evilrob
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quote:
Originally posted by John
I'd like to try windows phone but I do sometimes need the niche things so android does the job best so far.
If you're tempted, I would say hold off for a year and here's why:
I've only had a Windows Phone for 10 months and in that time it's come on in leaps and bounds.
It went from annoying me occasionally at the start, to meeting my expectations currently - I fully expect it to exceed my expectations a year from now. I imagine that Windows Phone exceeding my expectations might just meet yours. I guess it depends what Cupertino and the Mountain View Chocolate Factory come up with in that same timeframe.
I'm very positive about the future of Windows Phone, in any case. I like how it is today, and if it continues to improve as it has done over my brief ownership so far, I'm certain it will win more admirers ongoing.
[Edited on 06-08-2014 by evilrob]
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John
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I've not got massive needs from a phone BTW. Outside of being anal about everything, I go on the internet, email and make the odd phone call. It just pisses me off if I do try to do something and can't.
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gooner_47
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quote:
Originally posted by evilrob
The time in the tile (top right) being different to the one above it would bug me lol
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evilrob
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quote:
Originally posted by John
I've not got massive needs from a phone BTW.
Why all the, "Hey Rob, does your bag of shit Windows Phone do this [tenuously useful thing I don't even fucking use anyway]" then? 
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evilrob
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quote:
Originally posted by gooner_47
The time in the tile (top right) being different to the one above it would bug me lol
I actually really like the 'time accurate to the nearest 5 minutes' aspect of that tile. There are other clock faces available.
The best thing about that screenshot is the fact it was 5pm and I still had 66% battery life, having come off charge at shortly after 6am.
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gooner_47
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Ah ignore me I didn't look at it in detail. Expected it to be able to say "4 minutes past" but now I realise it's in 5 minute increments.
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Balling
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quote:
Originally posted by evilrob
Why all the, "Hey Rob, does your bag of shit Windows Phone do this [tenuously useful thing I don't even fucking use anyway]" then?
Might be just me, but I didn't read his posts that way? Sounded to me like he was just curious to compare it with something he knows?
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Balling
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Maybe I'm coming across that way aswell then, with the app thing? Not trying to put the phone down at all. On the contrary I quite like what Nokia/Microsoft (Nokicrosoft? Nokrosoft?) are doing, especially from a UI point of view.
I still maintain that MS have had greater impact on UI design over the last five years than Apple, which is a bit shocking seeing as Apple pretty much invented most of traditional UI.
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evilrob
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It's all good. I was deliberately paraphrasing it for comic effect rather than any offense taken.
I'm enjoying the discussion.
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evilrob
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quote:
Originally posted by oceansoul
Can those with a Win Phone 8 device check their app store for the Juniper Networks VPN client called Junos Pulse. Its avaliable on iOS and Android. I use it alot for work.
Junos Pulse is now available on Windows Phone as of last month:
http://www.windowsphone.com/en-gb/store/app/junos-pulse-vpn/46fd8c9a-7334-4f4f-91d9-080457f42cb5
Installing the app gives you a Junos Pulse profile in the VPN settings:
[Edited on 07-08-2014 by evilrob]
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Dom
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quote:
Originally posted by Balling
.....seeing as Apple pretty much invented most of traditional UI.
Perhaps you should change 'invented' to 'building upon already existing designs' before a can of whoop ass get's unleashed  
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evilrob
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Just stumbled across this:
According to StatisticBrain data as of July 2014, Android is the clear leader in terms of downloads as you might expect, but while Android generated $1.2 billion from its 29 billion downloads, Windows Phone was able to rake in $0.95 billion in revenue from its relatively meagre 4.1 billion downloads.
Think it might be time to start developing Windows Phone apps, fill some of these gaps everyone keeps moaning about... hmm...
Yes, I realise iOS is where the big bucks are, but higher stakes means a higher cost of entry; I don't think it's really a place for indie developers to get noticed unless you're incredibly lucky these days. At least on Windows Phone, while you might have a smaller potential audience, it would seem that audience is actually paying for apps and you also have less competition.
Although, according to AppBrain there are 220,000 apps in the Windows Phone app store, but Microsoft just updated their 'by the numbers' page where they reckon it's 300,000:
[Edited on 07-08-2014 by evilrob]
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evilrob
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quote:
Originally posted by Balling
I quite like what Nokia/Microsoft (Nokicrosoft? Nokrosoft?) are doing, especially from a UI point of view.
I still maintain that MS have had greater impact on UI design over the last five years than Apple...
I agree. OS X Yosemite looks utter gash, and a large part of the reason I ended up on Windows Phone was because iOS 7's look and feel got on my tits.
quote:
Originally posted by Balling
...seeing as Apple popularised most of traditional UI.
^ I think we'd let you have this.
quote:
Originally posted by Balling
-[Apple] +[SRI International/Xerox] pretty much invented most of traditional UI.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_graphical_user_interface
[Edited on 07-08-2014 by evilrob]
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Rob_Quads
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quote:
Originally posted by evilrob
Yes, I realise iOS is where the big bucks are, but higher stakes means a higher cost of entry; I don't think it's really a place for indie developers to get noticed unless you're incredibly lucky these days. At least on Windows Phone, while you might have a smaller potential audience, it would seem that audience is actually paying for apps and you also have less competition.
[Edited on 07-08-2014 by evilrob]
With 300,000 apps out there I would not say that Windows is that much easier for an indie to stick out than iOS.
An interesting stat would be how many developers are there rather than apps. I know on iOS I am seeing more and more apps from each developer so it might be 900,000 apps but only 100,000 developers.
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evilrob
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quote:
Originally posted by Rob_Quads
With 300,000 apps out there I would not say that Windows is that much easier for an indie to stick out than iOS.
An interesting stat would be how many developers are there rather than apps. I know on iOS I am seeing more and more apps from each developer so it might be 900,000 apps but only 100,000 developers.
It's not just about the numbers (although 300,000 apps vs. 900,000 makes it two-thirds easier on that basis alone); it's just a lot easier to get exposure on Windows Phone from what I've seen - on the iOS App Store, unless you're in the Top 10 free/paid/grossing, win an Apple Design Award, get featured in one of their collections, throw a shitload of money at advertising, or are incredibly lucky (with reference Flappy Bird), you can forget it.
If you want MacRumors / TUAW / MacWorld / MacNN / wherever to review your iOS app, you're going to need to grease their palm. On Windows Phone, if you publish a genuinely good quality, useful application, you will get frontpaged by all the Microsoft fanboy sites and the forums go mental.
Also, you're not so much up against the big boys - your EA, Ubisoft, Gameloft etc. for games (while they do all have a presence, it's not so in your face on Windows Phone) and there isn't really a Microsoft equivalent OmniGroup or Realmac for apps; pretty much all the best Windows Phone apps that I use are from independent developers rather than studios.
I'm on first name terms with the developer of the 2Day app I use, for example - he's fixed several annoyances I pointed out and added a couple of features I requested. I quite like that.
[Edited on 08-08-2014 by evilrob]
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Balling
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quote:
Originally posted by evilrob
Think it might be time to start developing Windows Phone apps, fill some of these gaps everyone keeps moaning about... hmm...
Developing to the platform with the most limited user base, 40% of which are willing to pay more than 1$ for an app. Seems like a sound investment.
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Brett
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quote:
Originally posted by evilrob
quote:
Originally posted by Brett
Do I need the latest version of Windows to fit more tiles on the screen like that?
Yeah, it's a Windows Phone 8.1 thing.
Should be arriving in the next week or two on general release.
Came through in the early hours today 
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evilrob
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quote:
Originally posted by Brett
quote:
Originally posted by evilrob
quote:
Originally posted by Brett
Do I need the latest version of Windows to fit more tiles on the screen like that?
Yeah, it's a Windows Phone 8.1 thing.
Should be arriving in the next week or two on general release.
Came through in the early hours today
Enjoy! 
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evilrob
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quote:
Originally posted by Balling
quote:
Originally posted by evilrob
Think it might be time to start developing Windows Phone apps, fill some of these gaps everyone keeps moaning about... hmm...
Developing to the platform with the most limited user base, 40% of which are willing to pay more than 1$ for an app. Seems like a sound investment.
Here's my reasoning:
iOS:
Of course iOS users are apparently happy to shell out a bit more for apps and there are more iOS users than there are Windows Phone users, but it's also more expensive to develop for (the cost of the hardware required to develop and test, fees etc) and a more saturated market: For example, my friend who develops for iOS frequently has apps he has spent months on rejected because Apple feel the functionality overlaps with existing apps, resulting in lost revenue while he tweaks and resubmits over a period of weeks or months until it makes it into the store. He's also had apps taken down retrospectively and told to make changes, following complaints from his competitors that his app is too similar to theirs - even though in many cases he'd never heard of these other apps.
Android:
As for Android, if you look at the average revenue per download according to the StatisticBrain data above, Windows Phone Store has a much closer profile to that of iOS:
iOS - $0.24
Android - $0.04
Windows Phone - $0.23
This tells me that while there are lots of apps downloaded on Android, a much higher proportion of those are free compared to other OSes (perhaps freemium, or ad-supported, I don't know - I'd have to do more homework). Also considering Android's 80% market share, I'm surprised that the total downloads is only marginally more than on iOS; this tells me that a lot of Android smartphone users don't download any apps at all, or very few.
Due to the fragmented nature of the OS, the prevalence of modified firmware and the wide variety of hardware, it is difficult to guarantee your app will run as expected on every device (though this is no worse than trying to develop traditional Windows desktop applications, in fairness).
Windows Phone:
The Windows Phone user base, comparatively small though it is, still amounts to 121million devices worldwide; not to be sniffed at. It's widely reported as being the fastest growing mobile OS on the planet, having doubled its market share from 2% to 4% in 2013 and showing no signs of slowing down in 2014.
On Windows Phone, the only thing it's going to cost me is my time, with the added benefit of the Universal App codebase enabling me to write my app once, and then publish on any Windows 8.x device - PC, Tablet or Phone - expanding my potential reach:
In a nutshell:
Android has the overwhelming majority market share, but comparatively few people are actually paying for apps. Tricky to develop for and ensure a consistent user experience on every device.
iOS has a considerably smaller user base than Android, but those users download more apps and are prepared to pay a bit more for them. However, it's costly to get started (and therefore risky - you may never recoup that initial investment), your app may not get published (and there's no way of finding out until you've invested time developing it), competition is strong.
Windows Phone is currently the fastest-growing mobile OS year on year, more users pay for apps than Android users although they don't pay as much as iOS users. Free to develop for, consistent experience across the Windows ecosystem, easy to deploy on mobile and desktop.
Summary:
Where others see an 'also-ran' OS, I see potential. iOS is saturated, Android has plateaued - yes, it's a gamble investing time in developing for the 'number 3' mobile OS, but it's also the one with the biggest opportunity for growth.
Basically I reckon it's worth a punt, and I fancy my chances better on Windows Phone than I do on either Android or iOS.
[Edited on 09-08-2014 by evilrob]
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Dom
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quote:
Originally posted by evilrob
....Free to develop for...
Is it free (minus any developer account fees) and open source, like Android, to develop for WP? I had always thought you needed Visual Studio (primarily for compiling) to develop WP apps 
[Edited on 09-08-2014 by Dom]
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evilrob
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quote:
Originally posted by Dom
quote:
Originally posted by evilrob
....Free to develop for...
Is it free (minus any developer account fees) and open source, like Android, to develop for WP? I had always thought you needed Visual Studio (primarily for compiling) to develop WP apps
Visual Studio is an IDE - it makes it very easy to write and compile your app (code completion, debugging etc.), but you could in theory write your code in notepad and compile using command-line tools if you wanted to.
That said, Visual Studio Express and the Windows Phone SDK are free, and contains everything an indie developer needs to get started (you don't need the enterprise or team collaboration power of the paid-for Visual Studio Professional); neither are open source, but I'm not sure how that's relevant - you obviously can't roll your own Windows Phone OS, but it is free to develop apps for it. Or to put it another way, you can use the SDK to create apps that you can then submit for sale in the Windows Phone Store, with no additional licenses required - i.e. you don't need an MSDN subscription or anything.
There is a one-time fee of $19 to open a developer account before you can start publishing your apps on the Windows Phone store, but no money needs to change hands until you get to the point of wanting to publish something. Ongoing, Microsoft will take a 30% commission on sales; same as any other app store.
Getting started developing for Windows Phone 8:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/apps/ff402529(v=vs.105).aspx
[Edited on 09-08-2014 by evilrob]
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Dom
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quote:
Originally posted by evilrob
....compile using command-line tools....
Didn't realise there was a cli compiler, always assumed Microsoft restricted development around VS (yes, i know it's an IDE) and the compilers were locked down.
Edit - Seems you need Windows 8.1 but i guess that isn't a biggy.
[Edited on 09-08-2014 by Dom]
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evilrob
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quote:
Originally posted by Dom
quote:
Originally posted by evilrob
....compile using command-line tools....
Didn't realise there was a cli compiler, always assumed Microsoft restricted development around VS (yes, i know it's an IDE) and the compilers were locked down.
Edit - Seems you need Windows 8.1 but i guess that isn't a biggy.
Are you satisfied you don't need to buy Visual Studio to start developing for Windows Phone?
I'd be interested to know your thoughts on any of the other points concerning why I think it's not such a mental idea to try and throw a few apps together for Windows Phone.
[Edited on 10-08-2014 by evilrob]
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Brett
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8.1 is awesome btw
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evilrob
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quote:
Originally posted by Brett
8.1 is awesome btw
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