phone just to see them with an iPhone a day later. There's a lot of fault to go around
Everything Balmer said was spot on. The problem was Apple didnt market iPhone to enterprise but consumers. Balmer couldn't see the snartphone market beyond the business market and a consumer device came to dominate the enterprise market.
What’s really interesting to look back and compare is the reaction of Google and Microsoft when the iPhone was announced. Google went on “Oh shit” mode “we gotta start all over” and Balmer… Well, we saw his reaction in the video. Now, years later, we compare the current state Android and Windows Mobile… But to be honest, at the time I thought that Windows Phone was way better than Android, it was just too late to matter.
@@brittneyking4284the CEO of google, he was on the Apple board when the iPhone was introduced, I’m sure he ran back to his office and had an emergency meeting
Here is the thing, the funny thing was that Balmer wasn't 100% wrong at the time. The issue was that he wasn't prepared for being wrong... See, iPhone wasn't really ready to actually take over yet until the iPhone 4. The gamble was, could iPhone be a good enough phone at $500 in a short enough period of time??? For Apple, this was also a gamble to see if they could pull it off in a short enough period of time. Balmer just missed the point that if he was wrong, then it would be the end.... he had no contingency plan....
Yip he's no geek. Just a corporate guy. I mean why buy out a failed tech company like Nokia other than to appease shareholders because it's discounted?
I mean microsoft is a trillion dollar company currently so I think it turned out pretty well for them, you could say the same thing about Tim Cook if we are being honest
Don’t quote me on this, but I think Nadella said that the strategies around pivoting the business to Saas & Cloud were started under Balmers watch then he took over and executed. I’m not one to defends Ballmer as he strikes me as a bit of a Buffoon, but it seems his weakness was having a keen sense for enterprise tech but not being in touch at all with consumer tech.
And it is still not Finnished. HMD (human mobile devices ) a young Finnish company who used the Nokia name under license for their products doesn't renew the license the end of this year. And they will use their own HMD brandname from now on. While a Finnish phone brand (Nokia) is Finnished a Finnish phone is not Finnished 😉
always make this typo, and because most auto correct assume i'm talking about the country, they just capitalize the F and make the spell checkers miss the typo.
Beating Windows phones was going to be easy. What floored me is how quickly Blackberry became obsolete. In 2006 there wasn't anything hotter and more addictive than a Blackberry. Their sales reps I had to deal with for clients were some of the most arrogant people I ever met. They were printing money. 5 years later... it was basically a rotary phone. I still think a Blackberry physical keyboard was better than any touch keyboard I've had. Both Droid and Apple.
No app store killed BlackBerry. iPhone hardware at the time is an engineering masterpiece. What BlackBerry should have done was embrace Android. BlackBerry should have offered 3 models, no keyboard, 3 key (back, home, active apps), full keyboard. My family are all iPhone users, and they simply don't care what others think. Business people DO care because of cost.
The engineering firm I worked for at the time got us the Blackberrys with the Nextel Direct Connect and I loved that setup. Still have it sitting in a drawer somewhere.
Apps. Blackberry was whack with that. Also, capacitive touch was good enough for texting. Typing long emails were stupid. Blackberry never got the memo. Lol
@@dgmessenger If you use word prediction which correctly predicts almost all words for me, nothing beats that typing speed. It's comparable to typing on a pc keyboard which is great for work. There's a good reason why a small physical keyboard isn't a thing anymore.
Eh can't really have a perfect guy. If you hire someone who would have jumped on the big screen trend the same guy would jump on nft and crypto/blockchain etc.
I always had a soft spot for the Windows Phone. They felt so different and I don’t think that feeling can exist in the modern day due to how mature phones have become
They have not become "mature," they have become stale and homogenised. Google keeps trying to make Android more like iOS for some reason, and Android OEM's keep trying to copy bad iPhone decisions such as removing 3.5mm port, removing expandable storage, using notches, etc.
@@sigiligusStock Android is noticeably different to iOS although stale. On the other hand iOS 18 looks more Androidified than ever and One UI 7 more iosified than ever which isn't always a bad thing.
I always kinda liked the "metro UI" on the Windows phone. The huge pictures and bright colors were great. They were just late as hell to the party because most people had either chosen a side already (iPhone or Android)
One day in 1996, my stepdad came home with the first Palmpilot. He told the whole family that in the next decade or two, everyone will have a device like this that does everything a phone, pc, camera, and discman can do. He stressed how it would just be a screen, no keyboard or stylus, and that it would basically replace every gadget we own. He even said it will do video calls. He talked about Moors law and LCD tech making it inevitable.
Between maintenance and licensing libraries, it was probably a headache that would have ended up breaking the OS when Google decided to change their API when moving to later Android versions. It's the reason a lot of old Android apps don't work properly on new phones, or won't even install.
@@errorxf00feven Android itself doesn't support very old apps. Those it supports even now could be supported by Windows in the same way. Just keep some old libraries for a certain time. Like MS keeps old .net libraries only for a time. That's all it costs to support old apps.
One note, Android was originally under development before the iPhone but for a BlackBerry style device, a prototype was even shown, however they quickly shifted gears once the iPhone was announced.
@@mateadx Yeah - trouble was their CEO was an idiot and didn't move to compete. You have to adapt or you die - BB didn't adapt. Eventually they switched over to Android but it was too late.
Initially Android was designed to a a UI for Cameras ! Sad to see that never happened . An Android 1.0 based ui mirrorless camera could shake the entire market !
The only reason they failed was because they couldn't pursue developers for their app store, they had immense potential. I used a windows 8 phone. top notch optimisation, durable build, zero lag software and a pretty powerful camera. But sadly I owned a device more powerful than an Iphone and an android that didn't have enough apps that would put all those good hardware to use. My friends used to mock me for not being able to use Instagram. Switched to android in 2014 and never looked back
That's true, I had a Lumia 535 and I loved it so much until I couldn't use any apps I liked. It was like having a super console with zero game in it. Finally switched to android. I feel sorry for Nokia for not joining android in good time.
For all of Microsoft’s huge cash pile, why they didn’t outright pay developers to create Win Phone versions of their apps still makes me shake my head to this day.
I miss the responsiveness and convenience of that keyboard to this day. Microsoft claims that SwiftKey on android is the same product, but it does not feel the same.
This reminds me of a joke from the big bang theory. In the flashback episode where leornard tells the story how he met sheldon in 2003, when raj shown sheldon an ipod sheldon said " I assure you, you'll be sorry you wasted your money on an iPod, when Microsoft comes out with theirs."
@@Soguwe like star lord getting a zune from yondu after his walkman was destroyed, i found hilarious how even marvel and microsoft did a contest to give away a new unopened zoom for guardians vol 3
Apple has a record of showing other companies how focusing on the smaller things is what matters, for example focusing on efficiency, whats a powerful processor if it heats up and destroys battery? Its like a car- powered what’s the point of a massive powerful engine if there is no grip on the tires?
Him saying "it will do email", "it will do music" makes me cringe every time lol For him it's either it does it or it doesn't, like user experience and convenience didn't even exist.
That was and still is the attitude of microsoft. It served them well in the 90s and early 2000s, it is a thing to get stuff done. meanwhile Apple has always been about user interaction and how it makes you feel when doing things. Nokia n95 which was the best phone when iphone came out smokes iphone, but iphone made you feel like you are in the future, same thing with their colorful macs and ipods etc...
He also seeming he failed to understand that his devices were going to be used by people who may be business people who were also mom's, dad's, photographers, dancers, just people.
Good detailed video. I worked on a major C# SDK in 2015-2017 (Realm database) and still have the three Windows Phones I bought at that time. Beautiful hardware and a smooth UI. These were (eventually) very popular in business and amongst people I know in mining, using them in the field. Many people were upset by their demise. As a developer, my perspective on the lack of apps is a bit different. MS were playing a lot of games with development tooling and choice of UI frameworks around that time - some of it's still going on and complicating life for Windows desktop devs. So this alone made it a huge gamble to bet on porting an app to the platform. They could have fixed this - they could have had better porting tools but neglected them too. I've worked on the original WinCE. The WP8 and new "Windows 10 Mobile" OS in 2015 onwards was very good and nothing like the restricted poor attempt to just port Windows of its predecessor. As the video says, using a base of Windows NT (a real multi-tasking OS) made a huge difference. More than anything else, the Windows Phone was a victim of the internal political wars inside Microsoft.
I don't know... It's not that he was wrong - the idea was ludicrous, the phone was expensive AF and most business people in high places are one of the more stagnant and stubborn people on the planet who rejected Pocket PCs and more touch capabilities they offered before Steve came and found the words and the right pair of jeans to give the same stupid innovation everyone else was pushing years before and actually sell it. And what was he supposed to say? "All my golf buddies that are idiots... some of them still use tape to store data because they think IRS knows best".
It broke my sister's heart when the Windows Phone shut down. I remember going to the Sprint store to pick out a new phone. She got a Samsung phone in the end.
I had a medium-sized business for 22 years until I retired. I JUST bought another business, growing into medium size. The most important lesson is: If you wait for changes to make sense to everyone else, then you’ll be BEHIND everyone else.
I really enjoy these longer-form explained videos. It’s not just info-dumping but also storytelling. Plus, I could listen to Greg discussing tech all day long.
21:52 Microsoft recovered NOTHING. NOKIA recovered that. And THAT was the big problem. Windows Phone was NEVER what sold the phones. The NOKIA brand was selling the Lumias. Nokia's tradition of quality and best cameras on the market was what sold NOKIA Lumia phones. It was NOKIA that carried on its back the entire platform. It was NOKIA who had to FORCE Microsoft to constantly release updates to Windows Phone 8, to enable Nokia to innovate and bring to market things that nowadays many people think Apple or Samsung invented (like Always On displays, pixel-binning in photos, live photos, directional audio recording, oversampling of images, etc). So when Microsoft purchased Nokia's Devices and Services business, they basically killed Windows Phone. Without the power of the Nokia brand behind them, Lumias simply had no customers. And you'll see that happen again now with HMD devices. They were already selling badly 'cause they were just releasing rebranded Chinese garbage. But without the NOKIA logo in the phones, NO ONE is going to buy HMD phones.
As a former insider, I can confirm your account is accurate. Microsoft's first step after acquiring the Nokia phone business was to fire sales and marketing teams. And sales went down, so they cancelled the roadmap. And sales went down. 🤔🤷♂️
From other vendor's perspective (I've also worked with Nokia phone software, before smartphones) - when Nokia chose Microsoft, we all just shook our heads. This will ruin Nokia. Microsoft had neither enough embedded experience, nor telecom/phone device/market experience, nor operator experience. They just never proved being successful at anything that would matter in the telecom market, they didn't bring enough to the table... And, of course, as pointed out in the video, it was all years too late, the window of opportunity had already passed. Nokia held on to Symbian for too long, then they chose unproven Microsoft instead of Android
@@kevinfisher5492Ballmer ruined Microsoft’s reputation or at the very least made it worse than before. Especially after forcing you to buy Microsoft Office. I’m not a big fan of Apple but microsoft got so shitty that I got myself a macbook. And I got both an iphone and samsung galaxy. Microsoft has become the person that peaked in high school.
3:15 That Wonderful moment when Art, Music and Technology intermingled on the Beautiful Commodore AMIGA 1000 😍 Thanks for including that little touch of nostalgia
As a Palm user all the way up to 2014 (up to the HP Pre 3), I absolutely still miss physical keyboards. I miss being able to type texts with touch instead of having to look. THAT SAID, when I switched to the Samsung Note 4, the larger screen was definitely a fair trade off. Even to this day, while I still miss physical keyboards, what I get in its place is still a square deal... it helps ease the pain. In a way tho, Steve Balmer was right... at first. The original iPhone WASN'T really geared for business. It was a device "for everyone else", which has always been Apple's thing. The iPhone only took off for business definitely by the time the iPhone 4 came out, which was when they started adding those features that business users needed, like installable apps and copy-and-paste functionality. So Balmer definitely would've been wrong if iPhone 4 had been released as the first iPhone.
This is true, but ironically a decent amount of keyboard cases that add a portrait style keyboard under the screen exist now for iPhones. Since iPhones are very standardized, it's easier to do this for them than a 100 different kinds of Android phones, all with different form factors, even from the same manufacturer.
I never owned a windows phone but I did own a surface tab. I used to be frustrated by the fact there were barely any apps especially youtube. I could imagine it was the same with their phones.
I remember very well when the 1st iPhone came out. I was working for a mobile phone carrier and they had some kind of deal with Blackberry. I remember that a Blackberry representative came to our office and for almost one hour, he told us about how the iPhone sucked and how the Blackberry was so much better for both business people as well as regular people.
Great video! Thanks for putting all of this together into one cohesive video. A note of constructive criticism: on a video of this length, you just can’t loop the same music over & over. (I’m a musician, so perhaps I’m more sensitive to these things.) It slowly starts grating on your brain after a while, like hold music on your phone. These kinds of videos need new pieces of music at each major chapter, following the story. Otherwise, excellent work as always!
He's the embodiment of a "we're too big to fail" mindset. The downfall of Microsoft occurred on his watch. Longhorn would've have been the final blow to the Desktop OS, but instead we got Vista...
He can't be that out of touch; his personal wealth amounts to $147 billion, ranking him as the seventh-richest individual globally. It seems like he's quite grounded, in my opinion.
@@thewatcherofawesomecontentDownfall? Microsoft is the largest company in the world, by market cap. I'd say they're doing just fine. They just missed the boat on mobile
@@festusssss No the mid 00's were a disaster for Microsoft... they got levelled up by both Apple and Google... they had the potential to be ahead of both, but Steve "Developers" Ballmer had NO VISION.
@@jamiebarnes3539 You assume a link between personal wealth and being grounded. There is none. And you also do not even attempt to show one. People get rich by statistics, not by any form of competency.
@@mrparts But instead we entered "The Age of Cultural Stagnation". You can look back 10 years and you could still think we are in 2024. Everything was there and is still mainstream, sure things got "better/newer" but nothing changed somehow. People looked back to the 80s and 90s from a 2000 perspective and thought the world was completely bananas. Every decade had it's own unique theme and feel. After 2000 nothing! Same music, same action hero movies, same clothing (with some retro stuff from 80s 90s again) and same problems...
I had a Nokia Lumia 900, and just the name had me hooked-especially when the Lumia 1020 came out! I didn’t care about the lack of apps; the operating system was beautiful and unique. I even managed to install the betas for Windows Phone 8.5 and Windows 10, so I saw the whole process you mentioned. Going back to iOS was a tough pill to swallow because I really liked Windows, but it was clear they were late to the game. The Nokia Lumia 1020 was ahead of its time with that 41-megapixel camera, manual settings, and RAW format... back in 2013!
Same here. I loved my 1020, but Microsoft didn’t seem interested in aggressively promoting the Win Phone platform and getting developers to write Win Phone apps. Once the newer version of the Nokia 1020 came out with virtually no real improvements, I reluctantly gave up and switched to an iPhone 6.
Back in 2012, I was 17 and my first job was working at the newly formed EE in the UK. I distinctly remember our store had a Nokia rep, and we used to attend "Lumia Lanes" - a trip to the bowling alley every few weeks. Was such a fun time, got loads of free merch.
I used to work for O2 while I was a student between 2006-2010. It was creating selling the first iPhone. We used to get so many freebies and incentives. Good times as a student
I actually hope Microsoft have another run at mobile phones. I really liked the fresh approach to user interface design. I loved that for the higher end models they has a feature (Continuum), where you could plug into a KVM adapter and you basically have full blown desktop windows to use. No laptop needed. I think having a duopoly is never beneficial for consumers. A viable third alternative to Apple and android I think would be a good thing.
Is just too much effort to create a completely new mobile OS as where we are now. Take the example of MS Edge. The project is based on the same engine Chrome uses because Microsoft realized that creating and maintaining a modern web browser is not worth it. Developers don't want to maintain and release apps for third platform. If Microsoft re-enters the phone market, they would need to base their phone on Android. Otherwise they will never get the app support and eventually fail.
I agree, Microsoft can come in now and have a very competitive product. With Windows ARM expanded to run x86 apps. The ability to emulate iOS and Android Apps. And Continuum. They could bring something fresh to the market. But they would also need to invest a lot for OEM support and marketing. Their application ecosystem is already developed.
@@paolooseI kinda agree but I kinda don't let me explain: All people would really have to do it make arm apps for the windows store on windows on arm and then they can could just that store on the phones
@@KevinSmith-qi5yn I guess Microsoft can somewhat easily enter the space again especially while they're busy working on and pushing Win 11 ARM. It won't even need much maintenance as it remains on the Win 11 code. But the big thing they'll need to think about is user interface, because consumers wouldn't want a desktop UI crammed up on a slate mobile.
Windows phone 8.1 was where the windows phone design peaked. I think Microsoft did not realise that people had different expectation from PC OS and phone OS. While windows 8 did not work on PC with mouse and keyboard based interface it was perfect for touch screen phone. And while windows 10 was an upgrade on PC on phones Windows 10 was a huge downgrade. If only Microsoft had separated the two OS and doubled down on the metro based mobile interface the outcome would have been different.
Windows Phone had so much potential. The stability of the system, no bugs issues - what in the early 2010-s Android phones suffered from, on WP was not present. I loved my Lumias (920 and 930) , but the lack of apps, slow OS developments made the phones less attractive. Regardless, my Lumias were the most unique in design, colours, pioneers in camera and photography technologies - in 2013 L920 was the first smartphone ever with an OIS in camera for example. Lumia Camera itself was an incredible app! I shot amazing photos with it and edited them to the max. But the lack of apps, was a bleeding wound. When I returned to Android it was a shock to me. The OS became stable, matured.
One thing.... Snap crap.. Chat.. . It's really that simple. The CEO said no to developing the app for windows phone. Then ever other new app, and remember that at that time, big apps blew up overnight, they just didn't supply a WP version. It's that simple. Zero app support when the big apps took off in that one year. Nothing to do with bad hardware of software.
@@localblackman427Wrong. His time as Microsoft’s CEO sunk Microsoft’s relevance in the public consciousness. Microsoft is what Apple was in 1995 when it nearly disappeared and you’d be laughed at for using Apple products.
Still loving how you're going back to how the channel's old style while mixing in the good of your current style, especially mixing in the short videos in between. Thank you so much!
I think the main problem with Windows phone had more to do with the commercial strategy rather than the product itself. The business model around the OS was not competitive enough and actually hurt Microsoft's relationship with many hardware manufacturers at the time like Samsung and HTC.
Hurt? Hahaha! Actually it was Samsung who hurt MSFT. Because Samsung made the very first WP8, and Microsoft's hope was they will be as successful as Galaxy line. But Samsung suddenly dropped this line, and othe manufacturers didn't hurry to produce WP8, so eventually MSFT was forced to buy Nokia and invest huge amounts of money to produce WP8 devices themselves.
Nokia blew their chance by rejecting Google android, they offered it to them before Samsung and htc and did not make their own system to be competitive. It was too late when they realized it. When the market is changing management should listen to the people that can sense that instead of following some old patterns that mattered before the change. Philips died because of the same thing, they just didn’t realize where the things are heading. Apple car never started because of the same thing but Elon saw it and made Tesla the most popular eCar in the world.
The worst product I ever used from a major company, by very far, was Windows 8 with its so-called Metro design. I'm still (figuratively) in shock at how they ever released that OS. You would open a so-called Metro app on a quad-hd screen and everything would be so massive and so badly designed and so impractically positioned, as if they were aimed at children, or as if they were in early development. Crazy times for Microsoft.
I used the first Android phone, and pretty much used various Android devices till I switched to the iPhone 8. Also had a couple of Windows 8 devices. The UI was actually really good. But in my opinion, Microsoft's biggest blunder was the 3-rd party apps. By then, everyone used apps. What they should have done is spend their deep pockets to seriously incentivize app developers and the carriers. They were years behind, and if Balmer had the vision of a true leader, he should have seen that they must move fast and make sure apps were available. They had the money to do it. But not the vision. After struggling with not having even the most basic apps, like Evernote, I went back to Android, and never looked back.
Yeah when you look back now when everything is based on revenue from subscriptions and services the should have paid manufacturers for every device they sold and marketed a lower cut on app sales than Apple and Google just to establish the platform. I still miss the interface and overall feel of the devices (Had the HTC7, Lumia 920,1020 and 930).
It's the same issue with Linux on desktop. Linux has come a long way in ease of use, but the good enough product (Windows) already has all the OEM and developer inertia. Android is linux based, the Steam Deck runs Linux so there is nothing inherently wrong with Linux; it's just that Windows inertia on desktop is as strong as Android/IOS inertia on phones.
@@mightza3781 Linux needs some corporation to run it on desktop and then issues will be addressed. The proof is Valve - they needed an independent gaming OS and made it work. Without this, Linux will have driver and key software missing as it does now. I am a long time Linux user and that's the conclusion I came to over the years.
Even back then Microsoft knew what the future was and it was within apps but they kept avoiding it like the plague if they even at least focused on the important apps they would of still been here today maybe not as strong but still in the game
A major reason 3rd party apps were lacking is that MS bungled the relationship with developers. Windows had the largest market share. If I remember right apps working on Windows Mobile 6.1 would not work on 6.5. And 6.5 apps would not work on 7. Then Windows 8 apps would not work on 7. While an app on 7 should work on 8, the developer should rewrite to 8 as Microsoft was quickly dropping 7. In a span of a few years, developers would have to rewrite apps 3 or 4 times. No developer wanted to do that with Windows Phone shrinking market.
Lmao! That's so true. I feel like you could make phone calls for free, but you could sign up for "premium" phone calls for $5.99 a month so you could get HD audio and save contacts. Lol
That’s probably true partly. But today it seems companies have gotten very smart. They have figured out a way to get residual income using subscription services. Microsoft Office is a good example. Even car companies are doing this if you want to use their app to monitor your vehicle. And so forth.
Kind of misreading the situation there. The mobile landscape was completely different and what mobile phone type that dominated on windows was the candybar with a qwerty keyboard. And in terms of adoption mostly business users were the critical users of smartphone devices (except major enthusiasts at the time like myself who had an HTC XV6600 and a Samsung i730). The issue isn't vision. That wasn't ballmer. That point was to maintain his customer base - the business users. The original iPhone struggled heavily with business users and a bevy of updates catered to making it easier to use with Microsoft exchange and providing a better user experience to business users who couldn't wait for Apple to present a product based solution to the dominated Microsoft platform.
he’s doing perfectly fine now. The iphone was a big risk the steve chose to take. the ed ceo now owns the La Clippers so i don’t think he cares that much
@@malcolmjwilliams3521 1. You’re absolutely correct it was a completely different situation in the late aughts. 2. It was a lack of vision however that killed Microsoft’s mobile platform. Steve Jobs and his incredible team he winnowed had an idea of what the future could be, and relentlessly pursued it giving us the reality of today where the iPhone is now ubiquitous.
The Nokia Lumia 920 was an amazing phone with a top camera. Not so much the lack of apps but the lack of updates for the few major apps they carried ruined what was a truly amazing device.
@@CrispyyFella that person is referring to Steve Ballmer, and they hoped you would interpret their comment the way you did, because they thought it would be funny.
Well researched video. So happy to see the creator mentioning the good points of Nokia Lumia. Way better than other youtube videos about the failure of Windows Phone.
People were more formal then, emails used to be well-crafted (read: wordy) before sent. That's probably why Ballmer thought that a good email machine had to have a keyboard.
@@candle86 Can vary depends on phone you use. Haptics play strong role, Try typing on someone's flagship phone. Won't be as satisfying as physical but will be actually faster than physical.
@@prateekpanwar646 I have a flagship Pixel 8, before that I owned an S9, and no i hate the stupid touch keyboards and yes it is slower than a real keyboard. Anyone trying to argue you can do real work on a phone doesn't have a real job.
@@candle86 If that's the case you might have different use case. Sadly industry won't gonna change. "Anyone trying to argue you can do real work on a phone doesn't have a real job". Yeah practically its just social media machine and video device. Although even for most text, I use pretty much finger gliding and 3 suggestions on top.
I remember being in the car with my dad, telling him nobody wants to put a slab of glass against their face, and touchscreens sucked. My phone at the time was the LG chocolate, lol.
Woooooooow windows phone was my introduction into the world of smartphones. I remember all the apps it did and didn’t support. Had me looking like an idiot in school for having a weird Facebook and Instagram
I still miss my Lumia 1020 tbh. It is to this day one of the best phones I have owned, OS included. The win phone tile system is imho far superior to Android and IOS
The idea that the iPhone didn’t have a keyboard is what escaped these dudes. They could not process the fact that it was merely a touchscreen keyboard. Less tactile than a physical keyboard? Absolutely, but not inferior just different. I remember standing in line for the first iPhone at the Apple Store in San Diego with my roommate, he was on the fence about dropping 500 plus dollars for a phone that truly was basically a prototype, but to me it was well worth it.
No this is still a valid opinion to have. There's more nuance here. This is the same as Teslas just have a touch screen rather than real buttons. There's nothing wrong with a phone have a virtual keyboard. The issue was it would appear less reliable if it's software based. And it being so new it's automatically assumed that it'll be very buggy. So the issue was reliability over usability (which was still understandably questionable). It proves that for a car we prefer that it needs to work even if it's clunkier but for a phone it's very forgivable if it turns off randomly so long as it's always fun to use. If the market went this way of course the software would be perfected and it would be less of a problem. It's not the concept itself that's the problem it's actually implementing it as a sustainable technology. That's a very different view point.
Early touch devices were absolutely terrible for typing, t9 at its peak was miles ahead of touch experience, and had less functionality than symbian in 2003. Users just didnt really needed these.
The Windows Phone failed because it wasn't "Windows" on a phone. Rather, it was a weird "tile" system that coincided with the worst iteration of Windows in three decades -- Windows 8. Even when Microsoft realized that Windows 8 was a disaster, they continued to push the tile interface of the Windows Phone. WHAT MICROSOFT SHOULD HAVE DONE is create a mobile OS that mimicked the desktop OS -- complete with a Start button -- and was simple, customizable and buttery smooth. Best of all, they could have stored things in the cloud better than anyone at the time (because Microsoft was ahead of the curve with OneDrive and Microsoft 365). Unfortunately, they continued ahead with a failed tile interface system that was less like Windows than either iOS or Android.
What? The tile interface was the best thing about Windows Phone! Look through the comments here. Users loved it. The lack of apps and poor/late ecosystem is what killed it
@@dacypher22 The problem with the Windows phone is that it didn't look or feel like "Windows." I didn't mind the tiles -- if it was an option for you to set it up that way. While there were fans (who were very strongly opinionated about it), I participated in a focus group about it. We were the last focus group too. All of the other panelists disliked the tiles and said that it impeded any notion of a purchase. I spoke with the focus group leader and he mentioned that people hated the interface by a margin of 9-to-1. The apps were certainly lacking too -- no doubt. Still, I think that it was a combination of both. A proper Windows phone should have looked like a traditional "Windows" home -- with a "Windows" button and a fully-customizable home screen. The tiles could have been an option for both the home screen and subsequent category screens. Still, I would have preferred a fully-customizable home screen with a Windows button. I would have enjoyed Office 365 (as an installed feature) too and any apps that would be permissible and convertible from a Windows desktop. If Windows did something like a reverse Bluestacks (i.e., allowing Windows apps to run on the Windows phone via the cloud), it would have been amazing. I still think that Microsoft will eventually make a great Windows phone. They still have R&D working in that department. With the advent of the cloud, I could see a cloud-based phone that allows individuals to run all sorts of programs and apps -- Windows, Xbox, Office, traditional apps, etc. -- from their phone. It will simply need to be simple (even Android or Apple like) but with something like a Windows button or Windows home screen to set it apart.
When CEO's ideas dont work, they usually don't stop or change directions. They double-down and do more of whatever wasn't working because they believed in their own ideas more than anyone else. So its hard for them to accept their own faults. They will blame everyone else when they're ideas are failing. That's why they usually have to be fired in order to change the company's direction.
I always think CEOs should be forced to do music production for two years before they get the job: "Oh you like that pride and joy song you've made? Tough shit, delete it and re-do it 2000 times until you end up with something completely new that doesn't resemble the original idea one bit" is the order of the day with music. It teaches you to let go of beloved concepts better than anything i've ever done. I'm thinking of selling the courses.
@hellbent7062, And that’s really interesting. In the world of, say the English Premier League, EPL, and I’m sure many other sport competitions, when a team is not playing well or getting the right results, who gets the sack? At the end of the season, they might get rid of some players who have been under performing, but mid-season, they don’t sack the players, they sack the manager who is responsible for the ideas behind the team’s style of play. Now, to me, that always seems to be unfair! The manager is certainly the one who has selected the players to take the field, but he/she can’t get on the field and make the players play better, or even play according to the plan they have been given and practising. There’s probably fault on both sides, but it’s only the manager who has to take responsibility. In business, what you have described is a complete reversal. Just some thoughts.
I had a Windows Phone and the UI was the most best ive ever seen. Like the other comments said, it was just the Lack of Apps that killed it. They had to invest to support more brand to the OS. Also they were really late.
@@Faizan29353 yes its an issue that people with apple devices think they are somehow better, but thats why I only let people with androids uses the guest wifi in my house, any frtiends with iphones or ipads come over no wifi sameway my one friend with a macbook i made him use his hotspot no dirty apple devices on my network.
@@svr5423 high end Android is just as expensive. Apple never played the low price game. Android phones had to because most of the world can’t afford the high end phones.
For me the biggest oversight from Ballmer was not understanding how valuable that extra screen real estate was when the keyboard disappeared. A hardware keyboard was dead space.
I had a couple of Windows Phones and they were really nice devices. The UI was great and they were pretty fast especially considering the price point. If it had reasonable app support, I think it could have stood a chance.
I have a funny Windows phone story. In the Air Force, we had to leave our phones in cubie holes during classified meetings. A Captain went on the intercom and said "someone left their Windows Phone outside of the briefing room. Someone in this squadron actually had a Windows Phone." It was pretty funny.
The most exciting detail is that despite being 10 years old, the UI of Windows Phone 10 doesn't look outdated today, while iOS and Android from 2015 look pretty ugly nowadays. Usually, MS engineers do some kind of shit - and then brilliant MS bracketologists made this shit into the star and a cash cow. And with this case, just one time, MS engineers were able to make the almost perfect product - marketologists failed it badly. Pretty ironic. Instead of burning billions with extra expensive ad campaigns, MS should pay directly to developers - identify the 100 most popular apps on 20 key markets and pay for porting to Windows Phone. It was absolutely obvious to me since my first Lumia 800.
For all the vaunted MS marketing juggernaut that made Windows and Office the 800-pound gorilla of computing, they couldn’t have missed the mark more with the Win Phone. I agree that they didn’t pay developers more or outright paid for Windows versions of popular apps to help “prime the pump.”
@@etc115 when you do compare nowadays design of IOS to 9 years old design of Windows Phone? Sure, agree. But try to compare design of Windows Phone with 9yrs old iOS. It just different universes!
'Microsoft realized that they needed to control... the hardware'. Really? I wonder how Android is still alive. Oh, and Microsoft is barely producing the hardware for their Windows OS.
11:10 This was one of my favorite things about Windows Phone when I had a Lumia - the keyboard was head and shoulders above the rest. After the updated OS and the new name Windows Mobile, I started to dislike the overall OS, because it was too buggy. It was more beautiful though. But I still miss it, ngl
Microsoft lost me making apps for Windows 8 because of their shitty SDK. Apps needed a large rewrite from 7 to 8 because of incompatible APIs. For such a small user base it was just not worth it.
They did not even allow C++ to use. UWP was a disaster and Microsoft had finally removed it. Plus they did not have chromium like we have today, so no PWAs
@coshvjicujmlqef6047 pretty sure it does support c++, no? And uwp is used more than ever. Especially with the ms app store and xbox now. Don't get me wrong, I hate it too
I doubt that many Windows Phones were sold to private customers, but some companies forced it on their employees. Much like many are forced to use Windows PCs at work today.
I worked in the retail phone industry at this time. The phones that came out were great. The Lumia 1020 was a stand out. Even customers knew the App Store was poor and that was the biggest part
I disagree. Nokia ruined itself with its hubris. It blindly believed that developers would work on Symbian as a third player to iOS and Android and was unwilling to partner with Android for its feared loss of market share as a handset manufacturer. Indeed, Nokia would have lost market share with Android but one would think that loss would have been smaller and not crushed into partnering with Microsoft before being bought out.
when windows and nokia launched the lumia windows phones, windows ruined everything. Nokia did pretty well with the hardware, it was quite ahead of its time actually, the camera was great, it had amoled screen, they even had wireless charging, and of course good old fashion nokia phones that are built like a tank. Where it failed dramatically was software, apps support, upgrade support, clunkiness, etc. so yeah, windows ruined it.
No Symbian ruined Nokia. It was horrible coded. I worked with Symbian OS back then. We had the first finger touchscreen smartphone but even back then we were kinda shocked how bad the UI was. That was the reason MS could buy Nokia
This, Microsoft traditionally succeeds most when they double down on something and their first version may flop or have tepid sales but they knock it out of the park by the 2nd go-around after fixing their mistakes.
I disagree; given the existing sunk cost, I can understand this perspective, but being 5 years late to the party with a still struggling application ecosystem wouldn't cut it.
@@mikeg2491I fully expected Microsoft to be as aggressive with the Win Phone as they were when they rolled out Windows 3 and then Win 95. They had these great phones, especially from Nokia, and totally squandered the opportunity. They totally lost the mojo that pushed Microsoft to the top of the heap. Even worse, they ruined Nokia as a company in the process.
The tile launcher is still by far my favorite phone interface. On every android phone I use I always set up a custom launcher that mimics the tiles. Been using tiles for so many years now since my Lumia 521.
I remember when Microsoft launched one of their flagship stores in Sydney, Australia. On launch day, you could see all the Microsoft employees wandering round the local stores and coffee shops with their iPhones. The store itself had plenty of their "Surface" tablets, but almost no Windows phones. Their heart just wasn't in it....
@@MegaLokopo iPhones wall garden are better suited for security then any other phone. The carriers outside of AT&T never really wanted to carry the iPhone, but had no choice or they would also disappear quickly.
@@TheSjuris its been proven multiple times that closed source is worse at security than open source. Their garden also doesnt make it more secure, that has also been proven. The only reason apple devices have less malware is because so few people use apple devices compared to anytbing else. They just arent a profitble target. Not enough users at all.
@@MegaLokopo can’t access anything on Apple without the phone. Nothing is stored on the cloud. Don’t confuse iOS with their pc business. The government adores Google. Much easier for the government to access data which is stored on a server and google adores using you as a product. There’s a reason that lots of criminals would rather use Apple than Google. Just like no one targets Linux for the same reason.
Windows Phone and the Metro interface was glorious. I stuck with it until it wasn't practical anymore due to lack of app support. I still use a Windows phone style launcher on my Android phone but I really miss the Metro interface, it was so fluid.
Fragment of the video from 5:40: stop repeating nonsense: the Android system was created by Android Inc - they started it as an open project, they made one mistake, it was too similar to the iOS system - it inspired too much, there was a long-term law battle against Apple - it suffered greatly financially. After this time, Google noticed a chance to enter the smartphone market, bought Android Inc (2005 - after year iOS) and acquired these rights. They turned it into their own. They hired better lawyers, changed the design and we still have Android today. The rest of the story is ok.
IBM did not leave pc market because they were late, but because hardware had lowering profit margins vs software which had better prospects and new technologies. (And they still had thinkpad) 2) Steve Balmer said ehat he said but we dont know what he thought.
I remember when I was 13 in middle school my dad bought me a palm trēo (which I still have in a drawer) because he got some deal. I thought it was so cool it had the internet and did all kinds of things but a few months later my friend’s older brother got and iPhone and the second I saw it I immediately looked at my phone like it was a flip phone. Once my dads contract ended and my little brothers phone was out of contract I got an iPhone 4s.
Lack of apps is what killed the platform. I had a Windows phone and it became increasingly frustrating to use, because none of the popular apps were available on it. Windows phone had a much nicer UI than any android skin available back then, but it lacked apps, and that's what ultimately killed it.
It was so annoying 😂 not a single app you were used to at the time was available for download. Only shitty web knock offs. I had a windows phone for a few months back in 2012 when iPhones were already growing for 4 years with apps so it was like taking a step back owning a windows phone. It was suoer frustrating 😂
Microsoft Office for the IPhone worked better then the one for their own phone.
@@TheSjuris trash 😂
@@rileyolson6008 that Androids are. Especially if you’re dumb enough to spend money on a high end one.
@@TheSjuris I'd have to say, after using an iphone for a while, android is so much better. A lot of iphone people haven't used an Android phone since the 2010s, when they had weird UIs and quirky features. It's a completely different story today, and android is exceptional at everything, much more than iOS (speaking from experience, and as a software engineer).
1. Extremely late to the game.
2. Asking people to pay for the OS when Android was free.
3. Lack of support for third-party apps.
Lack of support of first party apps too... Nokia has developed amazing apps for their lumias because ms didn't. Nokia made them general available later.. but it was too late already.
@@benwagner7422 to be fair. Microsoft did attempt to compensate with some apps and they all got shut down. For example, Google would always shut down their apps etc .
And don't forget the stupid squares in the metro design interface. Simple, stupid, and very bad taste.
#3 is the primary reason. The only reason any mobile OS failed was because of apps. #2 is a good reason and they learned early that they shouldn't have went that route...lol
@@dpactootle2522 What? I'd take Metro UI over most now and it was customizable. Did you ever use it?
As a former Nokia Lumia user, I find this story heartbreaking. The OS had real potential and the way a Windows phone worked was not bad, but the lack of app support, amongst other things, was a big downer. However, I was a loyal Windows phone user and only replaced mine in 2020. I still miss the Metro interface and the keyboard though.
Same here my friend, windows phone was and will always be truly special. A true diamond in the rough. Truly, a magnificent work of art down to the beautiful UI
@@AaIsForAaliyas , I agree! The whole ecosystem had so much more potential and the UI was awesome and very ergonomic. I still miss it.
Exactly...
I ended up doing the same thing, by giving up my Windows phone in 2019 for an android phone from LG. I'm now using a Android phone from Motorola.
I always believed that the screen was visually beautiful. So clean, bright, beautiful. And the camera was great at the time. Such a shame.
I still remember when I got my first job. I bought a Windows phone. Pokemon Go became popular, and everyone played it besides me, I was literally watching my friends play Pokemon Go while going on a walk and I couldn't play it. Never regretted buying a phone more. It barely had any popular apps.
Imagine your Windows phone shutting down to automatic update mid-call
*airhorns blaring* OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Well it didn’t work like that for phones.
@@tayyabwaseem1well it’s a joke
lol
Rotten Apple! Good to see you subbed to Apple explained!
I remember owning the Nokia Lumia when it came out. It had a gorgeous UI and amazing user experience, but the app support just wasn't there. Eventually switched to an iPhone 6s.
My husband had one the XL? Or something like that I think
Yep, the UI was vasty superior. They learnt from the mistakes of iOS and Android. Were just far too late and far to slow. Google were releasing major updates every few months, Microsoft once a year.
Still have my Lumia 640XL, dual-SIM 4G.. really love it. It had so many potential… but yeah, support was horrible.
Same, I had the lumia 735
Ngl by later stage of windows mobile ,it wasn't their fault .Google just wasn't ready to collaborate are it wouldn't mean loosing business . But on the other hand microsoft didn't really care enough to optimise their existing pc apps and make deals with software Devs even if it meant a drop in profits . Even in 2024 Microsoft still doesn't have a proper app store or proper touchscreen ui which is equivalent to ipados !
The stupid thing is, Bill Gates actually describes a modern smartphone in his book, the road ahead, published in the 1990s. But he didn't call it a smartphone, he called it a wallet PC.
Bill gates is a visionary, far more than any of his competitors ever were, but timing and execution can't be foretold.
technically he was right. Today' smartphones basically behave like a PC.
That's the thing that's always been the problem at Microsoft, they have great ideas their execution is so poor. Balmer is right, they dropped the ball integrating the hardware and software but they also lacked the integration that made Apple so successful in the mobile space.
I went through 3 zunes in a year... I honestly loved it but they just were not made well at all.
@@gywghhb Yes, in fact Gates was talking about the "wallet PC" as early as 1993, a full 14 years before Jobs introduced the iPhone. The wallet PC was intended as a pocket device that would perform many different functions. The intention was that making phone calls would one be function of the device, but not the most important one. So the only difference between that and a smartphone is the emphasis on the phone functionality rather than the wallet functionality.
I was a Nokia developer (on the Symbian side) when Steve Elop forced Nokia over to Windows Phone (the infamous "burning platform" memo). At the time most Engineers were arguing for a switch to Android. The push for Microsoft was coming from (as far as I can tell) Elop himself, and that decision basically trashed Nokia as a phone manufacturer. I think the issue was a bit more complex then you suggest here and wrapped up with the Metro UI. Microsoft thought that if people saw the same or similar interface on both PCs and Mobiles, that would give them an edge. Reality is that the interface failed on PCs, so that itself strategy failed. Also the approach seemed less optimal for Windows (others may disagree) - for example, the wasted area down one side of the screen that just had an arrow. I also remember some strange issues if you re-entered an existing app - it might do so as it was a new instance. Whatever, I remember it being said in company briefings that if we went with Android, we would have to pay Microsoft more in patent compensation than it would cost to get use Microsoft Phone software. I think that would have been worth it.
NOKIA/WINDOWS short for No Win😢
I am still amazed this was never investigated for fraud or even embezzlement. The Nokia/Microsoft deal seemed like such a conflict of interest. It felt like MS got their people installed as decision makers to make the deal go through, and then a lot of the people approving the deal were on the board at Nokia and made money off of the big MS purchase. The whole thing felt very weird and shady to me
Thing is you say MS wanted to have a phone and PC on the same UI etc but even today Windows Phone doesn't even work at all. It supposed to connect to your phone should you leave it somewhere else but if the phone has a pin/thumb print unlock it won't work until YOUVE UNLOCKED IT so then theirs no point in using such a feature because most people have a lock for their android phone
The metro interface was the stupidest design. Who cares about stupid squares, nobody.
I worked for Symbian too. The answer is simple - MS phone was a shit product :)
Having worked at Microsoft during this time as a designer I can confidently say it was two things. 1) late to market and not innovating enough 2) having a CEO such as Ballmer at the helm.
the design was the best out of the 3.
Windows Phone Failed, because they built a completely new os instead of just updating windows mobile 6.5 with a new UI. windows mobile actually had the best homebrew and dev community back then. XDA was originally all windows mobile mods tweaks before android was released.
@@elmohead no
@@AJ-zg5xxw great insightful comment.
Also worked with Microsoft at the time. There were a LOT more issues than Ballmer. It's easy to say it was Ballmer than say the others at fault. There's a lot of blame to go around outside of Ballmer.
Carrier relationships, business partnerships, OEM relationships and then developers. I don't think Windows was late per se I think it's because of their standing in those communities at the time that resulted in it's failure.
And don't get me started on the advertising budget blown on stars and athletes to promote windows phone just to see them with an iPhone a day later.
There's a lot of fault to go around
I watched this just to see Steve Balmer laughing at the iPhone.
That never gets old.
I still laugh at iPhone any chance I get and then at a person who holds it in their hands. Then at them trying to defend it.
And he sucks at running the Clippers too 😂
@@CobraFat2000 I laugh at people like you who care so much what phone someone uses
Everything Balmer said was spot on. The problem was Apple didnt market iPhone to enterprise but consumers. Balmer couldn't see the snartphone market beyond the business market and a consumer device came to dominate the enterprise market.
@@kingdeedee And since it's the two of us laughing - the world is a better place. Some people even think we're lovers - seeing us in such harmony.
What’s really interesting to look back and compare is the reaction of Google and Microsoft when the iPhone was announced. Google went on “Oh shit” mode “we gotta start all over” and Balmer… Well, we saw his reaction in the video.
Now, years later, we compare the current state Android and Windows Mobile…
But to be honest, at the time I thought that Windows Phone was way better than Android, it was just too late to matter.
Dont forget blackberry. Once a king before iphone era
Dr. Eric Schmidt (thief) was on the Apple board when he started stealing iPhone design
@@keithsweat7513who’s that?
@@brittneyking4284the CEO of google, he was on the Apple board when the iPhone was introduced, I’m sure he ran back to his office and had an emergency meeting
Here is the thing, the funny thing was that Balmer wasn't 100% wrong at the time.
The issue was that he wasn't prepared for being wrong...
See, iPhone wasn't really ready to actually take over yet until the iPhone 4.
The gamble was, could iPhone be a good enough phone at $500 in a short enough period of time???
For Apple, this was also a gamble to see if they could pull it off in a short enough period of time.
Balmer just missed the point that if he was wrong, then it would be the end.... he had no contingency plan....
I had a Windows phone in from 2013-2016 and it's still one of my favorite UIs. It had a ton of potential if they just tweaked a few things
Absolutely. Windows Phone was great. But nobody developed apps for it and we're all stuck with shitty iPhone and Android as the result.
Problem of steve balmer is that he is just a great employee. He is not a visionaire or dreamer. He is just top of the line employee.
Yip he's no geek. Just a corporate guy. I mean why buy out a failed tech company like Nokia other than to appease shareholders because it's discounted?
Not really. He's a world class boss. He just wasn't fast enough to be in tech during that period.
I mean microsoft is a trillion dollar company currently so I think it turned out pretty well for them, you could say the same thing about Tim Cook if we are being honest
he was the VP of marketing. Microsoft marketing has always sucked. it never made sense giving him the reins.
Don’t quote me on this, but I think Nadella said that the strategies around pivoting the business to Saas & Cloud were started under Balmers watch then he took over and executed. I’m not one to defends Ballmer as he strikes me as a bit of a Buffoon, but it seems his weakness was having a keen sense for enterprise tech but not being in touch at all with consumer tech.
“Not Finnished Yet”
I thought, “What a silly typo! Oh, wait, he’s pulling a Finland pun, isn’t he?” Yup!
And it is still not Finnished.
HMD (human mobile devices ) a young Finnish company who used the Nokia name under license for their products doesn't renew the license the end of this year.
And they will use their own HMD brandname from now on.
While a Finnish phone brand (Nokia) is Finnished a Finnish phone is not Finnished 😉
always make this typo, and because most auto correct assume i'm talking about the country, they just capitalize the F and make the spell checkers miss the typo.
@@obelic71 Yeah HTC did the same. They were an ODM for networked branded devices for a long time before they put their own monika on stuff.
Was in the exact same position....and the camera on the lumia was so good!
Lol😂
Beating Windows phones was going to be easy. What floored me is how quickly Blackberry became obsolete. In 2006 there wasn't anything hotter and more addictive than a Blackberry. Their sales reps I had to deal with for clients were some of the most arrogant people I ever met. They were printing money. 5 years later... it was basically a rotary phone. I still think a Blackberry physical keyboard was better than any touch keyboard I've had. Both Droid and Apple.
No app store killed BlackBerry. iPhone hardware at the time is an engineering masterpiece. What BlackBerry should have done was embrace Android.
BlackBerry should have offered 3 models, no keyboard, 3 key (back, home, active apps), full keyboard.
My family are all iPhone users, and they simply don't care what others think. Business people DO care because of cost.
The engineering firm I worked for at the time got us the Blackberrys with the Nextel Direct Connect and I loved that setup. Still have it sitting in a drawer somewhere.
Apps. Blackberry was whack with that. Also, capacitive touch was good enough for texting. Typing long emails were stupid. Blackberry never got the memo. Lol
@@vasantos-re4hbblackberrry should have made its own ios
@@dgmessenger If you use word prediction which correctly predicts almost all words for me, nothing beats that typing speed. It's comparable to typing on a pc keyboard which is great for work. There's a good reason why a small physical keyboard isn't a thing anymore.
It is kind of refreshing to hear a high level executive talk about how something is too expensive
Terrible CEO that ruined Microsoft's potential, the issue wasn't redoing the last 10 years it was replacing him 10 years ago
Eh can't really have a perfect guy. If you hire someone who would have jumped on the big screen trend the same guy would jump on nft and crypto/blockchain etc.
Their CEO made so many mistakes over the years and they still let him run the company?
he was one of the Microsoft's founders, maybe it was a power and influence matter.
@@pedromain balmer is not a microsoft founder thought ? same for natella !
@@pedromainBill Gates and Paul Allen founded Microsoft. I’m sure Gates regretting elevating Ballmer, no doubt one of his biggest regrets in business.
@@pedromain he was the accountant guy
And it’s crazy how the guy gets paid almost a billion a year I think from dividends.
I always had a soft spot for the Windows Phone. They felt so different and I don’t think that feeling can exist in the modern day due to how mature phones have become
They have not become "mature," they have become stale and homogenised. Google keeps trying to make Android more like iOS for some reason, and Android OEM's keep trying to copy bad iPhone decisions such as removing 3.5mm port, removing expandable storage, using notches, etc.
@@sigiligus Damn ok
@@sigiligus🤓🤓
@@sigiligusStock Android is noticeably different to iOS although stale. On the other hand iOS 18 looks more Androidified than ever and One UI 7 more iosified than ever which isn't always a bad thing.
I always kinda liked the "metro UI" on the Windows phone. The huge pictures and bright colors were great. They were just late as hell to the party because most people had either chosen a side already (iPhone or Android)
One day in 1996, my stepdad came home with the first Palmpilot. He told the whole family that in the next decade or two, everyone will have a device like this that does everything a phone, pc, camera, and discman can do. He stressed how it would just be a screen, no keyboard or stylus, and that it would basically replace every gadget we own. He even said it will do video calls. He talked about Moors law and LCD tech making it inevitable.
Liar
I still don’t get why Windows killed the compatibility with Android apps. That was their lifeline.
Between maintenance and licensing libraries, it was probably a headache that would have ended up breaking the OS when Google decided to change their API when moving to later Android versions. It's the reason a lot of old Android apps don't work properly on new phones, or won't even install.
@@errorxf00feven Android itself doesn't support very old apps. Those it supports even now could be supported by Windows in the same way. Just keep some old libraries for a certain time. Like MS keeps old .net libraries only for a time. That's all it costs to support old apps.
@errorxf00f I mean, it was either learn to update with Google, or die. We see which choice they made.
A compatibility layer is always a band aid. It will always be worse than native apps. It also removes all incentives to make windows phone apps.
@@knorze1777 don't think so, see wine.
One note, Android was originally under development before the iPhone but for a BlackBerry style device, a prototype was even shown, however they quickly shifted gears once the iPhone was announced.
kool
blackberry should have done better, sad.
@@mateadx Yeah - trouble was their CEO was an idiot and didn't move to compete. You have to adapt or you die - BB didn't adapt. Eventually they switched over to Android but it was too late.
Initially Android was designed to a a UI for Cameras ! Sad to see that never happened . An Android 1.0 based ui mirrorless camera could shake the entire market !
Lies the android did have a iphone but once they saw iPhone they had to redo everything to copy them
The only reason they failed was because they couldn't pursue developers for their app store, they had immense potential. I used a windows 8 phone. top notch optimisation, durable build, zero lag software and a pretty powerful camera. But sadly I owned a device more powerful than an Iphone and an android that didn't have enough apps that would put all those good hardware to use. My friends used to mock me for not being able to use Instagram.
Switched to android in 2014 and never looked back
That's true, I had a Lumia 535 and I loved it so much until I couldn't use any apps I liked. It was like having a super console with zero game in it. Finally switched to android. I feel sorry for Nokia for not joining android in good time.
is it possible to made them now or too complex?
For all of Microsoft’s huge cash pile, why they didn’t outright pay developers to create Win Phone versions of their apps still makes me shake my head to this day.
Which is ironic as I know Steve Ballmer did a really energetic sweaty-pit CEO speech about Developers in 2006. If only the man took his own advice!
I will always call developers lazy millionaires with all their Apple and Google money
Years later, I'm still pissed at Microsoft for the Windows Phone fiasco and won't buy Microsoft hardware.
youve made my day🤣🤣🤣🤣
There's far better alternatives than the Surface and the Xbox
I had a Nokia Lumia Windows phone and it was actually a good OS, but not enough people used it to get a decent App Store or keep making.
Agree. The app support and the lack of apps in the Windows marketplace is the biggest downside of Windows Phone after owning a Nokia Lumia 620
It's the age old "Chicken or the Egg" conundrum. Without enough users it just won't gain traction.
I miss the responsiveness and convenience of that keyboard to this day. Microsoft claims that SwiftKey on android is the same product, but it does not feel the same.
Me too! I had the 820 and Loved it. I would have kept buying Windows Phone if they continued to develop it.
I really loved my Lumia. But it was a like the Sega dreamcast in that is was a good kit with not many games to play
This reminds me of a joke from the big bang theory.
In the flashback episode where leornard tells the story how he met sheldon in 2003, when raj shown sheldon an ipod sheldon said " I assure you, you'll be sorry you wasted your money on an iPod, when Microsoft comes out with theirs."
The Zune is still better than ipod
It aged like fine wine
Lmao
@@Soguwe like star lord getting a zune from yondu after his walkman was destroyed, i found hilarious how even marvel and microsoft did a contest to give away a new unopened zoom for guardians vol 3
@@Soguwe
How was it better explain?
@@lesleyhaan116 It isn't an apple device. Which means you can use it however you want without asking for permission.
Steve Ballmer never seemingly understood that a device needs to be more than just capable of “doing stuff” but, doing things well.
Apple has a record of showing other companies how focusing on the smaller things is what matters, for example focusing on efficiency, whats a powerful processor if it heats up and destroys battery?
Its like a car- powered what’s the point of a massive powerful engine if there is no grip on the tires?
Him saying "it will do email", "it will do music" makes me cringe every time lol
For him it's either it does it or it doesn't, like user experience and convenience didn't even exist.
That was and still is the attitude of microsoft. It served them well in the 90s and early 2000s, it is a thing to get stuff done. meanwhile Apple has always been about user interaction and how it makes you feel when doing things. Nokia n95 which was the best phone when iphone came out smokes iphone, but iphone made you feel like you are in the future, same thing with their colorful macs and ipods etc...
@@arunashamal Apple made the user feel special, like they bought gold. Other companies focused on how they thought something should work
He also seeming he failed to understand that his devices were going to be used by people who may be business people who were also mom's, dad's, photographers, dancers, just people.
Good detailed video.
I worked on a major C# SDK in 2015-2017 (Realm database) and still have the three Windows Phones I bought at that time. Beautiful hardware and a smooth UI.
These were (eventually) very popular in business and amongst people I know in mining, using them in the field. Many people were upset by their demise.
As a developer, my perspective on the lack of apps is a bit different. MS were playing a lot of games with development tooling and choice of UI frameworks around that time - some of it's still going on and complicating life for Windows desktop devs. So this alone made it a huge gamble to bet on porting an app to the platform.
They could have fixed this - they could have had better porting tools but neglected them too.
I've worked on the original WinCE. The WP8 and new "Windows 10 Mobile" OS in 2015 onwards was very good and nothing like the restricted poor attempt to just port Windows of its predecessor. As the video says, using a base of Windows NT (a real multi-tasking OS) made a huge difference.
More than anything else, the Windows Phone was a victim of the internal political wars inside Microsoft.
Steve Ballmer’s interview aged like fine milk. 😂
I don't know... It's not that he was wrong - the idea was ludicrous, the phone was expensive AF and most business people in high places are one of the more stagnant and stubborn people on the planet who rejected Pocket PCs and more touch capabilities they offered before Steve came and found the words and the right pair of jeans to give the same stupid innovation everyone else was pushing years before and actually sell it. And what was he supposed to say? "All my golf buddies that are idiots... some of them still use tape to store data because they think IRS knows best".
It’s a good case study for business people.
Sometimes you have to project confidence about the product your company is selling and underplay competitors.
Just like the clippers
@@CobraFat2000 No. He was wrong.
I REALLY miss my windows phone, it was the most beautiful phone I've ever had.
Your guide dog misses it too 😂
@@smoll.miniatures?
@@mrlucas1501 I was insinuating that to find a windows phone beautiful, you’d have to be blind… Im here all week, try the veal.
@@smoll.miniatures lol
windows continum walk so samsung dex could run
I had 2 Windows Phones and loved them. The issue was the lack of apps .
It broke my sister's heart when the Windows Phone shut down. I remember going to the Sprint store to pick out a new phone. She got a Samsung phone in the end.
I had a medium-sized business for 22 years until I retired.
I JUST bought another business, growing into medium size.
The most important lesson is:
If you wait for changes to make sense to everyone else, then you’ll be BEHIND everyone else.
I really enjoy these longer-form explained videos. It’s not just info-dumping but also storytelling. Plus, I could listen to Greg discussing tech all day long.
21:52 Microsoft recovered NOTHING.
NOKIA recovered that. And THAT was the big problem. Windows Phone was NEVER what sold the phones. The NOKIA brand was selling the Lumias.
Nokia's tradition of quality and best cameras on the market was what sold NOKIA Lumia phones. It was NOKIA that carried on its back the entire platform. It was NOKIA who had to FORCE Microsoft to constantly release updates to Windows Phone 8, to enable Nokia to innovate and bring to market things that nowadays many people think Apple or Samsung invented (like Always On displays, pixel-binning in photos, live photos, directional audio recording, oversampling of images, etc).
So when Microsoft purchased Nokia's Devices and Services business, they basically killed Windows Phone. Without the power of the Nokia brand behind them, Lumias simply had no customers.
And you'll see that happen again now with HMD devices. They were already selling badly 'cause they were just releasing rebranded Chinese garbage. But without the NOKIA logo in the phones, NO ONE is going to buy HMD phones.
As a former insider, I can confirm your account is accurate.
Microsoft's first step after acquiring the Nokia phone business was to fire sales and marketing teams. And sales went down, so they cancelled the roadmap. And sales went down. 🤔🤷♂️
I couldn't agree more.
From other vendor's perspective (I've also worked with Nokia phone software, before smartphones) - when Nokia chose Microsoft, we all just shook our heads.
This will ruin Nokia.
Microsoft had neither enough embedded experience, nor telecom/phone device/market experience, nor operator experience. They just never proved being successful at anything that would matter in the telecom market, they didn't bring enough to the table...
And, of course, as pointed out in the video, it was all years too late, the window of opportunity had already passed.
Nokia held on to Symbian for too long, then they chose unproven Microsoft instead of Android
Is Nokia still around? Why doesn’t someone resurrect the company and release Android phones?
@@daveinpublic Uh. Yeah. Not hard to look up
No, Microsoft's first big mistake was letting Steve Ballmer take the reins. That guy was a disaster.
"The lost decade" is the term employees and stockholders use for Ballmer's time as CEO.
Agreed. This guy was a Buffoon.
And rightfully so 😅 @@ChrisDreher
Ballmer also put the incompetent Roz Ho in charge of the Windows phones and Zunes. She was even worse.
@@kevinfisher5492Ballmer ruined Microsoft’s reputation or at the very least made it worse than before. Especially after forcing you to buy Microsoft Office. I’m not a big fan of Apple but microsoft got so shitty that I got myself a macbook. And I got both an iphone and samsung galaxy. Microsoft has become the person that peaked in high school.
3:15 That Wonderful moment when Art, Music and Technology intermingled on the Beautiful Commodore AMIGA 1000 😍
Thanks for including that little touch of nostalgia
Steve Balmer was right. The iPhone indeed did not have a physical keyboard
What a visionary he was
As a Palm user all the way up to 2014 (up to the HP Pre 3), I absolutely still miss physical keyboards. I miss being able to type texts with touch instead of having to look. THAT SAID, when I switched to the Samsung Note 4, the larger screen was definitely a fair trade off. Even to this day, while I still miss physical keyboards, what I get in its place is still a square deal... it helps ease the pain.
In a way tho, Steve Balmer was right... at first. The original iPhone WASN'T really geared for business. It was a device "for everyone else", which has always been Apple's thing. The iPhone only took off for business definitely by the time the iPhone 4 came out, which was when they started adding those features that business users needed, like installable apps and copy-and-paste functionality. So Balmer definitely would've been wrong if iPhone 4 had been released as the first iPhone.
This is true, but ironically a decent amount of keyboard cases that add a portrait style keyboard under the screen exist now for iPhones. Since iPhones are very standardized, it's easier to do this for them than a 100 different kinds of Android phones, all with different form factors, even from the same manufacturer.
I never owned a windows phone but I did own a surface tab. I used to be frustrated by the fact there were barely any apps especially youtube. I could imagine it was the same with their phones.
Surface RT was the problem...
I remember very well when the 1st iPhone came out. I was working for a mobile phone carrier and they had some kind of deal with Blackberry. I remember that a Blackberry representative came to our office and for almost one hour, he told us about how the iPhone sucked and how the Blackberry was so much better for both business people as well as regular people.
To be fair, it actually was. A lot better. But it didn’t have the wow factor of the iPhone.
Great video! Thanks for putting all of this together into one cohesive video. A note of constructive criticism: on a video of this length, you just can’t loop the same music over & over. (I’m a musician, so perhaps I’m more sensitive to these things.) It slowly starts grating on your brain after a while, like hold music on your phone. These kinds of videos need new pieces of music at each major chapter, following the story. Otherwise, excellent work as always!
Steve Ballmer is a perfect example of out of touch and delusional CEO.
He's the embodiment of a "we're too big to fail" mindset. The downfall of Microsoft occurred on his watch. Longhorn would've have been the final blow to the Desktop OS, but instead we got Vista...
He can't be that out of touch; his personal wealth amounts to $147 billion, ranking him as the seventh-richest individual globally. It seems like he's quite grounded, in my opinion.
@@thewatcherofawesomecontentDownfall? Microsoft is the largest company in the world, by market cap. I'd say they're doing just fine. They just missed the boat on mobile
@@festusssss No the mid 00's were a disaster for Microsoft... they got levelled up by both Apple and Google... they had the potential to be ahead of both, but Steve "Developers" Ballmer had NO VISION.
@@jamiebarnes3539 You assume a link between personal wealth and being grounded.
There is none. And you also do not even attempt to show one.
People get rich by statistics, not by any form of competency.
crazy how time flies....
i didn't realize how OLD i actually was LOL
That’s my takeway from this was REALLY about
@@DaveButtonswe lived through 10 years of massive social change fueled by mobile computing technology without realizing it.
@@mrparts But instead we entered "The Age of Cultural Stagnation". You can look back 10 years and you could still think we are in 2024. Everything was there and is still mainstream, sure things got "better/newer" but nothing changed somehow.
People looked back to the 80s and 90s from a 2000 perspective and thought the world was completely bananas. Every decade had it's own unique theme and feel. After 2000 nothing! Same music, same action hero movies, same clothing (with some retro stuff from 80s 90s again) and same problems...
I had a Nokia Lumia 900, and just the name had me hooked-especially when the Lumia 1020 came out! I didn’t care about the lack of apps; the operating system was beautiful and unique. I even managed to install the betas for Windows Phone 8.5 and Windows 10, so I saw the whole process you mentioned.
Going back to iOS was a tough pill to swallow because I really liked Windows, but it was clear they were late to the game.
The Nokia Lumia 1020 was ahead of its time with that 41-megapixel camera, manual settings, and RAW format... back in 2013!
it was 43 mega pixels, yes, but it still looked pretty bad. The trade off of the brick sized device and bad OS wasn't worth the squeeze.
@@SamFigueroa I had one, even the ad said “41 million reasons”
exactly. Camera was way beyond the competitors.
@@SamFigueroano it wasn't 43 megapixel it was 41..
Same here. I loved my 1020, but Microsoft didn’t seem interested in aggressively promoting the Win Phone platform and getting developers to write Win Phone apps. Once the newer version of the Nokia 1020 came out with virtually no real improvements, I reluctantly gave up and switched to an iPhone 6.
Back in 2012, I was 17 and my first job was working at the newly formed EE in the UK. I distinctly remember our store had a Nokia rep, and we used to attend "Lumia Lanes" - a trip to the bowling alley every few weeks. Was such a fun time, got loads of free merch.
I used to work for O2 while I was a student between 2006-2010. It was creating selling the first iPhone. We used to get so many freebies and incentives. Good times as a student
i liked Windows Phones, particularly when Nokia was in it.
But there wasn't enough support so the writing was on the wall early on.
I actually hope Microsoft have another run at mobile phones. I really liked the fresh approach to user interface design. I loved that for the higher end models they has a feature (Continuum), where you could plug into a KVM adapter and you basically have full blown desktop windows to use. No laptop needed.
I think having a duopoly is never beneficial for consumers. A viable third alternative to Apple and android I think would be a good thing.
Is just too much effort to create a completely new mobile OS as where we are now. Take the example of MS Edge. The project is based on the same engine Chrome uses because Microsoft realized that creating and maintaining a modern web browser is not worth it.
Developers don't want to maintain and release apps for third platform. If Microsoft re-enters the phone market, they would need to base their phone on Android. Otherwise they will never get the app support and eventually fail.
I agree, Microsoft can come in now and have a very competitive product. With Windows ARM expanded to run x86 apps. The ability to emulate iOS and Android Apps. And Continuum. They could bring something fresh to the market. But they would also need to invest a lot for OEM support and marketing. Their application ecosystem is already developed.
@@paolooseI kinda agree but I kinda don't let me explain: All people would really have to do it make arm apps for the windows store on windows on arm and then they can could just that store on the phones
@@KevinSmith-qi5yn I guess Microsoft can somewhat easily enter the space again especially while they're busy working on and pushing Win 11 ARM. It won't even need much maintenance as it remains on the Win 11 code. But the big thing they'll need to think about is user interface, because consumers wouldn't want a desktop UI crammed up on a slate mobile.
"Duopoly not great" well Microsoft is part of duopoly in other technologies
Windows phone 8.1 was where the windows phone design peaked. I think Microsoft did not realise that people had different expectation from PC OS and phone OS.
While windows 8 did not work on PC with mouse and keyboard based interface it was perfect for touch screen phone.
And while windows 10 was an upgrade on PC on phones Windows 10 was a huge downgrade.
If only Microsoft had separated the two OS and doubled down on the metro based mobile interface the outcome would have been different.
Windows Phone had so much potential. The stability of the system, no bugs issues - what in the early 2010-s Android phones suffered from, on WP was not present.
I loved my Lumias (920 and 930) , but the lack of apps, slow OS developments made the phones less attractive. Regardless, my Lumias were the most unique in design, colours, pioneers in camera and photography technologies - in 2013 L920 was the first smartphone ever with an OIS in camera for example. Lumia Camera itself was an incredible app! I shot amazing photos with it and edited them to the max.
But the lack of apps, was a bleeding wound. When I returned to Android it was a shock to me.
The OS became stable, matured.
One thing.... Snap crap.. Chat.. . It's really that simple. The CEO said no to developing the app for windows phone. Then ever other new app, and remember that at that time, big apps blew up overnight, they just didn't supply a WP version.
It's that simple. Zero app support when the big apps took off in that one year.
Nothing to do with bad hardware of software.
I use Snapchat and TikTok more than Facebook, instagram, and twitter. And I’m like 25 lol
Ballmer is one of the worst CEO in the history
They did this at the same time as releasing the Xbox One.
While he blew it with the iPhone, he’s a Billionaire and MS is still around and doing well.
@@Wanted797which was a huge flop.
This is wrong. He grew Microsoft to be the money machine it is now. He just didn't swap to mobile. His only mistake
@@localblackman427Wrong. His time as Microsoft’s CEO sunk Microsoft’s relevance in the public consciousness. Microsoft is what Apple was in 1995 when it nearly disappeared and you’d be laughed at for using Apple products.
Still loving how you're going back to how the channel's old style while mixing in the good of your current style, especially mixing in the short videos in between. Thank you so much!
I really wish they stuck with it. To this day I miss the home screen and the keyboard.
I think the main problem with Windows phone had more to do with the commercial strategy rather than the product itself. The business model around the OS was not competitive enough and actually hurt Microsoft's relationship with many hardware manufacturers at the time like Samsung and HTC.
Balmer was behind the fall of lumia series and windows phone and ultimately it's death of windows phone
The only thing to do for ms to have a chance was to directly pay hundreds of millions for apps to get ported.
Hurt? Hahaha! Actually it was Samsung who hurt MSFT. Because Samsung made the very first WP8, and Microsoft's hope was they will be as successful as Galaxy line. But Samsung suddenly dropped this line, and othe manufacturers didn't hurry to produce WP8, so eventually MSFT was forced to buy Nokia and invest huge amounts of money to produce WP8 devices themselves.
Video nostalgia is one of the reasons I love this channel. What a great video! Loved watching it! Thanks for the walk down memory lane!
Nokia lover here. Sad to see Nokia now not in the top of the smartphone industry.
Typed on my 13 Mini.
World is changing, that's the way it is
Nokia blew their chance by rejecting Google android, they offered it to them before Samsung and htc and did not make their own system to be competitive. It was too late when they realized it. When the market is changing management should listen to the people that can sense that instead of following some old patterns that mattered before the change. Philips died because of the same thing, they just didn’t realize where the things are heading. Apple car never started because of the same thing but Elon saw it and made Tesla the most popular eCar in the world.
I used to be Nokia. Now iPhone. But now they’ve stopped the mini, I have to by the massive 6.1 inch one
The worst product I ever used from a major company, by very far, was Windows 8 with its so-called Metro design. I'm still (figuratively) in shock at how they ever released that OS. You would open a so-called Metro app on a quad-hd screen and everything would be so massive and so badly designed and so impractically positioned, as if they were aimed at children, or as if they were in early development. Crazy times for Microsoft.
I used the first Android phone, and pretty much used various Android devices till I switched to the iPhone 8. Also had a couple of Windows 8 devices. The UI was actually really good. But in my opinion, Microsoft's biggest blunder was the 3-rd party apps. By then, everyone used apps. What they should have done is spend their deep pockets to seriously incentivize app developers and the carriers. They were years behind, and if Balmer had the vision of a true leader, he should have seen that they must move fast and make sure apps were available. They had the money to do it. But not the vision.
After struggling with not having even the most basic apps, like Evernote, I went back to Android, and never looked back.
Yeah when you look back now when everything is based on revenue from subscriptions and services the should have paid manufacturers for every device they sold and marketed a lower cut on app sales than Apple and Google just to establish the platform. I still miss the interface and overall feel of the devices (Had the HTC7, Lumia 920,1020 and 930).
It's the same issue with Linux on desktop. Linux has come a long way in ease of use, but the good enough product (Windows) already has all the OEM and developer inertia. Android is linux based, the Steam Deck runs Linux so there is nothing inherently wrong with Linux; it's just that Windows inertia on desktop is as strong as Android/IOS inertia on phones.
@@mightza3781 Linux needs some corporation to run it on desktop and then issues will be addressed. The proof is Valve - they needed an independent gaming OS and made it work. Without this, Linux will have driver and key software missing as it does now. I am a long time Linux user and that's the conclusion I came to over the years.
Even back then Microsoft knew what the future was and it was within apps but they kept avoiding it like the plague if they even at least focused on the important apps they would of still been here today maybe not as strong but still in the game
A major reason 3rd party apps were lacking is that MS bungled the relationship with developers. Windows had the largest market share. If I remember right apps working on Windows Mobile 6.1 would not work on 6.5. And 6.5 apps would not work on 7. Then Windows 8 apps would not work on 7. While an app on 7 should work on 8, the developer should rewrite to 8 as Microsoft was quickly dropping 7. In a span of a few years, developers would have to rewrite apps 3 or 4 times. No developer wanted to do that with Windows Phone shrinking market.
If they were around today, Microsoft would force you into a $9.99 monthly subscription just to use your phone.
No way would MS be cheaper than Mint Mobile.
Lmao! That's so true. I feel like you could make phone calls for free, but you could sign up for "premium" phone calls for $5.99 a month so you could get HD audio and save contacts. Lol
@@xxH0LT45xxthe commenter meant phone subscription which does not exist not cell phone plan bud. He was clowning on Microsoft
They would log and want to own every conversation
That’s probably true partly. But today it seems companies have gotten very smart. They have figured out a way to get residual income using subscription services. Microsoft Office is a good example. Even car companies are doing this if you want to use their app to monitor your vehicle. And so forth.
@1:30 shows that he has no vision whatsoever!
Kind of misreading the situation there. The mobile landscape was completely different and what mobile phone type that dominated on windows was the candybar with a qwerty keyboard. And in terms of adoption mostly business users were the critical users of smartphone devices (except major enthusiasts at the time like myself who had an HTC XV6600 and a Samsung i730).
The issue isn't vision. That wasn't ballmer. That point was to maintain his customer base - the business users. The original iPhone struggled heavily with business users and a bevy of updates catered to making it easier to use with Microsoft exchange and providing a better user experience to business users who couldn't wait for Apple to present a product based solution to the dominated Microsoft platform.
he’s doing perfectly fine now. The iphone was a big risk the steve chose to take. the ed ceo now owns the La Clippers so i don’t think he cares that much
It's always easy to judge after the fact.
@@malcolmjwilliams3521
1. You’re absolutely correct it was a completely different situation in the late aughts.
2. It was a lack of vision however that killed Microsoft’s mobile platform. Steve Jobs and his incredible team he winnowed had an idea of what the future could be, and relentlessly pursued it giving us the reality of today where the iPhone is now ubiquitous.
This is why Microsoft had to steal or acquire every invention they sold: they had no creativity and no sense of how to product manage.
The Nokia Lumia 920 was an amazing phone with a top camera. Not so much the lack of apps but the lack of updates for the few major apps they carried ruined what was a truly amazing device.
how Steve ever became CEO is amazing - one of the most incompetent managers ever
…
@@CrispyyFella that person is referring to Steve Ballmer, and they hoped you would interpret their comment the way you did, because they thought it would be funny.
@@AJ-wg7fj😂
Most companies are like that
@@AJ-wg7fj Oh okay😭
Love the long-form vids! Please keep them coming, great job
Good compilation of all the failures that Microsoft and Nokia made. Perfect case study of business schools.
Well researched video. So happy to see the creator mentioning the good points of Nokia Lumia. Way better than other youtube videos about the failure of Windows Phone.
"now, it doesn't have a keyboard which makes it not a very good email machine" I laughed so hard 😆
People were more formal then, emails used to be well-crafted (read: wordy) before sent. That's probably why Ballmer thought that a good email machine had to have a keyboard.
I miss physical keyboards, I still go to my laptop or desktop to do most things because a touchscreen is horrible for productivity
@@candle86 Can vary depends on phone you use. Haptics play strong role, Try typing on someone's flagship phone.
Won't be as satisfying as physical but will be actually faster than physical.
@@prateekpanwar646 I have a flagship Pixel 8, before that I owned an S9, and no i hate the stupid touch keyboards and yes it is slower than a real keyboard. Anyone trying to argue you can do real work on a phone doesn't have a real job.
@@candle86 If that's the case you might have different use case. Sadly industry won't gonna change. "Anyone trying to argue you can do real work on a phone doesn't have a real job". Yeah practically its just social media machine and video device.
Although even for most text, I use pretty much finger gliding and 3 suggestions on top.
I remember being in the car with my dad, telling him nobody wants to put a slab of glass against their face, and touchscreens sucked. My phone at the time was the LG chocolate, lol.
I mean, you were right lol. I use bluetooth or speaker whenever I speak on my phone. I hate having to put it against my face to speak.
LG Chocolate was cool though!
I had a black lg chocolate, what an icon
Woooooooow windows phone was my introduction into the world of smartphones. I remember all the apps it did and didn’t support. Had me looking like an idiot in school for having a weird Facebook and Instagram
Typing on lumia phones was so satisfying
Don't ever change the background music
Better than AI generated video. Could’ve shaken it up a bit, but it’s fine without new music.
(Edit for grammatical correction)
the og background music still is king
It’s kind of distracting tbh. Could be turned down.
@@CountJeffula you’re new to the channel, right?
@@Pearloryx correct.
I still miss my Lumia 1020 tbh.
It is to this day one of the best phones I have owned, OS included.
The win phone tile system is imho far superior to Android and IOS
The idea that the iPhone didn’t have a keyboard is what escaped these dudes. They could not process the fact that it was merely a touchscreen keyboard. Less tactile than a physical keyboard? Absolutely, but not inferior just different. I remember standing in line for the first iPhone at the Apple Store in San Diego with my roommate, he was on the fence about dropping 500 plus dollars for a phone that truly was basically a prototype, but to me it was well worth it.
No this is still a valid opinion to have. There's more nuance here. This is the same as Teslas just have a touch screen rather than real buttons. There's nothing wrong with a phone have a virtual keyboard. The issue was it would appear less reliable if it's software based. And it being so new it's automatically assumed that it'll be very buggy.
So the issue was reliability over usability (which was still understandably questionable). It proves that for a car we prefer that it needs to work even if it's clunkier but for a phone it's very forgivable if it turns off randomly so long as it's always fun to use. If the market went this way of course the software would be perfected and it would be less of a problem. It's not the concept itself that's the problem it's actually implementing it as a sustainable technology. That's a very different view point.
Early touch devices were absolutely terrible for typing, t9 at its peak was miles ahead of touch experience, and had less functionality than symbian in 2003. Users just didnt really needed these.
On-screen keyboards were horrible. But iPhone wasn’t
The Windows Phone failed because it wasn't "Windows" on a phone. Rather, it was a weird "tile" system that coincided with the worst iteration of Windows in three decades -- Windows 8. Even when Microsoft realized that Windows 8 was a disaster, they continued to push the tile interface of the Windows Phone. WHAT MICROSOFT SHOULD HAVE DONE is create a mobile OS that mimicked the desktop OS -- complete with a Start button -- and was simple, customizable and buttery smooth. Best of all, they could have stored things in the cloud better than anyone at the time (because Microsoft was ahead of the curve with OneDrive and Microsoft 365). Unfortunately, they continued ahead with a failed tile interface system that was less like Windows than either iOS or Android.
What? The tile interface was the best thing about Windows Phone! Look through the comments here. Users loved it. The lack of apps and poor/late ecosystem is what killed it
@@dacypher22 The problem with the Windows phone is that it didn't look or feel like "Windows."
I didn't mind the tiles -- if it was an option for you to set it up that way. While there were fans (who were very strongly opinionated about it), I participated in a focus group about it. We were the last focus group too. All of the other panelists disliked the tiles and said that it impeded any notion of a purchase. I spoke with the focus group leader and he mentioned that people hated the interface by a margin of 9-to-1.
The apps were certainly lacking too -- no doubt. Still, I think that it was a combination of both.
A proper Windows phone should have looked like a traditional "Windows" home -- with a "Windows" button and a fully-customizable home screen. The tiles could have been an option for both the home screen and subsequent category screens. Still, I would have preferred a fully-customizable home screen with a Windows button. I would have enjoyed Office 365 (as an installed feature) too and any apps that would be permissible and convertible from a Windows desktop. If Windows did something like a reverse Bluestacks (i.e., allowing Windows apps to run on the Windows phone via the cloud), it would have been amazing.
I still think that Microsoft will eventually make a great Windows phone. They still have R&D working in that department. With the advent of the cloud, I could see a cloud-based phone that allows individuals to run all sorts of programs and apps -- Windows, Xbox, Office, traditional apps, etc. -- from their phone. It will simply need to be simple (even Android or Apple like) but with something like a Windows button or Windows home screen to set it apart.
When CEO's ideas dont work, they usually don't stop or change directions. They double-down and do more of whatever wasn't working because they believed in their own ideas more than anyone else. So its hard for them to accept their own faults. They will blame everyone else when they're ideas are failing. That's why they usually have to be fired in order to change the company's direction.
I always think CEOs should be forced to do music production for two years before they get the job: "Oh you like that pride and joy song you've made? Tough shit, delete it and re-do it 2000 times until you end up with something completely new that doesn't resemble the original idea one bit" is the order of the day with music. It teaches you to let go of beloved concepts better than anything i've ever done. I'm thinking of selling the courses.
@hellbent7062, And that’s really interesting. In the world of, say the English Premier League, EPL, and I’m sure many other sport competitions, when a team is not playing well or getting the right results, who gets the sack? At the end of the season, they might get rid of some players who have been under performing, but mid-season, they don’t sack the players, they sack the manager who is responsible for the ideas behind the team’s style of play.
Now, to me, that always seems to be unfair! The manager is certainly the one who has selected the players to take the field, but he/she can’t get on the field and make the players play better, or even play according to the plan they have been given and practising. There’s probably fault on both sides, but it’s only the manager who has to take responsibility.
In business, what you have described is a complete reversal. Just some thoughts.
Keep up the work Greg. I love these explained videos
YAY YOU’RE FINALLY BACK!!!
I had a Windows Phone and the UI was the most best ive ever seen. Like the other comments said, it was just the Lack of Apps that killed it. They had to invest to support more brand to the OS. Also they were really late.
Like the Xbox 😂
@@DontCensorMuah yeah
The biggest win for Apple was that an iPhone soon become a luxury item instead of just a phone.
agreed, its fashion rather than pure tech, A lot of Value comes from "oo Apple"
@@Faizan29353 yes its an issue that people with apple devices think they are somehow better, but thats why I only let people with androids uses the guest wifi in my house, any frtiends with iphones or ipads come over no wifi sameway my one friend with a macbook i made him use his hotspot no dirty apple devices on my network.
it's basically people paying extra to not have to deal with android
@@svr5423 high end Android is just as expensive. Apple never played the low price game. Android phones had to because most of the world can’t afford the high end phones.
For me the biggest oversight from Ballmer was not understanding how valuable that extra screen real estate was when the keyboard disappeared. A hardware keyboard was dead space.
I miss buttons.
That man said “it’s got all the internets, but it’s not a good email machine” 😂😂
I had a couple of Windows Phones and they were really nice devices. The UI was great and they were pretty fast especially considering the price point. If it had reasonable app support, I think it could have stood a chance.
I have a funny Windows phone story. In the Air Force, we had to leave our phones in cubie holes during classified meetings. A Captain went on the intercom and said "someone left their Windows Phone outside of the briefing room. Someone in this squadron actually had a Windows Phone." It was pretty funny.
The most exciting detail is that despite being 10 years old, the UI of Windows Phone 10 doesn't look outdated today, while iOS and Android from 2015 look pretty ugly nowadays. Usually, MS engineers do some kind of shit - and then brilliant MS bracketologists made this shit into the star and a cash cow. And with this case, just one time, MS engineers were able to make the almost perfect product - marketologists failed it badly. Pretty ironic. Instead of burning billions with extra expensive ad campaigns, MS should pay directly to developers - identify the 100 most popular apps on 20 key markets and pay for porting to Windows Phone. It was absolutely obvious to me since my first Lumia 800.
yeah you have to give them credit where credit is due
I find iOS design wise extremely well done. Not sure windows can ever catch up.
For all the vaunted MS marketing juggernaut that made Windows and Office the 800-pound gorilla of computing, they couldn’t have missed the mark more with the Win Phone. I agree that they didn’t pay developers more or outright paid for Windows versions of popular apps to help “prime the pump.”
@@etc115 when you do compare nowadays design of IOS to 9 years old design of Windows Phone? Sure, agree. But try to compare design of Windows Phone with 9yrs old iOS. It just different universes!
5:37 Google acquired Android in 2005
'Microsoft realized that they needed to control... the hardware'. Really? I wonder how Android is still alive.
Oh, and Microsoft is barely producing the hardware for their Windows OS.
11:10 This was one of my favorite things about Windows Phone when I had a Lumia - the keyboard was head and shoulders above the rest. After the updated OS and the new name Windows Mobile, I started to dislike the overall OS, because it was too buggy. It was more beautiful though. But I still miss it, ngl
Microsoft lost me making apps for Windows 8 because of their shitty SDK. Apps needed a large rewrite from 7 to 8 because of incompatible APIs. For such a small user base it was just not worth it.
They did not even allow C++ to use. UWP was a disaster and Microsoft had finally removed it. Plus they did not have chromium like we have today, so no PWAs
The OS was just a bad OS. No wonder nobody wants (well I should say "can" instead) to make apps
@coshvjicujmlqef6047 pretty sure it does support c++, no? And uwp is used more than ever. Especially with the ms app store and xbox now. Don't get me wrong, I hate it too
I doubt that many Windows Phones were sold to private customers, but some companies forced it on their employees. Much like many are forced to use Windows PCs at work today.
I worked in the retail phone industry at this time. The phones that came out were great. The Lumia 1020 was a stand out. Even customers knew the App Store was poor and that was the biggest part
Windows ruined nokia
Absolutely...had nokia adopted the android earlier or significantly improved symbian... things would have been different
I disagree. Nokia ruined itself with its hubris. It blindly believed that developers would work on Symbian as a third player to iOS and Android and was unwilling to partner with Android for its feared loss of market share as a handset manufacturer. Indeed, Nokia would have lost market share with Android but one would think that loss would have been smaller and not crushed into partnering with Microsoft before being bought out.
Apple did.
when windows and nokia launched the lumia windows phones, windows ruined everything. Nokia did pretty well with the hardware, it was quite ahead of its time actually, the camera was great, it had amoled screen, they even had wireless charging, and of course good old fashion nokia phones that are built like a tank. Where it failed dramatically was software, apps support, upgrade support, clunkiness, etc. so yeah, windows ruined it.
No Symbian ruined Nokia. It was horrible coded. I worked with Symbian OS back then. We had the first finger touchscreen smartphone but even back then we were kinda shocked how bad the UI was. That was the reason MS could buy Nokia
Unpopular opinion: Microsoft retreating from the smartphone market and shutting down the Windows Phone development was... yet another bad decision.
I absolutely agree I really enjoyed my windows htc
Perhaps putting more Ads on Outlook is generating more revenue!
This, Microsoft traditionally succeeds most when they double down on something and their first version may flop or have tepid sales but they knock it out of the park by the 2nd go-around after fixing their mistakes.
I disagree; given the existing sunk cost, I can understand this perspective, but being 5 years late to the party with a still struggling application ecosystem wouldn't cut it.
@@mikeg2491I fully expected Microsoft to be as aggressive with the Win Phone as they were when they rolled out Windows 3 and then Win 95. They had these great phones, especially from Nokia, and totally squandered the opportunity. They totally lost the mojo that pushed Microsoft to the top of the heap. Even worse, they ruined Nokia as a company in the process.
13:46 If you don’t have angry birds, you don’t have a mobile OS
It did have Angry Birds, but it didn’t have Snapchat
Lesson learned 😂
I’m pretty sure it did get Angry Birds later, but yeah. Not having that and UA-cam were big issues for many
Windows mobile os was actually really really good! It was so much better than Android back then, but they just never got app support.
The tile launcher is still by far my favorite phone interface. On every android phone I use I always set up a custom launcher that mimics the tiles. Been using tiles for so many years now since my Lumia 521.
Agree, changed it recently but LOVED my tile interface!
I remember when Microsoft launched one of their flagship stores in Sydney, Australia. On launch day, you could see all the Microsoft employees wandering round the local stores and coffee shops with their iPhones. The store itself had plenty of their "Surface" tablets, but almost no Windows phones. Their heart just wasn't in it....
That isn't because Iphone was better, it is because Iphones are more easily restricted for work devices.
@@MegaLokopo iPhones wall garden are better suited for security then any other phone. The carriers outside of AT&T never really wanted to carry the iPhone, but had no choice or they would also disappear quickly.
@@TheSjuris its been proven multiple times that closed source is worse at security than open source. Their garden also doesnt make it more secure, that has also been proven. The only reason apple devices have less malware is because so few people use apple devices compared to anytbing else. They just arent a profitble target. Not enough users at all.
@@MegaLokopo can’t access anything on Apple without the phone. Nothing is stored on the cloud. Don’t confuse iOS with their pc business. The government adores Google. Much easier for the government to access data which is stored on a server and google adores using you as a product. There’s a reason that lots of criminals would rather use Apple than Google. Just like no one targets Linux for the same reason.
Balmer ending up owning the Clippers of all teams is so poetic
Windows Phone and the Metro interface was glorious. I stuck with it until it wasn't practical anymore due to lack of app support. I still use a Windows phone style launcher on my Android phone but I really miss the Metro interface, it was so fluid.
Fragment of the video from 5:40: stop repeating nonsense: the Android system was created by Android Inc - they started it as an open project, they made one mistake, it was too similar to the iOS system - it inspired too much, there was a long-term law battle against Apple - it suffered greatly financially. After this time, Google noticed a chance to enter the smartphone market, bought Android Inc (2005 - after year iOS) and acquired these rights. They turned it into their own. They hired better lawyers, changed the design and we still have Android today. The rest of the story is ok.
IBM did not leave pc market because they were late, but because hardware had lowering profit margins vs software which had better prospects and new technologies. (And they still had thinkpad)
2) Steve Balmer said ehat he said but we dont know what he thought.
@@innosantoThinkPad was sold to Lenovo in 2005
I remember when I was 13 in middle school my dad bought me a palm trēo (which I still have in a drawer) because he got some deal. I thought it was so cool it had the internet and did all kinds of things but a few months later my friend’s older brother got and iPhone and the second I saw it I immediately looked at my phone like it was a flip phone. Once my dads contract ended and my little brothers phone was out of contract I got an iPhone 4s.
So sad i wish windows phone was still here
Why so yoy wont have apps. You would still hsve your apple watch.
@@errolewhat?
@@errole it is good for competition, and the ui is quite good for a phone!
It really could have been great if developed by the right company. Competition is good for consumers, having three major platforms even better.
The HMD Skyline takes some design cues from the classic Lumias. Better wait when it launches with more color options.
First video that I see about this story that is complete and honest with everything that happened. thumbs up