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Comment by seesomesense | Hacker News Reader

Branding them "Windows" phones was the kiss of death. Almost every adult has had terrible experiences with Windows. The young view Windows as something their grandparents used.

Calling it anything else would have been better.Even "Electric Candy" phones would have been more attractive than "Windows" phones.

I understand that the phones were reasonably decent.

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They also tried (to some degree) your suggestion. Remember Microsoft Kin? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Kin

| Kin was a short-lived mobile phone line from Microsoft designed for users of social networking. Microsoft described the phones' target demographic as men and women between ages 15 and 30.

I actually thought that was a cool idea when it came out but I always did wonder what the purpose was if I wanted to do more. I was pretty focused on getting a Blackberry (shudders) at the time

I really liked my windows phone a lot. Honestly a lot more than my current iPhone 6. But I need to use second factor apps to log into my company's vpn, and those apps aren't on winphones.

If it supports the OATH/IETF RFC standards (and almost all two factor systems do/should), the Authenticator app that comes preinstalled with Windows phone supports it right out of the box. (Your company's VPN administrator just may not realize that.)

The interesting irony recently is that my own company just sent an email encouraging our VPN users to download the (very same) Microsoft Authenticator on iOS and Android as it is now the most reliable cross-platform 2FA app.

I don't think it does (although I'm not 100% certain). We use Duo Mobile[0], which pushes a challenge to the phone, then I have to acknowledge it. It's not the standard "enter the 6 digit code" that Google Mail and most 2 factor systems make use of.

[0] https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/duo-mobile/id422663827?mt=8

Yeah, I'm not sure if Duo "Push" is standards-based. A quick trip to their website did show that they have an app for Windows 8+:

https://guide.duo.com/windows-phone

Damn, there's a Windows Phone 7 version too: https://guide.duo.com/windows7-phone -- I swear there wasn't when I was making this transition. Huh, that's a little frustrating. Oh well.

"xbox mobile"

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