Thinking of making the switch from iPhone 5, anyone using windows phone but still have their Mac?

JDThird

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Been using PDA's well before smart phones, but before Windows got into the newer "tile" formats, I had made the jump to iPhones after getting my first Macbook Pro in 2009. I switched when the iPhone 4 came out, then got a 4s, and then a 5. No plans on going to a 5s, nothing compelling enough for me.

So I was going to sit tight with my iPhone 5. I have an iPad 3, and my son has an iPad 2 and a iPod Touch. I also have a Surface Pro.

It's been nice having the apps shared between all the IOS devices, but I don't do much on my phone other than communication. I use it as a phone, I use it for text messages sometimes. I use email (I'm the CTO at our tech company and I have us using our own Exchange server). I use it for a few games to kill time waiting for things. I've got about 150 apps on it, and most are there for the "at some point I *may* use it thought... In all honesty, I don't use any of them.

The IOS 7 update left me with a bad taste in my mouth. I like the advancements on the technology, and the gestures and underlying improvements, but now I think it's **** ugly, and I can't stand the color schemes. White background with light grey bubbles for text is just awful on the eyes.

I love the live tile concept. I really like it on my Surface Pro, so I figured maybe swap would be worth doing.

I have no plans to give up the Apple infrastructure for the rest though - too many head to head games my son and I do on the iPads. And I love the hardware for my Retina Macbook Pro and won't change it for something else.

So I need to be able to sync the phone to my Macbook Pro. I've seen a program out there for it, but from the looks, it requires a cable? No way to sync wirelessly with a Mac computer?

May not be much of a deal breaker for me, I don't use my phone for music. I do take photos sometimes when I'm too lazy to use a real camera, and I could always use Skydrive to copy them over to my Macbook Pro.

I've seen quite a few posts about people changing phones. I just read one about someone changing entirely over to a MS based ecosystem, getting rid of his Macs and all.

Are there any out there still using their Mac computers but made the switch to a Windows phone? What has been your experience? What do you miss most about your IOS based phone?

And considering the time of year now, should I wait maybe, and see what new things are coming out? I'll be doing this with my company phone, we use Verizon and have the business plan, so generally I find one of my employees who is allowed to upgrade their phone on that line, purchase the upgrade for that one, then swap numbers between my old and the new, and let my employee get my phone to upgrade theirs (trickle down upgrade). So I have no *NEED* to do it this instant (other than my dislike of the color scheme on IOS 7 now and not wanting to look at it as much as I need to), and if there will be a Verizon compatible better phone than the 928 coming out in the next four months or something, I'm not adverse to waiting. I do like the 1020 but since it's only on AT&T, it's not an option, and a 42MP camera is not even close to a requirement for my phone use... But since the 928 is currently free if I extend the contract on that phone line, if there's not anything much better than this coming out in the near future, I wouldn't need to bother waiting.

Side question - how good are the companies with software updates to the OS for the Windows side? I had an HTC I gave up when I got the iPhone 4, that was only about five months old and Verizon wouldn't support the new version of Windows Mobile that was being released at that time, so I would hate to get a new phone, only to find out seven months down the road, Verizon says "no software updates anymore." Are they still that bad with the Windows phones? At least the phone updates for IOS came from Apple, not the phone companies, so I haven't had to worry about being unable to update for the last 3 1/2 years...

Thanks for any info or insight.

John
 

Jazmac

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Actually, I don't think its that bad on my Ipad Mini. Maybe because I like ModernUI and this reminds me a lot of that.
 

icstars989

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Well, I don't think it was VZ as much as MS not giving you that update. I recall shortly before they released WP7 they came out with a high end WM6 that they said wouldn't be updated.

I don't enjoy using my 928 with my MBP, but I don't let iTunes organize anything, can't stand using iTunes for a media player, however if you do, the WP8 app for mac will work flawlessly for you. It will sync everything as well as iPhones do, no WiFi sync though.
 

JDThird

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Figured. But since probably the only thing I'd really need to get off the phone are random photos, skydrive should be more than sufficient, I'd not really have to sync with the laptop at all in reality. My iPhone really just syncs to get any app updates I do through itunes on the computer... Since I don't use it for music, there's nothing that I'd really have to sync.

Only downside I thought about tonight is the home automation - my switches, my security system, my thermostat - the only apps I really USE other than email and phone and IM - none of these have any windows version available from the developers... So that may be what makes me have to stick with my iPhone now...
 

icstars989

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That's definitely an area where the iPhone has a huge advantage. If you have a Nest there is\was a third party app, maybe check your other systems as well?
 

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