Not a week goes by that I don’t miss Windows Phone. To this day, it remains the only OS that would genuinely drag me away from my iPhone. Don’t hate me for saying it, but the iPhone still offers me a superior user experience over Android, at least in my experience. I’ve tried Android many times, and quite frankly, I really don't like it.
Then again, I don’t hate Android with a burning passion, either, and I did recently stumble across something that might make me reconsider. ztOS is a new operating system designed to look and feel exactly like Windows Phone 8.1. It’s built on Arch Linux for ARM, complete with its own suite of apps.
According to the project notes, the ztMETRO shell and its components are written in C and accelerated with OpenGL. It also includes an SDK for building apps in Python and Qt, along with an updater to keep the system maintained. It’s a surprisingly robust setup for a passion project.
Windows Phone lives through Linux and AI
There is a catch, as usual. Currently, the project seemingly only works on the Samsung Galaxy S9. The project itself is in alpha, so expect some bugs and install at your own risk.
And yes, whether you care or not, the project is spearheaded by Claude. Because, well, everything seemingly happens through AI coding now. I’m guilty of it myself, having jumped on the FreeMyTV bandwagon to debloat my TV, improve performance, and get rid of adverts.
Still, I do long for Windows Phone. There’s a small part of me that hopes we’ll see it return in some fashion. Seeing all these wild AI-driven projects, whether it’s Xbox Labs reviving the Blades dashboard or Steam games running natively on Android or the iPhone, we're really in the midst of unknown territory.
Thinking of Windows Phone, though, really does make me facepalm at the idea that we maybe could have had a future where Windows Phones would natively play your Xbox games via the Xbox app. Imagine full cloud saves and achievements, giving you even more reasons to invest in Game Pass. But again, this is all just wishful thinking. Windows Phone is sadly, truly dead. Even I admit it.
Regardless, let me know what you think. Would you install a Windows Phone-like OS on your Android, or do you think Windows Phone should be left for dead and forgotten? Leave a comment down below and make sure you take part in our poll!
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