Gone but never forgotten: The Legacy of Windows Phone in 2020

“Hey remember Windows Phone?” I casually ask my peers.  The response is almost always the same- “ummm yeah... wait, isn’t that run on laptops?”.  It seems no one even remembers the wonderfulness of Windows Phone.  I can’t blame you if you don’t know either.  Windows Phone died years ago, it officially died when it ran out of support in December 2019.  Although dead many remember and honor it even through the years of the Android-iPhone duopoly.  The legacy of Windows phone (later called Windows 10 Mobile) lives on in 2020; continue reading and I’ll show you how.




Time Machine

It wasn’t always this way. There used to be six phone OS to choose from iOS, Android, Windows Phone, Blackberry, and palm (not to mention Symbian and others from Nokia).  All are gone except for Android and iOS. Back then you had a choice.  Windows phone was special because the interface differed from the static icons of the competition.  Windows Phone used “live tiles” to maximize the efficiency of each tile, tiles were enough to win many over.  Those tiles contributed to something so special that you either loved it or hated it.  That’s the thing, Windows Phone looked and worked so differently that a loyal fanbase emerged.  The reason for failure was not interface or OS design, so what killed Windows Phone?

P.S. I can’t exactly show you what it looked like because of copyright issues but just look it up on google and decide for yourself if the interface was special enough for you.




App Gap Kills


What do you do with a phone?  Call, text, and running apps is what your phone is used for every day.  This killed Windows Phone, the mismanagement of the app situation from the start plagued Windows Phone time and time again.  There were too many frameworks, too many ways to develop apps, too many new ways that came out each year, all of this just confused and angered developers year after year.  People couldn’t use Windows Phone because they couldn’t get the apps they needed.




Long Live Windows Phone


Now in 2020 what is left of Windows phone?  There are a few holdouts who are still using their phones, but for now the OS is all but destroyed.  It’s ashes have been preserved by the power of Android launcher as seen in the photo below.

Launchers such as Launcher 10(seen above) have kept the legacy of Windows phone alive.  For those who want live tiles, tiles slide out app drawer, all the good stuff.  Although not perfect people can now experience the feel of Windows phone in 2020.  I’ve used this launcher as my daily driver for months on end and it’s been amazing.  Windows phone is no more, Long live Windows Phone!  For now and forevermore.

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