Poll Results: WP to beat iOS

KingCrimson

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I can give you a devil's advocate position on why iOS/Android is better then WP7. The primary reason iOS is better is with folders you can fit a TON of app shortcuts on the first page of the homescreen. With WP7 you can only fit several app shortcuts on the first page, the rest you have to swipe down or go to the app list. It's going to be hard to convince people why they should accept less app shortcuts on the first view.
 

power5

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Unless you know what apps are in the folders its very very hard to determine what the apps actually are. The icon is about 3mm x 3mm with no description. May be a bit clearer on retina displays though.
 

theefman

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In turn I say that live tiles beat a static icon or collection of icons in a folder in ios/android any day. My BBC News Mobile and USA Today tiles show me the latest headlines via text and images and help me decide if I need to go into the application itself. Jumbling all those static icons together into one just means more work to get to them.

PS poll is useless, personally not sure why anyone is happy with WP7 being in second place, aim to be the best or nothing at all.
 

KingCrimson

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Unless you know what apps are in the folders its very very hard to determine what the apps actually are. The icon is about 3mm x 3mm with no description. May be a bit clearer on retina displays though.

True even on Retina Display you have to have very good eyesight to see the icon text, but usually you can tell by the icon what the app is.

In turn I say that live tiles beat a static icon or collection of icons in a folder in ios/android any day. My BBC News Mobile and USA Today tiles show me the latest headlines via text and images and help me decide if I need to go into the application itself. Jumbling all those static icons together into one just means more work to get to them.

PS poll is useless, personally not sure why anyone is happy with WP7 being in second place, aim to be the best or nothing at all.

Live tiles don't apply to 90% of the apps. Most apps are stand-alone, non-integrated and have no need for any kind of "live" data. If you have dozens of those apps, you end up having to either pin them to the home screen and swipe down a lot or go to the app list. Either way it's an inferior UX compared to iOS. The strengths of WP7 are live tiles, integrated features(Local Scout, social networking timeline, XBox Live, Zune Pass). Once you get out of that MS-only playground it's worse then iOS/Android, especially if you have a TON of stand-alone apps.

A caveat though is if you actually prefer the Metro UI compared to iOS/Android that's reasonable, but I expect 95% of current smartphone users to be put off from it. It's just too radically different from their rows of icons.
 

theefman

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Live tiles don't apply to 90% of the apps. Most apps are stand-alone, non-integrated and have no need for any kind of "live" data. If you have dozens of those apps, you end up having to either pin them to the home screen and swipe down a lot or go to the app list. Either way it's an inferior UX compared to iOS. The strengths of WP7 are live tiles, integrated features(Local Scout, social networking timeline, XBox Live, Zune Pass). Once you get out of that MS-only playground it's worse then iOS/Android, especially if you have a TON of stand-alone apps.

A caveat though is if you actually prefer the Metro UI compared to iOS/Android that's reasonable, but I expect 95% of current smartphone users to be put off from it. It's just too radically different from their rows of icons.

Live tiles will make up a good proportion of any WP7 users start screen, unless you are installing obscure 3rd party applications. Most users prefer them and developers are slowly taking advantage of them so they will be more likely to be installed by end users.

And I struggle to see how a live tile with pertinent information on it could possibly give an "inferior" UX to a static icon. Stacking tons of stacic icons together in a folder would be even worse than a single one, having to scan through all of them to find the one you want. And if you have tons of them as you suggest then its no better than a start screen of non-live tiles, you're still going to be swiping to get to the object you want.

As for current iphone/android users being put off" by WP7, I think that speaks more to people's tendency to be conformist rather than to any deficiencies in the WP7 platform. Why so many minds think alike - CNN.com
 

KingCrimson

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Live tiles will make up a good proportion of any WP7 users start screen, unless you are installing obscure 3rd party applications. Most users prefer them and developers are slowly taking advantage of them so they will be more likely to be installed by end users.

And I struggle to see how a live tile with pertinent information on it could possibly give an "inferior" UX to a static icon. Stacking tons of stacic icons together in a folder would be even worse than a single one, having to scan through all of them to find the one you want. And if you have tons of them as you suggest then its no better than a start screen of non-live tiles, you're still going to be swiping to get to the object you want.

As for current iphone/android users being put off" by WP7, I think that speaks more to people's tendency to be conformist rather than to any deficiencies in the WP7 platform. Why so many minds think alike - CNN.com

#1 - I don't see most apps have live data to update via push notification. So where do I put my music tuner, digital compass and dozen other utility apps?

#2 - I've seen people create a dozen folders to organize their icons on the iOS home screen. Somehow they are not complaining about their UX there.

#3 - Yes people are conformist and I fail to see how Microsoft/Nokia/HTC can break that. A family of 4 goes into Verizon Wireless and ends up coming out with iPhones or Galaxy SII/Nexus phones. Microsoft will be lucky if even 5% of smartphones sold in this quarter are WP7. To me it's a stillborn platform.
 

jimski

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I can give you a devil's advocate position on why iOS/Android is better then WP7. The primary reason iOS is better is with folders you can fit a TON of app shortcuts on the first page of the homescreen. With WP7 you can only fit several app shortcuts on the first page, the rest you have to swipe down or go to the app list. It's going to be hard to convince people why they should accept less app shortcuts on the first view.
Well, let's see. I currently have 36 tiles on my home screen, almost all of them live, meaning they update, flip, change in some way. Three of those tiles are are folders (jailbreak required); Maps, Dropbox and Favorites, which contain 27 app links. So that's 60 links to apps on my Start screen with one or two clicks. And one swipe away I have access to my app list, which is searchable by letter or keyword. Seems pretty accessible to me.

Sent from my HTC Surround using Board Express
 

jdevenberg

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I think the real headline is that Windows Phone is generally accepted to be one of the top 3. People have given up on Blackberry. I'd say MS needs to start pushing Chasis 2 so it is ready for Blackberry converts.
 

KingCrimson

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Well, let's see. I currently have 36 tiles on my home screen, almost all of them live, meaning they update, flip, change in some way. Three of those tiles are are folders (jailbreak required); Maps, Dropbox and Favorites, which contain 27 app links. So that's 60 links to apps on my Start screen with one or two clicks. And one swipe away I have access to my app list, which is searchable by letter or keyword. Seems pretty accessible to me.

Sent from my HTC Surround using Board Express

The amount of app shortcuts on the first screen is just one factor. Another big factor is inferior hardware & app ecosystem compared to iOS/Android. You can't deny that. I know an iOS developer who hates Microsoft with every fiber of his being and he'd never ever ever ever port a single of one of his great iOS apps to WP7.
 

KingCrimson

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I think the real headline is that Windows Phone is generally accepted to be one of the top 3. People have given up on Blackberry. I'd say MS needs to start pushing Chasis 2 so it is ready for Blackberry converts.

In smartphone platforms its:

#1 - Apple
#2 - Android
....
....
....
....
everyone else grubbing for the meager scraps. That WP7 might soon surpass RIM is meaningless in the big picture.
 

jdevenberg

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In smartphone platforms its:

#1 - Apple
#2 - Android
....
....
....
....
everyone else grubbing for the meager scraps. That WP7 might soon surpass RIM is meaningless in the big picture.

I don't think that is entirely true. Yes, Apple and Android are one and two, but I don't think surpassing RIM is meaningless. There is a market of people who do not want the iPhone. They want bigger screens, keyboards, or some other hardware feature Apple refuses to offer, or simply don't like Apple products. Android is seen as insecure, some people don't trust it. Up until now, these people have chosen RIM. I think that these people make up a large chunk of RIM's remaining 25% of the US market share. With no RIM, where are these people going to go? Windows Phone has the opportunity to offer them the hardware choice they want with the security they need. RIM (and Palm) defects, coupled with Nokia's hardware excellence have the potential to have WP7/8 sitting at 12-15% market share by the end of 2012 if MS plays their cards right.
 

Sniper1087

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In smartphone platforms its:

#1 - Apple
#2 - Android
....
....
....
....
everyone else grubbing for the meager scraps. That WP7 might soon surpass RIM is meaningless in the big picture.

I disagree

According to Market Share

#1 Android
#2 Apple
#3 Blackberry ( So Far)

I like the way WP7 is going and I see a Future to it, I have the SGS2 and thinking for switching. As for any people talking about hardware, it only needs a certain amount of hardware to improve performance, a 1.5 single core processor, can run as smooth as a 1.5ghz dual core processor, or even better, Software matters too, and Windows did an Excellent job with theirs, making performance their number 1 priority, the browser, is the best I have seen, and dont get me wrong IOS Browser is good. Android Browser on the other hand is sluggish at times. Now there are more things that Windows needs to do to improve the OS, but Im happy to see they way they are going, I might switch soon, if we get any more WP7 options on T-mobile, Right now the Radar is ok, but I want more storage, or at least Expandable Storage.
 

theefman

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#1 - I don't see most apps have live data to update via push notification. So where do I put my music tuner, digital compass and dozen other utility apps?

#2 - I've seen people create a dozen folders to organize their icons on the iOS home screen. Somehow they are not complaining about their UX there.

#3 - Yes people are conformist and I fail to see how Microsoft/Nokia/HTC can break that. A family of 4 goes into Verizon Wireless and ends up coming out with iPhones or Galaxy SII/Nexus phones. Microsoft will be lucky if even 5% of smartphones sold in this quarter are WP7. To me it's a stillborn platform.

So who's complaining about the WP7 UX? I'm not, but it seems you think WP7 should be just like other platforms or give up. Really not sure how being unable to arrange your tiles into folders condemns the entire OS to failure. Its just one feature, but it seems that the features WP7 DOES have over other platforms ( office, Xbox, SkyDrive, SharePoint, twitter, Facebook) are always dismissed as irrelevant but features on other platforms are seen seems vital and their absence condemns WP7 to failure.

I don't see it that way and the unique style of the Metro UI is what makes WP7 attractive to me and I have no inclination to change it into an ios clone in any way. If everyone else wants to be a clone and follow the crowd that's fine for them but that doesn't make WP7 any less of a good, uniquely different platform.
 

KingCrimson

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The argument would be that hundreds of millions of people using iOS/Android have no UX issues with rows of pretty icons. Sure you can make the case for the WP7 live tiles/typography/integrated hubs. The social network timeline is a wonderful achievement in software engineering alone. My initial motivation for wanting to go to WP7 is I don't want to be one of the iClones. But the more I research the platform, the UI, the workflows the more I fell in love with.

For now I'm holding off on the Focus S or Focus Flash, waiting to see what will be unveiled in NYC this week. I need to see more.
 

11B1P

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The argument would be that hundreds of millions of people using iOS/Android have no UX issues with rows of pretty icons. Sure you can make the case for the WP7 live tiles/typography/integrated hubs. The social network timeline is a wonderful achievement in software engineering alone. My initial motivation for wanting to go to WP7 is I don't want to be one of the iClones. But the more I research the platform, the UI, the workflows the more I fell in love with.

For now I'm holding off on the Focus S or Focus Flash, waiting to see what will be unveiled in NYC this week. I need to see more.

Sooo..you're making comments about WP7 without having even used the OS? :straight: How about you use WP7 for a couple of weeks and then come back and give an educated opinion? Otherwise, you sound like my 5yr old telling me he doesn't like a certain food, even though he's never tried it. ;)
 

KingCrimson

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Sooo..you're making comments about WP7 without having even used the OS? :straight: How about you use WP7 for a couple of weeks and then come back and give an educated opinion? Otherwise, you sound like my 5yr old telling me he doesn't like a certain food, even though he's never tried it. ;)

Look I've seen a ton of videos demonstrating Windows Phone 7 devices. So far the only one that really impressed me was the HTC Titan, but the size of it puts me off. I want all these newest devices at my local Microsoft Store. I will physically GO to the store and feel how all of fit in my hand and how they would fit in my pocket. In addition asking questions about important like Remote Wipe. If figure my best shot for knowledge sales people on this tech is going to be at a MSFT store.
 

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