From PC World:
The ability to respond to text messages received on your phone with the same app on your PC. It’s a dream that’s been a reality for Mac users since 2014, and Windows 10 Mobile users were supposed to get the feature, called Messaging Everywhere, with the Anniversary Update rolling out August 2.
But that’s not happening anymore.
Instead, Microsoft thinks it has a better idea: add Messaging Everywhere to an upcoming version of Skype for Windows 10 PCs.
[...]
“We have been testing with Windows Insiders a preview of the Messaging Everywhere feature...The experience was well-received by Insiders however we believe we can deliver an even better experience through the Skype app,” Microsoft said in its blog post announcing the change.
To sum up: Microsoft is dropping an anticipated feature that the company says was working great in favor of adding it to Skype. Skype. A service that countless individuals have described as being in various states of brokenness for, well, a long time.
The funny thing is, right now you can integrate SMS messages with Skype on Windows 10 Mobile. Doing that is a terrible, terrible idea, however, because it turns your life into a nightmare of pop-up notifications and unread message counts across several apps. If Microsoft can’t get Skype-SMS integration to work properly on phones I do not have high hopes for it as a cross-device experience.I hardly know where to start with this one.
Microsoft are in the last month of a year-long effort to switch as many users to Windows 10 as possible, and Messaging Everywhere is exactly the kind of feature that they can use to sell people on the idea of choosing the new Windows: something their competitors have, that they know people want, and something that's exclusive to the new OS.
So, of course, they're cutting it, in order to push their Skype service. And why not? Skype makes them money, and your text messages don't.
Have Microsoft always been this greedy, and shady, and I just never noticed before? Apart from the whole anti-trust thing, I mean. They just don't seem to care what their customers think at all... unless it looks likely to cost them in court. Then, they care a lot. But not until.
I was just starting to think that MS were maybe starting to turn a corner, when they announced yesterday that they were easing off the GWX strong-arming, but apparently I was mistaken. Or are things so dire in Redmond that they have to do this, for some reason? If so, what is that reason?
Mind-boggling. Truly, mind-boggling.