[HN Gopher] Ten years ago Microsoft bought Nokia's phone unit - ...
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       Ten years ago Microsoft bought Nokia's phone unit - then killed it
        
       Author : orcul
       Score  : 20 points
       Date   : 2024-05-05 20:01 UTC (3 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.theregister.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.theregister.com)
        
       | chiph wrote:
       | I miss Windows Phone. It was fast, did what I needed, and was
       | easy to use one-handed. The Nokia hardware was good (especially
       | the camera, for the time), except the plastic case & screen
       | collected scratches like crazy.
       | 
       | I would have had no problem paying more for a premium metal &
       | glass case for it.
        
         | chefkd wrote:
         | The Windows 8 tiles were so cool and unique looking I
         | evangelized Windows Phones in our house to this day I feel like
         | a traitor for switching over to an iPhone haha
        
         | juunpp wrote:
         | I still have my Lumia 450. It looks as great today as it did 10
         | years ago. Windows phone is probably the only UI/UX Microsoft
         | got right. Sadly, leave it to Microsoft to ruin a product by
         | pulling the plug.
        
           | cromka wrote:
           | If they open sourced it, it could easily become an actually
           | popular, independent mobile OS to compete with Android/iOS.
        
             | Arainach wrote:
             | No, it could not.
             | 
             | Ignoring the technical challenges and impossibilities of
             | open sourcing it (Windows Phone 10 is Windows 10, and the
             | Windows Phone 7/8 codebase was its own crazy beast that was
             | tough enough to work with even when you were being paid to
             | do so), mobile operators do not want you running custom
             | code on their stack, and they are the ultimate gatekeepers
             | of what devices are allowed to connect. There will never be
             | a popular, easy to setup open source phone without a
             | complete reworking of cellular service, at least in the US.
        
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       (page generated 2024-05-05 23:02 UTC)