Wife completly turned off by WP

[fatclue_98]

This explains a lot of reasons why WP adoption is so slow. I know it is touted that because it is different it's a plus, but at the same time no matter if you like it or not the iOS and Android interfaces are familiar and known and will be the first thing smartphone owners gravitate to and what new smartphone users use as well because these interfaces are so common around them that it will be the first OS`s they think about when they get a new phone. I think with WP, Microsoft has to explain to the average consumers why WP is different and why different will be good for them.

I hate to disagree with you. The whole "different" thing has not worked too well. For example, the BB10 phones have been a complete flop sales wise. It's an outstanding OS and BlackBerry had a die-hard cult following, but it was different. It didn't bring the loyalists even after they introduced the Q10 with the familiar keyboard. Exhibit #2: webOS. Pound for pound the best OS ever, IMO. Yes, hardware sucked donkey d**k but you still can't beat the notifications, contact integration and multi-tasking. I think we all know how that turned out.

I still say features and properly trained sales people are the key. Instead of wasting millions in ads, they can scale it back and offer spiffs to the sales force. To paraphrase Rick James - money is a helluva drug (motivator).

 

[A895]

I hate to disagree with you. The whole "different" thing has not worked too well. For example, the BB10 phones have been a complete flop sales wise. It's an outstanding OS and BlackBerry had a die-hard cult following, but it was different. It didn't bring the loyalists even after they introduced the Q10 with the familiar keyboard. Exhibit #2: webOS. Pound for pound the best OS ever, IMO. Yes, hardware sucked donkey d**k but you still can't beat the notifications, contact integration and multi-tasking. I think we all know how that turned out.

I still say features and properly trained sales people are the key. Instead of wasting millions in ads, they can scale it back and offer spiffs to the sales force. To paraphrase Rick James - money is a helluva drug (motivator).

That was my point, being different does not work. It shows with WPs also growth and BB10s failure.

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[armandojv]

You are completely right. When I first met my wife she had an old pantech. This was when the first iPhone was just beginning to make its way to people's hands. We went from flip phones to iPhones 3GS, to HTCs and when I saw the HTC HD 7 I asked myself what was that? My wife loved how simple it was, so we gave it a go and we both bought one. Honestly from there, we have had only WPs. Now she has a NL1520 and I own a 1020, both with 8.1. Every now and then ask her if she is happy with her phone. She tells me "I love it, I always make my friends jealous on how great my pictures come out. And with this massive beautiful screen. They all wish they could do their office work from something so portable." All because we embraced WP from the beginning.

 

[armandojv]

I hate to disagree with you. The whole "different" thing has not worked too well. For example, the BB10 phones have been a complete flop sales wise. It's an outstanding OS and BlackBerry had a die-hard cult following, but it was different. It didn't bring the loyalists even after they introduced the Q10 with the familiar keyboard. Exhibit #2: webOS. Pound for pound the best OS ever, IMO. Yes, hardware sucked donkey d**k but you still can't beat the notifications, contact integration and multi-tasking. I think we all know how that turned out.

I still say features and properly trained sales people are the key. Instead of wasting millions in ads, they can scale it back and offer spiffs to the sales force. To paraphrase Rick James - money is a helluva drug (motivator).

I will agree with you in the sales rep part. I am very sad to say that this happens even at my local MS store. They know the material that was given to them on their original training, but is like they do not follow up. I could ask them about deals that I read from official twitter accounts or from WPC and they are oblivious to that info. And even some of the more complex features of windows 8.1 or WP8.1. How are they planning to sell their products when sometimes I see the employees searching info from their GS4s when they are given nokias to work with.

 

[A895]

I will agree with you in the sales rep part. I am very sad to say that this happens even at my local MS store. They know the material that was given to them on their original training, but is like they do not follow up. I could ask them about deals that I read from official twitter accounts or from WPC and they are oblivious to that info. And even some of the more complex features of windows 8.1 or WP8.1. How are they planning to sell their products when sometimes I see the employees searching info from their GS4s when they are given nokias to work with.

That's Microsoft fault. They agent doing the work they need to be doing to get reps knowledgeable in all stores selling Windows Phones.

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[psudotechzealot]

Well, of course, the answer is obvious. Get a new wife.

Beat me to it. lol

 

[jobinthomas]

Wife and her cousin say the same thing about my WP. Even though wife owned a wp7.8 phone until early this year. She's comfortable with Android so that's what she ended up getting

 

[jojoe42]

Lots of people I know really like the new tiles in 8.1 - put it simply, if done right, live tiles can look/function much more efficiently than plain static icons and then widgets on a separate screen (cough iOS 8) they see me swiping around my phone and the usual question is "That's not an Android, is it?"

 

[Chregu]

What this taught me is that most people stick to what they know and that in their eyes change is a very scary thing. Makes me feel like the US market will never ever change and that hurts. Thoughts?

I really don't understand why this resistance to change is always associated with fear. It has nothing to do with fear, it has something to do with optimizing, comfort and keeping established things.

To learn something new is tedious, it takes effort, and it's only worth it if there is worth in it. Regarding different phone operation systems, this is not about learning, they are all very simple, it's about getting used to it. Still, the same rules apply. If an OS was always offered everything needed, why change to something else just because it's different? Different doesn't mean necessarily better. Windows Phone would have to offer a real advantage over another OS to get people using it that are not just interested in trying out new stuff or that are fed up with what they have.

Fear has nothing to do with it.

 

[Chregu]

what is this? dramawindows phone central? it's like you want advice or something about your wife? is this like a bed problem or something and you have to come and run and tell it to everyone?

but what can I say? I'm sorry but, not everyone will like Windows Phone, and your wife has dumb reasons to dislike Windows Phone, and you could have showed her how to CUSTOMIZE the start screen.... couldn't you do that?
she wants icons? what's so different about changing the live tiles to small size? she doesn't even have to have any big tile if she doesn't want to.
how is that different from an icon? nothing. so again, dumb reasons to dislike a platform, but what can we do? there is special people in the world who seem to "care" about technology and "oh I will die without useless static icons" but in the end they won't even use it much.
facebook, whatsapp? Line? kik? instagram? oh yeah, we need a completely new platform to be able to do that.... not! it's just the same useless thing in every platform.

I wonder if she knows what "cluttered" even means though.... I mean, I thought some people said WP was plain and boring! (and Android not busy or cluttered? what?... yeah I have used it and I still don't like it, not even because it's Android, it's because I just don't like the way it looks and works) so yeah it seems just excuses to me, especially if there was not even a real use of the OS and phone, but you couldn't even explain how to change the tiles size? wow... just wow. I bet there would have been another excuse, and then another excuse, but at least next time you should at least show how customizable WP is, specially in 8.1 which is stable and can be run in any wp8. and show a person how to really use or how things are done in the OS.

It's funny how you mention "dramawindows phone central" and then write the most agitated and emotional post so far. Most of all I like all these extremely reproachful question marks all over your post.

 

[anon5997296]

This isn't directly related to the tiles but I don't feel like I can recommend WP to anyone non-technical, which is weird because it's a very simple, user focused design. For me the issue is that often things just don't work. I've got a Lumia 920 and I have

• plenty of freezes and resets (more when I first got the phone and less now after firmware & OS updates but they still happen more frequently then I'd like)
• apps often exit unexpectedly (a problem for the app devs, not the OS but I never had this many issues on iOS & I've had crashes from Bing News recently which is an MS app)
• mysterious & severe battery drains (seems to be a common theme on these forums)
• things like Internet sharing not working, sound only coming from 1 headphone, Bluetooth not working and all needing a restart to resolve

Compared to the iPhone 4 I had previously and my wife's iPhone 5s the Lumia 920 is downright unreliable, and from posts in these forums it doesn't seem uncommon for any & all WP devices to suffer these issues. I like my Windows Phone, it has some very nice features & I'll probably buy another, but if anyone non-technical asks me for a phone recommendation then I can't say WP.

My 920. All fine. No freezes or restarts.

 

[JamesPTao]

Don't know where your issues come from but I've had a 920 for 1.5 years and have had to restart it once, yes once in the entire year. No freezing issues or any other for that matter. Couldn't have had a more different experience from you using the same phone, os, on the same carrier. Kind of suspicious.

 

[JamesPTao]

Either you have had the rare 1 in a thousand completely unique bad experience or smells lime a troll. I will bet on the first so as not to expect you are a troll. Hard to believe someone has had that much trouble on a phone that has shown 0 of these issues for me.

 

[JamesPTao]

My wife went from no cell phone and only experience with cell phones being dumb phone to 1020 and adapted with no trouble. And this is a women I have to remind how to drag and drop info from her point and shoot to windows desktop. The os is easy. Some just don't want to learn a new os.

 

[Ivin Laney]

So she agreed to use the 925 for a few days so it's all positive so far.

 

[Zeem Frostmaw]

Sounds fair to me. I chose WP because I prefer tiles over icons. Why wouldn't it go vice-versa?

 

[Boris Alexandrov]

So it's time for my wife to get a new phone to move from her GS4. I talked to her about what she wanted in a phone and all she could really come up with is a nice camera. I let her take pictures with my 5s and while she liked the quality, she said the screen was much too small. So then I had the crazy idea of showing her the 1520 since it checks all the boxes. She was interested in the camera and I really talked her up on 8.1. We decided to go to the AT&T store so that she could see it since we would have been buying it unlocked since we are on T-mobile. The reps didn't really acknowledge us so we got free reign to look at all the phones they had on display. I walked her up to the 1520 and she turned it on. Literally 10 seconds later, she puts it down and says no it’s too busy and cluttered. She had never used live tiles (I showed her 8.1 on my 925 for a couple mins before we left) before because we're an OSX household. I told her that it's customizable and it would look however she put it. She picked it back up and asked if she could get rid of the tiles and replace them with icons and I laughed pretty hard and told her no. She then asked me the question that made me start this thread: "Why would anyone want to switch to WP if they already know how to use the phones the they already have?". I didn't really have an answer for her and we ended up picking up a Note 3 at the T-mobile store across the street. What this taught me is that most people stick to what they know and that in their eyes change is a very scary thing. Makes me feel like the US market will never ever change and that hurts. Thoughts?

Well I guess there are always conservative people and people striving for something new, it's just the way the life goes.

What you could do is show your wife how tiles may get smaller so they become icons:smile:

 

[Hildr]

I found 3 reasons to switch from other OS to WP8:
- If you fall in love with the squares (my case, i find the android and old iOS icon (iOS 7 is not bad) so "2000's" not really modern, just like old PCs)
- If you had a bad experiences with your previous OS (my father's case with all the androids he had)
- If you want something "different" and so, you do not care if you don't have the same thing that all your colleagues (also my case)

Another but less true now, if you don't like the black/silver/white "corporate colors" that pollute our life everywhere, but now, there are colorfull devices that run other OS.
So the first point is just a matter of taste, the second, depends on what you do and what you did/had, and the third on what your are.
There is no real feature on WP8 that can helps someone to switch on if he's already happy of his actual OS I think.

 

[worldspy99]

Like that's gonna change anything. I didn't see you offer to pick up the tab for alimony and child support. Yes, it's cheaper to keep her - unless you're Scott Peterson.

Thanks for the early morning laugh

 

[A895]

I found 3 reasons to switch from other OS to WP8:
- If you fall in love with the squares (my case, i find the android and old iOS icon (iOS 7 is not bad) so "2000's" not really modern, just like old PCs)
- If you had a bad experiences with your previous OS (my father's case with all the androids he had)
- If you want something "different" and so, you do not care if you don't have the same thing that all your colleagues (also my case)

Another but less true now, if you don't like the black/silver/white "corporate colors" that pollute our life everywhere, but now, there are colorfull devices that run other OS.
So the first point is just a matter of taste, the second, depends on what you do and what you did/had, and the third on what your are.
There is no real feature on WP8 that can helps someone to switch on if he's already happy of his actual OS I think.

All your reasons boil down to look. There definitely has to be more than that to get people to move to Windows Phone.

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