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Comment by ocdtrekkie | Hacker News Reader

And the "right" software is often controlled by one company. If you read a lot of reviews of Windows Phones, most reviewers seemed to more or less come to the same conclusion: That Windows was a faster, smoother OS, but that they had trouble going about their daily lives with it because it didn't have Gmail and the other five or six Google Apps they relied on.

As long as the market share of any newcomer is low enough, Google can leave them out in the cold for app support (or intentionally interfere by blocking YouTube access, similar to what they did with Windows Mobile, and now Amazon's Echo and Fire platforms), and they'll die off for that reason alone.

Whether it's an Android fork or a new OS like Tizen or some new Windows flavor, it won't beat Google unless it has the market share to force Google to support it with apps. And it's hard to get that market share without Google's support.

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> (or intentionally interfere by blocking YouTube access, similar to what they did with Windows Mobile, and now Amazon's Echo and Fire platforms),

Nice spin there! Youtube was blocked on Windows Mobile because Microsoft blatantly blocked all the ads in violation of policy. If Microsoft was in the right here, we would have seen a lot more aggressive posturing from them instead of silent retreat.

And for Amazon, it was a reaction to Amazon's decision not to sell Chromecast (and Nest devices). Amazon's excuse is that Google changed Chromecast APIs, which smells weak when you see other supported apps on Chromecast from Netflix, HBO, ESPN etc.

You are definitely applying your own spin, to be sure. ;) Microsoft tried repeatedly to work with the YouTube team to comply with Google's ToS, but it was a moving target, Google kept changing their requirements until it was largely impossible to comply.

The Amazon/Google spat goes back a lot further than that, which I've talked about a bit in other comments here.

If you look at the totality of the evidence, even in that one story (where Microsoft then built the app to Google's specifications, with ads, and then Google waited until they released it before blocking it again), the story looks so bad against Google that even some of the reasonable press was starting to notice and report the issue as Google toying with Microsoft.

Here is a link to an overly-well-sourced comment I wrote on this:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14835776

At this time, Microsoft were also threatening Android vendors with a confidential list of patents (to prevent Android work-arounds) - MS leveraged these patents into a Windows Mobile deal "settlement" with Samsung. For a long while, Microsoft made more money from Android (patent license fees) than from WinMo.

Why would anyone expect Google to handle Microsoft with kid-gloves in this bout of corporate-combat when Microsoft was playing to win? You don't bring a knife to a gunfight.

"or intentionally interfere by blocking YouTube access, similar to what they did with Windows Mobile"

They killed the Microsoft YouTube client because it didn't play by the rules regarding showing ads or downloading videos.

Windows Mobile/Phone actually was less capable than Android on similar hardware. That Windows Phone had superior resource management was a myth. Even on high-end hardware Windows Phone struggles to handle things that even a lower-end Android device can handle.

I don't know if Windows Mobile was ever faster or smoother, but for certain it was not in the last few years.

As someone who's spent years using both, I can definitely disagree. Even a budget Windows Mobile was far less sluggish than my high end Motorola flagship phones.

In fact, I had a phone with Microsoft's Android Bridge beta, and while people were complaining how slow the Android apps were on it... I realized that it was more or less just the normal performance Android apps ran at.

> I had a phone with Microsoft's Android Bridge beta, and while people were complaining how slow the Android apps were on it... I realized that it was more or less just the normal performance Android apps ran at.

Seems a little disingenuous to pin performance against a half-implemented ASOP API running on an environment without all of the JVM bytecode tuning Google has put into ART/Dalvik.

I wasn't. I carried Android phones as my primary devices for over six years. I was comparing that experience, to my experiences with the Android Bridge.

This is the ultimate in revision. Windows phone was incredibly laggy on similar hardware to Android.

I assume it was related to the inefficiency of the Windows kernel compared to Linux.

http://blog.zorinaq.com/i-contribute-to-the-windows-kernel-w... "I Contribute to the Windows Kernel. We Are Slower Than Other ...

I don't know if you ever used a decent windows phone. But I can tell you that my Lumia 1020 was way more stable, smoother and user friendly than my Samsung Note 5.

The Lumia devices I have here are the living proof that isn't a myth.

I have never seen an 150 € Android devices that were as fast as they are.

What? MS blocked ads and facilitated stealing from YouTubers. Do you honestly support this type of behavior?

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