iPhone and Android.
The only options that most of us consider when choosing a new phone.
But just 10 years ago, the choice wasn’t quite so simple, and some thought that Windows
Phone could become the third pillar of the smartphone era.
So why did a company as big as Microsoft decide to call time on its handheld devices?
What happened to their partnership with Nokia?
And how exactly did Windows Phone become one of the company’s biggest ever failures?
Here’s How It Happened.
Microsoft’s first venture into the handheld industry came in the form of the Pocket PC
in 2000.
The interface used became known as Windows Mobile, an Operating System that died out
along with electronic pocket planners.
While the company’s next foray into the portable market was the Zune, an ill-fated
MP3 player that tried its best to compete with the iPod but failed in just about every
way
And hopefully third time lucky came the Kin, a device we’ve covered in one of our previous
videos, which suffered a painful death within a year of its 2010 release date.
With the Kin already on the way down, and iPhone sales rising by tens of millions every
year, Microsoft decided to show its hand in the smartphone market, unveiling the Windows
Phone in October of 2010.
The new OS was in many ways ahead of iOS and Android, instead of static icons on your home
screen, Windows Phone offered dynamic tiles that displayed live information on them like
messages and weather updates, or the next appointment in your calendar.
Throw in a much more responsive lock screen and what many consider to be the best on-screen
keyboard around, and it’s hard to believe that a company the size of Microsoft could
get things so wrong.
So what really happened to Windows Phone?
Despite having some of the best features out there, Windows Phone was just a tad late to
the party.
The iPhone was already a great example of a closed system, while third party developers
had poured their resources into making their apps available on Android, and didn’t feel
the need to repeat the process for Microsoft.
And on the subject of software, Windows Phone users had to wait three years before they
could get basic apps like Instagram and YouTube on their device, after the company failed
to reach agreements with their owners, enough to dissuade millions more from converting
to the newer range of smartphones.
The wider catalogue of Microsoft products had already become less cool than their Google
counterparts.
Hotmail had lost out to Gmail, Bing hardly made a dent in Google search, and perhaps
most relevantly, Chrome managed to kill off Internet Explorer as our default web browser.
Microsoft tried to follow Apple’s lead by building an entirely closed system with strict
control over the user experience.
The difference was that Apple produced their own iPhones, while Microsoft set a very high
specification that manufactures were expected to match.
The wider catalogue of Microsoft products had already become less cool than their Google
counterparts.
Hotmail had lost out to Gmail, Bing hardly made a dent in Google search, and perhaps
most relevantly, Chrome managed to kill off Internet Explorer as our default web browser.
Microsoft tried to follow Apple’s lead by building an entirely closed system with strict
control over the user experience.
The difference was that Apple produced their own iPhones, while Microsoft set a very high
specification that manufactures were expected to match.
Windows phone were struggling so severely with sales that they were left with no choice
but to slash prices and functionality to become a more economically-priced option.
But as apps and mobile sites became the norm for consumer tech, budget phones fell out
of favour and consumers were happy to spend several hundreds of dollars on a phone that
could help them do everything.
Microsoft’s $7 billion acquisition of Nokia was written off after less than two years,
and following a hopeful 2015 rebrand to Windows 10 Mobile, development was finished altogether
in late 2017, marking arguably the biggest ever failure in smartphone history.
Comment below with your thoughts on Windows Phone, what Microsoft could’ve done differently
and what you’d like to see in next week’s video.
That’s how it happened.
And thanks for watching.