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Phones don't lock out people, people do.

If you're a Windows user, which most people are, what's wrong with buying a phone that works with Windows?

Should you switch to Linux the worst that can happen is that you can't hook up your phone to it, but who does that anyway these days? It's all WiFi, Bluetooth and cloud stuff now.

Wow, didn't know you could connect a pc to a lumia phone with wifi. How do you do that?

And again: I'm not suggesting that average people would know or care, I'm just having a hard time understanding how someone rooting for haiku and risc os while mourning the fate of beos still have only praises for this thing that deliberately makes it even more difficult to use anything other than mainstream os'es.

And about average people, just an example: Every classroom in my childrens school has a pc and some kind of "interactive whiteboard" with a projector and bluetooth connected pens, which is very frequently used. When one of the teachers has bought a "new nokia" and for the first time tries to copy off some pictures from the last school trip to show on the whiteboard, it won't work **** ONLY because microsoft decided that it MUST NOT work *****

The computers are running linux, as is every computer in the whole school district. As are the computers in the libraries. This is real, and happening, and microsoft is fighting it every way they can, as always. Still it might go the way of beos, only because people doesn't care.

You might have missed the crucial modifier to his statement - "as an os-geek"

What phones Don't work with Windows BTW?

And just because these phone run Windows doesn't make them flexible like PCs that run windows. On any PC you buy today you have the freedom to put an alternative OS on it. We should demand the same of our phones, it's our hardware after all.

That you need a PC to connect it to, is a dealbreaker for me. I never need to connect my (ancient) N900 to a PC. Not even for (the vast majority of) OS updates. I can't think of a good reason why you would be required to have certain software running on a PC to be ably to make full use of your smartphone...

You don't. Go to the carrier. They'll upgrade it for you while you wait.

Well, there is Windows Phone 7 Connector for the Mac as well. Consequently, ~99% of the population can connect their WP7 to their computer.

By the way, isn't Windows Phone 8 going to support over-the-air updates?

If you want to complain that it has no Linux support then you should rightly go write a nasty letter to the Linux devs, start with Torvalds and work your way down. or do you blame the farmer who raised the beef when Mickey D's gives you a lousy burger?

The simple fact is as long as Torvalds, giant ego that he is, refuses to allow a stable ABI or API then the vast majority of companies simply won't support you, its just THAT simple. You can write a piece of software in Windows and have it run on anything from Win2K-Win 8 X64 and moreover it will KEEP running without having a team of devs constantly rewrite the thing. Don't give us that 'Just give us the code" BS either, we saw how well that worked with AMD, most companies aren't gonna bet their business on some stranger writing their programs for them, give it up chuck.

So either give the companies a platform that can be "written once, used for years" or don't complain when nobody supports you, most places have better things to spend money on than a team of devs to support an OS with 0.97% market share.

As for TFA, they look pretty which to the masses seems to be important, but I don't see any Micro-SD slot and considering those that were dumb enough to buy winPhone 7 won't be getting WinPhone 8 I have to wonder how many are gonna risk taking another shot. like it or not with Android phones you can usually get one or even two updates, if by no other means Cyanogenmod, but with WinPhone you really have to look at the history of the company and MSFT has a nasty habit of pulling the rug out from under users, playsforsure,Zune,Kin,Sidekick anyone?

I bought a WP7 Phone and I'm not dumb. I'm also going to buy WP8. It suits my lifestyle just fine. [This is coming from a long time iPhone owner and owner of a N7].

If you are talking about drivers then no, you can't write a driver for Win2k that works on Win8 x64.

And it's also drivers what break with the unstable internal kernel ABI in Linux, because the external API is actually quite stable. Any other software besides kernel drivers will run on any kernel version you throw it at.

I'm not really sure about a stable internal ABI being the holy grail people claim it would be, anyway. Sure, it might have made it easier for some devs to release binary drivers, but it would also mean maintaining old cruft in a kernel that's intended to be developed fast (how many kernel releases have we had already?).

And then, WP phones not being supported on Linux have nothing to do with inestable ABIs anyway, you don't really need a kernel driver to copy stuff to an external device.

Edited 2012-09-07 16:31 UTC

Why is it that everyone who's complaining about the ABI has no fucking clue what it's for? You don't need kernel support for a protocol to talk to a USB device. Make it a library. Write once, etc.

So much vitriol just for stating your own incompetence.