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Windows 10 Mobile Revival Effort Grows
An effort among users beseeching Microsoft to rethink the impending end of Windows 10 Mobile seems to be picking up steam after the platform's latest death knell.
Microsoft this week announced it will end all updates, patches, support and so on for its mobile initiative in December, advising mobile developers in its camp to target Apple's iOS and Google's Android platforms.
But even before that, Dalibor Kocián started a petition on the Change.org site, titled "We want to back Windows 10 mobile!."
Under the heading, "Together for keeping and Victory Windows 10 mobile!" the petition states:
I ask you to sign this petition so that we can present to Microsoft this challenge: "We ask company Microsoft to declare that the system Windows 10 mobile is still alive and that they will continue to develop applications for this system. And too that we want Microsoft to start producing phones with Windows 10 mobile again."
The petition was launched before the end-of-support warning but after Microsoft warned that Windows 10 Mobile wouldn't receive any more new features.
That came years after the long, lingering demise of its predecessor: Windows Phone, which, though lauded for its technology and performance, suffered in the marketplace with market share that dwindled into fractions.
Several readers commented on the petition, with posts such as:
- "Windows phone was the most connected and fastest os on lesser hardware and deserved to be given more supported apps and not just let apple and Google give data and money from us all."
- "I want to use my Lumia 1020 and 1520 and the Windows environment between all devices and Microsoft software. The UI is exciting, productive and refreshingly dynamic."
- "Like most Microsoft users, I have a one-sided love-and-hate relationship with the company and its products. I love my W10M Lumia 950, but the fact that MS will abandon W10M within one year, will swing the pendulum strongly into the hate direction. This has happened before, but I don't know what MS can produce in the future to make me love the company again. Resuming W10M development would be a good start though... ;-)"
- "I can't [get] over MS dropping their phone, Windows 10 is so user friendly, and if I'm honest, I'm captivated by it, from its live tiles to its seamless tools and apps....and Cortana rocks!"
It remains to be seen whether a developer movement will also spring up to support the troubled mobile OS, somewhat akin to what happened among "classic" Visual Basic loyalists who decried Microsoft's move from VB6 to VB.NET in 2002.
So far, the initiative seems to be backed overwhelmingly by users as opposed to developers. It sported 846 "signatures" as of this writing, en route to a goal of 1,000. With users of other platforms numbering in the billions, however, mobile developers might want to stick with their iOS and Android plans. Like "classic" VB, Windows 10 Mobile seems to be gone.
About the Author
David Ramel is an editor and writer for Converge360.