Almost 15 years have passed since the release of the Windows Phone and it ended up being a colossal flop. Why did the GP say no to a phone like that? Discuss 

 

Edited June 20, 20251 yr by BrokenMachine

windows as an OS doesn't really have many positive connotations to it.. it's not very fluid, horrible at searching, janky, clunky, slow, annoying.. so there's that. and then when i look at those photos in OP of the Home Screen i just get sensory overload. like where the **** am i meant to press?

Bad hardware, lack of app support, iOS and Android already dominating the market, etc.

It was bad

Google prevented it from growing

It was because of the lack of apps in the store. The phone and the UI were good, but it was too late for Microsoft, because Android and iOS were already big in the business.

Very few quality apps (and that is being generous), lack of phone options from different manufacturers, and a very *different* approach to UI design that most consumers find unintuitive and confusing.  
 

I was lowkey a fan of the Windows phones with incredibly large camera sensors (idk if Nokia or HTC made them), and Windows Phone did have some cool UI elements that influenced modern iOS and Android designs.

ugly design, no games and not even a playstore I think. Wouldve done better with Android system

Going from the Sidekick to one of these, I found it to be very boring; and one of the main social platforms I used at the time (AIM) was not available on there. There were a lack of apps in general. 

You could ask the same thing about the Zune, Xbox, Surface, and the list goes on. They have struggled as a hardware company. 

Because people were already fighting about blue text vs green text.  Can you imagine if Windows came into the mix with their red text? People would lose their minds 

This was my phone in 2015, I did liked the hardware and it was quite usable, but it was a nightmare to get all the apps and the customer support was terrible, I switched back to iPhone in 2016 

                     I never had one...

 

Great phone. Simplistic GP. Lack of apps supported. I believe if they launched now it would do much better. 

 

Microsoft has made many great hardware products. I think they've found their stride with Surface and Xbox as those are all they need. They make so much money in software and cloud. 

iOS and Android were already dominating the market and the lack of apps and support for Windows phone set it up for failure.

Clearly it was just the it didn't support a lot of apps

I had one of these. It was nice, the camera quality was phenomenal. But it was HELL trying to get certain apps. I remember Snapchat not being on their App Store "officially" but through a third-party app. Annoying.

 

Got rid of it and got an iPhone.

I think the lack of app support and late enter into the mobile market kinda made it dead on arrival

I had one and it really was a big fat flop and most apps wouldn't even work on them. But I lowkey liked the design 

Because it was no Blackberry. 

It was extremely hard to develop apps on it which resulted lack of app support in their app store and I think that's why it failed. Loved having this as a phone though. 

I had a Windows Phone and I found it quite interesting, I liked its UI and how it worked but it's true that the problem with the apps was very annoying. 

 

Apps like YouTube or Snapchat were not available and I remember myself using other cheap apps.

 

I want to keep my phone but my mom got mad with me and she threw it into the water of the bath in 2017.