Comment by startupsfail
2 days ago
I remember having a Windows PDA when I was in college, and developing a bit on top of Windows M. It was a reasonable platform.
But Microsoft was too greedy with their licensing schemes and demanding too much adaptation from the hardware and chip manufacturers. You’d think they would adapt their OS and drivers, but no, you had to tape out new silicon for them. So they’ve lost the mobile OS market.
It feels like something like this may happen with the AI OS now. They are pushing hardware manufacturers to conform to their standards while Linux is adapting to what is available and working already.
Windows Phone had pretty much nothing in common with WinCE/WinMo PDAs that preceded it, at least from user and app developer perspective.
I think this hurt Windows Phone a lot as a lot of people thought it was just the PDA interface on a smart phone.
I don't think so. As I recall, the different UI (not just from older MS stuff, but also from iPhone) was really front and center of Microsoft's pitch at the time.
Besides, WinCE PDAs were very much a power user / enthusiast device, with relatively few around. People who used them and thus were familiar with the old UI would be well aware that WP7 was completely different, and people that didn't use them weren't exposed to the old UI in the first place.
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