The truth is a little less exciting, with Google inviting manufacturers to participate in legally binding agreements that ensured Google search sat atop everything in exchange for access to the Play Store, but the end result isn’t all that different. Microsoft could make its own phone without access to the Google Play Store, but that usually ends poorly for everyone involved. In order to have their apps and services installed on something running Google-powered Android, Microsoft needed to go the long way and offer compelling apps that users would want to install and use instead of the pre-loaded Google counterparts.
You may not be aware of it, but Microsoft is surprisingly close to making this a reality.
They are, indeed. There’s a reason Microsoft’s applications on Android are way, way better than those for Windows Phone or Windows 10: Microsoft Android is their plan B for when they do eventually end Windows Phone.
MS still owns the Nokia XL Android phone, although they never released it. It is an ugly phone with a tile screen, no Google Play store, and a near useless MS app store. If MS does release an Android phone, it will need to be a much nicer looking device than the awful Nokia XL would have been.
Edited 2015-09-15 22:21 UTC
they lost me at “Microsoft as the default on an Android phone starts to look not only feature complete, but downright enjoyable”. That is about people *preferring* to use Microsoft apps and services instead of Google apps and services which i find highly unlikely.
I prefer Microsoft office online to the google apps and onedrive to google drive. The only app/service I prefer Google’s is search.
Microsoft enters into an agreement to buy Cyanogen OS and use it with a W10 skin for all future phones.
am I dreaming? Perhaps not.
Pretty much expect this eventually, but probably not with windows 10, I’m thinking windows 12-14 or so. Cyanogen Inc has had a number of talks about various buy outs, but the tech guys with equity aren’t in favor of it, and the money guys with equity think they can get more by waiting.
Expect a repeat of Nokia in terms of time line of events: a partnership where they are simply equals ( with money moving in one direction), a financial crisis from Cyanogen, some pondering about the survival, then take over.
“There’s a reason Microsoft’s applications on Android are way, way better than those for Windows Phone or Windows 10: Microsoft Android is their plan B for when they do eventually end Windows Phone.” – I don’t understand if it’s plan B, instead of A, why the plan B stuff would be “way, way better”.
Because Plan A has failed. They are now on plan B. I wish Plan A had worked. Window’s phones were nice, but they messed over the customer too many times. First was the Window CE debacle. Yeah, I want a stylus and a “mini me” start menu. Worse was what they did to the Windows 7 phone users – no upgrade path on a brand new phone. Ouch! They’ve gone the way of the Palm.
p.s. – I have a Window’s 10 tablet. The apps in the Microsoft Store are few and pathetic. I really don’t understand what happened to Window’s store apps. Are the Window’s developers still creating mostly classic apps?
In short, yes.
Windows Devs are pretty much ignoring the Windows App Store. The Windows Ecosystem is built around doing your own marketing, and devs get 100% of the sale price. So really, what benefit was there for Windows devs to move to an App Store model where they only get 70% of the sale price?
Mac benefited from devs targeting iOS and building a market there. Mac devs also benefited from the increased exposure, but even then I’d guess that most “classic app” devs have not really done the iTunes AppStore – only those targeting mobile.
Android didn’t have any kind of ecosystem before, so devs just went with it.
The Mac App Store for OS X isn’t doing terribly well either.
App stores work fine for devices where users have no or only limited options to sideload apps.
There is not much that can be done about it on existing platforms.
Turning off the ability to sideload? That is what Microsoft tried with Windows RT, and it ended in a colossal failure.
They could partner with Amazon and include Amazon’s app store, which is a pretty good store. I used it for a while and found it easy to use and included just about everything.
Ehh..
Amazon’s store is not nearly as quality as the Google PlayStore is. It’s not bad, they just let a lot more riff-raff in, and it’s harder to get quality apps.
MS’s biggest challenge, though, will be replacing the functionality that is now inside the AppStore – the updates, etc that come that way instead of as part of the OS. Many APIs have been moved from the built-in OS to being addon-libraries that are updated via the PlayStore.
And while everyone is aware that Amazon’s Kindle devices are Android, they don’t advertise it as such. They do list Android on https://developer.amazon.com/appsandservices/solutions/devices/kindl…, but they only list 4.x versions – no 5.x where even more libs move to PlayStore.
The good thing about Windows Phone is that it`s fast. I have one at company for about 2 years and it`s fast as at Day One. Android sucks after a few months, no matter is that chep 4x mediatek chipset, or high end Nexus. It`s slow and because slower every month. :/ So change fast platform for slow one… Don`t seems to be good. The good in Android are apps, since most of companies don`t support Windows Phone.
I’ve had several Android phones – Google NexusOne (running both Gingerbread and CyanogenMod), Motorola MotoX 2nd Gen (2014), and now a Motorola G 3rd Gen (2015), and don’t agree.
The only issues with NexusOne are:
– lack of updates
– disk space
I upgraded to the MotoX and ran it for months without any kind of slow down. Sadly it died a watery death, so now I have a MotoG (just got it).
So on the phone side, I don’t agree.
On the tablet side…well, that’s a different issue and there things seem to be a little worse for wear. Not sure why though, and Android 5.x does make some really big improvements that way too.
It’s ironic how Microsoft enjoys all the freedoms that Android grants, publishing a launcher, cooperating with Cyanogen OS to bundle apps and services, etc. while not granting those freedoms to their own platform.
Even if Google wanted to, they could not make a Windows Phone without Bing, Edge or Microsoft services.