They're doing everything correct with 10. Sideloading is possible for free now. Universal apps are truly universal (XAML / C++ compiles into ARM, x86, and x64 simultaneously. C# and Javascript apps run on a VM).

They needed to hit that reset button for 10. It was a mistake to hit the reset button on 7 and 8 however.

Cool maybe, but what would be the use case for this? If people think they'll need full Office on the go, chances are they'll take a laptop or Surface-like device with them. Right now they will need their Windows phone as well as a MS display dock, keyboard and mouse, and it will still all be useless unless they are able to find a monitor to plug into. Every workplace or airport lounge I've been to with a PC monitor has VGA/HDMI cables locked in place, and unremovable without a key or without cutting plastic ties.

Less stuff to carry around. Since it's brand new there isn't a lot of utility there just yet. Honestly, even though Windows Phone may be dead, I really think this is the future of computing. I mean why bother having a desktop or laptop if you can use your personal device, plug it into different things and get the full experience as if you had a laptop or desktop?

You could go to an airport, plug your phone in and use it like a desktop at one of their tables. Get on the plane and plug it into a screen.

Ultimately I could even see the phone part disappearing and it's a small object you keep on your person that can then connect to various types of devices maybe even wirelessly. This is a great use-case for, in 80 years or however long it takes, when we have computing devices embedded into our bodies. Then we simply touch a screen and we can visualize the data we're carrying.

I stay awake a night thinking about how cool this could be :) (seriously, I even started sketching how to create this type of universality myself but it's such an undertaking and difficult to succeed that I never actually wrote code for this idea but it's certainly one of my favorites)

You're still going to have to carry around a keyboard, mouse, cables, and probably a screen. It's going to be far, far easier to do that with a laptop/surface, or even a tablet, than with their setup.

"I mean why bother having a desktop or laptop if you can use your personal device, plug it into different things and get the full experience as if you had a laptop or desktop?"

A desktop is going to have more power, a laptop is going to have a form factor that's much more convenient to carry around, and more battery.

Um, what? Why would you carry around all that stuff? I clearly described scenarios in which places would already have that setup for you. You just dock and go. Just like today you don't carry a router around with you or anything else.

> A desktop is going to have more power, a laptop is going to have a form factor that's much more convenient to carry around, and more battery.

"More power" doesn't mean anything without context. If you're just writing papers, code, even playing some types of games you likely have plenty of power for this already in your phone. If you want to play FarCry then obviously yes you're not going to do that from a phone.

A phone is more convenient to carry around than a laptop. If someone can supply you a laptop that your phone simply docks with you wouldn't need to carry it around which is precisely my point: the phone (or possibly another, smaller device) could be your personal computing platform and everything else around you simply visualizes the data contained within.

Reason? From the situation you describe, it is just a small step to "store everything in the cloud; authenticate with your phone" (most locations with a keyboard, mouse, and monitor that people who can afford a fast phone will visit will have fast internet connections, and will easily have the 10W power budget needed to beat your phone, performance-wise)

You would have to trust the hardware you use, but you have to, anyways, the moment you plug a modern keyboard or monitor into your phone.

Yes, you would be ensured that the software you use on your phone is compatible with the software you use on your 'desktop' because it is the same software, but you also run the risk that it is suboptimal for either (the fonts may be too big for power desktop use, or you might need a pen for manipulating some not-too-often-used controls), and in the 'use phone to authenticate' scenario, you run less risk of running your phone's battery dry.

Ultimately I think the final outcome, which may take many decades to get here, is a device embedded inside of people that give them access to everything they need and if they need another way to interact with the information they'll use some sort of dumb terminal (because if everything is embedded in you and can be accessed easily via some wireless protocol, why would you go through the hassle of a separate authentication step where all your data could be exposed).

Whether there is a market for this today or not I don't really know. I'd love to find out but this is the type of thing that would require quite a bit of start-up capital and an MVP might be difficult to do.

Right now, tablet + laptop often replaces what I would do a couple decades ago with books (or notepads) + desktop. Sure, a single (powerful enough) CPU with all the various interface form factors being wirelessly-connected dumb systems could work instead, but then, it seems that basic CPU and storage are fairly cheap, and the interface bits -- particular the high resolution touch screens -- are the expensive bits, so there's no real good reason not to put enough brains in the individual devices to let them be standalone rather than relying on a common external brain.

With fairly ubiquitous syncing technology, you get much of the advantage of having a single "brain" device with greater flexibility and resilience against a single-device failure.

And when you need to make or receive a call? Pull out the bluetooth earpiece (yet another fiddly thing to carry around)? I'd rather just have a tablet and a phone and I think most people would agree.

Bluetooth or just pick up the phone? Especially if it's wireless then you could do it however you wanted. Video chat on a large screen, move the phone to your ear to talk and listen discretely, etc.

You have to hope that those different things are always there to be plugged in to. If not, you have to carry them with you, at which point I'd rather have one bigger device ~~and~~ (correction: ) THAN two pieces to assemble into a smaller device.

Ultimately I don't know if it'll be the phone that powers this or if it just simply takes so long that it'll be something else but I would be shocked and supremely disappointed if, by the time I pass, there isn't a way to quickly and easily view your digital information on any screen with or without keyboards in multiple layouts that best fit the screen and purpose.

And even if it did, in my experience, working on a machine with remote storage and computation resources in the cloud is anywhere from annoying to nightmarish depending on local latency and bandwidth. Good luck getting the HW/OS/Cloud vendors to come up with a mutually agreeable standard for this.

So I achieve my approximation of that future for myself by carrying around a beefy linux GPU laptop, a trac-ball, and keyboard wherever I go. I'd love to just use my desktop sitting at home as my cloud storage and computation server, but I gave up on that some time ago.

I'm not sure how true this is. You need some apps, to be sure. But I own an Android phone had have installed less than half-a-dozen apps that it did not come with out of the box.

I use gmail, maps, messenger, calendar, contacts, and web browser (chrome). That's 95% of my phone usage.

I wonder how many users there are that don't play games or use a lot of social media apps. I'd guess a fair number in the 30+ age group. But maybe most of them have stayed with feature phones.

Good integration always provides the best user experience and you need an app to best integrate into someone's phone to provide push notifications, use quick reply type, etc; really to make sure of a phone in the most efficient way possible right now it just has to be an app and I don't see that changing anytime soon.

But look at the apps you mention that you do use: "gmail, maps, messenger, calendar, contacts, and web browser (chrome)"

Windows Phone doesn't have Google Maps so the navigation and overall map experience isn't as good. It doesn't have Chrome so you can't share your bookmarks between all your devices. Without dedicated Google apps it's harder to take full advantage of Google services.

[1] http://www.nielsen.com/us/en/insights/news/2015/so-many-apps...

So: great interface, but no traction as a platform.

(I've never used it myself. I went from a Blackberry to a Samsung S3mini and now S4mini, and I'm still in "this is so much better than Blackberry" mode.)

I have a Nokia Icon, and that is indeed my only complaint. The rest of the phone is great.

It's hit or miss. There's a ton of apps out there, even apps you wouldn't think would be out there. I was surprised that Plex and Teamviewer had Windows Phone apps.

Where it falls apart is apps you would think would have a Windows Phone app, but don't. For example, Snapchat or Yik-Yak. Or any Google-made Google apps. In the former cases, the story is even worse than it has to be: for example, there were third-party Snapchat apps, but Snapchat demanded they be removed from the store and still has never made a Windows Phone app. That kind of behavior almost makes me think there's a conspiracy among major app developers to kill Windows Phone. :)

Another area of weakness, of course, is the really small/local apps. My credit union has an Android and an iPhone app, but no Windows Phone app. Same deal with my vet.

I haven't upgraded to Windows 10, because I understand some of the great things about WP 8.1 are now gone. But I think it's really sad WP hasn't done better than it has: it's a fantastic platform devoid of apps. MS really fell down on the job doing whatever they had to do to get major developers on board, which, I think, has mostly been a social issue. From what I've looked at it seems like a great platform to develop for, though I've never made anything but toy apps.

As a former iPhone and Windows Lumia owner, the Passport is a huge upgrade. Great to read on. It's like using a Kindle or Kobo.

I have a unified OS across all my devices: Linux. Granted, I don't have a unified UI across all my devices…

I'd love to be able to plug my phone into a keyboard, mouse & monitor and have something like stumpwm available (i.e., something which actually takes advantage of having more than tap, three buttons, volume and power inputs).

If you have an MHL compatible device, you can also plug in an HDMI cable and use a bigger screen.

Something like http://amzn.to/1SgkguB will do the job. Of course, you might need to VNC into something to get the UI you want!

It's so liberating; what phones used to be and have become nothing but.

Er, what? If my iPhone makes a noise, it's only due to:

a) a reminder that I've explicitly set, or

b) a phone call or text message from someone

I'm not aware of any attention-grabbers that aren't from third party apps and can't be disabled. Could you elaborate?