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"Recently, I actually did switch to an Android phone," he said, speaking on Fox News on Sunday.
Microsoft's own Windows-powered phones have failed to make a significant impact on the smartphone market, which is dominated by devices running Google's Android operating system.
However, Mr Gates said he had installed lots of Microsoft apps on his phone.
When asked whether he also had an iPhone, perhaps as a secondary device, he replied: "No, no iPhone."
He did not reveal which particular smartphone he currently uses.
Beware the chef who won't eat his own cooking.
Also at VentureBeat and CNET
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Bill Gates Switches to Android Phone
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McDonald's -- Because you're worth it.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by jmorris on Wednesday September 27 2017, @02:02AM (6 children)
Why would he use a Windows phone? That is why nobody does, they can't answer that question either.
There seem to be three groups with them.
1. Industry, with an app they use. If the device is a dedicated machine doing one job it doesn't matter as long as it runs that app. Think the UPS guy with his gadget. All those used to be Palm (often Symbol branded with an integrated barcode) but that hasn't been viable for new deploys in a while. What would be that sort of devel's second choice? And that is why they will still be cranking out a couple of Windows devices for years to come.
2. Hard core Windows fanbois and developers. If you can write your own app you would buy the platform you can do that for.
3. People who got em on a promotion, or say an ad, etc and didn't really understand what they were buying into. They won't make that mistake a second time. Microsoft isn't really promoting Windows Phone anymore so as these hit end of contract and they upgrade this group will vanish.
Bill Gates doesn't fit any of those groups. He hasn't written code in decades, doesn't seem like much a nerd fanboy, has no niche app that ties to Windows Phone and certainly isn't ignorant. So that leaves him to pick iPhone or one of the multitude of Androids. Looks like he didn't pick the walled garden with the gun towers around the edge, opting instead for the one with a fence and a gate... although the fence seems to be filling in, quietly growing taller and the gate becoming harder and harder to find.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Wednesday September 27 2017, @03:17AM
4. People who use phones predominantly to make phone calls,
texts and emails. Maybe a little web surfing.
It would have made a good business only phone in a Microsoft dominant company.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by coolgopher on Wednesday September 27 2017, @03:49AM (4 children)
Honestly, I find Windows 10 Mobile to have the least infuriating user experience at the moment. iOS drives me nuts with insisting on The Limited One Right Way to do things (and sync through iTunes?!), and Android consistently fails to feel consistent and usable and responsive. W10Mobile mostly lets me do things I want to do, when I want to do it (email, text, browsing, whatsapp, play music without iTunes, some other stuff).
The "live tile" desktop is, quite honestly, Really Good*. I can pin stuff there that actually provides information at a glance, and arrange & size it as I want without having to deal with pixel precision. If I want to run a less used apps I swipe to get a nice alphabetical listing of everything installed, with quick jumping to the desired letter. No stupid page-after-page of cryptic small icons to scroll through. When the time comes to move off this platform, this UI is what I'm going to miss. It works. It's clean. It's usable.
And even though the MS app store is frequently ridiculed, I've found the necessary apps there (mostly various banking/authentication apps, some local weather apps).
Also, Cortana. I've been impressed with how well Cortana has coped with some of the stuff I've thrown at "her". I've also been frustrated by the inability to cope with far less complex queries, but on the whole I find Cortana more useful that not. Maybe Siri & OK Google are up to the same level these days, I really don't know. It's been a few years since I tried out Siri last.
So yeah, currently Windows 10 Mobile is my preferred mobile OS. I type this on a Mac Book Pro (with MagSafe, thank-you-bloody-much), sitting next to my Linux workstation.
*) On a phone! Don't get me started on the abomination it's turned the "start menu" into on a regular desktop...
(Score: 2, Informative) by WillR on Wednesday September 27 2017, @12:46PM (3 children)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 28 2017, @12:17AM (2 children)
Can you put files on and take files off without that gawd awful iTunes interface? Just asking because My last Apple stuff was an iPhone 3gs and iPod Touch 4. It was infuriating to copy a PDF onto it or take off the recorded audio I captured. I won't even talk about putting on Music or trying to move it off. I finally gave up on it, moved to Android and never looked back.
(Score: 3, Informative) by coolgopher on Thursday September 28 2017, @01:37AM
MS is moving to the cloud sync option too, annoyingly enough, but I can at least still do MTP mounts of the phone and copy things to/from it relatively easily. It used to be even better back when they had the explicit phone-sync app for the Mac.
For other reasons I do use OneDrive (for syncing some stuff to the VM at work), but iCloud has always been disabled.
(Score: 1) by WillR on Thursday September 28 2017, @02:56PM