Why is Win10 phonebook so unusable?

[Conrad Shull]

I cannot access People from Phone app. Tapping the icon (which is only visible in Phone History or Starred contacts - where it isn't needed!) , People opens and closes immediately. So little seems well connected in the Phone/People nexus. The whole phone functionality on Win10 mobile is a conceptual mess. Personally, I don't think the younger programmers at Microsoft actually know what a real phone book is, which is why their design model is so shabby.

 

[BonzeUK]

What build are you on, what phone.
Can you access People from the Apps menu?

 

[EspHack]

It used to be best in class, but they decided to scrap it to do something else! And that something else has yet to materialize

 

[rhapdog]

I cannot access People from Phone app. Tapping the icon (which is only visible in Phone History or Starred contacts - where it isn't needed!) , People opens and closes immediately. So little seems well connected in the Phone/People nexus. The whole phone functionality on Win10 mobile is a conceptual mess. Personally, I don't think the younger programmers at Microsoft actually know what a real phone book is, which is why their design model is so shabby.

Here's a thought on that. Going to the phone app to get to the people app actually takes more taps than just going straight to the people app. That's the thought against putting it straight on the dialer, especially since if you start dialing, it pulls up contacts to match as if you are using the keypad as an alphanumeric straight from your People App.

People does not just "open and close" for me. Sounds like you've got a corrupt install, period. Something went wrong. I'd recommend you do a hard reset after backup up everything and start over. My wife has no issues with People on the production build, and I'm having no issues with People on the latest Redstone Insider build.

As far as design model goes, I'm loving everything about it except the live tile part. And I'm an old programmer since the mid 1970s now retired. I don't think the age of a programmer has anything to do with it. It's just different expectations. It sounds like you expect something less modern and more retro from what I can figure. That's fine. Everyone likes something different and that's cool with me.