MarkyGuitar
New member
I have a lumia800. Apart from the battery being poor (and I have 1450mah capacity) its great - a nice jump from Android.
I just read a lot of the posts here in this thread. Excellent stuff
The thing I tend to often see though is people that like to come in and show everyone how Android has all the stuff you like in WP7 and more. Yes, that is true. Android *can* do everything WP7 can and more. But that's not the reason why I don't use Android and prefer WP7.
I am a software engineer. I breathe this stuff. I am also not exactly young. I am in my mid 30s so I've been around a bit. I was a very passionate hacker (in the original meaning of the word) back in the day. I was the guy that took days to figure out how to get the X Window system to run on his new Linux install. I had to enter my monitor's referesh rates manually in a xconfig.conf to get things going. I loved compiling a new compiler (pgcc - pentium optimized version of GCC) and then using the new compiler to compile my kernel, then my tools, followed by my X Server (make world) and then compiling my entire desktop (KDE) with all the apps I use. Then finding out something isn't working right and doing the whole thing all over again.
I am not telling you this as a way to brag or anything, just that that kid that was me would have LOVED Android back in the day. I would have been building AOSP from scratch and make my own ROMs. I know what all of that stuff entails and it's not really that hard to do. Today though, after being a little more seasoned and experienced, I've developed an eye for well architected and developed products. I've seen really good ones and I've seen ones that *look* like they're good but fall apart as soon as you start using them.
The reason I love WP7 over Android is simple: It's a very well thought out OS with some excellent design decisions made. Android on the other hand has always been rushed, always. iPhone came out, destroyed the world and something else was needed PRONTO. Android was trying to be a BlackBerry alternative and they redid it in the image of iOS. But it was all rushed.
Let's take an example of how good design and architecture can have a better customer experience. Let's look at how apps work on Android vs WP7:
On Android, apps have a lot of power! They can run in the background thanks to "true" multitasking. That enables some seriously powerful scenarios. But there's a cost here. An app can be installed that stresses out your entire phone. How many times did an Android user have their phone be working nice, they install an app, and things go south? It's easy in that world. A developer that makes a mistake, or is just not as experienced, can do stuff in their app that affect the OS since it's running in the background. Suddenly, the customer has no idea why their phone is not acting right anymore. The answer? uninstall the offending app.
Now let's look at that scenario in WP7. No app can run in the background. The best you can do is have a background agent that gets run by the OS every 30 mins for a limited amount of time (25 secs or so) and can only use a certain amount of resources. So even if someone writes crappy code in that agent, they will only affect the system for a very short time. So you never get that "man...I wish I never installed that app... I need to remove it now". Sure, you lose some flexibility from not having things running all the time, but a smart architect targets the majority of scenarios over the minority. The truth of the matter that the way WP7 (and iOS) do multitasking gives the majority of the customers the functionality they need on their phones.
I can give other examples, but that post is long enough as it is. Android took the easy way in most of their decisions. That's not a negative on them really since they are always in a rush. But to a person like me, I can see the future of WP7 very clearly. They got the platform right. They made the right decisions and chose the right way of doing things.
That "core", if you will, is the hardest part to get right. Specially since it becomes astronomically more difficult to go back and make those changes once you have apps to worry about. Android would have a very hard time going back and making big core changes like this now. Too many apps depend on how the system works. The best they can do is make small changes toward bigger ones and use hardware progress to make up for the negatives.
The thing though... as android gains more hardware, that same hardware will always make WP7 faster in comparison. Always. It's just fundamentally better designed. The app gap between WP7 and Android is just a moment in time. 50k apps in one year is nothing to laugh at. That gap will close, no doubt about it.
To me, it's a brain dead easy decision to invest in WP ecosystem. Doesn't make Android bad, of course not. Android just has too many cooks in the kitchen (google, oems, carriers) to let it advance as fast as WP7 could, and will.
I just read a lot of the posts here in this thread. Excellent stuff
...
The reason I love WP7 over Android is simple: It's a very well thought out OS with some excellent design decisions made. Android on the other hand has always been rushed, always. iPhone came out, destroyed the world and something else was needed PRONTO. Android was trying to be a BlackBerry alternative and they redid it in the image of iOS. But it was all rushed.
...
The thing though... as android gains more hardware, that same hardware will always make WP7 faster in comparison. Always. It's just fundamentally better designed. The app gap between WP7 and Android is just a moment in time. 50k apps in one year is nothing to laugh at. That gap will close, no doubt about it.
To me, it's a brain dead easy decision to invest in WP ecosystem. Doesn't make Android bad, of course not. Android just has too many cooks in the kitchen (google, oems, carriers) to let it advance as fast as WP7 could, and will.
Le sigh
My post was a point for point response to someone else's post, so I'm just assuming you're trying to troll me and move on.
Sent from my iPod touch using Tapatalk
That's wrong. You're implying the wrong things. Android didn't redesign the user interface and device form factor just to imitate iOS. They did it because before the iPhone was released smartphones were the domain of business users who typed out text-only emails on QWERTY keypads and the iPhone made the smartphone a consumer device. The iPhone's release almost instantly doubled or tripped the potential smartphone userbase and as a result Android had to contend with consumer demands. Back in mid-08 RIM still had something like 53% of the smartphone market and without something to compete with BES there was no way Android could compete with Blackberry in the corporate sector. Therefore, they changed directions and focused on a now open and very accessible consumer market.The reason I love WP7 over Android is simple: It's a very well thought out OS with some excellent design decisions made. Android on the other hand has always been rushed, always. iPhone came out, destroyed the world and something else was needed PRONTO. Android was trying to be a BlackBerry alternative and they redid it in the image of iOS. But it was all rushed.
That's not really a big issue with Android. Most users don't multitask on their phones like a PC. THey use an app, close it, and use another app, etc. The reason why this is a big deal and a win for Android (and even Blackberry for that matter) is because it opens up possibilities and allows the user to truly multitask applications that should be able to run in the background. You can background Google Navigation, or TeleNav, or MapQuest on Android and it will still give you all the Voice Guided directions. You cannot do this on Windows Phone. You can do that with apps like Glympse on Android, but no on Windows Phone.Let's take an example of how good design and architecture can have a better customer experience. Let's look at how apps work on Android vs WP7:
On Android, apps have a lot of power! They can run in the background thanks to "true" multitasking. That enables some seriously powerful scenarios. But there's a cost here. An app can be installed that stresses out your entire phone. How many times did an Android user have their phone be working nice, they install an app, and things go south? It's easy in that world. A developer that makes a mistake, or is just not as experienced, can do stuff in their app that affect the OS since it's running in the background. Suddenly, the customer has no idea why their phone is not acting right anymore. The answer? uninstall the offending app.
While the apps is in the forground it's terrible code can still drain unnecessary amounts of battery, the app can still lag and freeze, and in some rare cases the app can still crash the phone. However, the design of the OS does cancel out completely logical and useful use cases that are possible on other OSes like iOS, Android, and Blackberry.Now let's look at that scenario in WP7. No app can run in the background. The best you can do is have a background agent that gets run by the OS every 30 mins for a limited amount of time (25 secs or so) and can only use a certain amount of resources. So even if someone writes crappy code in that agent, they will only affect the system for a very short time. So you never get that "man...I wish I never installed that app... I need to remove it now". Sure, you lose some flexibility from not having things running all the time, but a smart architect targets the majority of scenarios over the minority. The truth of the matter that the way WP7 (and iOS) do multitasking gives the majority of the customers the functionality they need on their phones.
I can give other examples, but that post is long enough as it is. Android took the easy way in most of their decisions. That's not a negative on them really since they are always in a rush. But to a person like me, I can see the future of WP7 very clearly. They got the platform right. They made the right decisions and chose the right way of doing things.
That "core", if you will, is the hardest part to get right. Specially since it becomes astronomically more difficult to go back and make those changes once you have apps to worry about. Android would have a very hard time going back and making big core changes like this now. Too many apps depend on how the system works. The best they can do is make small changes toward bigger ones and use hardware progress to make up for the negatives.
The thing though... as android gains more hardware, that same hardware will always make WP7 faster in comparison. Always. It's just fundamentally better designed. The app gap between WP7 and Android is just a moment in time. 50k apps in one year is nothing to laugh at. That gap will close, no doubt about it.
To me, it's a brain dead easy decision to invest in WP ecosystem. Doesn't make Android bad, of course not. Android just has too many cooks in the kitchen (google, oems, carriers) to let it advance as fast as WP7 could, and will.
That's wrong. You're implying the wrong things. Android didn't redesign the user interface and device form factor just to imitate iOS. They did it because before the iPhone was released smartphones were the domain of business users who typed out text-only emails on QWERTY keypads and the iPhone made the smartphone a consumer device. The iPhone's release almost instantly doubled or tripped the potential smartphone userbase and as a result Android had to contend with consumer demands. Back in mid-08 RIM still had something like 53% of the smartphone market and without something to compete with BES there was no way Android could compete with Blackberry in the corporate sector. Therefore, they changed directions and focused on a now open and very accessible consumer market.
Consumers wanted powerful touchscreen, media-focused, devices with good browsing capabilities. Those are areas where both Windows Mobile and RIM largely failed (Browsing experience, capacitive touchscreen support, WinMo was better with Media but it still wasn't all that great).
That's not really a big issue with Android. Most users don't multitask on their phones like a PC. THey use an app, close it, and use another app, etc. The reason why this is a big deal and a win for Android (and even Blackberry for that matter) is because it opens up possibilities and allows the user to truly multitask applications that should be able to run in the background. You can background Google Navigation, or TeleNav, or MapQuest on Android and it will still give you all the Voice Guided directions. You cannot do this on Windows Phone. You can do that with apps like Glympse on Android, but no on Windows Phone.
Anyone who multi-tasks heavily on Android, those apps will likely be closed down by the system, anyways, to conserve resources. It happens all the time. Most apps that do that are clearly visible before downloading, because Android users are good for 1 star rating apps that restart themselves in the background or drain tons of battery.
While the apps is in the forground it's terrible code can still drain unnecessary amounts of battery, the app can still lag and freeze, and in some rare cases the app can still crash the phone. However, the design of the OS does cancel out completely logical and useful use cases that are possible on other OSes like iOS, Android, and Blackberry.
As consumers we should not expect Microsoft to function as the logic and decision making sections of our brains. We're ultimately in control of what we choose to install and use on our phones, are we not? Microsoft can always remove rogue applications from the marketplace, if they so choose, and if necessary - just as HTC Removed the Sound Enhancer which was causing Zune Media player crashes...
I want to be able to walk while having Navigation in the background and still be able to hold an SMS/IM conversation. I think many people would like that. I want to be able to MMS or EMail Video off the device without sending a SkyDrive Link or uploading to YouTube or Facebook. In the end I'd like at least the possibility of being able to use the WP7 device as my one and only device. At the moment that's simply not possible because the OS lacks basic functionality you'd expect even in feature phones in some cases.
I'm having a hard time taking this seriously. You're talking about a platform that supports only hardware from almost two years ago. Which launched with such bad hardware support and API availability that tons of apps were not even possible, and some still aren't without completely crippling them compared to their alternate versions on other platforms.
Microsoft got the UX *largely right*. The platform is still missing tons of features. Where they are shining compared to Android is in User Interface and Ecosystem (Windows Live is a lot more organized than Google's services and Zune is superior to Google Music+Videos, easily).
A friend of mine tried my HD7 and told me it looked unpolished, but he liked how smooth it was compared to my Vibrant (I carry both devices everywhere). He thought the UI looked like it was "put together in a weekend."
Speed = Great. Overall Polish... Beyond the home screen, many people find it lacking. Look at the Calendar application, for example.
Also, IRT the "powerful" android apps. They aren't powerful. The device is. You can try to Run Infinity Blade II on a launch WP7 device and it'll choke because the hardware simply doesn't cut it - the same way a stock eMachines can't run Crysis II at any respectable performance level. Apps are always at the mercy of the hardware on which they run, and of course the APIs available to the developers on that platform. That is why iOS and Android garner much greater developer support and mindshare. The possibilities of things you can do on that platform are greater, and the UI is such that you have more freedom to be innovative and differentiate there. I like to bring up BeejiveIM because it has probably my favorite UI for an IM application. It would be near impossible for them to bring that to WP7. They'd just end up looking like a Messaging Hub clone like all the others, for the most part. That gets boring fast.
No one said WP7 was terrible or bad, and if I thought such I'd have returned this device, cause I have enough of them already... I think the biggest issue with WP7 is the actual community. Lots of things will likely not improve soon, which need to be improved, because people are afraid to admit fault in the platform or UX for fear of tarnishing its image. Without criticism, no improvement can be made because no one will know where it falls short.
You say there isn't enough criticism vs WP.
I say there is such a thing, and what's missing is a little criticism vs other platforms. Especially vs Android.
Every WP user should know the problems he will find in this ecosystem.
Every user should know of the many crappy problems he will find in others.
You are the one constantly speaking about the superiority, for example, of the google engineers. Pheraps you are the one having a 'pro android/fan' point of view. And that's much of a troll attitude in a WP forum I would say.
Pls don't let the obvious troll derail this thread, not sure why we need a lecture on android in a WP7 forum (from the same professor), just ignore him and post your response to the original question, hopefully he'll get tired and go back under his bridge.
I just read what Big Supes quoted... that really just sums up my feelings about my choice to go to WP7.5!
Also, is that an actual phone in your avatar, Big Supes? It's pretty hot...
EDIT: Okay, I must be on crack. Of course it's not.
Dude, he's not a troll. He's coming from a perspective of owning all three platforms and not sugar coating flaws. I like his approach and feel more people should be straight up about these OS and stop letting their biases get in the way of the truth.
Dude, he's not a troll. He's coming from a perspective of owning all three platforms and not sugar coating flaws. I like his approach and feel more people should be straight up about these OS and stop letting their biases get in the way of the truth.