Bye, for now, Windows 10 Mobile. I’ll come back when you GROW UP.

I’ve always been a person who adapts quickly, no matter how different and difficult things get. But there’s one thing that I just couldn’t get along with this time, the Lumia 950XL and Windows 10 Mobile.

I’ve got the Lumia 950XL once it’s available in my region last December. I’ve written about underdogs before and I still believe they could perform well even it’s not in the majority. But this time, while using the phone as my daily driver for 2 months, I’m quite disappointed.

After getting the new Windows 10 Mobile phone, I did expect to have to handle some issues here and there, but the situation of the OS is much worse than I thought. Firstly, the (again) new Microsoft OS seems to still be in an too early stage of development for normal customers. In these 2 months using the phone, I get random freezes when using various apps, sometimes even in system apps, such as the camera and the maps app. The phone also randomly shows resuming screens, which makes me wait when I need to use the phone. Using this phone or platform as a daily driver is just frustrating.

Secondly, due to the lack of adoption of the platform, there are lot of apps missing which I use in my Android phone. Especially local apps, those developers lack the power and support to build apps for a platform that has much less users than iOS and Android. This makes me not able to be productive and get information at a timely matter. Someone may say the app gap is not as serious as people think. That might be true for certain regions, but not for mine. The app gap is real, and it desperately needs fixing.

Last but not least, Microsoft is just too late into the game. I used an Android phone before, and now after I get back to my Android phone, I feel relieved and safe to be able to do things that I want to do with my phone again and that’s really bad for Microsoft. If I’m not able to use a new platform comfortably, I don’t think my friends and family would be able to do so. No one actually cares about the platform. Sometimes I feel not even Microsoft cares.

I really wanted to be a fan of the 950XL. Though Microsoft said they do not care about market share of their platform, a mobile platform is all about the market share, then the apps and support from developers. That’s all it’s about and they couldn’t deny it. So, before the platform matures, maybe when the Surface Phone arrives, I’m not getting back to my 950XL anytime soon.