Nokia Experts asking about Windows Phone

[jsjohnson]

I've only owned a Tilt and a Touch Pro but I think a few things are often overlooked while bashing MS. First, am I the only person still amazed by the fact that so many applications written for WM run like turds not due entirely to the hardware, but in large part due to bad memory mgmt.? It's shocking to see some of these programs crash and burn and not unlike Windows BSOD's, the OS gets the blame 99% of the time. How about introducing some quality control in programs before they make the marketplace? Make the WM7 experience even more solid by (I'm gonna say it) EXCEEDING user expectations! I love my phone so it pains me to have to pour a little salt on the MS parade but...

Learn from the advances made in user interface via SPB Mobile Shell and Touch Flo/Sense, they are built on sensible assumptions about how users actually USE the product. Please stop using the smallest known visual controls in history to do things like change volume.

FOR GOD'S SAKE PLEASE MS UPDATE THE CONTACT MANAGER AND POCKET OUTLOOK TO BE FINGER FRIENDLY!!!! I'm sick of how inaccurate my finger is on a high res screen when trying to find a contact by selecting a letter from the right-hand list. Outlook is positively painful to use with a finger and the menus suck.

Want to beat Apple? Here's my personal opinion on how to start...let users build there own user interface. Give them some templates that they can use out of the box but also let them build their own homescreens at least. A combination of apps, contacts, email, calendar, and IM controls could be arranged the way the USER wants, not ATT/Verizon/Sprint. I don't want honeycombs, I don't care for iPhone's never ending squares...let me build it online from an ever growing list of community and MS developed controls. It would also be fun while practical to have a screen that's unique to the user...what a novel concept!

 

[onlineaddy]

another try

 

[jankyhanky#WP]

Cooking roms already solves the customizeability problem.
From the roms I've tried, WinMo6.5 is already sort of touch/flick friendly. The buttons are a little bigger. The menus are okay. HTC makes it all a little better too.

But yeah, memory management is a big issue. I feel like they could just start over at this point, and rebuilt from the kernel up. (Buy Palm maybe?).

 

[rodhnc]

Smartphone round-robin contest entry

 

[Sayo]

I see on the front page here that a foreign HTC source stated the HD2 will be upgradeable to WM7. Wow, that is huge and gives Windows Mobile HD2 owners a device that will be good for at least a year, right? Will this sway you to pick up the HD2 device now or do you need more convincing?

I have to admit, it's very tempting to know that a device purchased today would essentially be an entirely new experience less than a year from now with the introduction of Windows Mobile 7.

..I always felt that the HD2 was likely built as a Windows Mobile 7 phone first, merely caught up in the delays.

 

[Johnny5Walker]

One of the only reasons i would go to windows mobile right now(android user, sorry) is because of HTC hardware.

the only real updates that i would be looking forward to is winmo 7, although i like the zune like homescreen, looks quite functional and quick.

and I have to agree with pretty much everyone else on the forum when i say that customization and flexibility is the one of the biggest draws to Winmo. that and the HD2.

 

[jankyhanky#WP]

I don't understand why they haven't ditched WMP entirely for the Zune.

 

[Johnny5Walker]

i imagine there going to be making a very very zune friendly wmp for winmo7. Microsoft also has an xbox 360, and/or a pc in so many homes. I think they will come up with somesort of integration between all of these devices. This is a serious advantage microsoft has over the competition, they just need to find ways to take advantage or it.

eg. use your phone to check all gamer profile/score, or to talk to your xbox contacts. use your phones speaker phone as a communication device instead of having a headset on. or individual game stats, or a map come up on the phone while gaming, similar to what logitech keyboards have, except windows phone's all have big(ish) color screen's and a real processor to push the pixels.

have an easy way to share music and video between all of these devices.

overall im hopeful that microsoft will revamp winmo into a platform that stands out in a crowd of an highly competitive handhelds

 

[linear2202]

1. FWIW's the releases of WM haven't been THAT far apart. Mary JO-Foley has a recent article showing the time span between releases and it's not as long as the public is lead to think. One problem is the time lag between the RTM of the OS and the available of it on phones. There is also the issue that once the iPhone came out and leap frogged everyone, this time frame between OS updates lasts an eternity because of the all the chatter about the new UI.
But Microsoft has proven that unless there is real competition they don't innovate the way they should.
It certainly looks as though they are becoming more responsive to the mobile community but only time will tell.
2. No other. HTC is it.
3. There is probably no one answer for this. Perhaps bits of many things. One in particular is the rumor of them making their own phone. I do believe they won't make their own phone as to not allienate partners, but to finally has specific hardware requirements is a great thing. Past WINMO phones were annemic hardware wise and should never have been on the market. This resulted in poor performance and I'm sure has contributed to the market perception that WINMO sucks.
4. I don't have specific experience with Nokia smartphones, but I have used their Internet Tablets up to the N810. I have no idea how much customization can be done on the Nokia phones, but that is probably what I would miss most if it's not present. Plus, the money I've already spent on apps over the years would be a big hurdle for me to move over. I've been using WINMO since the Audiovox 5600 Smartphone came out in what, 2003 I think.
5. As I mentioned above, I'm not experienced with the Nokia platform, but here goes.
A. Do you like to tinker and customize? If so, Winmo is for you and expecially HTC because of the XDA community.
B. Do you like Apps without limitations? The WINMO marketplace isn't huge, but the applications are numerous through Handango and directly from developers-if you are willing to research on the web. When I say limitations, I mean waiting for updates to appear in the marketplace when you know the developer has submited, trials.
C. Do you know how to use Windows on a PC? If so, then generally speaking WINMO is not a huge difference. You won't have a steep learning curve.

I hope this helps.

 

[cafe_civet]

Who is your favorite hardware manufacturer for WM? Motorola, HTC?

 

[linear2202]

Who is your favorite hardware manufacturer for WM? Motorola, HTC?

Are you talking to me?

 

[Sayo]

Who is your favorite hardware manufacturer for WM? Motorola, HTC?

HTC seems to be the only one putting any really effort into their Windows Mobile platform these days, both through current software UI modifications and general lust-worthy hardware.

Microsoft needs to release a branded flagship device with along with their Windows Mobile 7 OS to really steal the show.

 

[Macattack]

From the Perspective of a Nokia & WM User

As a result of some of my frustrations with Windows Mobile, I recently bought a Nokia E75. The S60, 3rd Ed. OS has a lot to recommend it, but I have found frustrations and limitations here as well.

Here's my perspective on your questions from both sides of the aisle:

1. I believe Microsoft has become too large and bloated to remain lithe and responsive to market trends. Microsoft has been real big for a real long time, but the technological half-life has been reduced to a matter of something like 2 or 3 months, especially on the software end of things. Because of this, I don't expect MS to ever become properly responsive to the market. I guess they could work very hard to change their corporate culture, but the bigger the company, the harder it is to change an embedded culture.
2. I have used HTC, E-Ten, Samsung, and Motorola WM devices. E-Ten was horrible. Overpriced garbage with terrible design, execution, and software. The Motorola was a very nice WM Standard device (Q-9c), but very large. Samsung devices are great to look at and have great ideas in them, but the rev. A (and sometimes rev. B) execution is often off. Then they take too long to get ROM upgrades out the door. (Witness the Samsung Epix.) I have been sticking with HTC devices of late because they have generally great hardware and well-thought-out software implementations. Another great benefit is the never-ending parade of custom ROMs available from XDA-developers.
3. I think the problem here is just neglect. It seems to me that MS has a tendency to get a product to the point where they believe it is a market leader and then forget about it for a while until it is clear that the market has passed it by. I have been using such devices since they were called Palm-Sized PCs in the late 90s, and the internet buzz was that MS was losing to Palm and might need to fold-up shop. MS responded with the original PocketPC in 2000, which was outstanding for its time. They followed quickly with yearly updates for a couple years to refine the product. At that time, no one had hosted exchange on devices (there were no phone-editions with OTA data connections at the time), and MS just sat on their laurels for years, falling behind. I think they wait until a competitor embarrasses them before they react.
4. When I tried moving over to the Nokia E75, I really missed the software I had on my HTC Fuze. I had a really hard time finding equivalents for S60-3, and when I did, they were sorry, feature-wise, compared to their WM equivalents. There were some direct equivalents, like SPB Wallet, but most were feature-poor.

I also really missed HTC's build quality. Right out of the box, I thought that the E75 was really well-built, but that was an aberration. The E75 does not seal out dust from getting under the screen. It is terrible. I bought a T4 Torx screwdriver so I could remove the screen assembly every couple weeks to get the gobs of dust out from behind the screen. As a mechanical engineer I really appreciate thoughtful design. I can tell you that the internals of the E75 show very little thought for the little things (like mitigating dust intrusion). Even if S60-3 was the perfect OS, with a perfect user experience for me, I just cannot bring myself to use a device with poor engineering. My Fuze has seen hard, daily, in-the-field use for 8 months, yet it's slider is still tighter than my less than two-month-old E75. I had always read about Nokia's great build quality, but I'm not seeing it.

5. I would tell a Nokia user that:
A) You're going to find a lot more software for the Windows Phone platform and it's generally much more mature and feature-rich.
B) From my experience, you're likely to find issues with both the short-term and long-term robustness of Nokia's designs.
C) I can't think of anything else. Nokia devices and S60 have quite a lot to recommend them, and I wish I could call the combination a real alternative to Windows Phones because I'm also fed up with them on many fronts.

 

[Tacos]

I don't understand why they haven't ditched WMP entirely for the Zune.

I personally like having a lighter media player, one not necessarily connected to a service, as an option to play files... thought the Zune service itself really is quite slick looking. Absolutely a step above most everything else currently out there.

 

[onlineaddy]

entry for giveaway

 

[NPR_Aficionado]

To answer number 1. I am really hoping that the 6.5 release was the start of Microsoft doing more regular updates. Hopefully, a year later we will have WM 7, and then OTA updates can follow! If that happens, 6.5 to 7 in a year will be a dramatic step in the right direction for Microsoft.

 

[jankyhanky#WP]

Windows 7 was magic. I am hoping WinMo 7 is just as good. I'm also rooting for Symbian to catch up.

 

[Fobok]

Totally agree about Windows 7. Microsoft is starting to realize what the customers want, so it might just extend into Windows Mobile.

 

[Jeffrey#WP]

1. Microsoft will become more responsive to the mobile community as their market share continues to drop.
4. If I had to give up my Windows Phone, the feature I would miss the most would be the tight integration and syncing with Outlook. I sync contacts including the contact's pictures and categories. The other thing I would miss is a good podcast player that has an integrated player such as Pocket Player. It can download podcasts automatically over Wi-Fi so that you don't have to use your 3G data connection.
5. The three things I would tell a Nokia Experts reader to convince them to buy a Windows Phone is a. lots of applications to choose from (in addition to Windows Marketplace), b. great integration with Microsoft products, c. many different hardware form factors to choose from.

 

[Johnny5Walker]

ive never used an s60 device, although it does look very useable. but this maemo looks pretty impressive. will be even more impressive if some more good dev's can get their hands on it.