The insanity!

[rgraines]

I love the Surround itself, but not the OS. I expected a juiced up revision of WM 6.X. But instead it went the other direction. Don't get me wrong, it has some nice features and its pretty, but we lost a lot of features and control. My 2 biggest issues are no tethering (as was promised) and no retro fit of the WM 6.X programs. Instead we get a lot of apps that are "flashlights" and "calorie counters". Where's my Sirius Radio, URL programmable media players, true multitasking and collective IM programs? HTC, I will say the Surround is a bear to hack! But that just makes it harder to make the changes I need.

 

[Hombaca05]

Did you read alot about the OS itself before you bought the phone? There's many articles about how different WP7 is from WM6, tho it's pretty evident just by looking at the OS.

Plus it's a new platform really so you'll have to give it time for the app catalog to mature. Coming to a new OS, you should expect there to be a wait on some apps you used on another platform. I play Angry Birds on my Android, and I know that when I switch to WP7 I'll have to wait on it, but that's fine.

 

[rgraines]

My problem is I did not read much about it. But what I did read said there would be tethering, even wifi tethering. Additionally, it was touted as being "better" then 6. Guess I read too much from MS and not enough from the independent press.

 

[Hombaca05]

Yea, the tethering thing is something that was up and down. One minute a MS person supposedly said yes it's there, the next they didn't. I'm sure it will come, possibly even in the first update due for early 2011. But it will prolly be left up to the carriers to charge for it, they all are now.

 

[adriankeith]

I can understand missing some applications moving from iOS to WP7 but I feel like they could have released development kits or whatever it is much earlier to make up for that. The marketplace is lacking pretty severely but I am hopeful that with time it will become formidable against the other app ecosystems. One pet peeve I do have is the search function in the marketplace searches EVERYTHING. To be honest, I don't purchase music on my phone, if I'm going to do it it's going to be on my PC. I'd like to filter it to just search for apps rather than populating my search list with a bunch of irrelevant songs and artists when I'm looking for a specific application.

They definitely could have had a more sizeable marketplace in terms of apps by now if they had some development working before the release of the phone.

 

[Hombaca05]

I think launching with over 1,000 apps is pretty darn good, plus they just hit the 3,000 mark which is more apps than webOS has they're making headway. Give it time.

 

[adriankeith]

I don't have any issue with giving the app store time to grow. That's not the point I was trying to make as I can understand that quality apps need time. They're boasting 3,000 apps but to be honest, I'm hardly finding anything that I need or that I consider useful. The games are OK at best, nothing to write home about and some of the basic things I'd expect like some kind of streaming radio (I don't count last.fm or slacker streaming radio as those are more like Pandora) apps or a good finance app (I've been using PageOnce but I don't like it as it doesn't stay as current as it should).

I'm willing to give it time but seriously, 3,000 apps none of which can operate in the background. You'd think MS would at least pull a page from the last 3-4 years that the iPhone has been out -- some semblance of multitasking, copy/paste, the landscape issues that are plaguing the OS or the lack of a rotation lock, etc. These are beyond the app store but still some things that could have used some QA or testing prior to release of the handsets.

 

[vailjo91#WP]

It is a new plat form it hasnt fully grown. It will be able to tether and all of the things you just mentioned.

 

[rgraines]

I'm sure that 1 day they will get it up to par. But if not by my contact renewal date, I will be purchasing an Android.