You won't trick me into defending Microsoft's odd "fake app bar" design of IE on WP8!
I won't agree with you here because I think that the hamburger and the app bar menu serve different purposes. Typically, app bars contain function buttons and take users to non-content areas such as settings. On the other hand, hamburgers typically link to content (see the Facebook app).
I honestly wasn't trying to trick you into anything. I was merely stating my personal experiences regarding the three dot menu.
In the majority of cases for me, the three dot menus I use regularly are in apps that prevent me from being able to swipe or select the menu from the left side due to pre-existing items contained in that menu bar. (Internet Explorer is the main culprit)
I am not saying that they should suddenly remove the three dot menu simply because there's a minor inconvenience once in a while which I have already adapted to. I never even considered it an inconvenience to be honest, not until I put it in the same perspective as other have done with the hamburger menu.
I am not supporting, defending or attacking any particular menu style, I am merely pointing out that no one menu system is perfect and no one menu system will please everybody.
As I have not received W10 for my 930 and have yet to try out the hamburger menu system myself, I can not personally judge it's benefits or flaws at this stage.
But I am also not going to just take the word of others on the internet on if they are bad or not. I will judge for myself when the time comes.
What these or other hamburger buttons do or don't do isn't so much of a focal point for me. What will matter in the end is how often I will need to use the button and whether it is overall more easier or harder "for me" to use these buttons.
While I liked Windows Phone's Pivot system, it wasn't exactly perfect either. There was no straight forward way of jumping from one section to another without having to swipe through multiple sections first.
With the section listings at the top as they were, people new to the specific app have no idea exactly what those sections are or how many sections there are until they swipe all the way through and then eventually swipe back to what they actually want.
Does the panning effect and uneven/perspective object panning look pretty? Sure.
But is it really better "function-wise?"
For certain apps, perhaps.... But in honesty and being objective, it still has flaws and does not function really well for other apps.
Again, I am not saying Hamburgers (three bar drop down/slide out menus) or Basketball (pivot) or Three Salt Grains (Tiny little three dots on a small sliver in the bottom right) menus are better or worse than another. They all have their strengths and weaknesses depending on what they are used for.
But one thing is for certain:
One menu style alone forced to be universal for all apps/os's will not solve all problems, let alone reduce more than it creates.
I am not any huge fan of the hamburger system, but I am also not hugely opposed of them either.
I believe once we get another more solid update for W10M that supports the higher end / bigger phones AND we get an update to W10 for PC with more universal apps that look and feel the same on all three systems (so we can all try these apps on each platform ourselves) we can then see and feel what the overall bigger picture will be like and see what Microsoft is really planning.... We will be able to better understand why they went this route in the first place and then we can formulate some better opinions and suggestions on the matter.
Right now, it's simply still too early to know. All people are complaining about now is visuals and a very limited set of apps to go off of. Those complaining about the hamburger menu on their 1520's being too far away and hard to reach with a single thumb are currently in an invalid position.
I say they are in an invalid position because they hacked their 1520 and placed an early version of the OS onto their system that is not technically designed for their system yet and arguing and protesting over something they have no logical grounds to argue about.
Beyond the Partition Stitching thing, we have very little idea what is in store for the flagships and large screen build. Maybe MS is working on something that modifies that menu for large screens like how they have the floating keyboard for large screens. Maybe the layout will change slightly or there will be additional settings added into the OS to modify or switch this menu somehow to cater for large screens.
It wouldn't surprise me.... Why would they make a floating keyboard to make typing on large screens easier with one hand and yet put in such a menu in an areas they would have known would be annoying for some people? That's like one step forward and one step back.
If I was a betting man, I'd say one of the other reasons why the low end / smaller phones got the release first had more to do with them working on this very problem and they wanted to try and avoid all of these complaints before they had it all figured out.
Yet people figured out how to hack their phones and put this build on their phones.... And they're all complaining about a build they shouldn't even have on their phone just yet. A build not specifically designed/refined for their phones and their size.
All we can do is wait and see.
Wait and see what comes about from the next build that introduces W10 for the Icon/930/1020/1320/1520 Etc
..... Then people can complain all they want with justified reasons.