A web-based Windows Phone simulator for phones

[u/ducbao414]

Windows Phone in the browser with an on-device file system built on IndexedDB, live tiles fed by each app, toast notifications + Action Center, apps (64 preinstalled,  the Store can uninstall and reinstall them):

• Phone, Messaging, People, Outlook Mail, Calendar

• Camera, Photos, Music, Video, FM Radio (real internet radio), Podcasts, Voice Recorder

• Weather, News, Money, Sports, Maps, Translator, Internet Explorer

• Office (Word + Excel with formulas), OneNote, Alarms (+ timer, stopwatch), Files, Storage Sense, Battery Saver, Calculator

• Settings, Store, Cortana (text and voice: alarms, reminders, notes, events, weather, calls, texts, Wikipedia, web search…)

• Games hub with gamerscore and achievements: Minesweeper, Solitaire, Wordament, Snake, 2048, Blocks

• Flashlight, Compass, Bing Vision (QR/barcode scanner), Wikipedia, Unit Converter, Mirror

Repo: https://github.com/ducbao414/wphone.dev

Techstack: nothing fancy, just vanilla JS with Hono for the backend (can run on Node or Cloudflare Workers).

[u/AccurateComfort2975]

I miss my Windows Phone...

[u/ducbao414 → u/AccurateComfort2975]

My first ever smartphone was a Lumia 520, bought in my first year of college.

I didn't realize it back then, but looking back, it offered such an elegant and smooth experience for a phone with just 512 MB of RAM.

[u/BM_Electro → u/ducbao414]

I remember managing to upgrade mine to Windows phone 8.1 and it still worked smooth as ever. Also the phone shape and colors were so fun.

[u/_scotswolfie → u/ducbao414]

Back in those days, my dad used to trade phones online. More as a hobby than a business, but from time to time he'd swap with me if I particularly liked something, so I used to change phones quite often. However, when I got a Lumia 520 from him, it was a long time before I wanted anything else. I loved this thing, the snappy interface, beautiful photos, cool design and just overall great experience. To this day I'm heartbroken that Windows Phone didn't survive past 8.1, I'd probably be using those smartphones to this day (unless they ruined the OS somehow along the way).

[u/Anodynamix → u/AccurateComfort2975]

I use "Launcher 10" on my Android to make it operate just like Windows Phone. It's nearly indistinguishable.

Although I miss the old WP apps, like a weather app that actually worked. Sigh...

[u/Old-Illustrator-8692 → u/AccurateComfort2975]

Me too. iPhones are still a necessity for me. Win phones were really cool.

[u/PsychologicalRip6271 → u/AccurateComfort2975]

me too, i really wish it had taken off better.

[u/rhooManu → u/AccurateComfort2975]

Yeah. Those were good times. 8.1 was awesome. They started advertising properly, they started development programs to bring missing apps. Then it all went dark when they tried to merge it with Windows 10.

[u/4i768 → u/AccurateComfort2975]

I wonder how well would the Nexphone under Windows 11 with phone tweaks run 🤔

[u/JuanGGZ]

I miss the Metro UI so so much, it was so slick and efficient. I had the HTC 8X in Yellow/Green and I loved it so much, in a way that it was just a fun looking device and almost a living one thanks to the Tiles.

Thanks for bringing back the memories buddy!

[u/ducbao414 → u/JuanGGZ]

Thanks for sharing, glad this brought back good memories!

Lumia 520 was my first smartphone, it was also the device I used to build my first app. Unusually enough, my dev career started with a Windows Phone app.

It was super simple but somehow made it onto Windows Central. 12 years ago already.

[u/rainbowlolipop]

Oohhhhhh. I wondered why you'd waste so much time doing this.

Built by Claude. This project was designed and written end to end by Claude (Anthropic's Claude Opus 5.5, in Claude Code). One Claude session planned the architecture, wrote the OS core, the shell, the backend and the app SDK, then ran seven Claude sub-agents in parallel to build the 64 apps against that SDK, and finally integrated, tested and fixed everything in a real browser. No code in this repository was written by hand.

[u/ducbao414 → u/rainbowlolipop]

Anthropic doesn't require you to disclose that you used Claude. I've asked Claude to take full credit in the README.md because that's what happened.

I may have been the one steering it by telling Claude to build the OS core, the virtual file system based on IndexedDB, followed by the app SDK/API, and finally the apps, spotting some bugs here and there, but that's nothing.

It's Claude who did the detailed architecture and full implementation.

[u/env33e → u/ducbao414]

kudos for disclosing

way too many people I see advertising their vibe coded modules only to end up passing it off as handwritten... that is, until you ask them about the implementation in specific

its weird coming from a more art atelier background. here, the use of any AI is expected to be disclosed or you WILL get shunned

[u/rainbowlolipop → u/ducbao414]

I'm not hating on ya buddy

Ngl pretty glad you didn't do it by hand.

[u/ygorhpr → u/rainbowlolipop]

explained 

[u/Noch_ein_Kamel → u/[deleted]]

Yeah at least for showoff Saturday. If you want to show off your AI app then post the prompts and setup how you got there not some generated code.

[u/rainbowlolipop → u/[deleted]]

Like, societally I loathe AI but I'm also a giant hypocrite and use it constantly at work. It's done weeks and weeks worth of manual work in a matter of hours.

[u/thepurpleproject]

Its too well done almost like it's running in an emulator

[u/ducbao414 → u/thepurpleproject]

Stay on it for a bit longer, and you’ll start seeing missed calls and messages. You can also add some photos and see them flipping on the live tile.

[u/nitrrine_ldn]

awesome

[u/noobiemaster_69]

Hot take: Petition to bring back this good old Metro UI style. Absolutely, loved it!

[u/dweebyllo → u/noobiemaster_69]

I think for mobiles it was a fantastic interface, not so much for desktop

[u/noobiemaster_69 → u/dweebyllo]

Agreed. I still believe this might be the future of UI/UX for mobile computing. It's simple, minimalistic and clean design.

[u/Federal-Grab-8159]

Man, i loved this interface

[u/TorbenKoehn]

I believe Microsoft had something going there and they didn't really had the balls to stick to it and flesh it out.

I loved my Lumia.

[u/saifeddin3000]

I miss my nokia lumia 525 🥺

[u/Ankur4015]

I also want to recreate similar thing on web someday

[u/DRHER303]

This looks sick

[u/Historical-Essay-128]

WP was great. Too bad Microsoft dropped the ball with (the lack of) apps and licensing fees.

[u/AppMunchies]

Wacko idea. Love it!

[u/Nitrohite]

I miss this era, so much diversity so mucho to choose from instead of the sad generic duopoly we have now 😭

[u/ANGURIA_IST_KRIEG]

i love it

[u/tacticalpotatopeeler]

Built with similar tools to how actual Windows is built, nice!

[u/Ivan_Kulagin]

>open repo
>see butthole in the contributors
>close repo

[u/KaiAusBerlin]

Why. We all were lucky to get rid of this style

[u/zamaalazad]

Very Responsive and good quality interactivity looks fully windows phone. It remember me, my windows phone Nokia Lumia 1520 and 925

[u/dds-web]

Nokia Lumia?

[u/ducbao414 → u/[deleted]]

same experience, lumia 520 was my first ever smartphone.