Getting a 900 this week...

[ChristianKing]

Don't be FOOLISH!

I have a Titan and a Lumia 900, but in all honesty, you'd be a FOOL to upgrade to the Lumia 900 or any windows Phone unless you're paying for it outright at this point. Defintely don't renew a contract right now. :dry

All current windows phones will be useful for another year tops, but after that, developers are going to start building apps for Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8 to take advantage of the Windows Phone 8 Software and Hardware advances. Those apps wont be comming to any of the current phones. A smartphone with outdated apps is useless. Save your upgrade for a Windows 8 phone. If you have to get a new phone, buy it from Ebay, CraigsList or a fellow WPCentral member looking to get some cash to put towards a Windows Phone 8 device.

It's not about the new tech, its the fact that all current windows phones including the Lumia 900 will be dead in 12 months. If you think developers are going to keep rolling out apps for both generation of devices, you're going to find out the hard way you're wrong. As a developer, I'm going to update my Tango/Mango apps for 6 months (Max), then migrate everything to the Windows 8 Toolkits so I can sell on Tablets, Desktops and Phones using one codebase. There are a lot more Desktop and soon to be tablet users than there are Windows Phone users, so getting the new codebase out is purely an economic decision. I'll take the hit on potential loss of Tango/Mango sales to add Tablet and Desktop sales from the same codebase

If you're smart, you'll take this advice. I'm a developer and I'm just being honest about my plan to make money from apps moving forward. Current Windows Phone devices aren't going to be relevant by spring of next year as the Metro Tablet and Desktop App gold rush begin. Windows Phone apps are comming along for the ride because it doesn't cost anything extra to create them. However they will be based on the Windows Phone 8 which wont run on any current device.

 

[robshoy]

I have a Titan and a Lumia 900, but in all honesty, you'd be a FOOL to upgrade to the Lumia 900 or any windows Phone unless you're paying for it outright at this point. Defintely don't renew a contract right now. :dry

All current windows phones will be useful for another year tops, but after that, developers are going to start building apps for Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8 to take advantage of the Windows Phone 8 Software and Hardware advances. Those apps wont be comming to any of the current phones. A smartphone with outdated apps is useless. Save your upgrade for a Windows 8 phone. If you have to get a new phone, buy it from Ebay, CraigsList or a fellow WPCentral member looking to get some cash to put towards a Windows Phone 8 device.

It's not about the new tech, its the fact that all current windows phones including the Lumia 900 will be dead in 12 months. If you think developers are going to keep rolling out apps for both generation of devices, you're going to find out the hard way you're wrong. As a developer, I'm going to update my Tango/Mango apps for 6 months (Max), then migrate everything to the Windows 8 Toolkits so I can sell on Tablets, Desktops and Phones using one codebase. There are a lot more Desktop and soon to be tablet users than there are Windows Phone users, so getting the new codebase out is purely an economic decision. I'll take the hit on potential loss of Tango/Mango sales to add Tablet and Desktop sales from the same codebase

If you're smart, you'll take this advice. I'm a developer and I'm just being honest about my plan to make money from apps moving forward. Current Windows Phone devices aren't going to be relevant by spring of next year as the Metro Tablet and Desktop App gold rush begin. Windows Phone apps are comming along for the ride because it doesn't cost anything extra to create them. However they will be based on the Windows Phone 8 which wont run on any current device.

I respect the fact that you're a developer and all, but here's some friendly advice from a normal user: Stop thinking so much about apps.

What are the most-used apps on most users' phones? Facebook. Twitter. A note pad. A tip calculator. Angry birds. A weather app. Maybe Foursquare. Maybe a couple of other casual games. Maybe something like Fandango to buy movie tickets or Shazam to figure out what song is playing, but I think even then we're getting into niche situations.

The truth is that with Windows Phone 8, none of those apps will run any better or any differently. A higher-resolution screen isn't going to dramatically alter my experience when I'm checking the weather or calculating how much I should tip at dinner. A dual-core processor (or higher) won't dramatically change how I check into my favorite spots around the city in Foursquare or check on my friends' Facebook pages. NFC might change how I pay for coffee or movie tickets... except that most businesses have no clue what NFC is and it's still a year or two from being relevant.

If you're going to make an average (keyword here) 7.5 user jealous of WP8, there's really only two avenues you can go down: The first is hardware, and the second is end-user interface features.

Hardware would be a fair argument. "Wait for a better camera" or "wait for a better screen" are things that users experience and understand the value of. "Wait for a dual-core processor" is a dead-end argument for the 90%, because they'll just say "My phone already runs super-fast and smooth, and I never notice any lag".

As for end-user interface features, we're getting most if not all of them in 7.8, so that's a dead-end argument too.

I'm an educated user who has done the research, and I've made up my mind?as have hundreds or thousands of people who are still going to buy Lumias in the next few months. They're great phones that are still going to be upgraded and supported by both companies (Nokia and Microsoft) for a fair amount of time to come. But most importantly, they're great phones now, and our experience from Day One is only going to get better.

 

[bigkevbosky]

I respect the fact that you're a developer and all, but here's some friendly advice from a normal user: Stop thinking so much about apps.

What are the most-used apps on most users' phones? Facebook. Twitter. A note pad. A tip calculator. Angry birds. A weather app. Maybe Foursquare. Maybe a couple of other casual games. Maybe something like Fandango to buy movie tickets or Shazam to figure out what song is playing, but I think even then we're getting into niche situations.

The truth is that with Windows Phone 8, none of those apps will run any better or any differently. A higher-resolution screen isn't going to dramatically alter my experience when I'm checking the weather or calculating how much I should tip at dinner. A dual-core processor (or higher) won't dramatically change how I check into my favorite spots around the city in Foursquare or check on my friends' Facebook pages. NFC might change how I pay for coffee or movie tickets... except that most businesses have no clue what NFC is and it's still a year or two from being relevant.

If you're going to make an average (keyword here) 7.5 user jealous of WP8, there's really only two avenues you can go down: The first is hardware, and the second is end-user interface features.

Hardware would be a fair argument. "Wait for a better camera" or "wait for a better screen" are things that users experience and understand the value of. "Wait for a dual-core processor" is a dead-end argument for the 90%, because they'll just say "My phone already runs super-fast and smooth, and I never notice any lag".

As for end-user interface features, we're getting most if not all of them in 7.8, so that's a dead-end argument too.

I'm an educated user who has done the research, and I've made up my mind?as have hundreds or thousands of people who are still going to buy Lumias in the next few months. They're great phones that are still going to be upgraded and supported by both companies (Nokia and Microsoft) for a fair amount of time to come. But most importantly, they're great phones now, and our experience from Day One is only going to get better.

Exactly - I use my phone all the time for lots of things and I still don't get what some "power users" are doing with their devices that makes them unhappy with WP 7.5/7.8.

Here's what I use my phone for :

Calls, Texts, Calendar Appointments, Banking, Weather, Games (rarely), Internet Browsing, Sports Scores/Fantasy Football, Reading Books (rarely), News, Pictures (rarely), Movie Times (rarely), Podcasts, Music, Navigation, Calculator, Shopping, Reminders, Office (rarely)

I get everyone has different use cases, but I believe my use mirrors a lot of "average" users out there. Nothing on that list will change dramatically with WP8. Yes, gaming will, but I rarely game on the phone, only when sitting waiting at the doctor's office or DMV or something. Everything else can be done on the Lumia, and will be able to be done on the Lumia, for years - ESPECIALLY since it has LTE on board and that is a "next gen" feature.

 

[ChristianKing]

I respect the fact that you're a developer and all, but here's some friendly advice from a normal user: Stop thinking so much about apps.

What are the most-used apps on most users' phones? Facebook. Twitter. A note pad. A tip calculator. Angry birds. A weather app. Maybe Foursquare. Maybe a couple of other casual games. Maybe something like Fandango to buy movie tickets or Shazam to figure out what song is playing, but I think even then we're getting into niche situations.

The truth is that with Windows Phone 8, none of those apps will run any better or any differently. A higher-resolution screen isn't going to dramatically alter my experience when I'm checking the weather or calculating how much I should tip at dinner. A dual-core processor (or higher) won't dramatically change how I check into my favorite spots around the city in Foursquare or check on my friends' Facebook pages. NFC might change how I pay for coffee or movie tickets... except that most businesses have no clue what NFC is and it's still a year or two from being relevant.

If you're going to make an average (keyword here) 7.5 user jealous of WP8, there's really only two avenues you can go down: The first is hardware, and the second is end-user interface features.

Hardware would be a fair argument. "Wait for a better camera" or "wait for a better screen" are things that users experience and understand the value of. "Wait for a dual-core processor" is a dead-end argument for the 90%, because they'll just say "My phone already runs super-fast and smooth, and I never notice any lag".

As for end-user interface features, we're getting most if not all of them in 7.8, so that's a dead-end argument too.

I'm an educated user who has done the research, and I've made up my mind?as have hundreds or thousands of people who are still going to buy Lumias in the next few months. They're great phones that are still going to be upgraded and supported by both companies (Nokia and Microsoft) for a fair amount of time to come. But most importantly, they're great phones now, and our experience from Day One is only going to get better.

Let's examine the two sections I've highlighted. My goal isn't to stop you from buying a Lumia, it's to help you understand why you're going to make a bad decision in doing so.

The first statement I highlighted identifies you're belief that the apps on our Lumia 900 won't be any different (for a while from the windows phone 8 apps). Microsoft would like for you to believe that, but the truth is that the same version of the apps you're using today will be the same version you'll be using a year form now. You aren't going to get the improvements or what some would classify as the improved experience, because those will be on the Windows 8 Codebase which your phone won't run. Facebook, Twitter and all those standard essential apps won't get updated. They'll give you the line of the native Windows Phone functionality will suffice while we build our improvements on the new codebase. How do i know this, we discussed it at the developer summit. Believe it or not, Developers make decision primarily on user base and money. Both will be more readily available on a Windows 8 compatible codebase.

Let's talk about your product education. You have done your research and you like the product (I did also, I purchased a 900 and all the accessories also), but clearly your education isn't being applied to historical practices from both Microsoft and Nokia. Microsoft essentially dropped the Zune Like a Hot potato, not because they didn't love it and it wasn't great, but primarily because Windows phone required them to dedicate their resources to that project. Thus, no more apps on Zune, no more relevant updates on Zune, Nn more Zune. Nokia if you've noticed is in dire financial straits. Now they can't afford to totally abandon their users so they threw us a bone with a few apps that were in the pipeline. I had Playto from their developer site 3 weeks ago. But don't kid yourself. They are eager to compete with Google and Apple with hardware and high quality apps and to do so they need to leverage the new hardware. Their new apps won't be ported back because they'll use NFC, extra cores for imaging and mapping and all the other parts of Windows Phone 8 that haven?t even been announced yet like native skydrive support and Hardware dependent security access.

I to would like to believe that Nokia wouldn't do that, but that ship has sailed. You should understand that they announced that they cut their revenue projections to investors by 41% for a reason. Their message is we?re going to get crushed the next 6 months but we will reboot in the winter with a real competitor to Apple and Google on all fronts, Tablets and Hybrid devices included. They told you all you need to know, now you just need to think it through. Then again you can do as you clearly already plan to do. But I can say with 100% certainty, short of just wanting the Lumia 900 in 8 months you're going to be abandoned and todays thinking will be tomorrows i can't believe they would do this.

Good luck. The Lumia is a cool device, in fact, i'll sell you mine for a good price if you want it.

 

[blehblehbleh]

It's not about the new tech, its the fact that all current windows phones including the Lumia 900 will be dead in 12 months. If you think developers are going to keep rolling out apps for both generation of devices, you're going to find out the hard way you're wrong. As a developer, I'm going to update my Tango/Mango apps for 6 months (Max), then migrate everything to the Windows 8 Toolkits so I can sell on Tablets, Desktops and Phones using one codebase. There are a lot more Desktop and soon to be tablet users than there are Windows Phone users, so getting the new codebase out is purely an economic decision. I'll take the hit on potential loss of Tango/Mango sales to add Tablet and Desktop sales from the same codebase

So you speak for the millions of developers around the world? You make good points, but just saying.

Let's examine the two sections I've highlighted. My goal isn't to stop you from buying a Lumia, it's to help you understand why you're going to make a bad decision in doing so.

The first statement I highlighted identifies you're belief that the apps on our Lumia 900 won't be any different (for a while from the windows phone 8 apps). Microsoft would like for you to believe that, but the truth is that the same version of the apps you're using today will be the same version you'll be using a year form now. ...
I to would like to believe that Nokia wouldn't do that, but that ship has sailed. You should understand that they announced that they cut their revenue projections to investors by 41% for a reason. Their message is we?re going to get crushed the next 6 months but we will reboot in the winter with a real competitor to Apple and Google on all fronts, Tablets and Hybrid devices included. They told you all you need to know, now you just need to think it through. Then again you can do as you clearly already plan to do. But I can say with 100% certainty, short of just wanting the Lumia 900 in 8 months you're going to be abandoned and todays thinking will be tomorrows i can't believe they would do this.

Again valid points, but you forget that while the apps may change and offer an improved experience as long as he and his personal, subjective test of what's tolerable is still met with the same apps on his Lumia, does any of the improved experience or new bells and whistles matter?

I'm not saying they won't. They probably will but he's clearly looking for the short-mid term and if he needs to upgrade I think this guy probably has no qualms about it.

 

[MrBurrrns]

Anybody who buys a Windows Phone right now is clearly insane or misinformed. Or both. There is no other way how to put it.

 

[emirozmen]

Anybody who buys a Windows Phone right now is clearly insane or misinformed. Or both. There is no other way how to put it.

Actually, someone who is not into tech that much but wants a phone which delivers some great features can get the Lumia 900 for a great price. I mean, WP 7.5 is enough for the average consumer.

 

[MrBurrrns]

Actually, someone who is not into tech that much but wants a phone which delivers some great features can get the Lumia 900 for a great price. I mean, WP 7.5 is enough for the average consumer.

What if the average consumer wants a working Skype application? What if he wants to play Angry Birds Space? What if he wants a working IM application (and the build in Facebook chat is anything but reliable)? What if he wants a notification center?

And I could go on... Now don't get me wrong, I love WP but there are lots of things WP is missing. And the promise has always been "well, those things will come with Apollo". Well guess what, they won't.

If Android wasn't such crap I'd switch to it right now. Oh well, maybe the new iPhone will finally have a bigger screen and I can get that.

 

[Verkunder]

People are still complaining about a notification center? I wonder why my tiles are LIVE.

 

[jimski]

The majority of Smartphone users (I would consider them average) have never installed an app, or have installed fewer than 5. So unless their three app selections are a new Angry Birds, Skype and IM, I think they will be just fine.

Sent from my Lumia 900 using Board Express Pro

 

[palandri]

The majority of Smartphone users (I would consider them average) have never installed an app, or have installed fewer than 5. So unless their three app selections are a new Angry Birds, Skype and IM, I think they will be just fine.

Sent from my Lumia 900 using Board Express Pro

Sounds like my wife. She has CNN, Angry Birds and Weather installed on her phone and that's all she needs to be 100% happy.

 

[jimski]

Sounds like my wife. She has CNN, Angry Birds and Weather installed on her phone and that's all she needs to be 100% happy.

Wholly crap Batman. I can quote again! New Board Express update just pushed out. Go fetch it. .That only took a month.

Sent from my Lumia 900 using Board Express Pro

 

[robshoy]

Anybody who buys a Windows Phone right now is clearly insane or misinformed. Or both. There is no other way how to put it.

"Anybody who chooses to buy a Windows Phone right now should be informed as to why that might not be a great idea, but if they understand that and are okay with it, they should do what they want since this is a free country and we can exercise free will without being insane or misinformed."

So, that's like... one way you could have put it I guess. >> But no, it's cool, keep calling new WP7 customers insane. That's fine.

 

[MrBurrrns]

People are still complaining about a notification center? I wonder why my tiles are LIVE.

OK, and what do you do, if you miss one of the (unreliable on top of that) toast notifications for an app you do not have pinned? Or you have it pinned at the bottom and miss it because there is no place where you can see them at once? Or the application does not have a live tile or the damn live tile just stopped working?

Please, I know we are all fanboys here, but anybody with a grasp of reality knows the seriousness of the situation. And the fact that we love WP should not be a reason to overlook its shortcomings. That does not help anybody.

We are the ones that pushed this platform when nobody else gave a **** about it. And the fact is, we have been screwed over by Microsoft. Now, I am able to see pass that, because I realize that they had to do that. But that does not mean I will smile and just bend over. You can put as many raisins in a turd as you want, it will still be a turd. Even if the raisins are made by Microsoft. And that's what WP 7.8 is. A pimped out turd of an update.

 

[MrBurrrns]

The majority of Smartphone users (I would consider them average) have never installed an app, or have installed fewer than 5. So unless their three app selections are a new Angry Birds, Skype and IM, I think they will be just fine.

Sent from my Lumia 900 using Board Express Pro

Your argument is invalid because it only applies to you. What if the 5 apps I want to install are Instagram, Cut the Rope or any other app or game that is missing on WP?

And then there is another problem with apps that do exist but simply suck compared to iOS or Android. For example Viber or Skype - and those will ALWAYS suck on WP 7.x because of the system limitations.

So please stop being a ****** and get real. WP7 is great. But it is far from perfect.

 

[Nataku4ca]

Your argument is invalid because it only applies to you. What if the 5 apps I want to install are Instagram, Cut the Rope or any other app or game that is missing on WP?

And then there is another problem with apps that do exist but simply suck compared to iOS or Android. For example Viber or Skype - and those will ALWAYS suck on WP 7.x because of the system limitations.

So please stop being a ****** and get real. WP7 is great. But it is far from perfect.

umm... ok I tried to stay out of this conversation, but I have to say this... I have viber on mine and it works exactly the same as the ones on iOS that my gf has and android my friend has... whats the problem? are you using some advanced feature that I'm not using? (I just make calls with it)

 

[MrBurrrns]

umm... ok I tried to stay out of this conversation, but I have to say this... I have viber on mine and it works exactly the same as the ones on iOS that my gf has and android my friend has... whats the problem? are you using some advanced feature that I'm not using? (I just make calls with it)

That is amazing, especially considering that voice is not yet supported on WP...

Anyway, notifications don't always work, messages are not being sent... Just check the Marketplace reviews and you will see all the issues people have.

 

[Nataku4ca]

That is amazing, especially considering that voice is not yet supported on WP...

Anyway, notifications don't always work, messages are not being sent... Just check the Marketplace reviews and you will see all the issues people have.

ok, my mistake, i mistaked it for tango, too many voip apps on my phone...