cross-posted from: https://piefed.social/post/1379850
Here is the full series available to read on Mangadex (under a CC license), and direct link to Chapter 1 (of 16).
If you had never heard of this series before, Ubunchu! was published in the Official Ubuntu Magazine Japan periodically between the years of 2008-2013 (with some digital extras afterwards found in chapter 16 on mangadex). The series was released using a CC license and subsequent translations are also CC (plus the translators have directly communicated with the original author).
Chapters 1-8 were translated years ago, but the final chapter was only translated just a couple days ago.
Due to when it was written and published, it is a bit of a time capsule. You can relive some of the formative linux and Ubuntu events of the 21st century such as:
Unity Desktop
The rise of linux mint
OpenOffice & LibreOffice
Ubuntu Touch
I swear one of the few good things MS made is Windows Phone. I gave my mom one back then and she didn't even need much guidance to get used to it. Hell even I like it. It's so intuitive and beautiful aesthetics. Too bad the market was moving to siloed apps back then (and is still staying there now).
After it got lost and have to replace with an Android phone, it took some guidance from me. But it can be argued that she's just used to WP and learning a new UX on a new OS understandably takes some learning and guidance.
Sorry I waxed lyrical about a Big Tech product in a Ubuntu post, but idk I really do feel like they did good with it.
I had a W10 phone at work. The OS and UI were nice, had no issues there. The app selection was a serious bottle neck though. Finding a good flashlight or a calculator was not a trivial task. Anything more complicated than that just simply didn’t exist.
If Microsoft had added an Android app runtime (even if it were slow), they would've had a much better argument for buying Windows phones. As it was, their sales pitch was "buy a phone with this new OS that doesn't run any of your apps, from the guys who made WinCE" (Windows Phone) and "buy a phone with this new OS that looks exactly like the last OS but won't run apps from that one or Android" (Windows 10 Phone).
By the time Win10P dropped, nobody expected Microsoft to actually commit to it (so the enthusiast crowd stayed away) and its app ecosystem was literally a decade behind the competition (so casual users wouldn't touch it). And then Microsoft didn't see sales and promptly canceled the whole thing.
IIRC MS tried to add the big Google apps on WP, especially YouTube. I only remember for YouTube's case but google stepped in to block MS's efforts every time they fixed something broken. Clearly fair competition.
Of course it doesn't excuse no other apps that were mainstream are on there (or were but not supported for very long as MS stopped paying for them tp be on their platform IIRC).
I do think by WP 10 they lost the plot. WP8 was peak but alas that time the market was going all app ecosystem.