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Comment by jonknee | Hacker News Reader

Microsoft is using Android! Lauren Goode got a great quote from Satya on this topic:

> When I asked Satya Nadella whether Microsoft ever thought about reviving a true Windows mobile OS, he told me: "The operating system is no longer the most important layer for us...What is most important for us is the app model and the experience."

https://twitter.com/LaurenGoode/status/1179421631506210822

Update: my apologies, this is for the other dual screen device announced today (lots of new products!). They are releasing an Android phone with a similar hinge setup.

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The parent story isn't about some version of Android. Windows 10 X is a real version of Windows, based on the NT Kernel.

The reporting around this new device is certainly confusing..

"This product brings together the absolute best of Microsoft, and we're partnering with Google to bring the absolute best of Android in one product," Microsoft Product Chief Panos Panay said. "This is industry pushing technology."

From https://www.cnet.com/news/microsoft-unveils-999-surface-pro-...

Edit: I'm realizing there are multiple new devices. The Surface Neo is a new two-screen laptop running Windows. The Surface Duo is a two-screen Android phone.

These guys just can not figure out a branding/marketing scheme that won't require overexplaining each time to figure out, and confusion by the consumer. What is a "Surface" if it's really 2 different things, with very similar names, that do completely different things and run incompatible operating systems?

They want to tell us that "this doesn't matter to consumers", but this is just another way of saying "we're only interested in actually marketing to consumers that can't tell the difference".

It's interesting to see Apple doing the opposite these days. In the consumer facing keynote the meticulously separate Watch, iPhone, iPad, Mac, and TV with the capabilities and apps that run on each.

Then they have their dev keynote where they explain how these apps are really all based on shared technology and can all be made using the same new frameworks and then released to each app store for users.

Apple's strategy is great for consumers, IT departments, and (I assume) developers in that way. I can use the same device management tools to control a corporate Macbook, Apple TV, or iPad. The differences in their product line (iPad vs iPad Pro, Macbook vs Macbook Pro, etc) all have a common denominator where you're rarely having one of those conversations where someone realizes "Oh I asked for X but procurement dept got me a 2X which is completely incompatible".

Someone posted a rant here[1] that I think about often, about Microsoft's muddying the waters of Skype, Skype for Business, OneDrive, OneDrive for Business, Windows 10, Windows 10 N, which are all different, incompatible, broken products that you would think fit together but truly don't. It's frustrating as both a consumer and an IT admin, and diminishes my faith in anything they do on this side of the market.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14160809

im already on top of this new one! https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21137596

ive given apple credit for the new iphone naming scheme, but the iphone x, xs, xr, x max, xs max naming conventions absolutely appear designed to confuse. i dont think air, nothing, pro are all that great either, with no suffix being the standard lowest end of the three. +, pro, max, etc all get used interchangeablyish. sometimes its Apple, sometimes its i (legal probably drove this dichotomy.)

> What is a "Surface" if it's really 2 different things

2? Try 6: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Surface

Pro, Book, Laptop, Studio, Hub, RT/2/3/Go, Neo, Duo, Headphones, Earbuds

Also several mouses, keyboards, dial, type/touch/power covers, dock stations, pens... I must be missing something :-)

"Surface" is a product line... How is that hard to understand?

Like Lenovo Thinkpad, Jeep Wrangler, Samsung Galaxy, or whatever else you want to cite as an example.

How about if there was a Jeep Wrangler that's actually a motorcycle but still referred to as a Wrangler, and the 4-wheeled Jeep Wrangler gets rebadged as the WranglerQuadro but only for 2 years, then they have a ATV just called "Quadro by Jeep" (not to be confused with the Jeep 4Quadro California Emissions Comploant Edition) that's more like a Microsoft branding exercise.

Maybe, but android is not part of 10 X at all from what I can tell? The article says it builds off the core pieces of Windows 10. It even runs Win32 apps?

That picture gave me a big Courier vibe[1], always wished Microsoft could have made that happen.

[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UmIgNfp-MdI

> The operating system is no longer the most important layer for us - Satya

That's obvious. But I would like Microsoft to release boot-loader unlock keys for those Windows Phone devices, so that android enthusiasts can build ROMs for some of those capable hardware.

Old WP devices are comparatively easy to mod - bootloader unlock is not an issue at all. The issue with running a custom OS on those is hardware/driver support, as is usual for this class of devices.

As long as Google owns the mobile OS, Microsoft will never be able to maintain any significant control over the app model or user experience.

Maybe a veiled hint at doing something like the Amazon Fire Phone, only more thoughtfully?

Personally, the Fire phone's biggest folly was price, not lack of Google Play.

I know I am being irrational but my perspective is very different for a phone introduced at $500+ vs one at sub $200.

If they could find a way to eat the losses and sell it at sub $200, a lot of people would buy the phone. That and nobody asked for the weird 3D view thing or whatever it was called.

No question price was the single biggest mistake in the Fire Phone. It was one of the notable times Amazon betrayed how they usually go after product segments, with relatively low prices and relatively high quality. Going after a very high volume, low price phone at good quality, is exactly what they should have done. Amazon saw the money machine that Apple had and thought they could slice off part of it (just $4-$6b in income would have been huge for Amazon back then); at that time AWS was not yet spitting off a large amount of operating income, so they were still thrashing around for high margin homerun that would give them some operating breathing room (same reason they took shots at eBay in auctions and Google in search). Instead of treating the Fire Phone like the rest of their hardware efforts, they reached for margin.

I'm slightly surprised they haven't taken another shot at a high volume, low price Fire phone. For further device distribution purposes (to layer services on). Why bother to continue with tablets and not do anything in phones. I've been assuming it's because of the stink of that failure, they're biding their time.

That's not true. Look at what Huawei, Samsung, and One Plus have done.

Clearly Microsoft disagrees. They are putting tremendous effort into using chromium for their new Edge browser so I would have to assume they would put even more resources into customizing Android to their liking. Perhaps on a technical level, chromium-Edge will 'feel' like any other chromium based browser and android-Windows will 'feel' like any other Android based OS BUT for normal & business users - there is a lot Microsoft could do to make Android fit into a 'Microsoft/Windows'ecosystem. If it's at least partially successful, I would expect them to start making their own UI frameworks/libraries for developers to really distance the platform.

>Clearly Microsoft disagrees

And clearly they are in the wrong, but they can't do anything about it anyway, as their platform efforts on mobile faltered.

Sadly, as they gave up when they already had about 10% market share in Europe.

However Windows 10 tablets are winning the hearts of tablet users not willing to pay for Apple experience, not Android tablets that usually only have upscaled phone apps as option for most apps.

The app model, surely not.

The UX?

Ask Samsung. Use a Samsung phone and you are wrapped in their experience. Pairing BT headsets is different, the S-Pen is truly unique and rather well integrated. The camera is unique and for quite awhile was cutting edge and one of the reasons to buy a Samsung phone.

The custom Samsung UI started out pretty bad, but over time it got good. People are used to it, using other Android phones feels a bit off to them, and a fair number of their UX improvements have been since become part of Android itself.

Sparked a memory for me; one of my biggest career regrets...

I had an interview for head of IT at danger, but I had a really really bad flu at the time.

I performed poorly on an interview I would have normally nailed, but it was one of the worst sicknesses I have had, and I didn’t have the frame of mind to reschedule....

So I totally regret that. Had I rescheduled, I would have changed my life path.

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