This, basically.

As someone with anxiety issues, online FORUMS are fantastic, as they allow for shared discussion. I'll be damned how the gaming community, not known for there most sympathetic nature as a whole, would help in these situations.

I'm reminded of that all-time great, http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/03/19

I totally agree. Owned (and loved owning) two 360's, but I won't be touching the One with a barge pole. Microsoft seems to have taken the relative success of the 360 as a "Well, now we can do what the fuck we like".

Everyone hits social media, hard - their name won't be worth toffee in the tech world. Which is ironically who they are trying to sell to.

Make it clear you wouldn't do business with them - and wait until they relent.

Well, as I understand it, the 360 did well in the 'longer haul' of this generation. While the clear winner was the Wii, it has effectively been dead for a couple of years, with the 360 making leads over the PS3 in Europe and I believe, the US?

So... if Microsoft see the 720 as being 'potentially a success' on its own two legs, what would MS do? Given recent history, they'd find a way of jamming Metro into it, somehow. I can see the 720 as being some Windows RT inspired device, aimed at being to your living room what your WP8 is when you're mobile, your Windows Surface device when you're semi-mobile, and your Windows 8 desktop when you're at a desk.

The fact that WP8, Surface and Windows 8 are clearly failing (miserably, in the case of WP8 and Surface) is unlikely to deter MS - Ballmer has been one of the most stubborn CEO's in recent history. His strategy to keep doing the wrong thing, no matter what sales, user feedback, OEM feedback might say is quite remarkable. Zune will succeed! Oh. Well, WP7 will succeed! Oh... er... XNA is doing well in the indie market, let's scrap it! .Net's entrenched in business and enterprise, let's suggest it's second class now! Let's buy Skype and just screw it in to everything we do! Let's do the Surface hardware on our own, our OEM partners will be fully supportive!

I seriously believe a Magic 8 Ball running Microsoft would do a better job, as decisions made entirely by random would have a better chance of sometimes being successful.

If Ballmer continues on this route, either MS will win massively in the long run (by being such an incredible visionary that he blind-sided the entire technology market, and all his ideas thus far have been part of some master plan), or (seemingly more likely) he will run them into the ground, until there's nothing left but a software company looking for a buy out.

And I'm fairly pro-Microsoft. For /., I'd actually be a fan boi.

On the level you're coming at it from, it's wonderful.

I hope it's taken that way. I hope people laugh at the joke...

He'll be able to do even more awful TV adverts for crappy insurance companies!

Brains in a jar with an ethernet port.

Thanks for taking the time to respond - but I have got to question "(a) not wanting to maintain software on an unpopular platform that is causing lots of problems for developers", assuming what's said about the similarities between the Trident v6 for WP8 and for Windows desktop are correct.

I'm fairly sure Windows 7 & 8 users who use IE10 will be deemed popular enough to warrant support(?).

As for "(b) not wanting people to use unsupported Google products because they *will* conclude that Google products are bad." - the warning message for IE6 users on YouTube, explaining their experience may not be optimal due to their choice of browser, would seem a better solution than redirecting around the entire product?

And I agree with shutdown below, it's a web app. Microsoft have significantly raised their game on support of HTML standards - it seems a weird time to be barring their users access to services on the basis of their choice of device.

Can anyone tell me if IE10 on Windows Phone 8 supports location via the browser?

If it can, surely Google win, MS win (by not having their phone blocked by arguably the market leader in consumer digital mapping) and the users of the phones win?

and I'm a huge Google Products fan boy.

That being said, this is stupid, and 'evil' (For their use of 'evil', not "just like the Nazi's" evil).

Intentionally blocking any browser is insane. They have tools already for saying "This version of this browser is known not to work well with this product", without needing to block the product entirely. It's nothing more than Google leveraging its position to block Windows Phone 8 - which is a shitty, cheap thing to do, and something they would have bitched like hell about if MS had done it back when they were the big dog.

It's something I really wouldn't have associated with Google, so clearly I need to re-evaluate my thoughts on them. I didn't see them as a Saint - in fact I viewed all transactions as "I pay for this product with my personally identifiable information so you can sell more ads". But that MO would require them to allow as many people to use their services as possible - not blocking people in some sort of petty attack.

You don't have to be a Windows Phone user to be offended by this.

As someone who responded, my 14 families are all grateful that the MP's have listened to reason.

Now, back to redtube.

Surely Google can do their own version of Santa flying, anyway?

I don't believe it's exclusive, trade-secret information. Or even particularly accurate - is Santa REALLY over France at that exact moment?

I am loving Mint. I had a look at Mint 13 a while ago, and Ubuntu 12.10. I downloaded the Mint 14 RC a few nights ago.

And I liked what I saw enough to dive into something Linux-ie on my desktop. And I decided I prefer KDE for my desktop. And I prefer regular updates to big version changes, so I opted for LMDE KDE. I actually stuck around long enough to have an opinion on gnome vs KDE. The KDE menu is awesome - like a highly customizable version of the Windows 7 Start - very impressed.

So I'm dual booting Windows 8 and Mint - and Mint is getting a lot more use at the moment. In fact, if I could just find a way to get the bloody Steam beta to install on Mint, I'd spend even more time there. But I know it will come as they sort things out.

I think the Windows AppStore is a POS (can't search, WTF)

I had that problem for the longest time, too. You've got to remember, the Charm bar is "app specific". So when you're in Windows Store, the 'Search' charm works as a 'Search AppStore'.

Don't get your hopes up, though, it's still pretty shite.

From the Windows Mobile, generic brand days of the HTC Universal (T-Mobile MDA Pro), HTC Advantage (T-Mobile Ameo - 5 inch touch-screen device with a built-in 1.8 inch hard-drive), HTC Touch Dual, and then I moved to Android with them - onto the HTC Desire HD.

All have been great phones in their way (Except the Ameo, which was a lousy phone, but an awesome smartphone in a pre-smartphone world) - and I loved my first step into Android with the Desire HD - a proper flag-ship phone for them, at the time of launch.

But the generic shite they've been releasing recently, with zero innovation, zero risk - it's been cookie-cutter Android phones.

HTC has become a short way of saying 3.7 inch - 4.8 inch touch screen with so-so camera, so-so processor, so-so RAM, no replaceable battery, and no expandable storage. There's nothing really 'wrong' with them, but they're lacking something interesting. For a company that thought "Hey, there might be a market for a 5 inch Windows Mobile 5.0 device wrapped in leather, 2 inches thick, that can only be used as a phone with a Bluetooth headset, with a magnetic bolt-on keyboard" and took the risk to create it in 2007, they've become a risk-averse generic Android manufacturer.

Which is why my new phone is a Samsung Galaxy Note 2 - my first ever Samsung device. It it provides something unique. HTC is no longer unique. They're the beige box of the Android world, currently. I hope they recover - but it's looking unlikely.