The Microsoft Surface Duo Is in Trouble

Zac Bowden, reporting for WindowsCentral: Microsoft's dual-screen foldable smartphone has seemingly been abandoned. At least, that's how it looks on the outside. The last major software update the Surface Duo received was in October 2022, when the company delivered Android 12L. Since then, movement on new features and bug fixes has pretty much ground to a halt. A major OS update often comes with a couple of months of bug fixing afterward to iron out any new issues that may have popped up with all the new changes that a major OS release brings. That's not the case with Android 12L on the Surface Duo. Microsoft pushed out this update and has fixed just one bug since. Android 12L for Surface Duo was not a perfect release, and it did introduce new issues users assumed would be fixed in due course, but that hasn't happened.

The company has continued to release Android security updates, but the changelogs for these monthly updates make no mention of general OS fixes or improvements, which implies Microsoft is doing the bare minimum for these releases. Even then, the bare minimum clearly wasn't enough in April, as the Surface Duo failed to receive the April 2023 security update, marking the first time since the device launched that Microsoft has failed to issue an up-to-date security patch for the device. And it's not just the OS that's being neglected, Microsoft's own Android app teams seem to have abandoned the Surface Duo too. SwiftKey just recently got updated with Bing AI capabilities, which is awesome and it works across a wide range of Android smartphones, including the latest Samsung devices. But the feature is not available on Surface Duo.

Microsoft continues to fail at phones...

[MikeDataLink]

maybe stop buying them? :-)

Microsoft continues to fail at computers hardware

[Anonymous Cward]

FTFY. Business customers found out just how unserviceable their Surface Pro lineup was very early on, paving the way for OEMs like HP to offer cheaper and more repairable drop-in replacements.

Re: Microsoft continues to fail at phones...

[1s44c]

I thought they gave up entirely on phones after the whole Nokia disaster. I had no idea they had another go. Not surprised it utterly failed though.

Microsoft should try making vacuum cleaners. It's the only thing they could make that wouldn't suck.

Re:

[dbialac]

I see not having new features added all of the time as a plus. Look at this:

• Step 1: Make a phone.
• Step 2: Provide updates and don't add features so a developer can justify their job.
• Step 3: Profit

Hey, there actually is a step 2!

Re:

[Tablizer]

The first MS product that doesn't randomly reshuffle features on you just claim "New New!".

Re:

[big-giant-head]

M$ Phone going down in flames!! I'm shocked I tell you, completely shocked! Haha. At this point I think you're better off buy a no name android phone from walmart than M$.

Re:

[doubledown00]

It's a damn shame too. I had an HP Elite with their Windows mobile OS and *really* liked it. I was salivating at the possibility of being able to use my phone in a docking station for a Windows Desktop experience and being able to leave the laptop at home.

I didn't know they were still selling them

[dmay34]

Yeah, i would say they were in trouble. I thought they were discontinued a few years ago.

Do you know a single person that owns one?

Re:I didn't know they were still selling them

[Jhon]

"Do you know a single person that owns one?"

Hi. Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Jhon. And I own a Surface Duo phone.

(Hi, Jhon).

I thought I had broken my microsoft habit a long time ago -- I've been microsoft phone free for over 12 years! But along came this neat, dual screen android phone -- from MICROSOFT of all things! I LIKED the idea of two screens! I was able to steer clear of the device for a while, but then it kept cropping up on discount sites and finally, at $199, I pulled the trigger! 12 years on the wagon down the drain!

Honestly, it's a decent little android computer. Not as good as a newer galaxy, but good enough to make it useful for desktop remoting and even some virtual machines. As a phone it's clumsy (and that's being kind), but it works. It's not my daily driver/work phone -- but I take it with me when I travel (just switching sims). I wouldn't pay anything near retail for it, but it hit a price point that I could see pulling the trigger for it as a useful "toy". Glad I bought it. I'd slap someone who paid retail.

Re:

[Gilgaron]

I got one because the boring rectangles were boring and my old iPhone was long in the tooth. It... has been an experience, a very near miss at a winner. Looking forward to seeing if the Google Pixel Fold can be what I thought this would be.

Re:

[_merlin]

Are you the same "Jhon" who starred in a series of point-of-view style pornographic films shot in Hong Kong and the Philippines? If you are, then your work is pretty different to mine.

Re:

[Jhon]

HA.

No. Totally different Jhon. But I get a ton of Filipino spam.

MS is just getting more efficient

[fahrbot-bot]

Microsoft's dual-screen foldable smartphone has seemingly been abandoned.

They're skipping straight to Extinguish. :-)

Somewhere I read they had given up...

[rickb928]

Maybe just the original? But the Duo I thought was ack'd as abandoned. Don't remember where.

Re:

[PsychoSlashDot]

Maybe just the original? But the Duo I thought was ack'd as abandoned. Don't remember where.

Nope. Just news outlets mentioning a few months back that there likely won't be a Duo 3.

I accept that there may not be a future device. There are now more choices in similar form-factor. And I have zero bugs or issues with my original Duo, so whatever these new bugs introduced by 12L are, they aren't universal. But a three-year commitment is a three-year commitment, and I expect security updates until September at earliest.

Microsoft threw everything away to Google

[xack]

They had an independent phone OS, an independent browser, then they slowly let Google do to them what they tried to do with Netscape. Now that the UK CMA ruled against them I expect Xbox will probably be next to go, and only having "anti-cheat" stopping them from being beaten by Proton on the PC side.

Re:

[drinkypoo]

They had an independent phone OS, an independent browser, then they slowly let Google do to them what they tried to do with Netscape.

It was pretty rapid, actually. It only took a few short years for them to squander any developer goodwill Windows might have had as far as being trusted by mobile developers, by switching the APIs you had to use to make apps for their platform three times in rapid succession. Microsoft didn't let Google do anything to them, they did it to themselves.

Re:

[StormReaver]

...by switching the APIs you had to use to make apps for their platform three times in rapid succession.

That just proves that Steve Ballmer was right: Windows is so bad that it would have died decades ago if Microsoft didn't control the API that developers were forced to use.

Re:

[Luthair]

The idea that Windows Phone 7 (or later) was ever going to be successful with consumers was always fiction in 2010. Consumers had repeatedly shown that they had no interest in Microsoft's services abandoning them for Google and Apple.

Re:

[mobby_6kl]

It was in no way inevitable though. They just made a lot of dumb moves that doomed it.

It's literally over a decade now so this just from memory, but there was no compatibility for WM6 apps or APIs. It didn't support native code. You had to pay MS money for the privilege of developing for the platform. You couldn't sideload apps. And, of course, they didn't do copy and paste either.

They had an existing, if shrinking, customer base in WM6. That got killed off completely, and the new platform repeated all the

Re:

[KlomDark]

The final one (The 960? 930?) with Windows 10 Mobile was finally perfect. Best phone I have ever had, I miss it. But then it was too late for the app developers and it died. I knew it was dying when I went to a Microsoft-sponsored conference, and they had custom apps for the event for iPhone and Android, but not for their own phone. Like WTF Microsoft...

Re:

[CAIMLAS]

Windows CE/Windows Mobile had a quick, self-inflicted death. It died before Android even really became a competitor to iPhone/Blackberry - people were putting Android on eg. the HTC HD2, for instance, which was one of the last usable Windows CE devices, but even the lackluster Android 2.0/2.2 was far superior.

Windows has always been a miserable, lesser experience (in terms of support and stability) vs alternatives, regardless of the hardware platform.

Re:

[dbialac]

I would have to disagree. There were reports that carrier store employees were pushing customers away from Windows Mobile. I actually bought 3, and each one was a great experience, but I'm not a millennial who uses a lot of apps. Neither were many of the customers they pushed away. It was far faster than any Android I've ever used, even this many years on. Were it not for the lack of security updates, I'd still be using mine.

Microsoft hardware support

[jdawgnoonan]

This is why I no longer jump on board for Microsoft hardware or customer facing services. They are so apt to start things and then just drop them when they do not become instant successes. I got burned by Windows Phone, XBox Music, and have read of enough other times when they halfheartedly release new products and then just drop them that I am done trusting new things from Microsoft that are not part of their primary customer product portfolio. It just is not worth the risk. Microsoft needs to just go with being an enterprise focused company with Windows and XBox being their only truly customer focused products because that is really all that they are good at.

Re:

[HBI]

If you saw how confused things are internally, you'd never by MSFT hardware again. Except the mice, those seem to continue to be usable.

Re: Microsoft hardware support

[1s44c]

The mice have zero to do with Microsoft except the branding. They just stamp their name on Logitech mice and customers buy them.

Not that I'm saying they're is anything wrong with Logitech mice.

Re:

[HBI]

MSFT manufactures its own hardare. It may be buying OEM components from the same people Logitech does. In any event, soon we'll be talking about "Surface mice" and such since they've decided to remove the MSFT branding. Not the brightest move in the world, but what do you expect.

Re:

[thegarbz]

That is absolutely false, and it was false even before they introduced their Surface line of devices. Microsoft has had a dedicated hardware design business for 4 decades now, and the mice are their own.

Re:

[thegarbz]

Except the mice, those seem to continue to be usable.

Yeah about that... https://www.theverge.com/2023/... [theverge.com]

Re:

[HBI]

I mentioned that in one of the replies, but see this for what it is - a rebrand rather than them ending their line. It's profitable. I think they'll sell better with the MSFT name on it, but no one said Microsoft made smart decisions.

Re:

[dbialac]

I've been quite happy with my Surfacebook. It's an unusual form factor, but IMO that's one of the major pluses to it. I've recently upgraded it to a Surface Laptop Studio. It's a great computer, but I'll concede it's a little bit heavy when I go backpacking in Europe.

Re:

[jdawgnoonan]

So far they have stuck with the Surface devices for Windows, and I have had two Surface Pros. Although, my iPad Pro is a better tablet and faster too.

Re:

[Tablizer]

So MS is to hardware what Google is to software.

Hey Old Man

[Luthair]

mobile is so last month, we AI now.

But isn't Microsoft 100% ChatGPT now?

[aergern]

Maybe all those layoffs we're great. Get ChatGPT to fix issues and push them out. /s

Only Greatest phone Ever

[MSP Provider]

I have one Surface Duo not the Duo 2 and is the single best phone I have ever had and use it as my only and main phone every day. Granted took a week or so to get used to it, but once you get used to running 2 apps at the same time, one on each screen or using the 2nd screen to type long-ish email replies out of the road, you never will go back is like having dual screens on your PC and then going back to single screen, it just hurts. Until you hold and use one you have no idea how amazing it is. I though

Re:

[Gilgaron]

For multitasking it can't be beat at the size it is; the camera was the biggest downside for me. But for work and having authentication apps on one side? Awesome time saver. Mini-laptop mode with a keyboard on one side is nice too. If the software side of things had been as it is now at release I think it would've been a hit and the camera on the Duo 2 would've sated most of the rest.

Maybe another headline should come first

[Opportunist]

"MS still makes phones"

I can't be the only one who didn't think they did.

From surface...

[ctrl-alt-canc]

...straight to the sinkhole.