Why do so many seem so disappointed?

[ngc891]

i dont even have a glass, i'm licking it off the kitchen worktops.

 

[dkp23]

The START screen is 90% of the OS for me. What else about Windows Phone (or iOS and Android) are distinctive aside from the "home" screens? Yes, there might be less buttons/options on Windows Phone menus and it might have a peculiar love affair with scroll down menus; but that's it. The homescreen is the face of the OS.

You can tell me the two OSes are different and they might be different under the hood; but, the GUI aspects are mostly homogeneous.

A lot of it has to do with the sizing and the clustering of the tiles. The sizing of the tiles got a lot smaller and the grid/organization of the tile has largely changed.

Let's get the record straight. "Tiles" and grids will never be distinctive because they are just squares and grids, some of the most design aspects around. What made Metro distinctive was that it used rigid dimensioned, oversized "tiles" on a small grid. The grid was a double column with only 4 rows visible at a time. On PCs, this number can vary; but, it's still generally 3 to 5 rows. The number of columns could vary; but, this made sense due to the wider shape of PCs displays and users had been accustomed to this horizontal continuity through Metro wallpapers.

With WP8, the number of squares in the cluster completely changed. The smaller squares means there will be over 16 rows and 4 columns visible at a time. This change is extremely noticeable since there will be more tiles visible on the phone than the PC. Tile size and shape variation has changed as well now that the number of different shapes has increased from 2 to 4. This is double the shape flexibility. The entire grid becomes more pronounced with more black lines breaking continuity contrasting with the massive shapes/pictures of WP7 and Windows 8.

WP8 uses a completely different grid than WP7.5 and Windows 8 and this is makes it very evident that WP8 is not Windows 8. WP7, in contrast, looks extremely similar to Windows 8 in terms of the grid.

Part of the issue is just the option to resize tiles will confuse less advanced users. Organizing the tiles, I imagine, will be a nightmare regardless of what size you intend to make them. Now I have to specify tile size each time I organize them!

Furthermore, the widget emphasis is greatly decreased now that app developers can use smaller tiles and are not forced to try to make meaningful use of huge screen real estate. This will motivate more users to use small tiles and the mix of large and small tiles does not go over well with simplicity.

Unless you are four years old, i dont see how a user can be confused on how to resize tiles or move them. Once they do it once, they will know how to do it. Press and hold the tile, press the bottom right to resize. Press hold down the tile, move them as you please, you dont have to resize a tile if you do it once unless you want to change it.

iPhone icons, you move them by pressing hold and dragging, same thing goes with wp7 now and will for wp8. Only difference is changing the size, if you change the size of your messaging tile to large, you cant move all you want all over the place with one hand eye closed and drinking a coca cola and it will remain the same size.

 

[anon(5335877)]

Part of the issue is just the option to resize tiles will confuse less advanced users. Organizing the tiles, I imagine, will be a nightmare regardless of what size you intend to make them. Now I have to specify tile size each time I organize them!

Wait, what? First people ask for more customization, and Android users make fun of us for Windows Phone's lack of customization, and now that we have it, people are complaining?

 

[cckgz4]

If I want a new wp8 device, I'll grab the low end HTC newly announced one.