No point in beating a dead horse, as they say, but two Microsoft-watchers have done just that as they have uncovered a new artifact about the company"s now dead phone hardware division- Lumia.
Gustave M. (@Gus33000) and Indigo (@tfwboredom) have unearthed a long set of gestures that were supposed to ship with the Lumia 950 and 950 XL when they were launched back in November 2015. Apparently, the 950 series was supposed to be a successor to the ill-fated yet ambitious Nokia McLaren. The now cut features included gestures that were originally meant to ship with McLaren such as adapting the keyboard position to how the user holds the phone, locking the screen orientation until the phone is held in a different way.
Indigo shared the discovery via a tweet:
The gestures (not to be confused with Gestures Beta) were being worked on since 2013 and were almost certain to come with the 950/XL until the company changed its mind and killed off most of the gestures including "Double tap to wake", which was added to the phones several months later via a firmware update.
Microsoft had bought Nokia"s phone division back in 2014, and within a couple of years, the already struggling business was at the end of its line with the Redmond company killing off the "Lumia" brand in favor of the elusive, all-powerful "Surface Phone" which won"t be here until 2018. The 950 series impressed us with its out-of-the-box approach, but fell short in several key areas such as performance. Our own Andy Weir wrote of the inconsistencies with the platform and how making excuses was only hurting it.
The fans of the brand have either moved onto other OSes or are latching onto the ecosystem, waiting for the Surface device. However, one can"t help but wonder what could"ve been, an all too familiar feeling among the fans of the platform.
Source: Twitter(@tfwboredom) via MSPoweruser