The real reason Microsoft killed live tiles 

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A major role is played by Google in their demise ‘cause they didn’t make a single app for it.

Former windows phone developer here. You hit the nail on the head with the horizontal integration. Microsoft’s promise of vertical integration has ok but there wasn’t a user base. Then Microsoft pushed Xamarin hard to encourage horizontal integration on a platform that supported UWP. What resulted was a buggy framework, lackluster apps, and most Xamarin developers choosing to ignore UWP anyway.

Also, in a Freemium service world, where most of the apps rely on ADs for profits, the least an app developer wants is you to know everything you need with a glance staying in your start screen. They want you to click on the app, watch the banners + ADs placed somewhere in the app, only then be satisfied with the information the app provides

I liked the Microsoft Phones. They were thin, light, came with an OLED screen, you could swap the battery by simply removing the case, they had a memory card slot and if you couldn't find an app from the start screen, you could swipe left and got an index of all apps installed. Finally, the live tiles didn't serve for advertising as opposed to the situation in Windows 10 desktop where I still hate the new control center being mixed with the old one and zillions of features without recognizable icons or their icons drastically changed.

I absolutely loved the Live Tiles on Windows Phone; they were such a unique and dynamic feature that made the user experience truly stand out. There were so many innovative features and a fresh approach to the mobile OS landscape. I really wanted Windows Phone to succeed, especially with the exciting plans they had for merging desktop and mobile experiences. It's sad that it didn’t go that way, as it had so much potential to reshape the mobile OS landscape.

There is nowhere near enough scrutiny of Google's role in killing this platform.

If they were live tiles instead of live advertisements, I am sure it could have been a game changer!

I still miss my Lumia. Even compared to other android phones I owned, WP was just really responsive and easy to use. The software didn't bloat the phone, the screen was really bright outside and even if it did not have that many apps the websites functioned properly and the phone looked real slick.

The thing that I loved most with the Windows phones was the smooth navigation of the operating system. Even on low end models.

I really like Windows Phone 8.1. Even on the low budget phone like Lumia 520 (I used to own) the OS was smooth. As a UI/UX designer I try to implement ideas on projects I work on. I recently bought the Lumia 925 for $25 to get a piece of history. I fall in love every time I see the animations❤❤

What was really freaking cool is that any website owner could add Live Tile support with a meta tag pointing to a simple XML be it static or generated by the backend. Support by native apps wasn't hard too implement either. The tools were there, but no one really card because Apple and Google didn't have that. Any app could expose contacts and feeds for the Me tile to display all available information in one place, but nobody cared. Same story with the light/dark mode support and interactive toast notifications until both behemoth competitors yoinked these features into their operating systems. Microsoft was also really vocal with accessibility guidelines and design principles (Metro UI docs was a fascinating read) too and tried to make their platform uniform and friendly for physically impaired users. Windows Phone/Mobile was so far ahead of its time and it still makes me really sad it got crushed by the unhinged 2007 tech bro mindset of app developers (Snapchat's founder was a particularly big piece of shit) and disinterest for novelty and innovation of general public

I cant imagine a better and more support worthy sponsor than Ecosia, these exactly are the ads I want to see from my favorite creators.

Roots bloody roots..... I don't know why I am happy to see a Sepultura album cover on a video about Windows Phones

the thing is, Live tiles are still better shortcuts than static grid of icons. because of how you can organize them, change size depending on your personal priorities or if it has good live tile feature, plus I much prefer scrollable home screen than pages, although combination can be used as well. This is why I still use tiles with SquareHome on Android. widgets as live tiles feel much less bloated and more precisely constrained, plus it doesn't take genius to guess that tapping on a tile that shows current weather would get you to weather app. Some apps with more ambiguous notifications can still retain some style or icon in the corner so you can tell what it belongs to, not to mention that you can color-code the tile background to associate with certain apps. all these cues + specific arrangement of tiles makes finding what you want much easier, and generally remembering the layout. With stupid grid of icons you don't have much of a layout to begin with, and I don't know why everyone ended up stuck with this crap which originated in some launchers for Windows Mobile 5/6 and somehow 20 years later it's still same.

I never really was a fan of the tiles (I like my smooth rounded corners) but I have to give Microsoft credit for one thing about Windows Phone: These things were BUTTERY smooth. My grandma used to have some cheap 100€ Nokia Windows Phone and even after 3 years when it had a hard time even loading web pages, the OS itself was still unrealistically smooth.

What do you mean Apple never showed interest in copying the system? IOS widgets are basically live tiles, the widget page is functionally identical to a WP home-screen!

Live tiles are still amazing. The biggest killing factor is that there just aren't that many UWP apps, and almost no third party UWP apps actually use live tiles. Games used to use Live tiles back in 2014 but they don't anymore. I tried my best to find apps with live tiles but there are barely any.

I always thought the Live Tiles concept was so cool and unique. I remember jailbreaking my first iPod touch just so I could install a "Windows Live tiles" theme so I could try it out (without having to have a Windows phone)!

I never had a Windows phone, but to this day I admire its appearance.

This might be the first time I've been thrilled by a sponsorship! Ecosia deserves much more promotion!

It's been 8 years since I stopped using my windows phone. Nothing I have used since even comes close to the tile screen.

I've had a Windows Phone and loved it. The lack of apps pushed me back to Android where - for years - I used SquareHome launcher. Even on a folding phone or a tablet, SquareHome works perfectly. I've recently finally switched to a more folder-oriented setup (with Folder Widget app) which still has somewhat of a resemblance to tiles. I've always found the default Android icon & desktop setup to be incredibly boring and ugly.

Great video as always, but I don't think you talked enough about the fact that part of the idea of live tiles was to pull together windows pc and the Microsoft phone, but the vast majority of pc users never even saw a windows phone in their life and just resented the changes that seemed to be a backwards step for the pc.

Live tiles I never really cared for. But the Tiles themselves were in my opinion really good for navigation. You had everything in one scrollable screen. I would increase the size of the most used ones, reduce the size of the least used ones. Put the ones that I only use occasionally further down the screen. Of course I do agree that the icons should be identifiable so in general I preferred when a tile had the app's icon in it. I loved tiles also in Windows and that has gone away with Windows 11. I pressed the windows key and saw a customized app drawer to get me access to all the apps I use frequently, and then I could still search for an app like previous windows'

I need to study this video for all the animations you have done! I loved Windows phone start screen animations and this video seems to have tried to recapture many of them right!

I loved the windows 10 menu live tiles options. It really grew and I find it useful.

Every failed piece of technology has its fans. Just think about the minority who like small phones.

I'm one of those Windows Phone lovers. Still have a Lumia 950 around to look at it from time to time. Maybe the Live Tiles have not been perfect on anything, but what Windows Phone / Windows 10 Mobile offered was a simple glanceable overview over all the important stuff going on, without switching through multiple home screens. Neither Android nor iOS give me this feeling of being on top of my information by just open the phone, and a quick scroll over your home screen.

Love to see you're still smashing it Marton!

The Nokia Lumia 1020 with Windows 8 was my first smartphone. The live functionality of the tiles was not of big interest, but I loved the minimalistic aesthetic of the OS design. Now I use Android and the colorful rounded icons are in no way a pleasing sight. What was also awesome with the Lumia 1020, is that it had a 720p OLED display and it had AOD before Android did. 720p is tze sweetspot for phones in my opinion, because it's perfectly sharp but doesn't waste battery life in unnecessary resolution to be processed. My current phone has a 4K display and it runs in 720p mode since I got it.

Loved windows phone so much. I have a couple screenshots of my homescreen that I still look at once in awhile. Even if they weren’t live the variable sizes and lack of wasted corner space….

As another reformed Windows Phone advocate, your words hurt because they ring true.

I thought this was a couple years old video with that thumbnail and title. Really miss Windows Phone sometimes.

use to have one, live tiles may look too simple but once you own it, you feel different in cool way, too bad not many devs work on it

Oh yes, I was also a huge fan of the Nokia Lumias and Windows Phone/Windows 10 Mobile with the Live Tiles! I really regretted that Windows 10 Mobile was discontinued back then. Today, after Microsoft and Windows 11 took a completely wrong turn, with Windows cluttered with advertising and becoming an extreme data octopus, I'm glad I'm no longer at home in this ecosystem. But the Live Tile concept on the smartphone was (and still is) the best of all UIs.

live tiles are the absolute best. i honestly never had the problem of not finding my apps. the thing that killed windows phonen was lack of google services.

The reason I bought the HTC Windows phone 8s was the Metro UI ❤ But later I found out that it didn’t even had an Instagram App nor it did had an auto rotate toggle 💀 Sold it within 4 months 😅

The failed live tiles concept was the least of the problems. I worked as a developer for the WP platform and even after 4 years of the system core development apis was missing. The intial WP7 version was impossible to work on, even the most basic multi tasking features was missing (like backgrond tasks and multitask events). WP7 was trans as WP8 as well. With 8.2 its started coming together but it was already too late. The only developers who remained supporting the OS with apps was just the fans. At least it paid the bills for me for a few years. It had a lots of interesting features and the design language of the UI is great and in the later stages developing apps for it was super easy. But the market was never there. This project alogside with the attemps on desktop Windows was a huge flop, and not like MS didn't believed in it! Now MS is a much more lean and progressive company what continuously makes great decisions.

I really wouldn't have minded if these had come back as widgets on the Surface Duo. Still love using that phone.

I’m glad Michael is bringing back keyboard on phones, but I wish we never lost windows phones..

@1:00 that was a nice editing touch with the “Rose tinted glasses” 👌

I still use what is little left of them on Win 10, was always very fond of them. Also, when I had to design a menu once I went for tiles-like layout, just because of how clean, simple, and functional they are

I loved Windows phone, but I never had live tiles active on anything but the News feed. I couldn't imagine having half the tiles updating constantly.

God, I love the content you make. I love you make these insightful dives irrespective of what is popular at the time!!

yall gotta try full screen windows 10 start menu, looks very clean.

My whole life I have been tinkering with Android phones and OSes. I've used and coded KLWP multiple times. I've used every mainstream launcher out there. I sorted my apps into many different layouts. Nothing comes remotely close to the Square Home Launcher that is Windows-like with tiles, yet it uses Android widgets for the live tiles to display weather, music, etc... Very customizable

Nokia Maps ecosystems of 2012 was ahead of any Maps application today. Indoor maps for shopping malls, AR, maps and navigation in different apps so no fuss on using them both at the same time, complete offline functionality (I had 100 MB a month at this time), the list could go on and on.

It's my first time watching your video and I'm very happy that you accurately understand what us devs think about when building for multiple platforms. Thank you very much.

As a Windows Phone fan, I've been waiting for such a video for a long time!

I used Windows phone until 2019. And the only reason I stopped is because the battery crapped out. I loved it, but it was slowly falling behind the times. There was no RU-vid, Instagram and many other local apps. However, I appreciated the fact that some of the UI, eg in Music app, was so unique. And the camera was superb. The colours were not boring. I also loved that the phone never hang even with the limited specs. I had to move to Android though, but I always wished that other apps or OSes could copy some of Microsoft's homework (except the tiles) like the fluidity and UI of apps. I thought I was weird for liking Windows but I am grateful that other people appreciate the good things about it

Excellent overview! A shared experience helps clarify some of the major reasons why this failed. Thanks for sharing!

I worked at Best Buy back in 2014. I loved Windows 8. The big tiles were awesome, in my opinion. It was so easy to set up, but people were so confused. I just never understood it. I worked as a Geek Squad agent and I'd do small Windows 8 lessons with customer groups. It was really fun.

Windows Phone 💔

The UI was cool as every app was showing some updates right where u placed it as well as how easy it was to traverse frequently used apps.

Microsoft missed out on Smartphones which would have helped with the UI for Gaming Handhelds. The user experience on Handhelds is frustrating.

Convergence was a popular concept of that era. The idea that a single application would run on all our devices and have a similar interface. Its great in concept, but reality proved otherwise. We all interact with different platforms (computer, tablet, phone, console) in fundamentally different ways, both physically and mentally.

You can still use live tiles on mobile. I do (Launcher 10 and Square Home both have that).

I loved that UI too!

im still using live tiles on my home screen in the form of "Square Home Launcher", it's highly customizable!

I used Windows Phone back in the day and absolutely loved it. But this was the Ballmer era of Microsoft where so many easy wins were completely fumbled, this among them. They had the war chest to basically fund all the top apps in the world to make the best versions of themselves for the platform, but instead Ballmer decided to spend billions buying Nokia for no good reason and just assumed developers would show up to a distant third place platform, which basically conceded the market to Apple and Google. And oh yeah, trying to shoehorn this excellent touch interface into a mouse-driven OS.

Absolutely loved the Windows phone and the integration features inside some of the apps where it simply was not like any other phone or application in today’s smart devices. The way that the social media accounts synced into your phone and having the capability to scroll through a timeline but within the Windows Phone UI and how that UI style flowed into Zune was a magic time. Sad it’s gone.

Bro was the only person in the world who loved the tiles format, i hated it back when i had a windows phone

Square Home is much better than Launcher 10 IMO, but that likely comes from the fact I used tiles in a very specific way, making the background transparent and hiding names so I ended up with only monochromatic icons and live tiles with white text and simple symbols only also android widgets tend to be ugly and hugely inconsistent

I think Microsoft was just too early on the road towards vertical integration. Because it's more difficult to properly support multiple form factors and input devices with a single code base. Also mobile devices needed much more optimization regarding efficiency and performance. So it was the obvious choice as developer to strive for horizontal integration. These days it's much more different. You can have horizontal integration with Linux applications because they also run on Windows via WLS and running them on macOS isn't impossible either (many times you can cross-compile, it just works or you can use a VM). But you can also have vertical integration with Linux apps as well, running them on Linux tablets or phones. A single code base can simply cover all form factors and platforms because pretty sufficient open-source frameworks and toolkits exist. So maybe we will see something like the ecosystem Microsoft envisioned but much more open and free for users and developers to work with.

One of the major failures for metro tiles was the lack of user customization without 3rd party apps. Microsoft locked it down to an annoying level where you were at the whim of the developer to actually implement. Without being able to actually customize the tiles (add icon, images, size variation for some) it became limited to a degree that became determental. Honestly, tiles and start menu/task bar customization is a larger reason that I've kept windows 10. Everyday use apps pinned to task bar. power user and hardware apps tiled on start and stylized with 3rd party software. Microsoft tossed it out to die when they locked user ability to utilize its potential when devs didn't.

This could work well with eye tracking like in the vision pro / quest pro. As where you're looking would be essentially be an input and decouple it from scrolling with your hand.

I like it because I can change the size of the icon. In Windows 10, I just put them in the live tile and vary the sizes depending on how often I use them, rather than putting them on the taskbar. The taskbar is only used to pin web browsers and file explorers. I don't like pinning an app on the taskbar, as it can easily misclick or get cluttered when multiple programs are opened. I do agree that the notification and "live" in the live tile can be confusing.

The reason I liked tiles (not "live" tiles specifically) was that they allowed a grid layout in the start menu, something long overdue. But I also liked the customization that came with them, I liked being able to change the width of the start menu, I liked grouping, arbitrary layouts and perhaps to a lesser extent changing the size of the tiles themselves. The fact that I don't really mind tiles being gone now that the Windows 11 start menu has a grid layout with plain old icons only reinforces that belief.

I used a nokia windows phone for about 4 months in 2018 and absolutely loved it. But was a young teen who liked that it happened to have a great radio so i could get signal when camping while everyone else couldnt

It still looks so clean and futuristic

You really went for a consistend look in this video. Chapeau!

I loved my Lumia 920, experience was something else. With windows now on snapdragon, msft should bring back the windows phone, would be a great addition to the surface lineup

I loved windows phones and as an smartphone user who keeps the bare minimum of apps on my device at all times it was a great phone for me but it lacked key apps which prevented mainstream adaption.

The tiles in Windows 10 were cool for like throwing your steam library there for quick acces without filling your desktop for example but, for the most part, if you wanted quick acces to something you were better off just using the task bar or desktop shortcuts.

I had the Lumia 1020 and i LOVED the phone. Had one of the best cameras with videos holding up quite good up to day!

I think part of the issue is that it can work for power users, but maybe not as much for anyone else. For example, you could have a plethora of icons with different conversations with multiple people across multiple apps on the home screen, and open them as you showed, and a dedicated start button for the app, but that means the app makers don't have people entering their apps and getting revenue out of their ads. Though I harshly disagree on Metro not working on Xbox. If anything, a controller control just does not work with something that isn't heavily structured, and Metro is on the more structured side. That's why Steam Big Picture is similar and Switch is similar - when you have to choose up and down, you better have the stuff clearly visible up and down.

I am using an Android launcher called Square Home just to get the Windows Phone UI + "Live Tiles" back. I love the UI so much, and to me it's actually feels like you are using your whole screen instead of small icons everywhere.

Great analysis, as usual. I'm also a 'recovering' Windows Phone fan, and actually a Windows defector, as last year I moved all my PCs to Linux. Microsoft has given up on trying to design better user experiences and transformed into a 'money first, spying second, anything else last' kind of company, like Adobe.

I’ve never used tiles but in a bottle it seems cool. I wonder if they kept working with it they would have overcome the issues?

Love the editing!

I loved my Nokia Windows phone. Much underrated - but you are clearly highlighting the shortfalls of it...

For those of us of a certain age, live tiles were a flashback to Windows 1.0. Its interface was composed of non-overlapping, resizeable tiles, with active content. It also had a black bar across the bottom of the display, which was the MS-DOS command line. Compare that to the Windows 8 taskbar or the black bar up the right side of the earlier versions of Windows Phone. Then there were the default color choices looking very much like the standard CGA cyan, magenta, white, and black. It just looked like Windows 1.0 High Definition 2010 Edition.

My brother in law gave me a Windows Phone when they first came out. And I used it for a year, and I liked it. I didn't have any problems with it.

People of the 2010s needed Angry birds and fart buttons insted.

I always liked the Windows Phone UI. I actually used Launcher 10 on Android for years to have a Windows Phone-like experience.

The issue is that Microsoft while having good or unique ideas can't stand for them. They bring something new, they try it for some time, then when it starts adopting slowly they not only NOT IMPROVE what the brought just a year-two-three ago, they forget about this cool thing they added and stop slowdown its adoption on their side. This happened to everything Win mobile related, such as UWP apps, such as tiles, such as their design ideas, such as the same core OS for all devices, etc. For some reason, if their feature, idea, OS, update or something like that doesn't stick instantly, they just fall back and either restart or slowly forget about the job done. They killed or rewrote so many of their stuff in recent 10-15 years that I'm still amazed that some stuff from them still works such as Onenote not being killed or forgotten for some reason (ok it 's a part of an office), or Microsoft to do app not changing much.

Would always be my favorite GTUI

When I tried Windows Phone then I felt that I lost in jungle. Claustrophobic for me :D

Still rocking Launcher 10 on my android in everyday use that emulates WP pretty well. Now if only I could ever get that Blackberry hub ever again. All the notifications, chats, and emails in one place. Delicious.

02:46 SEPULTURA CARALHO

That said, I still miss my live tiles on Windows 11 and on my phone.

I used to love live tiles too, had a Lumia 1020 as my daily back then.

I loved the original windows phone UI bc it was by design usable with only the thumb, without havint to do the across-the-screen-stretch

Never used a WIndows phone, but as a super visual person, I absolutely hate how live tiles look. I've already been slowly revamping my windows 11 PC with new icons for different folders because I NEED visuals to help me easily and quickly search through things. I would hate the idea of using the same colored tiled with just different icons. At that point it's gonna be as slow as just reading the names to find what I want, like on the default windows experience where every folder looks the same.

Yeah there are lots of *cool* things that don't actually make any sense ultimately - live tiles are a great software example.

I loved Live Tiles on Windows Phone but never really cared for the "live" aspect of them. It was great being able to resize the tiles to give priority to my most used apps. And being able to make them transparent with a background image was the height of home screen nirvana. But one pet peeve I've always had with live tiles was how Microsoft absolutely refused to design a home screen that was aesthetically pleasing right out of the box. Sure, I didn't mind customizing my home screen, but that's not what people saw when they looked at demo units in the store. What most people saw was a color vomit of mishmash tiles all crammed together without any care or cohesion.

Windows was an amazing phone of its time. I got it in my 3rd grade. It had amazing app store because Indian government thought that this was going to replace Android. The camera was far ahead of its time and the best thing is the speakers that came with it. But after 2016 the quality of apps went bad. I accidentally broke the screen and I had to parcel phone to 25 km away to get it fixed because of lack of service centres. The back panel was too fragile. It broke even if you used covers. I stopped using it when it's battery got pregnant and I couldn't find a new battery even in the most wealthiest city of india, Chandigarh. Later I shifted to Samsung

2:49 Brazil is here 🇧🇷

I loved live tiles on PC because I used them as widgets to make up for the notification centre kinda being trash. I also pinned all kinds of important but lesser used apps to the start menu in W10. But the W11 start menu is just awful, and the widgets menu is hidden away and very few apps bother supporting it compared to tiles. I replaced the start menu with StartAllBack, so I doubt the widgets next to the start menu will even work for me when it comes lmao