Every time I've used a WP device I've walked away disappointed. Haven't done an extended test just 10-15 minutes on various devices. If I had to point to any one thing that leaves me disappointed it's probably the excessive amount of scrolling and swiping required. Even on the larger display devices the amount of information I can see without scrolling/swiping is a fraction of what I'm used to from iOS/Android. It leaves me with kind of a stuck-in-the-mud feeling that I'm just doing a lot of extra work to access the same amount of information. The same type of problem pops up with apps in a different way. They tend to be fairly basic and lacking features. I guess this is to be expected for a relatively young platform but it's really difficult to step away from these iOS/Android apps that just have so much more functionality. Between the apps and UI style it almost just feels to me more like a glorified feature phone. People said the same thing about the iPhone but it had some really killer features. To get a real web browser I was happy to give up the unified messages system on my BlackBerry. I can't really find the killer features in WP that would justify the trade-offs. Honestly every interaction I've had with WP so far makes me very happy to return to iOS/Android where all my apps pack tons of information on the screen and have just about every feature I need.
I have used an iPhone for nearly four years. After playing with a Nokia Lumia 710 (WP7) for some weeks, I bought a WP8 last weak, and too be honest, I couldn't be happier.
The thing that I really like (besides the Metro interface) compared to iOS is the integration of Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn et al in the People hub. It actually gives me more information density than the iPhone, where I have to switch between various applications to see what happened. If I want to zoom in to specific persons or groups, I just make a tile to get a subset of that information (e.g. I have a 'Family' tile for my parents, brother, etc.). Also, it comes with a lot of functionality out of the box, such as a lightweight versions of Office and OneNote, Skydrive integration, XBox Music Pass support (Spotify with a far larger catalogue), etc.
It's true that the number and breadth of applications is relatively small, but the Windows Phone OS is fairly complete, and most applications that I require are available (Whatsapp, Skype, etc.).
Between the apps and UI style it almost just feels to me more like a glorified feature phone.
To be honest, that's a bit troll-ish, given that WP8 uses the same kernel and user interface as Windows 8 and given the functionality of the pre-installed applications.
> To be honest, that's a bit troll-ish, given that WP8 uses the same kernel and user interface as Windows 8 and given the functionality of the pre-installed applications.
I don't see how it's "troll-ish". To an end-user, the fact that WP8 uses the same kernel as Windows 8 means nothing. It might be an exaggeration but given the rest of the comment was relatively constructive, it's forgivable.
On the UI side, his major complaint is about information density (a common complaint about WP7/WP8 apps). That's definitely valid; and I say that having used WP8 (briefly) and not minding it so much (a feeling that could change over extended use).
As an iOS user, Windows Phone's aesthetics are definitely appealing (and the Twitterrific app on iOS channels some of WP8, I feel), but the lack of stand-out apps and games is the real killer. No Reeder, no Instapaper, no Instagram or VSCO cam, no Byword, Sword & Swocery, etc.
Similarly, it's interesting to me that Microsoft users will tout things like hardware in their devices. No iphone user mentions hardware because they don't care.
Is the device and its ecosystem a great experience or not? That's ALL that matters.
We should distinguish between visible hardware and invisible hardware.
Apple fans will talk about build quality or screen quality, but rarely about CPU or GPU stats. Apple doesn't even publish these, and you have to wait for third parties to figure out what the numbers are.
I'm sure that some people will talk about how great the A6 CPU is or whatever, but few such people actually know what they're talking about when they do it.
Not trying to make a value judgment here, but this is what I have seen.
The build quality is good but the designs are rubbish. They put glass on impact points, mount everything on ribbon PCBs which pack in and do their best to thwart repairers with funny screws and what can only be described ad a rats nest assembly.
Oh and the hardware is just so damn slow and heavy.
I've repaired a couple of 4s's for people and owned a 4 and they're just not very nice. If you've never had another phone then I get your point but seriously take a look elsewhere when you consider your next handset.
Everyone loves Apple hardware. The iPhone hardware has always been the best, but I think the latest Nokia and even HTC phones for WP8 finally provide some great alternatives. I've never been very impressed with the hardware for Android from an aesthetical standpoint.
>To be honest, that's a bit troll-ish, given that
>WP8 uses the same kernel and user interface as
>Windows 8 and given the functionality of the
>pre-installed applications.
That doesn't matter. Microsoft had a quite good kernel with NT 4 already and Win7 has a fantastic stable kernel with many features. Win 8 has an even better kernel and yet the new metro store and start screen and all the other removed features and freedom make it a not a better OS to say the least.
Orders of magnitude better for navigation. Far more up to date data, faster, speed limits on it, proper accurate turn by turn and its 100% stand alone without a network connection for all features. I did try google maps on android but it was literally littered with mistakes, lag and shoots itself regularly.
Only thing it doesn't have is street view at destination but that's pretty useless to be honest at least in the UK as most of my destinations have no data availability.
You will only get this on a Nokia handset. The build in Bing maps is crap. I've got a lumia 710 and an 820 at hand (I'm testing the latter before i rely on it) and both map solutions are the same. You can get the 710 for literally nothing now - less than a galaxy ace, which is a hunk of crap compared to the 710.
I've used Nokia maps back in the Nokia 6303 days and its always been good. This is just a winphone port.
Ah, the People hub. Its integration with social networks I think is an awesome, awesome feature that is not talked about enough. I honestly don't remember the last time I used the Facebook app on the phone. You just really rarely ever need it.
The general public is mostly ambivalent towards windows phones because it's just too late for Microsoft to be involved. It's nice that they saw the light and now believe design and usability are important but everyone already thinks of the smart phone world as being owned by iOS and Android.
Microsoft is famous for saying, "developers, developers, developers", but no sensible developer will build for Microsoft when network effects are already so well established. Microsoft would have to build something at least an order of magnitude better than Apple to get the world's attention and they haven't been capable of that for many years now.
Any life left in Microsoft comes from the inertia of people depending on Office. Even their latest OS got little more than a shrug from the world.
There are 6 billion mobile phone subscriptions in the world of which 1 billion are smartphones, which leaves billions of smartphones coming online in the coming decade. The smartphone market has most of its growth ahead of it. That growth will not be on iOS because apple doesn't do low-budget.
That growth will be mostly on android, but there's plenty of opportunity for it to be on windows phone as well. Microsoft has made some smart moves here. They've used windows 8 as a foot in the door to get people used to metro. The pc market may be shrinking, but there are still a billion pc's out there which will gradually be replaced with windows 8. They've also made sure that windows phone runs well on low budget devices (better than android even). And they've made sure that developing apps for windows phone is easy and cheap.
At this point i would not count microsoft out yet. Android is going to be the dominant player, but google seems not to care as much about the app ecosystem as microsoft. If google doesn't fix the piracy issues it's not inconceivable that windows phone becomes a more attractive platform for app developers. I hope this will be a three-horse race, as neither android nor iOS are a great fit for me.
First, there seems to be a lot of agreement that the Metro interface is innovative. I think it's also a meaningful innovation, but each to his/her own.
Second, pretty much everyone would agree that the early Android versions were not really innovative and pretty much a copy of iOS (which is certainly not the case anymore). Also, history is littered with inferior systems with little innovation that eventually won. So, it doesn't seem to be the case that the consumer necessarily chooses for 'meaningful innovations'. There's also price, branding, luck, etc.
Third, it is very strange to compare RIM and Windows Phone. RIM is more like Apple: one operating system, one device vendor. Windows Phone is more like, erm... Windows ;) or perhaps even Android: one operating system, competing device vendors. The dynamics are completely different, e.g. a phone vendor might choose to push WP or Android more, depending on what is offered in terms of differentiation, royalties, patent licensing costs, etc. Also, like the grandparent says, Microsoft as quite a popular ecosystem to leverage WP (Windows, XBox 360, Office, etc.).
Second, Android's main innovation is being an open source OS available to anyone to use / adjust / distribute.
Third, the comparison to RIM is that the public doesn't expect meaningful innovation from Microsoft anymore. Even though Metro is a reasonable improvement, it's far from enough to make the public care.
When microsoft released IE everyone considered it a joke. It had no marketshare, nobody wanted to use it, and the common opinion was that microsoft was doomed beause netscape was going to make windows superfluous. What could be learned from what happened after were two lessons: (1) public opinion is not the end-all decider of a product's chances, and (2) when microsoft hooks something on the windows train it has incredible momentum, even when it doesn't seem like it. WP8 is hooked on that train in a way that previous windows mobile variants weren't.
> the excessive amount of scrolling and swiping required. Even on the larger display devices the amount of information I can see without scrolling/swiping is a fraction of what I'm used to from iOS/Android. It leaves me with kind of a stuck-in-the-mud feeling that I'm just doing a lot of extra work to access the same amount of information.
This isn't something that even remotely occurred to me, as someone who moved from an iPhone 4S to a Lumia 920. I never noticed any difference, but now that I think about it and how my workflow has changed since I got the new phone, what you said couldn't be more wrong.
Just by unlocking the phone (button press + one swipe, same as iPhone) I can see emails (subjects and sender), text messages (sender and message), calendar events, and notification text (not just a numerical count) for every social network I have an account on. And that's just from the start-screen, without opening any apps or scrolling at all. One additional swipe down and I can see stock live stock information and news feed.
Getting all that information on an iPhone would involve individually opening and checking around 7 different apps.
And even if you ignore the information from the start screen, just from within apps, I'm not seeing any additional scrolling needed, or where extra effort is required to access information. Especially to a level that makes it so arduous that it disappointed you so much that you were compelled to complain about it on the internet.
Can you give specific examples of where all this extra scrolling and swiping that you're talking about is required?
Can you give specific examples of where all this extra scrolling and swiping that you're talking about is required?
One quick example is the mail client. You can only see about 5 messages at a time and that's with only a one line preview of the body. On iOS with a 1 line preview I see 8 messages and I can usually see the entire from/subject line. May seem like a minor gripe but it just adds extra steps to everything I want to do. Is there an option to reduce the font sizes? I couldn't find it last time I looked.
Getting all that information on an iPhone would involve individually opening and checking around 7 different apps
Depends what type of notifications you have setup. I can just look at my lock-screen or Notification Center for most of this. This morning when I picked up my phone I had a few CNN news alerts, a bunch of FaceBook notifications, some text messages, a game reminding me it was my turn, weather, calendar events, etc.
Mail is a joke of an app on Windows. But unlike on iOS, the Windows Mail application can be replaced. If you were frustrated with the default Mail app, did you seek a replacement?
Do you have a better example of an epidemic WP UI fail? Anyone can build a terrible UI into an app, including the makers of an operating system.
> Mail is a joke of an app on Windows..
What windows are you talking about? I agree that windows 8 mail app sucks..
but mail app on windows phone 8 is one of the best mail app on a smart phone..
Yea, it's a shame that a comment from someone who has barely used WP is at the top of this thread, as opposed to the people who have actually used it and iOS or Android heavily.
If there was a cheap WP8 device available I would pick one up just to play around with but there's nothing at the price point of say the iPod Touch / Nexus 4. My original post is probably how a lot of people feel about WP at this point. It's just not appealing enough to replace the iOS/Android devices they are currently using. The number of people who are going to switch just for the sake of switching is very very low. Most people are going to need a damn good reason to switch. Microsoft's best bet is with first time SmartPhone buyers who aren't already invested into iOS/Android.
