from the Embrace-Extend-Extinguish?
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⮤You-are-here dept.
Submitted via IRC for Bytram
Microsoft is embracing Android as the mobile version of Windows
Microsoft unveiled a bunch of Surface hardware during a press event in New York City last night. While matte black Surfaces, headphones with Cortana, and a new Surface Studio were the highlights of the hardware side, Microsoft unveiled an interesting change to its Windows operating system. Windows 10 will soon fully embrace Android to mirror these mobile apps to your PC.
The Android app mirroring will be part of Microsoft's new Your Phone app for Windows 10. This app debuts this week as part of the Windows 10 October 2018 Update, but the app mirroring part won't likely appear until next year. Microsoft briefly demonstrated how it will work, though; You'll be able to simply mirror your phone screen straight onto Windows 10 through the Your Phone app, which will have a list of your Android apps. You can tap to access them and have them appear in the remote session of your phone.
[...] Microsoft Launcher is designed to replace the default Google experience on Android phones, and bring Microsoft's own services and Office connectivity to the home screen. It's a popular launcher that Microsoft keeps updating, and it's even getting support for the Windows 10 Timeline feature that lets you resume apps and sites across devices.
[...] Windows Phone has vanished in the last couple of years, and Microsoft finally admitted Windows Phone was dead nearly a year ago. The software maker has now embraced the reality that people don't need Windows on a phone. Instead, it's embracing Android as the mobile version of Windows.
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Bill Gates has said that he thinks everyone would be using Windows Mobile right now and not Android if it weren't for his distractions and the antitrust investigation that his company got caught into.
"There's no doubt that the antitrust lawsuit was bad for Microsoft, and we would have been more focused on creating the phone operating system and so instead of using Android today you would be using Windows Mobile," Gates claimed during his speech at The New York Times' DealBook Conference.
[...] Microsoft cofounder also revealed that the company was almost launching Windows Mobile on a Motorola handset but missed out on it by a few months, giving Android an unbeatable advantage. While there were a lot of factors, Gates says it's this 3-months delay that led to Android's supremacy and the downfall of any mobile efforts by Microsoft.
"We were just three months too late on a release Motorola would have used on a phone, so yes it's a winner takes all game."
Related:
Nadella: Microsoft Isn't Killing Windows Phone and Will Go It Alone
Steve Balmer: Use Android to Save Windows Phone
Microsoft Breaks its Windows 10 Mobile Upgrade Promise
Microsoft Axes 2,850 More Windows Phone, Sales Staff
Windows Phone Dies, Aged 6
It's Been 5 Years Already, Let's Gawp at Microsoft and Nokia's Bloodbath
Microsoft is Embracing Android as the Mobile Version of Windows
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 06 2018, @02:17PM
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace%2C_extend%2C_and_extinguish [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 2) by bradley13 on Saturday October 06 2018, @02:59PM
... 'nuf said
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Saturday October 06 2018, @03:39PM (1 child)
Glad I got to hacking on my cheap little Moto C earlier this year then. I don't want that crap on my phone. Hopefully LOS is just different enough from stock Android to prevent this from working.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 06 2018, @04:42PM
Considering their hold on the Linux Foundation, I'd say Fuchsia.
(Score: 5, Touché) by Nerdfest on Saturday October 06 2018, @03:56PM
Last I heard, you couldn't *actually* disable Cortana on Windows, and they're still upping their telemetry game. I'm sure their Android launcher, etc will be far more respectful of personal privacy though.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by richtopia on Saturday October 06 2018, @05:26PM (4 children)
I disdain Windows similar to most others on this website. However, in mobile it appears Android will be hitting monopoly levels on all non-Apple hardware. And I would argue that Windows Phone was a better operating system: in my limited experience Windows Phone delivers a better experience on lower-end devices. I also have a hard time trusting Google more than Microsoft, as Google's entire revenue stream is based on data mining.
(Score: 3, Informative) by takyon on Saturday October 06 2018, @06:00PM
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Phone [wikipedia.org]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_10_Mobile [wikipedia.org]
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 06 2018, @07:33PM
Microsoft embracing Android is almost reason enough for me to leave Android. Hopefully they will never be allowed to sit at the board or have any input to architecture-level or technical platform stuff.
(Score: 2) by darkfeline on Monday October 08 2018, @08:10AM
Android is open source though. The fact that most people don't use a version of Android that is fully open source, or the fact that they may soon be using a version of Android that has Microsoft non-open source code rather than Google non-open source code doesn't seem particularly relevant to the monopoly-ness of Android in the mobile space, any more than the monopoly-ness of Linux in the embedded, server, and supercomputer space.
Certainly, it's a lot more open source than the only other real contender in the mobile space, iOS.
Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 08 2018, @10:43AM
So do I. It would give Tomi Ahonen something to write about.