It's the little things that stand out.

[Dadstar0410]

We all know how beautiful WP8 really is because of smoothness and Live Tiles. But besides the obvious features, what small things in the OS make you love it even more? For me, it's the keyboard and how quickly I can type on it as compared to the other OS's keyboards. I also really like how when you swipe down from the top of the screen while a page is loading, the word loading goes away and is replaced by your signal and battery. Then when that goes away, the loading comes back. It just shows that this OS isn't cluttered, and that Microsoft really tries to keep it clean. Also, when you get a toast, I find it awesome and beautiful when you swipe it away. The way it reacts is just so clean. Sound off with your favorite "little things".

 

[Daniel Ratcliffe]

For me, it is this. Compare the 2 screens. Such beautiful integration.

Normal mobile phone call:

Skype Call:

 

[Dadstar0410]

I didn't even notice that! Wow.

 

[Pete Almanza]

I'd also like to chime in about the aesthetics. As a graphic designer/font connoisseur, I love the focus of great typography and how much it means for the OS. Yes, yes, it's an obvious feature. But sometimes I'll catch myself looking at great app interfaces like from Brit + Co., USA Today, Vimeo, and Shop Advisor and just beam at how seamlessly they mixed their branding and styles with the UI of Windows Phone. Absolutely gorgeous.

 

[Mystictrust]

The little things? I LOVE that every time you tap on a letter on the keyboard it pops right back out at you with your chosen accent color. It's especially apparent if you change your colors every so often.

Speaking of colors, the simple change of an accent color and how drastically (or subtly) it can affect the look of windows phone from the start screen to keyboard presses to the look of an app itself is fairly remarkable to me. The COLORS make this phone stand out.

 

[Daniel Ratcliffe]

Yeah, it's a beautiful little thing. It's the start of the big integration of VoIP.

 

[Dadstar0410]

There are so many little things I like about WP8 that I don't even remember them all

 

[Dadstar0410]

The little things? I LOVE that every time you tap on a letter on the keyboard it pops right back out at you with your chosen accent color. It's especially apparent if you change your colors every so often.

Speaking of colors, the simple change of an accent color and how drastically (or subtly) it can affect the look of windows phone from the start screen to keyboard presses to the look of an app itself is fairly remarkable to me. The COLORS make this phone stand out.

The accent colors allow for a surprising amount of customization. That is one example of how software and hardware work together.

 

[bawboh86]

I love the consistency. Tiles flip away, and then you scroll sideways through apps. You scroll sideways to get to different types of content, but up and down to view consistent content. The colors are consistent across it all (I notice this as I change my theme color almost daily). It's not exactly "small" (especially coming from Android), but it's something I've taken such notice that I point it out to my girlfriend every so often just to tell her how impressed I am with it.

 

[TheLuminis620]

The little things that stand out? A lot but I'll cover some that I remember.

The simplicity. I mean, no silly and complicated icons, just words which for some may look boring but for me, it's stylish, modern and simple. The colours just make things even better. As I change from one colour to another colour, it simply change the whole personality and characteristic of my phone. The sideways browsing of apps also made it stand out the most from any other OS out there. It's unique and feels very distinctive to any others as opposed to just scrolling up and down. Furthermore, how some app developers made their apps look really good such as Facebook, Twitter and Skype just blows me away. In my opinion, they have better look in Windows Phone than any other OS the likes of Android and iOS. The toast notification is also cool and not as cluttered as the one in Android's notification bar. Of course, sometimes you may miss or overlooked the notification in Windows Phone but you will still get the notification numbers on the live tiles. Finally, the quick, nimbleness and fluidity of the OS makes it almost unrivaled in terms of performance and user experience. I'm purely satisfied with it!

 

[cuzincurly]

the typography and whole metro interface looks stylish and uncluttered.

 

[TK2011]

the typography and whole metro interface looks stylish and uncluttered.

Yup. That pretty much sums it up for me too. Nokia and HTC complemented it really well with the latest HW designs. The whole package is a work of art.

 

[akiman911]

You can swipe away toast notifications? you mean the 1 inch bar that pops up at the top?

HOW???? Ive been trying for ages, the toast comes up for 20 seconds i cannot swipe away on l920, or i am missing something obvious

please help

 

[msdugn]

I'd also like to chime in about the aesthetics. As a graphic designer/font connoisseur, I love the focus of great typography and how much it means for the OS. Yes, yes, it's an obvious feature. But sometimes I'll catch myself looking at great app interfaces like from Brit + Co., USA Today, Vimeo, and Shop Advisor and just beam at how seamlessly they mixed their branding and styles with the UI of Windows Phone. Absolutely gorgeous.

The most beautiful WP8 app I've seen so far is 627.am - an alarm app. If all WP8 apps were this beautiful, Apple and Google would be in a bad spot.

 

[msdugn]

And for me, the big standouts are

• Taking pictures and have them instantly appear on my desktop and RT via SkyDrive. I can't tell you how painful it was to cable my iPad or Droid just to get pictures off the device - and the disappointment when I hadn't done it in a while and the device went belly up taking all of my pictures with it!
• Sliding only Once - whether on my home screen or the app screen to the right, I only slide once. No more slide (next page), slide (next page), slide (next page) like an iPad, iPhone or Droid to find which screen my app is on
• One Button to Camera - 'nuff said
• Speech - The ability to have texts read to me - and reply via voice is incredible. And the fact that it gets crazy words like the name of my local Mexican restaurant (Ixtapa) right is amazing.

 

[theeboredone]

A primary reason why I got a WP8 was due to it's mixture of simplicity and beauty. However, I do think they can take it a step further in some areas...

1. I'm not sure if I'm the only one here, but when I get a call, I find it a bit disappointing that the contact's picture only takes up a little half of the screen (see reference in second post). I'd prefer it if the picture took the whole screen up, with your answer and ignore buttons appearing on the bottom as they normally do. There's something about it just being a "square" that irks me.

2. People tile stops flipping through pictures when you lock your phone. Would prefer it keep doing its thang, so it's something different everytime.

 

[Techno-Freak]

You can swipe away toast notifications? you mean the 1 inch bar that pops up at the top?

HOW???? Ive been trying for ages, the toast comes up for 20 seconds i cannot swipe away on l920, or i am missing something obvious

please help

Swipe it to the right of the screen, simple! (as in, slightly press and hold it, and drag to the right).

 

[cuzincurly]

Yup. That pretty much sums it up for me too. Nokia and HTC complemented it really well with the latest HW designs. The whole package is a work of art.

I showed my WP8 to a bunch of designer friends a few days ago and they were impressed by its design and functionality. One thought that it was android based though.

 

[Dadstar0410]

And for me, the big standouts are

• Taking pictures and have them instantly appear on my desktop and RT via SkyDrive. I can't tell you how painful it was to cable my iPad or Droid just to get pictures off the device - and the disappointment when I hadn't done it in a while and the device went belly up taking all of my pictures with it!
• Sliding only Once - whether on my home screen or the app screen to the right, I only slide once. No more slide (next page), slide (next page), slide (next page) like an iPad, iPhone or Droid to find which screen my app is on
• One Button to Camera - 'nuff said
• Speech - The ability to have texts read to me - and reply via voice is incredible. And the fact that it gets crazy words like the name of my local Mexican restaurant (Ixtapa) right is amazing.

Coming from an Android phone, having to swipe only once in the start screen is just simple, and it doesn't strain thumbs haha. And also, I literally rejoiced at the presence of a physical camera button on my 8X.

 

[bawboh86]

• Speech - The ability to have texts read to me - and reply via voice is incredible. And the fact that it gets crazy words like the name of my local Mexican restaurant (Ixtapa) right is amazing.

I had completely forgotten about this. The first time it happened, I was in the car and didn't realize it would read it to me. My girlfriend asked me why I said I'd read it later. She sent me a test text (sitting in the car with me) and I had that read out loud. I'm STILL getting use to things like that.