Windows Mobile is my favorite example of ecosystems being more valuable than individual user experiences. They came out later and really managed to hit a bright spot in between the customizability of Android and the sleekness of iOS.
But without the deep app ecosystem backing them up, I'm not sure we're going to see any new players emerge in this current form factor of mobile computing.
All fail at providing anything like a competitive answer to Android and iOS dominance.
What I see are all the big players lining up to take a crack at Augmented Reality when the tech hits a sweet spot sometime in the next 5-10 years. That's the reason for the crazy investments in MagicLeap, etc. it's a bet on being able to muscle into the absolutely massive mobile ecosystem.
So far we've seen:
- Amazon fail - Microsoft fail - Facebook fail (killed internally)
All fail at providing anything like a competitive answer to Android and iOS dominance.
What I see are all the big players lining up to take a crack at Augmented Reality when the tech hits a sweet spot sometime in the next 5-10 years. That's the reason for the crazy investments in MagicLeap, etc. it's a bet on being able to muscle into the absolutely massive mobile ecosystem.