Okay, here I go. I've been a Windows Phone fan since the beginning. I understand technology and I could even appreciate the great effort to deliver Windows Mobile 2003. Considering the limitations and high cost of the hardware, Windows Mobile was a great UI for stylus which had a zero learning curve from someone used to Windows. With Windows 7, Microsoft wanted a complete fresh approach, and I understood Metro, it was beautiful and clean, almost like a designer magazine. But people resisted to the new and wanted their menus and more traditional interface back, so we compromised with Windows 10. With the exception of the positioning of the hamburger menu on the place farther to reach with your thumb, I think Windows 10 is a great compromise that maintains the elegance of metro and brings a perfect consistency with the desktop OS. Both IOS and Android also have very often used menus and actions positioned in the top left corner of the phone, so this is not MS fault, is the fault of user criticism and their inability to accept a menu at the bottom right, where it should be in a phone. IOS is elegant and consistent within the phone, but no with its desktop counterpart. Android is neither elegant nor consistent in any way: there are too many colors, there isn't only one accent color, the themes are a disaster with inconsistent background and accent colors, inconsistent structure and positioning of elements. I've tried dozens of themes in Android marshmallow and I like none, they are all just play ugly. One website called the Android UI 'cartoonish' and that's exactly what it is. I can never leave the elegance and consistency of Windows 10. And don't get me started with Live Tiles vs. static icons.
As for the features, once you try other phones you realize that Siri is probably the worst assistant. Search for the 'best Chinese restaurant near me' and Siri will pump to the top 5 star restaurants with only 1 or 2 Yelp reviews. We know that a 5 star with 1 review is suspiciously fraudulent. Any good restaurant will get many reviews. Both Cortana and Google Now understand this and will more to the top a balance of number stars with many reviews. When you ask a math question, or a conversion, both Google and Cortana respond with a calculator to further do more calculation, Siri just gives a text answer. But Google now has no personality, it can't tell a joke, and is not really an assistant like Cortana who can track your packages, flights, get an Uber, track reservations, etc.
Other apps are surprising as well. The Maps application for instance. The IOS version is nice, with 3D cities, smooth scrolling when in driving mode. But the traffic info and UI is lacking and there is no transit info for many cities. Google Maps is more complete with better traffic and transit info, but it has no streetside or 3D maps included, which is surprising since I believe it was Google the first one to have these features. WM10 Maps is very good, with 3D cities, good transit info, traffic info which includes traffic cameras too (!), streetside and works with continuum. But they say is not that good outside the US, and unnervingly, they removed the in-mall maps we enjoyed in previous versions, which would be another feature the competitors lack.
The last issue I'm going to talk is camera. I have the Lumia 950, with 20Mp camera and it is hands down the best camera out there and I have evidence of it in every event where friends take pics with their latest iPhones and Android phones, and when they see my pictures they are wowed at the great color balance, the professional look, and it is my pictures that make it into their Facebook posts. But what happened with the software features? Samsung Galaxy's S7 12MP camera has panorama, 3D and other features that are absent in the 'after Nokia' Lumia phones, and this is just a matter of putting the software in. Even MS's own Photosynth is not available for WM10. WTF?
So, the frustrating part of WM is that it is a great OS, in many ways more brilliantly designed than the others, with an UI consistent with their desktop counterpart, capable of running quicker in lower specs hardware, but it hasn't grabbed attraction from software developers, from hardware manufacturers and it is in many ways ignored by some of MS's own divisions. There is nothing wrong with the OS itself, and what it has been done is in the right direction, but it needs everybody on-board to be complete and take off. Some people are not willing to wait until that happens, but MS doesn't seem to be concerned because MS is MS, they will pour money into the project until it succeeds (aka. Bing, Zune/Groove) and phone users will change their phones in 1 or two years, so they can come back later.
But MS should not act that confident and should cherish more WM10. It is in WM10 where we should get the best of MS and their close partners such as Facebook, LinkedIn and Yelp. Negotiate back that FB integration into People and Pictures apps. Reach out to your former child Expedia to integrate with Cortana to get the best detailed and personalized searches for flights and hotels and even have Cortana book them like a real assistant. Leverage the power of the solid MS APIs to integrate with more partners to bring back the Windows Phone 7 original concept that a phone should NOT be a collection of apps, with users having to open many apps to perform a task, but a phone should be an integrated UI with the purpose of serving you better and quickly while you're on the go. That's the right direction and MS is the only company that works well with others and doesn't try to do it all themselves.
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