MS says W10M is ready, I call that BS

[Hutzi]

After 3 WPs (not that many for some on here) I wonder why do I turtore myself with this "Coming Soon" and "new apps" for two years and yada yada yada ...

Fair point. If you don't want to wait now, just come back in a few years. You will. Your only choice would be iOS though which "just works" fine. If that's cool with you, OK. If you're all about UI consistency they perfected it. There is though, not a lot to perfect because the OS is very basic. Android I would consider a no go when talking about UI. Ask somebody "Tell me, what does the UI of Android look like?" They would most likely point to their Samsung TouchWiz interface. Well there's that.

It's just, why suffer with horrible UI if every other phone can do the same thing and even more, therefore buys something diffrent next time.

This though made me curious. Ok, I get it, you are suffering from the WM10's "horrible UI". But what other phone can do more natively than a WM10 device?

 

[Rafael Yousuf]

The current UI is a mess. That's a fact. It's unfinished. But the average new user will not leave the platform for a inconsistent UI. Neither on a theoretical level "This UI is such a mess! I regret this purchase!" because it's not that bad, nor on a practical level "This UI is such a Mess! I'm leaving!" because who really buys a new phone (or even returns it) for a inconsistent OS. The people that will suffer most under this are we. Thanks Microsoft!

True, maybe the average user wont notice, but do u really think new potential users would go for W10M if they read a review like this?:

People who will be looking to buy new phones wont consider W10M if other reviewers post stuff like this, specially if this negativity remained after RTM.
This is what i have been saying, i know MS will refine the UI, i know MS will give cortana a proper UI instead of the ugly bing mobile website they are using to show results, i know MS will do all that in future updates, but... that all will be too late if the RTM got reviewed like that.

 

[theefman]

MS has said that w10 will constantly "evolve" so those updates are mandatory There are no more windows versions after this (w7/w8/w8.1 etc). W10 is the last stop

This oft repeated claim is really no excuse for releasing buggy, unstable software but it seems to be serving its purpose well as an excuse for the poor state Windows 10 is.

 

[Slovenix]

Fair point. If you don't want to wait now, just come back in a few years. You will. Your only choice would be iOS though which "just works" fine. If that's cool with you, OK. If you're all about UI consistency they perfected it. There is though, not a lot to perfect because the OS is very basic. Android I would consider a no go when talking about UI. Ask somebody "Tell me, what does the UI of Android look like?" They would most likely point to their Samsung TouchWiz interface. Well there's that.

This though made me curious. Ok, I get it, you are suffering from the WM10's "horrible UI". But what other phone can do more natively than a WM10 device?

Im more an Android user, and with this I mean Nexus phones. Only thing that I dislike is developers not updating their apps with new design languages. But that is usually resolved quickly.

And why Android, because it's more Windows like than Windows phone it self. Which means more features, like floating circle of Facebook chat, Skype video chat window staying on the screen while using other apps, Widgets, custom keyboards, Fully featured Apps indeed and customization.

And talking about being productive, W10M fails to Android.

And the thing is I always wished for a Windows phone that could do everything a desktop can. I think that will most likely happen in the future though.

The only question here is "How will it look?" Tiles or Desktop with Windows start button that would open out Tiles lol I think it really looks amazing.

 

[KimRM]

brah, u dont get it. W10M will RTM in 2 days. What kind of a miracle MS can do in 48 hours to make the UI more consistent ? to fix the many bugs? Like i said, MS has one chance to impress users with this new OS and their first impression would be through the UI. If the UI is a mess, OS wont appeal to many potential new users.

Like I said before; you have not yet tried or seen the OS that will, in your words, RTM in 2 days.

Anyways. UI inconsitency is a matter of opinion. I don't think it needs to be more consistent to be a great OS. These are just minor things and is no big deal. No one that I showed WP8.1 liked the look of it, and they all like Win10Mobile, so something must be right with it. Even IOS 9 has bugs..

 

[Slovenix]

Reason why I like Windows is cos it Just Works. Needs to stay that way.

Needs are increasing though.

 

[920Walker]

Like I said before; you have not yet tried or seen the OS that will, in your words, RTM in 2 days.

Anyways. UI inconsitency is a matter of opinion. I don't think it needs to be more consistent to be a great OS. These are just minor things and is no big deal. No one that I showed WP8.1 liked the look of it, and they all like Win10Mobile, so something must be right with it. Even IOS 9 has bugs..

By the look of it, do you mean the Start screen, or did they actually use both OSs?

 

[Hutzi]

Im more an Android user, and with this I mean Nexus phones.

Didn't mention Nexus or Cyanogen because these are the opposite of mainstream. For the average consumer, Samsung TouchWiz equals Android. "What is Android?!" "I run a Samsung phone!". These are the normal people. Not you or I.

And talking about being productive, W10M fails to Android.

Do you maybe mean tinkering? Because I loved how I could do what ever the heck I wanted to do with my android back in the days! Custom roms, root access, different recoveries and bootloaders etc. The main reason I would not consider a Android (next to my primary windows mobile) is the issues I have personally with google as a company and how they aggregate revenue.

 

[Slovenix]

Didn't mention Nexus or Cyanogen because these are the opposite of mainstream. For the average consumer, Samsung TouchWiz equals Android. "What is Android?!" "I run a Samsung phone!". These are the normal people. Not you or I.

Do you maybe mean tinkering? Because I loved how I could do what ever the heck I wanted to do with my android back in the days! Custom roms, root access, different recoveries and bootloaders etc. The main reason I would not consider a Android (next to my primary windows mobile) is the issues I have personally with google as a company and how they aggregate revenue.

Ah yes, it most certanly is like this.. Sometimes it feels useless to discuass anything at all, because in the end it's all about consumers that don't have a clue about anything we talk about.


Yes I did tinker around too, but then Android got more stable with Lolipop so it was okay to just go with it.

I still prefer Windows, just wish it had the power of Android and Apps of iOS lol.

 

[DoctorSaline]

I remember when I first joined Windows Central (it was windows phone central then), there was a thread or an article asking what made us join this platform in the first place. And I remember answering it with my love for Modern Design 1.0 and design aesthetics of it. I really like the minimal design, lack of chrome and iconography. I like the large segoe font pivot headers. Unfortunately with Windows 10 mobile, all that I loved about the design of Windows Phone is gone. And don't get me wrong, I know that design isn't everything, I know that some compromises had to be made for the idea of Universal Apps to work. I also know that I enjoy using the new office mobile apps and Microsoft Edge, and when I'm working I don't even notice the UI. It might not even exist then. But then I come back to my primary phone on Windows Phone 8.1 and I realize the worth of it, I realize how beautiful it looks, and I realize it will be gone with the next update. Replaced by shades of dark and light grey in headers that don't even extend to the status bar, uppercase header font that just misses out on the beauty of Segoe, zebra strips songs and downloads list, ellipses bar and menu having different shades and proportions, borders around context menus and notification flysouts, and just the shades of dark and light grey in them instead of pure dark and light theme just make me go nuts. Then there is lack of alternative pivot navigation to hamburger items. They have stripped the file explorer of showing storage taken and remaining storage. Sense apps haven't been improved. Live tile functionality hasn't been enhanced. Then there is people tile and app with ridiculous circular avatars and full accent colour for contact badge and accented header and ellipses in hub page with theme background in cards and status bar. All these things give me OCD. I get the importance of hamburger menus and icons in hamburger items, they make sense in desktop and large tablets held and/or used in landscape orientation, even in landscape orientation on phones. But the changes in headers, context menus, fifty shades of grey, zebra strips, lack of pivot navigation and borders beat me. I just wish Microsoft removes these shades of grey in headers and context menus and keep to light or dark themes, do away with uppercase headers, borders around context menus and notification flyouts, circular avatars in people app and live tile, zebra strips for vertical lists and icons and/or tabs in headers. I don't have enough hope though since Microsoft has essentially showed a middle finger to any feedback generated regarding UI. Bye bye modern design 1.0. You will be missed.

 

[Peter McNeill1]

Colour me confused? I see all the "the UI sucks, it's inconsistent, it looks like android or Snapple.... wp 8.1 looks so much better, etc." Now I have my lumia with wp 10 and 8X with 8.1 side by side. Hmmmm, the start screen looks the same only wp 10 has thinner black bars around the tiles. If it looks like droid or Snapple, where's all the cheesy coloured icons? Lets look at settings... 8.1 omgod, I gotta scroll down the whole list to find anything and it's in no order (talk about inconsistent), wp 10, all in easy to find section headers. I assume one more tap to open them makes it soooo much worse. ;p Funny how when wp 8/8.1 first came out everyone on this board was whining how crappy it was and looked, and now it's the golden child. To be fair I'm not a phone gamer or need a gazillion useless social apps so my phone is not totally cluttered so maybe I'm missing something somewhere UI wise. As for file explorer I can see how much is used and taken by tapping the ... at the bottom of the screen and selecting properties. No biggie have to do a couple of taps.

 

[DoctorSaline]

True, maybe the average user wont notice, but do u really think new potential users would go for W10M if they read a review like this?:
http://forums.windowscentral.com/at...e-10_-uphill-battle-work-progress-%95-reg.png

People who will be looking to buy new phones wont consider W10M if other reviewers post stuff like this, specially if this negativity remained after RTM.
This is what i have been saying, i know MS will refine the UI, i know MS will give cortana a proper UI instead of the ugly bing mobile website they are using to show results, i know MS will do all that in future updates, but... that all will be too late if the RTM got reviewed like that.

Can you link me to the original article you posted the verdict screen shot of? I fully agree with the verdict and hope that more articles of this kind will be published across Windows Central, Thurrot, All about Microsoft and other Microsoft enthusiast sites when Windows 10 mobile is reviewed.

 

[Hutzi]

Word. I agree with all of this Dr. Saline! I also do know why they did this. I especially hate these grey tones because the amoled screen of my 930 hates them and makes them a little bit purple (there is a work around but I'm still not satisfied). I though, have not given up hope yet. This will take ages but when the time comes and WM 10 will have stable enough market share. They will once again have the balls again for innovative design. Until then: 65% functionality 35% design

 

[Slovenix]

Word. I agree with all of this Dr. Saline! I also do know why they did this. I especially hate these grey tones because the amoled screen of my 930 hates them and makes them a little bit purple (there is a work around but I'm still not satisfied). I though, have not given up hope yet. This will take ages but when the time comes and WM 10 will have stable enough market share. They will once again have the balls again for innovative design. Until then: 65% functionality 35% design

Hehe Alarms now got dark/light theme istead of those grays

 

[Rafael Yousuf]

I remember when I first joined Windows Central (it was windows phone central then), there was a thread or an article asking what made us join this platform in the first place. And I remember answering it with my love for Modern Design 1.0 and design aesthetics of it. I really like the minimal design, lack of chrome and iconography. I like the large segoe font pivot headers. Unfortunately with Windows 10 mobile, all that I loved about the design of Windows Phone is gone. And don't get me wrong, I know that design isn't everything, I know that some compromises had to be made for the idea of Universal Apps to work. I also know that I enjoy using the new office mobile apps and Microsoft Edge, and when I'm working I don't even notice the UI. It might not even exist then. But then I come back to my primary phone on Windows Phone 8.1 and I realize the worth of it, I realize how beautiful it looks, and I realize it will be gone with the next update. Replaced by shades of dark and light grey in headers that don't even extend to the status bar, uppercase header font that just misses out on the beauty of Segoe, zebra strips songs and downloads list, ellipses bar and menu having different shades and proportions, borders around context menus and notification flysouts, and just the shades of dark and light grey in them instead of pure dark and light theme just make me go nuts. Then there is lack of alternative pivot navigation to hamburger items. They have stripped the file explorer of showing storage taken and remaining storage. Sense apps haven't been improved. Live tile functionality hasn't been enhanced. Then there is people tile and app with ridiculous circular avatars and full accent colour for contact badge and accented header and ellipses in hub page with theme background in cards and status bar. All these things give me OCD. I get the importance of hamburger menus and icons in hamburger items, they make sense in desktop and large tablets held and/or used in landscape orientation, even in landscape orientation on phones. But the changes in headers, context menus, fifty shades of grey, zebra strips, lack of pivot navigation and borders beat me. I just wish Microsoft removes these shades of grey in headers and context menus and keep to light or dark themes, do away with uppercase headers, borders around context menus and notification flyouts, circular avatars in people app and live tile, zebra strips for vertical lists and icons and/or tabs in headers. I don't have enough hope though since Microsoft has essentially showed a middle finger to any feedback generated regarding UI. Bye bye modern design 1.0. You will be missed.

Totally agree, lol this is exactly how i feel it is just that i am bad with words. I think u should put this on the feedback app and hopefully someone in MS who understands design aesthetics 101 will read it and make a change.

 

[Rafael Yousuf]

Can you link me to the original article you posted the verdict screen shot of? I fully agree with the verdict and hope that more articles of this kind will be published across Windows Central, Thurrot, All about Microsoft and other Microsoft enthusiast sites when Windows 10 mobile is reviewed.

Sure bro, here is the link: Microsoft Windows Mobile 10: Uphill battle with 'work in progress' ? The Register

Enjoy reading it.

 

[missionsparta]

I remember when I first joined Windows Central (it was windows phone central then), there was a thread or an article asking what made us join this platform in the first place. And I remember answering it with my love for Modern Design 1.0 and design aesthetics of it. I really like the minimal design, lack of chrome and iconography. I like the large segoe font pivot headers. Unfortunately with Windows 10 mobile, all that I loved about the design of Windows Phone is gone. And don't get me wrong, I know that design isn't everything, I know that some compromises had to be made for the idea of Universal Apps to work. I also know that I enjoy using the new office mobile apps and Microsoft Edge, and when I'm working I don't even notice the UI. It might not even exist then. But then I come back to my primary phone on Windows Phone 8.1 and I realize the worth of it, I realize how beautiful it looks, and I realize it will be gone with the next update. Replaced by shades of dark and light grey in headers that don't even extend to the status bar, uppercase header font that just misses out on the beauty of Segoe, zebra strips songs and downloads list, ellipses bar and menu having different shades and proportions, borders around context menus and notification flysouts, and just the shades of dark and light grey in them instead of pure dark and light theme just make me go nuts. Then there is lack of alternative pivot navigation to hamburger items. They have stripped the file explorer of showing storage taken and remaining storage. Sense apps haven't been improved. Live tile functionality hasn't been enhanced. Then there is people tile and app with ridiculous circular avatars and full accent colour for contact badge and accented header and ellipses in hub page with theme background in cards and status bar. All these things give me OCD. I get the importance of hamburger menus and icons in hamburger items, they make sense in desktop and large tablets held and/or used in landscape orientation, even in landscape orientation on phones. But the changes in headers, context menus, fifty shades of grey, zebra strips, lack of pivot navigation and borders beat me. I just wish Microsoft removes these shades of grey in headers and context menus and keep to light or dark themes, do away with uppercase headers, borders around context menus and notification flyouts, circular avatars in people app and live tile, zebra strips for vertical lists and icons and/or tabs in headers. I don't have enough hope though since Microsoft has essentially showed a middle finger to any feedback generated regarding UI. Bye bye modern design 1.0. You will be missed.

I really miss the large headers also.

 

[theefman]

Totally agree, lol this is exactly how i feel it is just that i am bad with words. I think u should put this on the feedback app and hopefully someone in MS who understands design aesthetics 101 will read it and make a change.

They've probably all been sacked so not going to happen. :straight:

 

[HoosierDaddy]

Ready for what? Ready for the 950s and ready for anything else are two different things. I have no clue if its ready for the 950s because I don't have a 950 yet to see for myself. It's impossible to say just how many glitches with the beta on existing phones relate to getting things right with the huge number of phone models designed for Windows 8.1 running an infinite combination of apps with LOTS of carrier tweaks to the OS or firmware. I know my top priority would be a good experience for the 950s and that would also be a MUCH easier job than the others. So too early to call if its ready for the 950s. And too early for me to guess if it will be ready for others because I haven't seen a concrete date for that. If its the same day the 950s are shipping, then yeah I don't think WM10 is ready for the myriad of Wp8 devices.

 

[DoctorSaline]

Totally agree, lol this is exactly how i feel it is just that i am bad with words. I think u should put this on the feedback app and hopefully someone in MS who understands design aesthetics 101 will read it and make a change.

I actually have submitted feedback regarding UI of all of these individual default system apps, but like I said it seems to have fallen over on deaf ears. Good news is most of these apps can be updated through store independent of the OS updates. Exceptions are Cortana/Search, Microsoft Edge and some cosmetic changes like context menus and notification flyouts. Bad news is these default apps rarely get updated with new features or UI changes. They never mention the changelog and it's almost always bug fixes and performance improvements. Which baffles me since I'm sure all of these default apps have dedicated teams that make them and I can't imagine what happens there if they don't even bring noticeable/practical improvements. Maybe they just spend their time quarreling over ideas and end up doing nothing due to lack of unanimous decision. Anyways that was a dig made in light humor but I do hope they have sorted out the Search/Cortana UI in RTM build since this is such a basic functionality I cant fathom how we will live with that ****ty web wrapper till the next update that will come months later presumably called redstone.