Full Windows 10 on ARM? RIP, Windows Phone

Remember Satya Nadella's claim about the "ultimate mobile device"? Surprise: It's a PC, not a phone.

And yes, this means that Windows phone is officially dead. There, I said it. And my conscience is clear.

But this does not mean that Windows 10 Mobile is dead. Windows 10 Mobile is a fine-tuned mobile offshoot of full Windows 10 that also serves as the basis for such products as HoloLens and Surface Hub.

This also does also not mean that Surface phone is dead, or isn't a thing, or whatever. But as I've been saying for some months now, I don't believe that Surface phone is a phone anyway. And that it is instead a mobile device. A ... Surface Mobile, if you will.

Microsoft has taken some big steps to wind down its phone business, most notably in July 2015 when it formally conceded the smartphone market to Apple and Google. Since then, the Windows community has suffered through a fan fiction in which a Continuum feature that never made sense in the first place would rise up and save the platform. After all, Windows phone and Continuum is the nexus of a mobile apps platform that does not exist combined with a PC apps platform that, wait for it, also does not exist. The worst of both worlds, if you will.

But the arrival of Windows 10 on ARM---full Windows 10 on ARM, mind you, not the Mobile version that no one uses---changes everything.

First, as noted above, Windows phone is dead. And if you're one of the few remaining holdouts of this once-great platform, I salute you. Seriously. But it's time to at least start thinking about the future. I personally recommend the iPhone, which I find to be superior to Android in most of the ways that really matter in day-to-day use. That said, Android is also an excellent choice, if only because you have so many options and price points. As I've noted in the past, Android really is the smartphone equivalent of Windows in those regards, and I can see why someone firmly invested in the Microsoft ecosystem would choose Android over iPhone. Whichever you choose, you'll find rich app and content ecosystems, modern features and services, better performance, and other improvements. You'll maybe even wonder why you held out so long. Trust me, I get it: I went through the same thing.

Second, and as important, I am legitimately excited by Microsoft's ongoing embrace of the PC platform. And this move to ARM is perhaps the most exciting step yet.

Think back to my original Windows 10 review. As I wrote at the time, the most exciting thing about Windows 10 is that it signaled---still signals---Microsoft's recalibration around traditional PC users, who make up the vast bulk of the 1.5 billion strong audience that still uses these supposedly-dead devices.

That is, with Windows 8, Microsoft had created a system that worked well with touch-first devices like tablets after a bit of training, but completely ignored and infuriated the base. And instead of over-reacting to that problem in Windows 10, Mi...

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