Facebook has decided that its remaining Windows Phone users have had enough time to switch to a different platform: it is ending support for its family of apps on the defunct mobile platform. The change will apply to the Facebook mobile app, Instagram, and Messenger, the company has confirmed. Users have one month left to decide whether losing the apps is motivation enough to upgrade their handset.
Launched in late 2015, the Lumia 950 XL, next to the HP Elite x3, was the last great Windows Phone. But with aged hardware and an obsolete operating system, the phone may seem to be completely useless now. Ironically, it seems to have actually gotten a resurgence in popularity thanks to a few new hacks. But now, thanks to the cumulative work of a few such tinkerers, almost anyone can easily install Windows 10 on ARM on the Lumia 950 XL and prolong the device’s usefulness in a completely different way.
Microsoft is preparing to say goodbye to Windows 10 Mobile, warning hold-outs that their smartphones will no longer get support by the end of the year. The ill-fated phone platform failed to make a significant dent in iPhone and Android sales, and indeed now Microsoft is recommending that owners migrate to Apple or Google's platforms.
Microsoft may have given up on its own Windows-based smartphone platform but at least one of its partners hasn’t yet. If you’re still itching to get your hands on an honest to goodness Windows 10 Mobile phone, one of the last of its breed, then you might have to make a trip to the UK for it. Or find a way to ship it from there. Because OEM Wileyfox has just started making and selling its Wileyfox Pro phone again because, according to them, their customers demanded it.
It was not as disastrous as the Windows ME or Windows Vista (though some might argue that it was) but Windows 8 and even Windows 8.1 were met with far more resistance than Microsoft was expecting. That unwelcoming atmosphere was extended to Windows Phone 8, which was actually less problematic, forever cursing that “8” generation. Given those factors, it’s somewhat surprising that Microsoft has continued supporting the OS this long though now it is finally giving out the dates when Windows 8/8.1 and Windows Phone 8.x can effectively retire.
Lumia phones are pretty much dead. Windows RT is even more so. But who says you can’t have both? Microsoft probably never imagined, much less wanted, its Windows Phone Internals tool to be used this way, but developers like Ben Wang, a.k.a. imbushuo, aren’t going to take no for an answer. Wang has more or less successfully gotten Windows RT to run on recent Lumia phones, like the Lumia 640 XL, and is now sharing the process so others can join in the fun. That is, if you consider this fun.
The Android community is filled with mods of all kinds for devices, from customizations to rooting to even installing alternative operating systems. The same can't be said for other mobile platforms, especially iOS. Microsoft's Windows phones, however, was a no man's land until recently. Now thanks to some avid fans, and indirectly thanks to Microsoft, soon some users might be able to dust off their old Lumia phones and find new use for them. Like, for example, installing Windows RT.
Microsoft has never been great at handheld devices past Windows CE (arguably). From the Zune media player to the Lumia phones, it failed to compete in markets already overrun by giants. As if to add insult to injury, it often doesn’t give abandoned users with ways to move forward, leaving them with practically useless devices. That slightly changed when Microsoft released the Windows Phone Internals tool which, to some extent, allowed some rather patient hackers to install Windows RT or even Windows 10 on older Lumia phones.
There's no use crying over spilled milk, as the saying goes. There are, however, some milk you really can't help but cry over. Such is the case for Surface Phone hopefuls who are constantly reminded of what could have been. The latest wound to be inflicted on them is a video of an alleged Lumia prototype, codenamed the Lumia Hapanero. Like the elusive Surface Phone, the device showed some crude Surface Pen support, further reinforcing the theory, and the tragedy, of how Microsoft came so close to fulfilling that geek dream.
WhatsApp has called time on BlackBerry 10 and Windows Phone 8.0, confirming that it will cease supporting the smartphone platforms at the end of the year as it focuses its development attentions elsewhere. The decision won't mean instant death for the WhatsApp app on those platforms, but it does mean the end is in sight.
You have to give Microsoft some props. While it practically announced that Windows 10 Mobile and its previous incarnations are dead, it isn’t yet totally abandoning its existing users completely. In fact, it has just made available a new tool that makes it easier to keep Windows phone devices up to date. At least for the extremely few Windows phone devices left that can run the extremely few Windows 10 Mobile releases left.
If Google is the home of throwaway (and sometimes expensive) prototypes, Microsoft is perhaps the home of broken dreams and, to some extent, promises. From the Courier to Continuum to, now, Windows Mobile, Microsoft has us always asking "what if?". Like, what if it put out a nearly bezel-less smartphone? Well, it almost did back in 2014, 2 years before even Xiaomi got the ball rolling. Unfortunately, like many of its actually good ideas, it passed up on the opportunity.