27 January 2018

I'm in the process of releasing Foobar2000 Copilot Lite -- the free version of the app.

Going forward, I'll update both Copilot and Copilot Lite for other languages as well as for any bug corrections. But I'll do no major updates on these builds.  After my recent updates to the foo_controlserver plug-in, I also feel that the Foobar2000 PC component is now in good shape.

I will, however, work on porting my WP8 Silverlight app to run natively on Windows 10 as a UWP app. The current version of Foobar2000 Copilot runs as a WP8 app under Windows 10 Mobile.  But because Microsoft has announced they will drop support for all Silverlight apps in Windows 10 going forward, my focus, priority will be doing a native Windows 10 version of Foobar2000 Copilot.

The writing on the wall is evident with Microsoft doing yet another reboot of their mobile plans. Microsoft formally announced end of life for WP8.1 and even Windows 10 Mobile. There have also released no new phone hardware since the Lumia 950 and 950xl in fall of 2015.

It's been a painful process to watch, with Microsoft essentially killing off their current phone platform to make way for the future.  It's also been difficult as a developer dealing with these changing tool sets. 

But it's not all doom and gloom. There are rays of positivity.

Microsoft's future direction I feel is now clearer with some recent developments. One being Microsoft formally releasing full Windows 10 on the Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 and 845 chipsets with x86 legacy app support via emulation.

HP and ASUS introduced new Snapdragon 835 laptops in December 2017. See the Engadget article.

So far these laptops look like they are being well received. These are very capable laptops. And these laptops aren't even using the more powerful 845 Snapdragon chipset, which will occur in the next cycle of releases.

Very significantly these are full featured laptops, but because they use 'mobile' chipsets they can be built light and thin and with battery life of over 20 hours.  They also support Internet connectivity with always connected high speed gigabit LTE -- but currently are missing the telephony software stack. That is the last missing piece, which would allow a user to place phone calls.

When that is in place -- then think what is the difference between one of these Snapdragon laptops and a Windows phone based on this same technology.

So I think Microsoft is close to finally realizing the dream of full Windows 10 on your phone. So in many cases your PC could be your phone. You could reduce your device count by investing in a single, premium phone running full Windows 10. This is an area where Microsoft could leapfrog Apple and Google -- since those companies are far from realizing a unified OS.

This approach is attractive to the consumer as well as to 3rd party hardware vendors. And since many of these laptop vendors also make phones, you could see them in the future making phones with full Windows 10.

I believe Microsoft will release a Surface phone based on the 845 Snapdragon chipset in 2018 and running full Windows 10. They will follow their business model of doing flagships like they did with their Surface PCs and at the same time encouraging and supporting 3rd party vendors to develop new hardware.

Another factor in why Windows phone never gained much traction was their total lack of carrier support. But I believe Microsoft will start smaller and via the Enterprise business market -- especially since their flagship phones will be premium priced. They likely will start to build up better carrier support by first providing users of the new Snapdragon laptops easy ways to activate carrier data plans directly from their laptops.

The carrier landscape has also changed, with it opening up to more mobile virtual network operators (MVNO) like Straight Talk -- where you can even Bring Your Own Phone. Also more carriers have been ending their traditional phone subsidy plans.  So I can see more consumers buying phones directly from the Microsoft store or from an online vendor versus from a traditional carrier store -- and then choosing and activating a plan directly from that phone.

21 July 2017

Even though Windows Phone market share has appreciably dropped in the last year, I plan on continuing to support and update my app as long as the platform exists.  

Looking at how few Window Phone users there are out there, I'm certainly not doing this for the money. For me, this was more about trying to give something back to the audio community.

I still do believe in Windows Phone. I like some of the things it does different from the other platforms, and I believe that a third phone OS is a good thing. Though with the current market numbers, it's become essentially a two platform market : Apple or Android.

But I believe in doing the things you believe in, sometimes even when the numbers don't look good, so will continue on...

I see Microsoft as sitting out this phone cycle, while it retools Windows -- focusing on the OS software, versus doing any new phone hardware.

Full Windows 10 on ARM with legacy x86 emulation and telephony capabilities, is what I think may save Windows Phone. You can see Microsoft in the last year, increasingly trying to make Windows on mobile just Windows 10 and not a special phone version.

As Microsoft sits out this cycle, phone hardware will grow even more powerful -- so maybe when Microsoft finally has full Windows 10 on ARM with x86 legacy emulation ready, the phone hardware will be able to run the OS easily and your phone could potentially become your only computer -- that would be a game changer.

And with full Windows 10 morphing to support all manner of form factors -- currently from desktops to tablets to notebooks, you could see that expanding to cover new classes of devices with telephony capabilities -- so future phones may end up taking on a range of form factors under full Windows 10.

I think at that point, Microsoft will re-enter the 'phone' hardware market -- maybe finally release a Surface phone or maybe a new class of telephony device... Seeing the talent of the Microsoft Surface team to innovate with their nuanced sensitivity to design, I would bet on them eventually to deliver.

Microsoft would re-enter the market only when they truly had something that would majorly differentiate them from the other platforms and compelling enough to excite potential users.

If you look at the state of current Apple and Android phones, most users are satisfied and there would be no compelling reason for them to switch to another phone platform, unless it was breathtakingly exciting and useful.

What's needed is sometime akin to the magnitude of the first iPhone release back in 2007. That was Apple's very first phone, and there were at the time very established and dominant phone makers. But the first iPhone was so radically different, exciting, and useful to potential users that within a short time, users flocked to it and established Apple as a market leader and that persists to this day...