The real reason Microsoft killed live tiles

Set Ecosia as your default search engine (sponsored): ecosia.co/TechAltar

A major role is played by Google in their demise ‘cause they didn’t make a single app for it.

Former windows phone developer here. You hit the nail on the head with the horizontal integration. Microsoft’s promise of vertical integration has ok but there wasn’t a user base. Then Microsoft pushed Xamarin hard to encourage horizontal integration on a platform that supported UWP. What resulted was a buggy framework, lackluster apps, and most Xamarin developers choosing to ignore UWP anyway.

Also, in a Freemium service world, where most of the apps rely on ADs for profits, the least an app developer wants is you to know everything you need with a glance staying in your start screen. They want you to click on the app, watch the banners + ADs placed somewhere in the app, only then be satisfied with the information the app provides

I liked the Microsoft Phones. They were thin, light, came with an OLED screen, you could swap the battery by simply removing the case, they had a memory card slot and if you couldn't find an app from the start screen, you could swipe left and got an index of all apps installed. Finally, the live tiles didn't serve for advertising as opposed to the situation in Windows 10 desktop where I still hate the new control center being mixed with the old one and zillions of features without recognizable icons or their icons drastically changed.

I absolutely loved the Live Tiles on Windows Phone; they were such a unique and dynamic feature that made the user experience truly stand out. There were so many innovative features and a fresh approach to the mobile OS landscape. I really wanted Windows Phone to succeed, especially with the exciting plans they had for merging desktop and mobile experiences. It's sad that it didn’t go that way, as it had so much potential to reshape the mobile OS landscape.

I still miss my Lumia. Even compared to other android phones I owned, WP was just really responsive and easy to use. The software didn't bloat the phone, the screen was really bright outside and even if it did not have that many apps the websites functioned properly and the phone looked real slick.

If they were live tiles instead of live advertisements, I am sure it could have been a game changer!

There is nowhere near enough scrutiny of Google's role in killing this platform.

I really like Windows Phone 8.1. Even on the low budget phone like Lumia 520 (I used to own) the OS was smooth. As a UI/UX designer I try to implement ideas on projects I work on. I recently bought the Lumia 925 for $25 to get a piece of history. I fall in love every time I see the animations❤❤

What was really freaking cool is that any website owner could add Live Tile support with a meta tag pointing to a simple XML be it static or generated by the backend. Support by native apps wasn't hard too implement either. The tools were there, but no one really card because Apple and Google didn't have that. Any app could expose contacts and feeds for the Me tile to display all available information in one place, but nobody cared. Same story with the light/dark mode support and interactive toast notifications until both behemoth competitors yoinked these features into their operating systems. Microsoft was also really vocal with accessibility guidelines and design principles (Metro UI docs was a fascinating read) too and tried to make their platform uniform and friendly for physically impaired users. Windows Phone/Mobile was so far ahead of its time and it still makes me really sad it got crushed by the unhinged 2007 tech bro mindset of app developers (Snapchat's founder was a particularly big piece of shit) and disinterest for novelty and innovation of general public

The thing that I loved most with the Windows phones was the smooth navigation of the operating system. Even on low end models.

I never really was a fan of the tiles (I like my smooth rounded corners) but I have to give Microsoft credit for one thing about Windows Phone: These things were BUTTERY smooth. My grandma used to have some cheap 100€ Nokia Windows Phone and even after 3 years when it had a hard time even loading web pages, the OS itself was still unrealistically smooth.

I cant imagine a better and more support worthy sponsor than Ecosia, these exactly are the ads I want to see from my favorite creators.

Roots bloody roots..... I don't know why I am happy to see a Sepultura album cover on a video about Windows Phones

the thing is, Live tiles are still better shortcuts than static grid of icons. because of how you can organize them, change size depending on your personal priorities or if it has good live tile feature, plus I much prefer scrollable home screen than pages, although combination can be used as well. This is why I still use tiles with SquareHome on Android. widgets as live tiles feel much less bloated and more precisely constrained, plus it doesn't take genius to guess that tapping on a tile that shows current weather would get you to weather app. Some apps with more ambiguous notifications can still retain some style or icon in the corner so you can tell what it belongs to, not to mention that you can color-code the tile background to associate with certain apps. all these cues + specific arrangement of tiles makes finding what you want much easier, and generally remembering the layout. With stupid grid of icons you don't have much of a layout to begin with, and I don't know why everyone ended up stuck with this crap which originated in some launchers for Windows Mobile 5/6 and somehow 20 years later it's still same.

Live tiles are still amazing. The biggest killing factor is that there just aren't that many UWP apps, and almost no third party UWP apps actually use live tiles. Games used to use Live tiles back in 2014 but they don't anymore. I tried my best to find apps with live tiles but there are barely any.

I never had a Windows phone, but to this day I admire its appearance.

I always thought the Live Tiles concept was so cool and unique. I remember jailbreaking my first iPod touch just so I could install a "Windows Live tiles" theme so I could try it out (without having to have a Windows phone)!

This might be the first time I've been thrilled by a sponsorship! Ecosia deserves much more promotion!