7 Month Check in

[Badgerbrown]

Okay, since this is my first WP device, I wanted to give a check in after having it for a while.
I have the Icon.

The good: Phone is great, voice recognition/speech to text is the best I've seen, camera is great, phone is high quality, screen is amazing

The bad: Lack of apps that are useful to me, no updates to OS (I fault the carrier for this), Lack of apps that I need, phone shuts down randomly at times (not often, but still odd), and again lack of apps.

Summary, a great phone whose Achilles heel lies in both the carrier and the parent company. Most people don't even know what a windows phone is. Why? Lack of advertising? Lack of faith in the product? Who knows?

There's just too much potential in the phones and OS's to let it fester and die. I'm not switching carriers because VZW has the best coverage in my area.

 

[jmshub]

I'd agree the carrier is the Achilles heel. While anecdotal, even customers looking for a WP handset are discouraged by salespeople, so I'm sure they aren't being mentioned to the average customer, and yeah, Verizon in particular won't get off their butts to push the Cyan / 8.1 update for their customers.

 

[Badgerbrown]

Yeah, I had several salespeople try to deter me from a WP device, but I could read between the lines and tell that they knew nothing about them and that's likely why they tried to steer people away.

 

[quantum tao]

the app gap is my biggest gripe. we are missing all the local and niche apps. this is nobodies fault but microsoft's, they were ahead of the game in tablets (winxp tablet edition) and smartphones (win mobile) and they blew it. they let apple steal the ball and run for the touchdown without even trying to tackle them. 10 years later most people in the US don't even know windows runs on phones.

 

[jazz70]

The app gap hasn't been as much of a problem for me as I thought it was going to be when I switched to WP after being on droid for years. I found with droid I would have tons of apps installed but when I closely looked at the apps I hardly ever used them, 60 apps installed on my phone but I would only use 10 or so regularly.

95% of the stuff I did on droid is there on WP with an app available, the only app I truly miss from droid is my SiriusXM app

btw I may check back here in 7 months to see if 8.1/cyan has finally dropped from Verizon :winktongue:

 

[Kasey Pierce]

MY biggest gripe is not so much the "app gap", i came to Windows Phone because of it's simplicity and i don't need 100 apps to distract me with. The apps that they DO have are ages behind their Android and IOS counterparts as far as form and function. One of my favorite sites Cracked.com(s) app for Windows Phone still says "Cracked for Windows Phone 7" in the about section. Even Facebook beta doesn't match other platforms. It's not about having apps the other platforms have, it's about having the updates to those apps that other platforms have. I mean heck, even the Windows Central app on Android looks better and is easier to navigate than the Windows Phone app. Just my opinion at least.

 

[Richard Servello]

I'd agree the carrier is the Achilles heel. While anecdotal, even customers looking for a WP handset are discouraged by salespeople, so I'm sure they aren't being mentioned to the average customer, and yeah, Verizon in particular won't get off their butts to push the Cyan / 8.1 update for their customers.

This was my experience too. When I went into a store and asked to loom at the icon I basically got...if you don't want an iPhone you should get an android. Why? Are WP handsets too low margin? What's the point of carrilying a phone that nobody wants to sell? After I got my icon I went into a store to get some help with something. Not.surprisingly, they had no idea how to help...and I spent 30 mins showing features and explaining why its an awesome platform. The guy said, you showed me more than any Ms rep has shown us. So maybe that's the problem. Nobody is showing them how great the platform is, so they just ignore it and sweep it under the rug.

 

[11B1P]

the app gap is my biggest gripe. we are missing all the local and niche apps. this is nobodies fault but microsoft's,

I disagree. It is up to the "local" companies to develop for WP. How can MS know that your local bank or coffee shop doesn't have an app. You need to push the local companies for a WP app.

 

[pursuit2550]

I'd agree the carrier is the Achilles heel. While anecdotal, even customers looking for a WP handset are discouraged by salespeople, so I'm sure they aren't being mentioned to the average customer, and yeah, Verizon in particular won't get off their butts to push the Cyan / 8.1 update for their customers.

I disagree about the carrier being the Achilles heel, its WP who is at fault. While they have a great product, they dont make that big step to be up to par with Android/IOS, they are still way behind Android/IOS. I just switched back to Android after having 3 WP's, man was I missing some great phone features. The apps are SOOOO much better on Android and Chrome is SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO much better than WP's IE. Why should a carrier push a OS that is stuck, 4-6 years back?

 

[pursuit2550]

I disagree. It is up to the "local" companies to develop for WP. How can MS know that your local bank or coffee shop doesn't have an app. You need to push the local companies for a WP app.

Why would a local company waste money on a OS thats hardly used by the masses? So its is MS fault for not making their WP better so that it gets noticed.

 

[11B1P]

Why would a local company waste money on a OS that's hardly used by the masses? So its is MS fault for not making their WP better so that it gets noticed.

I agree. It's the same for accessories in the local stores. I couldn't find one accessory for my Icon last night. Ended up buying a used Otterbox online for the fraction of the cost of a new one.