Sometimes 2 pictures can tell a story better than 1000 words. What is wrong with one of these 2 pictures?
DEATH WISH / Link
vs.
ON-A-ROLL / Link
Is the MS strategy so secret and mind boggling that I am simply not smart enough to comprehend its brilliance? Or is there a wattage problem in MS's Board Room?
.
.
I can live with it adding $20 to the cost of a device. There are also things like TCO or similar that apply to a manufacturer and in turn to a customer.
The answer is yes. He is most definitely retarded.
Fact is that wimo could NEVER have been considered successful. Mostly because it is a piece of trash. Charging more [than nothing] for it is suicide -- especially when you compare it to the in-every-conceivable-way superior ANDROID, which is free.
I actually quite like their strategy of shooting themselves in the head. It means that they will die off faster.
Alright, let's do a recap:
-Android is 100% free, WinMo is not
-They are about to charge CARRIERS, so say goodbye to unlocked phones
-It's Windows Mobile, so say goodbye to Google services. If you like Bing, Windows Live and the rest, good for you, but most of us don't.
He is to Microsoft what Bush was to the US. He is arrogant, generally misoriented and strengthen the opinion the public has about Microsoft.
N1c0_ds said:
Alright, let's do a recap:He is to Microsoft what Bush was to the US. He is arrogant, generally misoriented and strengthen the opinion the public has about Microsoft.
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Wow, this is quite apt, and yet I have never made the connection before. Now that you've made it for me, there are thousands of 1:1 analogies that flow like a rain-flooded river out of my head.
His "Mission Accomplished" was his laughing off the iphone. That was the beginning of the end of staying relevant. Now, 3-4 years later, he's introducing his own iphone, but with one very clever and extremely significant difference:
He's calling his Windows Phone.
Ballmer has been blowing it for years! That's why XDA thrives fixing his OS and why Adroid is on the fast track.
I had 3 WinMo phones before my Hero and I thought it was amazing, I was really reluctant to switch to Android, and after using Android for 1 day I'm pretty sure I'll never use WinMo again. If someone paid me $100 to use WinMo instead of Android, I wouldn't; so asking people to pay THEM to use WinMo is just stupid.
It really starts to come down to the essence of this site
rpimps said:
I had 3 WinMo phones before my Hero and I thought it was amazing, I was really reluctant to switch to Android, and after using Android for 1 day I'm pretty sure I'll never use WinMo again. If someone paid me $100 to use WinMo instead of Android, I wouldn't; so asking people to pay THEM to use WinMo is just stupid.
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This is my exact experience. It isn't a punitive view. It has nothing to do with loyalty/disloyalty, or "they're late to delivering their new OS, so I will punish them by not using it". This has everything to do with how good the combination of HTC + Android is. There is not one thing I long for, there is nothing at all that I am missing using my HTC Hero running Android. HTC's SenseUI on top of Android (which i had never run before, nor even tried before, deciding I wanted to buy the Hero) works so beautifully right out of the box, and the Android market is filled with apps & utilities that make the device's functionality even greater.
I spent over 3 years here, a whole year before even registering, just to help make my T-Mobile MDA device useful to me.
I am saying this: Before my first touchscreen device, I had a very reliable Samsung clamshell device... Being very careful, while in the car I could hit a speed dial and get someone on the phone, activate speakerphone etc., and when the call was done, bullet-proof step to end the cal;. I could feel it in my fingers.
Entering the world of touchscreens, of which I am such a huge champion I have created an awards series in support of, I quickly discovered, to my immediate dismay, "I can't even make a phone call without having this screen up to my face"... But worse, put it in my pocket and for a year my friends are all angry "why do you keep calling me?". Try to get the phone OUT of my pocket to answer a call before it goes to voicemail, 9 times out of ten a touchscreen area gets pushed and call is lost.
Then the tiny tiny keyboard you use reading glasses to see so you can poke that stylus precisely... I was wondering, "what have I traded away for a screen that can browse the web?"
Again, 4 years ago, thankfully one T-mobile store salesperson in San Francisco told me about this site, kind of in hushed tones while inside the store as employee. When I first came here, like with many folks, it was an intimidating jungle, with caution signs everywhere: "READ THIS FIRST" "DON'T POST WITHOUT SEARCHING". I would finally come to what I thought would be straight-forward set of instructions: "A Newbie's Guide to Upgrading your T-Mobile MDA", only to encounter in the very first sentence "Make sure your phone ist HARD-SPL'd or you'll brick it"... "HARD SPL? What does THAT mean?" It took me well over 6 months, back then, to stop-and-go, stop-and-go-back, just then searching for "what is HARD SPL?" only to come to yet another thread saying stuff like "To make sure your device is capable of HARD SPL, it must be all ROMS after 63i850db247, not before or you'll brick your phone"... Read 100's of pages of thread and not one post saying "Yes, your MDA is fine for Hard-SPL". On and on it went til finally, after being slapped down a few times for asking questions (they would link me back to the very threads I already had plowed through), I got some help to get me started.
And THAT day began the pursuit toward USEFULNESS OF USING MY PHONE.
Admit it, more than 3/4 of this site has always been about compensating for what may have been a very fine underlying OS, but a terrible, terrible unfriendly user experience. I upgraded to the T-Mobile Wing before the iPhone came out and was finally at the spot where XDA-devs had created 1000 workarounds for those tiny menus you have to hold up to your face to see... They stripped out the inefficiencies of various WM software, and suddenly I could multi-task keeping Google Maps aways open, with contacts open, notes, music player, ans various utilities. Finally, for me, after 3 years I had a USEABLE PHONE that matched the promise of the ads and marketing.
In almost all cases, XDA-devs were generally NOT exploiting some fabulously smart feature of WindowsMobile, and making it better. They were taking poorly-thought out functionality and terrible UI, and adapting it to become useful. And when the iphone hit, then the paradigm of finger-based navigation changed everything, and XDA-devs created UIs that replicated the easier to "hit" target zones of the iphone interface. Lots of 3rd party shells, etc... But almost ALL of this was to correct deficiencies due to handicaps of what was core Windows Mobile. Still, to this day, people like Supbro, developer of iDialer, and his branch of iContact, have been correcting the stupidity of tiny text for adding a new contact.
I'm just saying: Here I am 4 years later, having had amazing functionality delivered to me thanks to great chefs here, great app & utility developers, and, let's all face it, GREAT ROMS from HTC which were broken apart to extract and enable yet MORE compensating UI fixes (like TouchFlo), all to FIX and mask over the terrible user experience of Windows Mobile.
THUS, when I got my Hero, and began to use it, and from DAY 1, it just works, and it's easy and intuitive, and with all these great widgets and real-time display updates, I realized even more: JEEZ! Finally an OS that is smarter out the gate. Yet Windows STILL had a year to come in and show the marketplace it had learned a thing or two, after the G1 introduced the world to Android. And all they could burp out, with all their resources and skilled engineers, was windows 6.5? And they had to even quickly abandon their explicit HONEYCOMB Ui after it was immediately, and rightfully ridiculed as
"THIS is your new thinking, Microsoft? Your honeycomb staggered alignment, and your start button at bottom center. THIS IS IT??"
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So Ballmer 6-9 months ago "gets religion" and admits (in that infamous private meeting widely reported throughout cellphone land) his whole company should have focused on WM7, and not gone down the 6.5 path, because they were already so behind their new-found competitors... And there was a HOPE, a spark, an ember left, that said, OKAY, MS has HUGE resources and money... so if they tackle this well, they could well turn everything around. But that delivery date for WM 7 was FEBRUARY 2010. Meanwhile many companies moved forward: Google, Motorola, HTC and we saw October, November, December just POUND the marketplace with success after success of Android products, coupled with HTC and Motorola keeping the competitive spirit alive which drives innovation.
JANUARY 2010, and Google comes out with NEXUS ONE --- full of problems, including Google's total fumble with the whole concept of "dealing with customers"... and HTC has had their Snapdragon-processor phone lines well in development as well... And now they've got phones in the marketplace right now much better than the Nexus One, with a new optical trackball, and other usability advances.
And so here we are in February 2010, the very time at which WM 7 was set to be IN THE MARKETPLACE wowing us with what we all hoped would be something re-invented, reviving their tattered brand. And now it's September 2010? Who here believes they'll make THAT date? But great, a little tease at a Mobile World Congress revives some hope that it will all be worth it.
That's 7 months from now! We will surely see in that time a whole new iteration of iPhone OS software. And who knows what from Android?
So I come not to bash Ballmer, but to question his brain-function. With all these deficits working against MS's comeback, he has the audacity to play chess with the marketplace and proclaim there will be add-on carrier fees for his company's new WM7 OS phones? I really meant it literally. Does this man have a screw loose?
Sorry for the BOOK length post, but for anyone reading it, tell me where I'm wrong?
XDA-devs SAVED THEIR ASSES for the past 3 years -- by enabling their crippled OS to do tricks that satisfied customer demand. And now that I bought the Hero -- because I liked what I saw -- and have used it for 4 months, I just don't see the point in wondering "what will WM 7 really be like?" -- because once I made that leap, I'm no longer dealing with 3/4 of the efforts of this great site devoted to COMPENSATION for what WM lacked. Maybe there are people with great sentimental ties to WM -- because naturally after working one's asses off to build off of it, and create great useful software products, features and utilities, there would be a lot of cognitive dissonance at play when contemplating where to continue your development efforts going forward.
And there IS sentimentalism that drives quite a bit of WM enthusiasm. ANd that's fine. But here I am 4 months into using my HERO, and I have yet to even feel the need to come here and root my phone and make it EVEN BETTER. I will, for sure... But I haven't needed to. It's all frosting or gravy for something that inherently works AS SHIPPED.
So that's my rationale. rpimps' prior post just flushed this essay out of me... yet what he's said in 2 sentences summarizes everything I just typed.
Choice is good. And for everyone who wants to stick with WM, I am sure there will be plenty of fruits to bare. But meanwhile I *use* my phone and depend on it right now, not 7 months from now. I'm not looking back.
galaxys said:
That's why XDA thrives fixing his OS.
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And that really is the summary statement about the genesis of and incredible growth of this great site.
If they want to sell WM they need to make it exactly the same as Android, and make a long press on the Home button bring up the usual WM task list to switch between running apps. I'd buy that.
I'm starting to get pretty sick of all this love for Android and how anything Android will blow WP7 out of the water. All this love for a dumbed-down smartphone. None of us have seen WP7, except for a few screenshots here and there and in my opinion it looks great. MS had to make some changes if they wanted to stay relevant, because what we forget is that the "power-users" make up a very small percentage of the buyers market. However, I really do hope that MS does not forget about us all together. All I know is that come December, I'll be rocking the new WP7 and not an Android. Theres my 2 cents.
Irishpride said:
I'm starting to get pretty sick of all this love for Android and how anything Android will blow WP7 out of the water. All this love for a dumbed-down smartphone. None of us have seen WP7, except for a few screenshots here and there and in my opinion it looks great. MS had to make some changes if they wanted to stay relevant, because what we forget is that the "power-users" make up a very small percentage of the buyers market. However, I really do hope that MS does not forget about us all together. All I know is that come December, I'll be rocking the new WP7 and not an Android. Theres my 2 cents.
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This is an actual question, not an argument - what are some things WM can do that Android can't? I use my phone for business functionality and I don't consider myself a member of the "general public" and switching to Android after 3 WM phones, I haven't found a single thing (aside from maybe quicker switching between running apps) WM did that Android doesn't.
Steve Balmber retarded?
Hmmmmmm
Limited vocabulary
Edit: WTF!?
He's bat**** effing insane! Thanks for sharing
You guys are jumping the gun on this. At least wait and see how things go before you saying game over for WM and jump ship.
Do you guys ***** that the desktop or laptop or netbook you just purchased cost you $25-50 more because it is running Windows7 compared to Ubuntu or another Linux build? No way!
So why are you going to moan about a measily ~$10 fee on your phone for running WM7. Heck you can probably run a dual boot setup on your WM7 phone to run both Windows and Android to experience the best of both worlds...just like some of us have done with our computers.
Hello, my name is Benjamin, currently a undergraduate student that has gotten very interested in electronics the past couple of months. 21 years of age.
I don't have excessive amounts of money to buy nice toys with or to experiment with, but I was hoping that I could gather wealth and buy an unlocked smart-phone, cheap.
I don't have extensive experience, but I really want to learn from this awesome community. I have been skimming threads and reading, researching and, finally I decided to stop lurking and come out in the clear and introduce myself. I admire the hard work of the seniors, veterans, juniors, semi-pros and other awesome people that think around problems on this board. Thank you already.
I have started hobby-programing python and perl, I have an unreasonable fear of Java, but will hopefully be able to start playing with it if I eventually do get that smart-phone.
So my problem right now is that I don't have a fun little device to play with, could anyone recommend a device that is:
Not crazy expensive
Will be able to connect to Wi-fi network
Will be able to run GV to be used as a VOIP phone
Unlocked and ready to be changed
Easy to access and play around with
Simply, I don't necessarily need it to keep a constant connectivity, just a small computer to toy with.
There are many approaches to the smart-phone idea right now, and your board has been very helpful, I just need a last nudge.
Sorry for the lengthy post, just wanted to introduce myself, and not be lurking anymore. I will try to keep annoying questions to a minimum.
Thanks for taking the time to read this.
<3
cheap smartphone(thats actually worth somthing) translates to hd2 on xda ... they go from $200-220 on ebay , good cond . anything lesser of a price ull only get 600mhz , non-cortex phones(garbage) it has wp7 android ubuntu one day maybe meego for it
There are a lot of people here who spend many hours a week hacking and developing ROMs and various apps, to the great enjoyment and benefit of thousands of users. There are many more who may not be involved in writing code, but who test-drive the creations, report bugs, offer what support they can, etc. I reckon no-one would keep up all this work more or less for free while juggling work, studies, relationships, kids, etc unless they really enjoyed it.
What got you started on this track? How did you begin? How long have you been at it? Have things changed a lot since you began?
I'm no programmer. The only reason I'm here is because I derive great pleasure from getting more out of whatever I happen to own (or at least getting more of what I need/want)--and I happen to own a couple of android devices. When I was a lad we didn't have much in the way of tech, and so I discovered the joy of squeezing the most possible work and entertainment out of eg. the crappy ancient computer we had at home.
I also have a strong desire to customise things I use to my own preferences and quirks and a strong dislike for having to spend money on getting things my way. It's always felt like the boring way out. Moreover, it's felt like a tremendous waste--why not spend the money on something that requires it? Eg. beer, although even there I prefer home-brewed. Nothing has changed, even though I'm now an adult free from the budgetary constraints of a lazy kid. If anything, I'm more inclined to try doing things myself, perhaps because I have a better idea now of what can be done.
Aside from that I guess it's all about the perverse pleasure of getting things to do what they're not supposed to do--or what people believe they can't do
How 'bout you?
Pretty much the same
Do any of you guys do this stuff for a living as well??
For me it's the appeal of customizing my devices, especially if I can make something cheap into something of real value. The NC is just about perfect for that.
...then there is the geek cred in the office.
First started with a hack for my router... then my SanDisk mp3 player... jailbroke my iPhone... and now my NC!
As raz stated, thanks to the hard work of others, you can get more value out of something than originally thought.
Plus the look from others that have the same item, and I've got something that they don't!
The evolution of my hacking lol....
Starting from like age 13
Dreamcast (not really a hack just took a cdrw lol)
Xbox (chip with evox rom)
ps2 (chip)
Xbox 360 (new DVD firmware)
iPhone jailbreak
various software keygen programming
Inspire 4g
Nook color!!
Ps3 jailbreak
Fun times
Animec said:
Do any of you guys do this stuff for a living as well??
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I plan on doing it as a living right now i can code in perl, but im registered for java dev classes at the local community college.. id like to make and sell apps on the market for a living.. sounds like fun work that can be done from home.
Sent via Cyanogenmod7 Encore RC4 n.35/Tapatalk Pro
Hello XDA, it's been a long time since I was truly active in these or any forums because life and reality provided an unintended distraction and then the pandemic. I find myself with a bit more time where I need a necessary diversion from reality and this forum has always provided this nerd with a world-wide community of nerds who really and truly know their ****. I have social networking friends that I follow, that I met through here and other technology forums that I have been friends with now for almost twenty years. I'm sure that how we met is irrelevant to many of them since we interact more about our day to day lives then the nerding out we did here in the forums. See, as a nerd, making real world friends was always difficult, but here, at XDA with my G1000 from Hitachi, one of the first-ever smart-phone, with a keyboard and a screen running Windows Mobile. I came here looking for a way to back-up my sms and call log to Microsoft Outlook and some genius had figured out a way to do it. I then had three different HTC Windows Mobile devices and XDA let me do amazing things with them.
Then, because I got suckered in to Sprint!, I upgraded to a Samsung Galaxy SII Touch or something ridiculous like that and it had so many issues out if the box but 2ss an amazing device. XDA was like High School and this is where you went from teen hacker wannabe to legit 1337 skills by rooting and then installing custom roms. The addiction to that thrill of knowing that a mistake, zigging when you're supposed to zag or skipping a step, rushing and missing something could spell disaster. I dropped a phone while installing a rom and the device boot-looped hard. Not to worry, XDA was here and someone else had done something similar, there was an entire forum thread devoted to all the people who had face-planted the rooting, rom or other process and lobotomized their Android device.
I still occasionally peruse the forums, lurking and liking and once in a while, replying. I just wanted to stop by and thank you for what seems like 17 or 18 years if amazing things. By you, I mean the people who run the forums behind the scenes at all levels and the moderators that keep the law and order necessary to thrive and function and you the users who's knowledge and other contributions are why we are here in these forums, from the creators to their guinea pigs to every other lurker like me. Thanks.
Blu3Fr0g said:
Hello XDA, it's been a long time since I was truly active in these or any forums because life and reality provided an unintended distraction and then the pandemic. I find myself with a bit more time where I need a necessary diversion from reality and this forum has always provided this nerd with a world-wide community of nerds who really and truly know their ****. I have social networking friends that I follow, that I met through here and other technology forums that I have been friends with now for almost twenty years. I'm sure that how we met is irrelevant to many of them since we interact more about our day to day lives then the nerding out we did here in the forums. See, as a nerd, making real world friends was always difficult, but here, at XDA with my G1000 from Hitachi, one of the first-ever smart-phone, with a keyboard and a screen running Windows Mobile. I came here looking for a way to back-up my sms and call log to Microsoft Outlook and some genius had figured out a way to do it. I then had three different HTC Windows Mobile devices and XDA let me do amazing things with them.
Then, because I got suckered in to Sprint!, I upgraded to a Samsung Galaxy SII Touch or something ridiculous like that and it had so many issues out if the box but 2ss an amazing device. XDA was like High School and this is where you went from teen hacker wannabe to legit 1337 skills by rooting and then installing custom roms. The addiction to that thrill of knowing that a mistake, zigging when you're supposed to zag or skipping a step, rushing and missing something could spell disaster. I dropped a phone while installing a rom and the device boot-looped hard. Not to worry, XDA was here and someone else had done something similar, there was an entire forum thread devoted to all the people who had face-planted the rooting, rom or other process and lobotomized their Android device.
I still occasionally peruse the forums, lurking and liking and once in a while, replying. I just wanted to stop by and thank you for what seems like 17 or 18 years if amazing things. By you, I mean the people who run the forums behind the scenes at all levels and the moderators that keep the law and order necessary to thrive and function and you the users who's knowledge and other contributions are why we are here in these forums, from the creators to their guinea pigs to every other lurker like me. Thanks.
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Glad to see an old timer around!
HTC was my fav brand for many many years....
Hope to see ya around.
Cheers!
Just recently started using this website to get to know how to root, twrp, all that good stuff for the first time and the support I have had has been amazing and the community seems really active like I litterally got a reply to my comment in under 10 mins after posting it don't even remember the last time that happened all in all happy to be here
Welcome to xda.
Good to hear you are enjoying xda.
It is a very active site and normally someone can give you an answer or help find one.
Glad to have you part of the xda family.
Cheers.
Yes it was quite the learning experience, I had to use the knowledge I had learned through the years to actually conceptualize how to deploy a defense and anoffense. DESPITE HOW I FEEL ABOUT IT NOW: I would never put anyone else hrougu that though. These days we've become, as a society, very dependent on our technologies, I'm some cases if you don't have access or knowlefhe of the most basic components, it could cost a meal, or where you lay your head at night. Let's see, I lost 4 smartphones, 2 tablets, half my hair went grey, the other half just gave up and fell out, and it cost me 2 job opportunites that will not be around in my near future. Having the knowledge of technology is great, having the wisdom, the experience in wether to deploy it, or make it what it's for are two different beast, I think people initially don't feel that there hurting anyone by using technology to get back at them, but if they put themselves in the shoes the person is about to walk in, is the punishment balancing what it will cost them in real life because of the lost communication, job, or relationship? Just because it's not a knock out drag out fight doesn't mean it won't sting
So essentially what I am saying is that it has become the right hook, body slam, forrgose that can't actually do that to someone, but there is a degree of social responsibility, that needs to be assessed. If I deploy a hijacker virus on someone because they said something I didn't like, and that person supported their family with Uber, depending on how long I kept the hijack up I might just help that dude get an eviction, no technology, no phone, no way or getting fares, etc, etc.....