I just got my Samsung Focus 3 days ago, and had the weekend to play around with it, and explore both its features and shortcomings. I recently ditched my IPhone 3G, not because of a disdain for the product, but my angst towards a company that refused to support their product after it started having hardware failures and a steady slowing of the OS in the 1.5yrs of regular use. I use my phone to complement my daily tasks, and make them easier.
So with this in mind, I dove into the cold WP7 waters in hopes of releasing the fruity grips my prior phone had on the my life, and here are my thoughts on the OS.
There are a lot of great features for the phone, and the OS, as many articles and posters have expressed, so I won?t go over all of that. I will, however, focus on some features that I wish were available, or that I have not figured out how to maneuver. Feel free to comment on any of these either in agreement or otherwise, or add some features that you would want in a future update of the OS.
So in no particular order, here is my list:
1) There is no way to configure advanced email settings such as ports. You can specify SSL, but no way to specify non-standard ports that I have been able to figure out.
2) Universal Inbox or quick email switching. At least having the option to consolidate all your emails under one area, or a way to switch between accounts would be a plus. Having to hit back and then find your other email account is not efficient (even if you have it set up as a tile).
3) Copy/Paste. Not much to say here and MS is reportedly addressing this issue in the next release.
4) When you have linked accounts, or Facebook integration, there is no way to select what name is shown on the contact (this affects people with maiden names and nick names). You have to change your actual contact card, which isn?t always the option of choice. The app lets you chose the picture, at least, so it shouldn?t be hard to let you choose the display name.
5) Remove the limitation on how many free apps developers can submit to the marketplace. You get 5 included submissions, but every future submission requires you to pay. MS already takes a cut off your sales, so why provide a disincentive for small apps/utilities that can help adoption of a new OS from the get-go?
6) SkyDrive documents aren?t readily accessible through the office hub. You can go through the internet, log into SkyDrive, and then open up a document, but why the extra step? If the docs are all listed in the Hub, or provide a way to search for a document, it will make it more intuitive.
7) OneNote does not allow you to open up Grouped Sections. This is a small peeve, but should be a quick/easy fix.
8) When reading email, if you?re trying to zip through all your unread messages, the app doesn?t automatically go to the next message when you trash it; instead, it goes back to the message list. There should be at least an option to automatically go to the next email so you can quickly go through emails.
9) Images are not automatically downloaded in the email client. Also a nuisance when messages are in HTML and you have to scroll all the way to the bottom of the message to click on ?download rest of message? just to see the proper formatting. Again, at least an option would be great (although the rationale of refraining from auto-download makes sense).
10) No quick scroll to bottom or top of a screen. Although scrolling is smooth and easy, if you have a large document, it is way too time-consuming to navigate the page.
11) Flagging a message in the email client does not synchronize with flagging in Hotmail or Outlook. Others have also mentioned a parallel issue with Google and the favorite/starring of an email.
12) Search in the marketplace is not grouped. This is a biggie for people trying to find applications vs. songs when hitting the search button. Why am I shown music about GPS, when I simply want to see if there are GPS apps available?
13) Visual Voicemail. Although this is a nice feature of the iPhone, it?d be nice to have it available in WM7 because of the convenience it provides. Not sure if there is a patent issue here with it, however or the plausibility.
So with this in mind, I dove into the cold WP7 waters in hopes of releasing the fruity grips my prior phone had on the my life, and here are my thoughts on the OS.
There are a lot of great features for the phone, and the OS, as many articles and posters have expressed, so I won?t go over all of that. I will, however, focus on some features that I wish were available, or that I have not figured out how to maneuver. Feel free to comment on any of these either in agreement or otherwise, or add some features that you would want in a future update of the OS.
So in no particular order, here is my list:
1) There is no way to configure advanced email settings such as ports. You can specify SSL, but no way to specify non-standard ports that I have been able to figure out.
2) Universal Inbox or quick email switching. At least having the option to consolidate all your emails under one area, or a way to switch between accounts would be a plus. Having to hit back and then find your other email account is not efficient (even if you have it set up as a tile).
3) Copy/Paste. Not much to say here and MS is reportedly addressing this issue in the next release.
4) When you have linked accounts, or Facebook integration, there is no way to select what name is shown on the contact (this affects people with maiden names and nick names). You have to change your actual contact card, which isn?t always the option of choice. The app lets you chose the picture, at least, so it shouldn?t be hard to let you choose the display name.
5) Remove the limitation on how many free apps developers can submit to the marketplace. You get 5 included submissions, but every future submission requires you to pay. MS already takes a cut off your sales, so why provide a disincentive for small apps/utilities that can help adoption of a new OS from the get-go?
6) SkyDrive documents aren?t readily accessible through the office hub. You can go through the internet, log into SkyDrive, and then open up a document, but why the extra step? If the docs are all listed in the Hub, or provide a way to search for a document, it will make it more intuitive.
7) OneNote does not allow you to open up Grouped Sections. This is a small peeve, but should be a quick/easy fix.
8) When reading email, if you?re trying to zip through all your unread messages, the app doesn?t automatically go to the next message when you trash it; instead, it goes back to the message list. There should be at least an option to automatically go to the next email so you can quickly go through emails.
9) Images are not automatically downloaded in the email client. Also a nuisance when messages are in HTML and you have to scroll all the way to the bottom of the message to click on ?download rest of message? just to see the proper formatting. Again, at least an option would be great (although the rationale of refraining from auto-download makes sense).
10) No quick scroll to bottom or top of a screen. Although scrolling is smooth and easy, if you have a large document, it is way too time-consuming to navigate the page.
11) Flagging a message in the email client does not synchronize with flagging in Hotmail or Outlook. Others have also mentioned a parallel issue with Google and the favorite/starring of an email.
12) Search in the marketplace is not grouped. This is a biggie for people trying to find applications vs. songs when hitting the search button. Why am I shown music about GPS, when I simply want to see if there are GPS apps available?
13) Visual Voicemail. Although this is a nice feature of the iPhone, it?d be nice to have it available in WM7 because of the convenience it provides. Not sure if there is a patent issue here with it, however or the plausibility.
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