I would like to begin with my history with Windows Phone. My first experience with wp7 was flicking through the the start screen of a HTC HD7, admiring the gorgeous simple squares, the unusual bounce that stopped when you scrolled too hard, the Zune hub with that transparent background and the cool animated xbox tile, but what really sold it for me was the jaw dropping zooming through clouds animation when opening up the HTC Hub. I then soon promptly imported a HTC Surround to Australia (because the speakers were similar to my old phone, a Porsche Design P'9522), and since, I've had a Lumia 710, 800 and 1020, so you could say that I am a huge fan of Windows Phone, and have always stayed away from the mess that is android, and the uninspired choice of choosing an iPhone, despite living in an apple ecosystem of multiple macs, iPads, iPhone, an apple TV and more.
So it is with a heavy heart that I have to announce that after using WP8.1 for about a month now, I have to say that everything that I loved about the OS back in 2011 is gone, and is now replaced a hugely buggy, ugly, laggy and a generally unpleasant OS that represents a badly skinned Android, a far cry from that unbelievably slick OS from not long ago, to prove my point, I would point out everything that everything that I loved about the OS has either been undermined, or has simply been removed all together.
Something that really sold WP7 to me back in the day way undoubtably the design and the general UI. Metro was utterly stunning, so simple pure and clean, with its sold blocks of colour, tasteful use of white space, beautifully huge titles, gorgeous transparency in the hubs, and the animation of the xbox tile and the beautifully slow transitions sold it for me. It was a UI that put style beyond anything, but with every update, I feel the essence that made me love windows phone is slowly diminishing. I tolerated the move to wp7.8 with the loss of the gorgeous white space in the home screen for I could now resize tiles, but the new three across layout with the images in the background is an atrocity. I remember wincing at the wp8 live title, but I almost puked at the new backgrounds, for example I have yet to see an acceptable looking picture. The beautiffly simple info bar at the top that would hide away in a beautiful animation is now gone, making it look incredibly fussy, the transitions are far to fast, the carousel when you flick through photos quickly, i remember very fondly is gone too. The peoples hub is a shadow of what it was, even design wise with the new ugly title, ams with the marketplace. We used to have a decent people hub, music hub, a working games hub, a photo hub and they're all gone now. For me, Windows Phone put style above all, and that was its beauty. It isn't care that the titles were ridiculous, took up half the screen and required across multiple swipes just to read the, whole, it didn't care that the scrolling was ridiculous slow to hide any lag that ay be caused either by the internet connection or processor, and it certainly didn't care that you had to wait five seconds to check the weather due to a fancy transition, it didn't matter. It was just beautiful in a way that no other operating system was, and that was what made it so appealing.
One great thing about wp was that it didn't need apps to work, it introduced a concept of a os having all the functionality you need, and what you get in return is an experience that cannot be matched with apps. That was clearly seen in the xbox/ music hubs, where they used to open instantly, even in wp7, they now take an eternity. We tolerated the silly long list of apps, because we had hubs to sort them with, but now that's gone, and even the games show up there, making it stupidly unusable. WP was never about apps, and just because we have them now doesn't mean that we should loose our once beloved os features. The messaging app in particular was a highlight (although taken from webOS), it presented all your conversations gather, now I need multiple apps just to perform what previously just required one. The photos app (also like webOS) also didn't discriminate against photos you may have had online like Facebook, where they would be displayed beside your local images. Now, they are hidden away under another menu. This was the beauty of hubs, everything similar grouped together in a way that was far more substantial than 'folders'. Now, we just have a huge list of every app and game you have on your device, an implementation that is worse than every other OS out there.
The new notification centre is also undermining the notion of live tiles, i mean, once you got your social updates very reliably through the me tile, but since we now have a notification centre, ms went, what's the point? and got rid of it. In this case, why have live tiles at all since we now have the "action centre." I know this is just one example, but I feel it foreshadows what's to come, for already, we have lost the functionality of the me and xbox title to the notification centre, to the point where they're just big static icons.
Basicially, windows phone is slowly becoming android. The OS is now extremely buggy (l know it's a beta but still), slow, extremely ugly and is reliant on substandard apps to deliver a substandard experience. Sound familiar?
The removal of the nokia name is the last nail in the coffin as far as i'm concerned, and unless they can bring a 1020 competitor with a one inch sensor, dedicated imaging chip and a more powerful xenon flash, I'm buying the iPhone 6 when it comes out, which ironically, with it's clean beautiful ui, gorgeous transitions, combined messaging experience, represents metro far better than what 8.1 does.
Hope you understand, Yours sincerely, Dennis
So it is with a heavy heart that I have to announce that after using WP8.1 for about a month now, I have to say that everything that I loved about the OS back in 2011 is gone, and is now replaced a hugely buggy, ugly, laggy and a generally unpleasant OS that represents a badly skinned Android, a far cry from that unbelievably slick OS from not long ago, to prove my point, I would point out everything that everything that I loved about the OS has either been undermined, or has simply been removed all together.
Something that really sold WP7 to me back in the day way undoubtably the design and the general UI. Metro was utterly stunning, so simple pure and clean, with its sold blocks of colour, tasteful use of white space, beautifully huge titles, gorgeous transparency in the hubs, and the animation of the xbox tile and the beautifully slow transitions sold it for me. It was a UI that put style beyond anything, but with every update, I feel the essence that made me love windows phone is slowly diminishing. I tolerated the move to wp7.8 with the loss of the gorgeous white space in the home screen for I could now resize tiles, but the new three across layout with the images in the background is an atrocity. I remember wincing at the wp8 live title, but I almost puked at the new backgrounds, for example I have yet to see an acceptable looking picture. The beautiffly simple info bar at the top that would hide away in a beautiful animation is now gone, making it look incredibly fussy, the transitions are far to fast, the carousel when you flick through photos quickly, i remember very fondly is gone too. The peoples hub is a shadow of what it was, even design wise with the new ugly title, ams with the marketplace. We used to have a decent people hub, music hub, a working games hub, a photo hub and they're all gone now. For me, Windows Phone put style above all, and that was its beauty. It isn't care that the titles were ridiculous, took up half the screen and required across multiple swipes just to read the, whole, it didn't care that the scrolling was ridiculous slow to hide any lag that ay be caused either by the internet connection or processor, and it certainly didn't care that you had to wait five seconds to check the weather due to a fancy transition, it didn't matter. It was just beautiful in a way that no other operating system was, and that was what made it so appealing.
One great thing about wp was that it didn't need apps to work, it introduced a concept of a os having all the functionality you need, and what you get in return is an experience that cannot be matched with apps. That was clearly seen in the xbox/ music hubs, where they used to open instantly, even in wp7, they now take an eternity. We tolerated the silly long list of apps, because we had hubs to sort them with, but now that's gone, and even the games show up there, making it stupidly unusable. WP was never about apps, and just because we have them now doesn't mean that we should loose our once beloved os features. The messaging app in particular was a highlight (although taken from webOS), it presented all your conversations gather, now I need multiple apps just to perform what previously just required one. The photos app (also like webOS) also didn't discriminate against photos you may have had online like Facebook, where they would be displayed beside your local images. Now, they are hidden away under another menu. This was the beauty of hubs, everything similar grouped together in a way that was far more substantial than 'folders'. Now, we just have a huge list of every app and game you have on your device, an implementation that is worse than every other OS out there.
The new notification centre is also undermining the notion of live tiles, i mean, once you got your social updates very reliably through the me tile, but since we now have a notification centre, ms went, what's the point? and got rid of it. In this case, why have live tiles at all since we now have the "action centre." I know this is just one example, but I feel it foreshadows what's to come, for already, we have lost the functionality of the me and xbox title to the notification centre, to the point where they're just big static icons.
Basicially, windows phone is slowly becoming android. The OS is now extremely buggy (l know it's a beta but still), slow, extremely ugly and is reliant on substandard apps to deliver a substandard experience. Sound familiar?
The removal of the nokia name is the last nail in the coffin as far as i'm concerned, and unless they can bring a 1020 competitor with a one inch sensor, dedicated imaging chip and a more powerful xenon flash, I'm buying the iPhone 6 when it comes out, which ironically, with it's clean beautiful ui, gorgeous transitions, combined messaging experience, represents metro far better than what 8.1 does.
Hope you understand, Yours sincerely, Dennis
seriously though, tldr
Facebook
Twitter
Instagram