As I mentioned in my last post, I'm very happy with my Windows Phone, to the extent that I would say that the whole "glance and go" concept that MS put forth is totally off-base: I can't take my eyes (or hands) off of the thing.
Even when I'm not actually doing anything with it I still find myself just randomly scrolling around and looking at it, being amazed at how smoothly everything moves, and some of the nice little touches that round out the UI, such as the way the arrow on the Home screen, which points to the "next" screen over, which is home to all of the installed apps and other functions, bounces between the edge of the screen and the live tiles when you scroll all the way to the bottom.
Or the way you fly up and over in Bing maps when locating yourself after having moved from one place to another.
In short, it's just plain neat.
However, in terms of the "glance and go" concept, they did actually pull that off pretty well, as the lock screen displays a wealth of information at a glance, such as indicators for any new e-mail, calls, or text messages you may have, the time, your next appointment, and indicators for signal strength and battery life.
Of course, I wouldn't be Jon - and Microsoft wouldn't be Microsoft - if there weren't a few things for me to cmplain about.
On the topic of the lock screen, I wish that it were a little more customizable than it is - an overall lack of customization options across the board is probably my biggest complaint - beyond simply being able to choose your wallpaper.
For example, I wish that there were a way to get the lock screen to also display weather data for your current location.
The lack of customization options throughout the OS/UI doesn't bother me too much, since I like the basic look of it anyway, and you can adjust the important things, like the number and kinds of live tiles on the Home screen, but still, I would like to have a few more options.
Along those same lines, there is a paucity of options in terms of settings for how tiles and apps behave, which, again, most of the time isn't an issue, and I understand why it's as locked-down as it is, but the ability to change just about anything you wanted was one of the things I liked most about Windows Mobile 6.5 (and about the Windows desktop OS, for that matter).
Still, my complaints are few, and relatively minor...except for the lack of Bubble Breaker. I'm not much of a gamer - note that I have little or no opinion on the XBox Live integration into the phone, since I don't use it at all, but I assume that, if you're into that sort of thing, it's really cool - but Bubble Breaker has been my go-to time-waster since the days of my PDA, and I'm definitely feeling its absence. There's a free third-party app that's like Bubble Breaker, but I find it to be kind of ugly, and the developer didn't really do much to make it finger-friendly, which, given the lack of a stylus, is an issue.
In any case, here's a rundown of some of my other petty complaints:
The Pictures hub is very cool, especially since it gives you access to any photo albums you may have on Windows Live, Skydrive (the free online storage service from MS), and Facebook, but I do have one small complaint. By default, as you scroll sideways to get to different options, it shows you a sampling of some of your pictures. However, the pictures it displays are more or less random, and I'd like to be able to actually choose which pictures are showing up. Also, while I understand that they're competitors, I'd like for MS and Google to play a little nicer with each other and allow you to access your Picasaweb albums via the Pictures hub.
(Also, on an unrelated note, Google seriously needs to improve the mobile version of Picasaweb; finding a specific picture in a large album involves constantly clicking on the "next" link until you get to the page it's on. Gee, if only Google knew anything about performing searches...)
While the Windows Marketplace is constantly expanding, espcially given that MS has gone all out in making developing apps for WP7 an easy and attractive proposition, I do miss having the ability to "sideload" apps obtained from other sources.
(I will say that having to move things to and from the phone via Zune - or, alternatively, via "the cloud" - isn't terribly onerous. It's certainly got iTunes beat. Still, I would like to be able to plug the phone into a computer and have it be recognized as just another storage device.)
On a related note, if there's a way to sync with your PC via Bluetooth, I haven't found it.
The deep integration of social networks -Windows Live and Facebook - is very cool, even for someone as anti-social as myself, but I think that the failure to integrate Twitter as well is, well, a failure. Same goes for blogging. It'd be awesome if I could make a blog post right from the "Me" tile in the same way that I can update my status on Facebook.
As for the phone itself - meaning the actual hardware - the SuperAMOLED display is awesome, and I love how light and thin it is, but by that same token, perhaps just because it lacks heft, it feels kind of cheap. I also wish it weren't quite so rounded; I much prefer the look of the otherwise identical Omnia 7, which isn't available in the US.
Battery life is - as I expected, given the raw power of the hardware - terrible, but it's sufficient to get me through my work day
And in terms of the carrier - AT&T - I don't really have the kind of complaints that so many other people seem to; I've generally found it to be reliable enough for my purposes. However, I do wish they would offer some sort of 4G service.
To get back to the things I love about it, the Zune interface for music and videos is, in my opinion, vastly superior to the iPod. If it weren't for just one issue - which I'll get to below - I would be perfectly willing to get rid of my iPod Touch entirely.
Now that Netflix is offering a streaming-only option, I may have to sign up just so that I can make use of the phone's Netflix app.
Oh, and the IMDb app? Gorgeous.
I won't complain about some of the missing functionality that's set to be added via updates - such as Flash and cut & paste - but here I'll have to mimic the commercial and say, "Really?" about the inability to create custom ringtones.
And now for my wish list:
The aforementioned display of weather data on the lock screen
An alarm clock app that allows you to wake to the music stored on the phone. That should be basic functionality included in the Zune interface, frankly. (This is what keeps me from ditching my iPod, as I have a physical alarm clock that interfaces with the iPod and lets me wake to music). I've seen some alarm clock apps that may provide that function, but I'm not certain if they do or not.
The real Bubble Breaker!
Better indication of remaining battery life; the graphic just doesn't cut it. I want percentage listed.
The return of Outlook Tasks.
Again, the integration of blogging tools into the OS.
As you can see, it's a pretty small wish list, which, considering that this is a Microsoft product, is pretty amazing.
A few other notes...
Most of the phones have the ability to have additional storage via MicroSD cards added, but the Focus is the only one that makes it possible for the user to add storage. However, once added, it can't be removed without wiping the phone, as it gets integrated into the system memory. This works fine, given the inability to sideload, and the great job the OS does of organizing files for you.
In my case, I bought a 32 GB MicroSD card at the same time I bought the phone, which brought the total storage available on the phone up to 40 GB. To put that in perspective, that's nearly 400 times as much storage as I had available on my very first desktop computer.
On a phone.
Showing posts with label really. Show all posts
Showing posts with label really. Show all posts
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
Sunday, November 21, 2010
Really? Part One
Several years ago, because I had some money burning a hole in my pocket and I saw a good deal on it, I bought a PDA from HP which was running the Microsoft Pocket PC OS.
Pocket PC began its life as Windows CE, or, as it was often known, WinCE, back in the mid-90s, and was a compact version of the Windows OS designed for lower-powered handheld devices.
Over time, WinCE became Pocket PC, and over even more time it became Windows Mobile and helped to usher in the era of the smartphone.
I liked my PDA a lot, but eventually got tired of carrying around two devices - my PDA and my cell phone - and decided to go the convergence route, picking up a smartphone from the handset manufacture HTC which was running Windows Mobile 5.
The phone, which wasn't pretty, but was powerful and had a nice slide-out keyboard, served me well, and when I saw that HTC was coming out with a newer phone, one that was sleek and sexy, I made the upgrade.
That was my AT&T Fuze, a phone that also served me well for a while, but eventually, after losing market share to the iPhone and Android-based phones, MS pretty much abandoned Windows Mobile, and while there was - and still is - a strong hobbyist community that develops apps for WM 6.5 - the last version - as well as custom versions of the OS itself, my Fuze was feeling pretty tired and dated. After all, it was nearly two years old, which is an eternity in the tech world.
Not wanting an iPhone, I started checking out some of the Android-based offerings, but couldn't really find anything that was terribly compelling. After all, I used my Fuze for a lot of work stuff, so I needed something with a level of integration with Exchange and Office that only MS could provide.
Then I started seeing stuff about the new mobile strategy from MS and their complete redesign of the mobile OS from the ground up, the terribly-named Windows Phone 7 Series.
I really liked what I was seeing in terms of the interface, but for a while I remained on the fence about making the switch - while continuing to obsessively track down every bit of information I could about the new platform - and found myself being kind of put off by some of the news. There was, after all, the fact that the OS would not offer cut & paste, a feature that it took quite a while for the iPhone to offer - which I derided Apple for - nor would it be a multi-tasking OS, which, again, was like Apple. Further following the Apple model, you wouldn't be able to "sideload" applications on the phone - all apps had to be added via an app store using the Zune softwae as an interface - which, again, was incredibly Appleish, and the new phones wouldn't have removable storage.
Still, I liked the hardware specs: high resolution, multi touch displays, fast processors, and 5 megapixel cameras. And I learned that some of the missing features would be added quickly via software updates.
I was put off by the inability to add removable storage, or to be able to plug the phone into a PC and just use it like an external hard drive.
But then I would see other things that just seemed so cool, and eventually I drank the Kool-Aid and decided that when the time came, I would make the move to WP7.
After making the decision, it was a matter of waiting to see the phones that would be running it. I saw some promising things from my old favorite HTC, a dead sexy offering from Dell, and a pretty sweet-looking offering from Samsung.
Sadly, when the launch came, none of the phones I was salivating over were going to be offered by AT&T, appearing instead on T-Mobile or not available in the US.
Still, there was a final offering from Samsung that I liked the look of, which would be on AT&T.
(If I were going to switch carriers I'd go with Verizon so that I could have a unified bill for mobile, Internet, cable, and landline phone, but Verizon wasn't a launch partner, and was taking a "wait and see" attitude with WP7. Now I've read that they'll have WP7 phones by the holidays. Dammit.)
When I was in Michigan for my mom, my brother-in-law picked me up from the hospital while she was having a procedure done and brought me to the AT&T Store, where I picked up the Samsung Focus, and where I made a fan of the phone out of the employee who sold it to me, as he said, "Yeah, I don't think I'm leaving here today without one of those."
What I liked about the Focus is that it's big - 4" screen - it's thin and light, and it has a SuperAMOLED display that's really clear and bright.
I do miss having a physical keyboard, but I'm getting used to the onscreen version.
If you've seen the Windows Phone commercials, you've seen the best part, which is the eager wife who's attempting to draw her husband's attention away from his phone:
I'm with you, honey; really? As much as I love my new phone, I'd put it down in a heartbeat for her.
The wife is portrayed by one Christina Cuenca, Miss Lousiana 2006. (Thanks, Internet!)
I did what I could with a cap from the commercial to create the above image, which is currently serving as the wallpaper on my phone.
In any case, on to the phone itself...
One of the big selling points of WP7 is its tight integration with social networks. Once you sign in with/create your Windows Live account and connect it to the social networks of your choice, the phone will automatically snag all of the relevant information about the people in your networks. If you have people who appear as contacts in multiple accounts - such as, for me, Scott, who is a Gmail contact, a Facebook friend, a Windows Live friend, and one of my contacts in Outlook - all of their information will be presented in a single entry, and you can save favorite people on you main screen as a "Live Tile," a dynamic image that bounces around, displaying the person's name, image, and any status updates.
Contacts are one area where I've seen people complain about the phone, since in the "People" hub - hubs are like folders that organize information - you just get one long vertical list of undifferenctiated contacts. That works fine for me, and finding specific contacts is pretty quick and easy, but if you were more social and popular than I am and had hundreds of contacts, I suppose I can see how it could be an issue.
I've decided to make this kinda-sorta review of my new phone a multi-part post, since it's been pretty long already, but in bringing this part to a close, let me just say that while there are, naturally, a few problems with it, and I do have something of a wish list, overall I really love Windows Phone 7, much more than I ever though I could or would. So you'll be seeing a lot of enthusiastic gushing in the next part, because I really am legitimately excited about the phone, and I want to evangelize for it a little in the hopes of ensuring its continued success.
Pocket PC began its life as Windows CE, or, as it was often known, WinCE, back in the mid-90s, and was a compact version of the Windows OS designed for lower-powered handheld devices.
Over time, WinCE became Pocket PC, and over even more time it became Windows Mobile and helped to usher in the era of the smartphone.
I liked my PDA a lot, but eventually got tired of carrying around two devices - my PDA and my cell phone - and decided to go the convergence route, picking up a smartphone from the handset manufacture HTC which was running Windows Mobile 5.
The phone, which wasn't pretty, but was powerful and had a nice slide-out keyboard, served me well, and when I saw that HTC was coming out with a newer phone, one that was sleek and sexy, I made the upgrade.
That was my AT&T Fuze, a phone that also served me well for a while, but eventually, after losing market share to the iPhone and Android-based phones, MS pretty much abandoned Windows Mobile, and while there was - and still is - a strong hobbyist community that develops apps for WM 6.5 - the last version - as well as custom versions of the OS itself, my Fuze was feeling pretty tired and dated. After all, it was nearly two years old, which is an eternity in the tech world.
Not wanting an iPhone, I started checking out some of the Android-based offerings, but couldn't really find anything that was terribly compelling. After all, I used my Fuze for a lot of work stuff, so I needed something with a level of integration with Exchange and Office that only MS could provide.
Then I started seeing stuff about the new mobile strategy from MS and their complete redesign of the mobile OS from the ground up, the terribly-named Windows Phone 7 Series.
I really liked what I was seeing in terms of the interface, but for a while I remained on the fence about making the switch - while continuing to obsessively track down every bit of information I could about the new platform - and found myself being kind of put off by some of the news. There was, after all, the fact that the OS would not offer cut & paste, a feature that it took quite a while for the iPhone to offer - which I derided Apple for - nor would it be a multi-tasking OS, which, again, was like Apple. Further following the Apple model, you wouldn't be able to "sideload" applications on the phone - all apps had to be added via an app store using the Zune softwae as an interface - which, again, was incredibly Appleish, and the new phones wouldn't have removable storage.
Still, I liked the hardware specs: high resolution, multi touch displays, fast processors, and 5 megapixel cameras. And I learned that some of the missing features would be added quickly via software updates.
I was put off by the inability to add removable storage, or to be able to plug the phone into a PC and just use it like an external hard drive.
But then I would see other things that just seemed so cool, and eventually I drank the Kool-Aid and decided that when the time came, I would make the move to WP7.
After making the decision, it was a matter of waiting to see the phones that would be running it. I saw some promising things from my old favorite HTC, a dead sexy offering from Dell, and a pretty sweet-looking offering from Samsung.
Sadly, when the launch came, none of the phones I was salivating over were going to be offered by AT&T, appearing instead on T-Mobile or not available in the US.
Still, there was a final offering from Samsung that I liked the look of, which would be on AT&T.
(If I were going to switch carriers I'd go with Verizon so that I could have a unified bill for mobile, Internet, cable, and landline phone, but Verizon wasn't a launch partner, and was taking a "wait and see" attitude with WP7. Now I've read that they'll have WP7 phones by the holidays. Dammit.)
When I was in Michigan for my mom, my brother-in-law picked me up from the hospital while she was having a procedure done and brought me to the AT&T Store, where I picked up the Samsung Focus, and where I made a fan of the phone out of the employee who sold it to me, as he said, "Yeah, I don't think I'm leaving here today without one of those."
What I liked about the Focus is that it's big - 4" screen - it's thin and light, and it has a SuperAMOLED display that's really clear and bright.
I do miss having a physical keyboard, but I'm getting used to the onscreen version.
If you've seen the Windows Phone commercials, you've seen the best part, which is the eager wife who's attempting to draw her husband's attention away from his phone:
I'm with you, honey; really? As much as I love my new phone, I'd put it down in a heartbeat for her.
The wife is portrayed by one Christina Cuenca, Miss Lousiana 2006. (Thanks, Internet!)
I did what I could with a cap from the commercial to create the above image, which is currently serving as the wallpaper on my phone.
In any case, on to the phone itself...
One of the big selling points of WP7 is its tight integration with social networks. Once you sign in with/create your Windows Live account and connect it to the social networks of your choice, the phone will automatically snag all of the relevant information about the people in your networks. If you have people who appear as contacts in multiple accounts - such as, for me, Scott, who is a Gmail contact, a Facebook friend, a Windows Live friend, and one of my contacts in Outlook - all of their information will be presented in a single entry, and you can save favorite people on you main screen as a "Live Tile," a dynamic image that bounces around, displaying the person's name, image, and any status updates.
Contacts are one area where I've seen people complain about the phone, since in the "People" hub - hubs are like folders that organize information - you just get one long vertical list of undifferenctiated contacts. That works fine for me, and finding specific contacts is pretty quick and easy, but if you were more social and popular than I am and had hundreds of contacts, I suppose I can see how it could be an issue.
I've decided to make this kinda-sorta review of my new phone a multi-part post, since it's been pretty long already, but in bringing this part to a close, let me just say that while there are, naturally, a few problems with it, and I do have something of a wish list, overall I really love Windows Phone 7, much more than I ever though I could or would. So you'll be seeing a lot of enthusiastic gushing in the next part, because I really am legitimately excited about the phone, and I want to evangelize for it a little in the hopes of ensuring its continued success.
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