Re: WIN PHO 8 PANTS

*Sigh*

Just go away and come back when you're all grown up, okay?

Re: Hang on, will people still be buying PCs then?

Citation?

... thought not.

Re: Alternating Succuess

@ISYS: "I would love to know how I ended up with four thumbs down"

Very simple: you suggested that at least some Microsoft products were anything other than terrible. So that'll be automatic downvotes from:

- Eadon

- Shagbag

- Bob Vistakin

- Barry Shitpeas

Enjoy your pint

Re: "...It's just you really have to work at it."

They could still fall further... I've yet to come across the pro-Microsoft equivalent of Eadon...

Re: MS admits FAILURE (Reads between lines)

@Ye Gads - you owe me:

- 1 x keyboard

- 2 x monitors

- 1 x new iPad (got caught in the spray radius)

- several random bits of small bleepy stuff that were on my desk in front of my monitors

- 2 x new lungs (nearly choked my current ones)

- and nearly 1 new pair of pants.

... but I'll let you off - and even upvote you - for sheer fucking genius.

Re: Once again...

@NinjasFTW:

"I think a lot of people have a world view of opensource that is a decade old."

That's because - from what I see here at least - we seldom get anybody on here posting any decent explanation of why open source is so great - normally it's a few cursory lines to justify a massive "let's slag off Microsoft" rant.

Re: Meh

Ask the good folks of Russia, India or Mexico that question...

Re: Microsoft's strategy is FAILING

"MS is seen as something of a clown corporation"

Careful what you say about clowns - look what happened with the Tories and UKIP recently...

Re: The good old days of type-in listings...

Brings back memories - my first games which were basically a "while" loop with a bunch of gosubs inside it...

Still made me a few quid!

Re: Oric-1

Nowadays, would the be "Droidons" or "WinPhons"?

Re: And if you thought the Outlook.com WEBSITE was bad........

Yup, cynical and proud. No bias for me - praise 'em when they do great, give them the benefit of the doubt when things aren't brilliant... cuss 'em into the ground when they screw up!

Re: And if you thought the Outlook.com WEBSITE was bad........

@DaLo - very valid points, but then consider how many times Microsoft has dropped a proverbial bollock when it comes to marketing recently...

Re: Linux at Work

"I bet your employer will make a point of only offering you WinPho" - Who does he work for and how much would I have to bribe them to make it happen?

Re: "Java == robust + resiliant"

@Rafayal - see the response from "I ain't Spartacus" to my comment here. It's about showing anyone else reading this that there is an alternative and that there are people here who are willing to discuss things in a rational manner, considering all sides of the story, not just trolls.

Re: Win on a Mac - Yes

@IanzThingz +1 for reason for beer :)

Re: And if you thought the Outlook.com WEBSITE was bad........

Deliberate attempt to "persuade" people onto WinPhones, perhaps?

Re: No

Yeah, it's when BYOD inevitably morphs into PFYOD (Pay For...) that scares me.

My own machine is sacrosanct: no work on it but my own gamedev stuff

No Windows key?

I'd be stuffed. Well, not stuffed, but quickly very irritated.

WinKey + D = most useful feature on Win8 :)

Re: to see if Apple can keep its place at the top of the tech tree.

Nah, he does the same with Microsoft stuff too. And only every once in a while, rather than every single possible post.

Re: Telling who tells what

To be fair, the stats given here by Blackberry are also shipping numbers.

Re: Engadget noticed too

Nah, the Reg hit rock bottom on Monday 3rd August 2009 06:33 GMT - or rather, it was dragged there...

Re: Well I have owned one

@James Hughes 1: "I have no idea why your post got any downvotes at all" - really? After nearly a year since joining, I'm surprised you haven't spotted that some children automatically downvote anyone who doesn't agree with them...

"Purely your experience and sensible commentary" is wasted on these people - they're too busy keeping their eyes closed, their fingers in their ears and screaming "I AM RIGHT, YOU ARE WRONG!"...

I'd feel sorry for them, if I thought they were worth the effort.

Re: Back from the brink?

@Eadon - you're right, I don't trust stats... except those I can be certain of, such as those my own systems generate.

Like I said, every time someone starts one of my games on their phone, it checks in with my website, sending me the phone's ID (unless, of course, connectivity is not available). Said website then either creates a record of the new ID or updates the "last access" date of an existing ID.

I see a steady rate of both new ID activations and returning IDs every day. Moreover, my games are not huge hits (sadly) that can sustain a listing at the very top of the marketplace (the self-fulfilling prophecy), nor can I afford the marketing to promote them. Except for times when I luck out and get some marketplace featuring, there are very few peaks and troughs in my stats.

If your first argument were true (marketplace dump), I would expect to see a surge in my activation stats. If your second were true (high return rate), I would expect to see high numbers of one-time activations with no reactivations.

I'm not saying that 7% is accurate by any stretch of the imagination, but the fact that I have a consistent stream of activations and reactivations would indicate that there is a slowly but steadily increasing number of people buying and then continuing to use WinPhones.

Re: Back from the brink?

"I've seen about one MS phone in the wild here in England" - guess you're too busy at your keyboard trolling anti-Microsoft to get out much, eh?

They are out there and growing in number. Slowly, I'll admit, but I certainly see more when I'm on the bus/train than I did about a year ago.

Moreover, the games that I write log phone IDs against my website for online high-score tables - I can see how many new activations I get, and how many times a single phone has played a particular game. I normally get a couple of hundred new players per day - and I'm just a bedroom coder with no budget, marketing or smash hit. So while I'm skeptical about the actual stats, I would not be surprised if they were at least near the mark.

Re: Windows 8 TO INFINITE FAIL AND BEYOND

Speak for yourself... personally I was hoping (against hope) for some adult-level discussion, as opposed to what is pretty much the same comment as has been made for the last two years being trotted out yet again.

(If you don't believe me, check out his profile and start with the oldest comments - it reads something like the subtitles of those "Hitler" vids that were doing the rounds a while back.)

Re: Sony Xperia E

Scope for a side-by-side comparison article here, eh el Reg? I'd be interested to see it (and too lazy/skint to do it myself!)

Re: Curse of Microsoft

@Arctic fox - it's the Linux/FOSS purists I feel sorry for, must be an embarrassment for them to have this sort of representation.

Re: re:I'm only here to watch Eadon

Nah, my bet is that he straps bombs to himself and runs into Redmond yelling "Torvalds is great!" before blowing himself to kingdom come.

Re: History repeates itself

@AC 15:47 - when I say "next big thing", I mean a shift on a paradigm scale: maturation of the internet, for example, or the current shift towards mobile technology (which I would categorise 7"/8" tablets as part of).

It'll probably be another 5-10 years before we see another shift of this kind of scale - that's the boat Microsoft can't afford to miss. Until then, they can probably survive off patent trolling - although personally I'd like to see them make a bit of headway back into current markets, if only to prevent another Microsoft-monopoly-like situation.

When that next thing does hit though... well, I'd expect Apple and Google to survive, even if they do miss the boat. But Microsoft have been playing catch-up for too damn long now, so they're in a much more dangerous position, especially considering the lack of trust they've landed themselves with, so for them it really is adapt or die time.

Re: Fortunes are changing?

Exactly as I've said before - the only way that Nokia, Microsoft and Windows Phone is going to gain traction is by playing the long game. Unless you've got a complete game-changer, there's no fast track into an already well-populated market.

Since I started developing for mobile, I've become increasingly aware of what devices people have - especially so since I stopped driving. There may not be a huge number of WinPhones out there compared to the alternatives, but from my observations on public transport, that number is steadily building.

Re: History repeates itself

Indeed, the wheel doth turn. Microsoft have certainly left it to the eleventh hour to realise this, and now they're having to run desperately to try and keep up. While they may (or may not) make headway with some of their newer portfolio, they are inevitably competing in fields that others already have a strong hold over.

Microsoft's only real hope of regaining their footing is to survive until the next big market shift - and have the foresight to see it for what it is and take advantage of it when it happens. The survival side, I expect they'll manage - at absolute worst, there will be licences, patents and so forth, although personally I'd like to see them get a bit more of the mobile market share (along with Firefox - carve up the market, promote competition and innovation).

However, given their recent track record, if they miss the next big thing, it's all over.

Re: Crippled by the DORKY Windows 8 HORROR

"Sell" or "ship"? We've heard the massaged version of the figures too many times before.

No links = no credibility I'm afraid.

15 minutes customising

The price of flexibility... and let's be fair, 15 minutes spent customising on the first time out of the box is pretty small potatoes - imagine how long you spend installing and customising all the applications and settings with a new, fresh-out-of-the-box PC.

I guess the initial setup is geared towards what the average person is most likely to want - we in the tech game are a bit more demanding :)

Pint - to look forward to once the setup is complete and I can relax in the knowledge of a job well done.

Re: Almost perfect

@wowfood - upvoted due to rational explanation.

Re: Maybe HTC could focus on

@I ain't Spartacus - How long did it take you to type that?

I hate to say that's however long of your life you're not getting back. Trying to make Eadon see outside his little Microsoft-hate-bubble is like trying to teach a whelk the trombone. Doesn't matter about the actual merits and flaws of the system/situation/whatever - if Microsoft or anything associated is involved, you can guarantee it'll be "wah wah wah WHATEVER FAIL".

Pint - because you've earned it trying. But in future, save your intelligence for others who are willing to consider both sides of the story, mate!