back to article VMware eases Windows Mobile 10's turn-your-phone-into-a-PC pain

Bleeding-edge early adopters of Windows Mobile 10 have some more balm for their Continuum pains. Microsoft's Continuum lets you connect monitors, keyboards and mice to Windows Mobile phones to convert them into PCs. It fits in with Microsoft's universal app concept: software should just work wherever you're using Windows 10, …

  1. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    Microsoft's universal app concept is a slow moving race to the bottom.

    No matter what platform you run Microsoft software on, you'll end up frustrated and annoyed, wondering why the power features you relied on (because you took the time and effort to become good at your craft) have been taken away so it all appeals to Generation App who lose interest if something pretty and self-validating doesn't happen within five taps in a coffee shop - sorry 'House of Bean'.

  2. James 51

    If I could run stuff like scrivener, calibre and sigil that would be the USP of widows 10 mobile. Even of they had to go to intel for the CPUs (do intel still sell the mobile version of their chips?).

  3. Pascal Monett Silver badge
    Trollface

    Great news

    I'm sure the 5 owners of Windows Phone will be overjoyed.

  4. Warm Braw

    Software should just work wherever you're using Windows 10

    It should, but it doesn't and it won't. It's the consequence of trying to pretend that radically different things are in fact the same thing. Just as "Windows RT" wasn't "Windows" some Windows 10s are not Windows 10 in the way other Windows 10s are Windows 10 [and none of them is Windows 7, unfortunately].

    Try explaining that to application developers, never mind the great unwashed.

  5. YARR

    If they could virtualise to the (Microsoft) cloud via some kind of remote desktop interface, you could "run" your Windows apps from any device...

    1. Anonymous Coward
      WTF?

      Yes, and one has to wonder why Azure doesn't have that as a feature. It's obviously cheaper for Microsoft to host the VM's on Azure since right off the bat they don't have to pay any license fee. Is this due to hosting them a sort of third-rail / red-flag on anti-trust grounds?

  6. Robby-O

    "you've been stuck with trying to get a Citrix client running in the phone's Edge browser."

    Or you could use the Citrix Receiver app, just like on PC, Mac, Android, iOS.....

  7. Scary Biscuits

    There already is a great virtualisation tool for Windows 10 mobile, two in fact: TeamViewer and Microsoft's Remote Desktop. You set up your home PC for automatic remote access and any app you can't run locally you get your beefy home PC. Many apps will always be better like this, e.g. SketchUp or Adobe. Even if apps like these are one day ported to UWP your phone is never going to have enough power to be used for anything serious. This is effectively what HP is offering to the corporate world.

    Continuum is a great concept that really could change how people work.

    The problem remains the ongoing car crash that is Microsoft hardware. From abandoning the flagship 'McLaren' just after they bought Nokia to the we-really-can't-be-bothered-to-get-excited Lumia 950, the catalogue of bugs in the Surface Book, the 'no plans' for the Band (which is approaching a 100% return rate), and the too-little-too-late Xbox One S it's just one dreadful failure to execute after another. SadNad needs to get a grip (or be replaced by somebody who actually gives a damn).

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