Brian_M

Google has long blocked Windows Phone and other Microsoft environments from full, quality access to major services like YouTube. It’s a bit rich for them to complain that Microsoft might restrict full access to the W8 API when Google has imposed a blanket block on access to many of the high-quality Google APIs from Microsoft products.

Sorry, but Ask Ziggy is a novelty toy compared to Siri.

One of the funnier persistent comments I read in the thread was “only 1 to 3 percent of users used the Zune functionality, so it was OK for Microsoft to nuke it without warning, since that’s such a small number of people.”

I wonder if the same people would accept a major app developer like Facebook saying “we’re discontinuing Windows Phone support and removing the app from everyone’s phones, since only one to three percent of our users are on that platform, so it’s so small.”

Microsoft is in no position to be pissing off users and then telling them they’re an “insignificant part of the market.”

That only impacts your syncing between Windows Live and your phone.

One of the problems of Microsoft’s terrible UX is that you’re juggling multiple accounts rather than having everything consolidated into one account. Windows Live, Zune, ZunePass, Windows Phone.com, Windows Phone Marketplace, and a half dozen other accounts are all separate entitities controlled by separate business units with separate support options.

You obviously didn’t read my original post. If poor UX works for you, great, keep going with it. I’ll be over here in iOS-land with a phone that works.

So I should be happy that my phone can no longer run any of the apps that I purchased?

It’s absurd to expect my phone to work?

Nothing.

According to WindowsPhone.com, I have NO devices affiliated with my account (I deleted them all). That’s because the info on WindowsPhone.com has nothing to do with the marketplace accounts and the five device limit.

Microsoft only allowed one device every thirty days to be removed from Windows Phone marketplace limits, and after breaking Zune, eliminated the ability to delete a device. So once you’ve activated five devices (through swapping or upgrading or trading in a broken unit), you’re SOL.

Ugh. For the eighth time, that doesn’t impact the five device limit.

If you log in to my “WindowsPhone.com” account, it shows that there are NO devices on my account (I deleted them all). But if I turn on my phone, it tells me I have too many devices affiliated with my account and to delete them through Zune.

Deleting devices on WindowsPhone.com does NOT impact the five device limit.

What part of “that doesn’t impact the five device limit” don’t you understand?

Removing the phone from that page simply removes it from the “find my phone” feature.

The only way — repeat the ONLY way to remove phones from your five device limit is to do so through an unbroken copy of Zune. PERIOD.

You can delete your device from Zune Pass after the update — not from the Windows Phone marketplace five device limit list. That functionality was removed with the Microsoft “enhancement.”

it sounds like you’re having a UNIQUE problem

You can have my “unique” problem too. Just swap a few WP devices onto your Windows Live account due to upgrading, testing or having a defective device. Then, try and use your sixth device for personal and work use.

You’ll find it’s quite impossible.

Pretty big problem, and one that a UX-focused company wouldn’t have allowed to happen.

It’s poor user experience.

Apple wouldn’t do it that way. Google wouldn’t do it that way. RIM wouldn’t do it that way. Palm didn’t do it that way.

Microsoft places a five device restriction on your Windows Phone app account.

I had a launch day LG Quantum, which I traded later for an HTC Arrive (on Sprint). I switched back to T-Mobile for the Lumia 710. Had it swapped for another after a screen failure. Added a Lumia 800 as a test device, and then got an HTC Radar swapped in for my second Lumia 710 when it failed.

That last device exceeded the “five device limit.” I had to delete one of the legacy devices from my Microsoft Device Limit List… which one could only do through Zune (before Microsoft broke it).

Now, the only way to have devices removed from the list is to contact Microsoft and hope someone can figure out how to do it for you.

Meanwhile, your device doesn’t work with any of your apps or primary device settings, for the hours/days/weeks/months it takes Microsoft to reset your account.

It did — as much as it pained me to dump the platform after this latest problem.

You shouldn’t have asked the question you asked if you weren’t interested in reading the answer. It’s rude.

And by the way, you are aware that Windows Phone is also broken as a result of the Great Zune Crippling, right?

There are dozens of situations in using a Windows Phone handset where the user is instructed to open and use the Zune software to fix or adjust something — except that the Zune software no longer works to do that.

That is a dreadful, broken software experience. If they were going to break the Zune software, they should have pushed out an update removing those references to the software in Windows Phone.

Instead, for all the ads claiming that the “beta test is over,” Windows Phone 7.5 with Zune feels very much like a beta test in progress. Will it work the same way today as it did yesterday? Will Microsoft remove key functionality and brick your device tomorrow, because they decided that your use case is “no longer important?” Who knows? It’s all part of the “fun” of beta testing Microsoft’s mobile ecosystem!

No, the reason I switched really boils down to user experience.

They broke my phone with their arbitrary rules, and your answer is “sorry, you’re the 1%, you don’t get to have a working phone.”

Except that, as an early adopter, I was driving several people towards Windows Phone. Many were on the cusp of buying, and asked me about how I was liking my Lumia. I told them the truth about what happened, and four people sprung for Android or iPhone handsets instead (much as that pains me).

In user experience, it’s never acceptable to deliver an atrocious user experience that fundamentally breaks the device.

Now, let’s study the “they removed that functionality because the statistics they collect told them most people don’t use it.”

There’s a right way to remove functionality and a wrong way.

The right way — announce you’re planning to shut it down. Give users a sunset date. That way, users like me can say “oh, hey, Microsoft — what about the functionality stuck only in Zune that allows me to remove a device from my five device limit?” and Microsoft can address that through a replacement. Everybody knows it’s coming and can adapt.

The wrong way — position removal of the functionality as a “new feature,” and tell users with bricked phones that they should waste hours on online forums trying to figure out how to get their phones working again, and that they should stop whining.

Dude, you can’t say I stole from you.

Sure, I took your ATM card out of your wallet, went to your bank account, and withdrew money.

But it was only $90, and you have like $40K in there! It’s hardly stealing for me to take just a little cash out, right?

What a silly argument. The only “monopoly” Microsoft has is a dominant position on the desktop with Windows. Nobody (outside of a small cadre of Fandroids) is going to start running Android on the desktop instead of Windows.

Yeah, how dare Sun try and get some payment for all the money, time and effort it put into writing the entire library! That alone justifies having the work stolen and reused.

I was a huge Windows Phone proponent up until about two weeks ago.

When Microsoft broke app access in Zune, they also removed the ability to delete a device from the “five device limit,” bricking my replacement phone. I literally wasn’t able to run apps.

To make matters worse, they misled in the Zune update, claiming it “added new features” when it actually did nothing but removed them.

To make matters even worse, they didn’t warn users they’d be doing this.

To make matters STILL worse, they didn’t provide a replacement for the “add/remove device from your Windows Phone account” features.

To make matters even worse than that (it just keeps getting worse), Windows Phone still instructs users to use the Zune software to perform functions that were shut off without warning.

On top of that (still getting worse), Microsoft’s blog entry “explaining” the decision replied to one angry user by telling him that “sometimes engineering considerations outweigh user experience.” Seriously?!?

And even worse still, Microsoft’s own tech support database still instructs users to use Zune in the now-broken way to fix the problem I had.

After tweeting at Microsoft, then opening a “help desk ticket” (not exactly consumer friendly) and then having a fruitless real-time chat, I gave up.

I couldn’t wait for Microsoft to get its act together and unbrick my phone. Bought an iPhone 4S.

I miss Metro and several of my WP apps, but I needed a phone that worked. I’m pretty sure that Apple wouldn’t unilaterally break iTunes, brick my phone, and then make me jump through flaming hoops to get it working again while explaining that user experience should take a back seat to engineering’s priorities. Yikes.