Outrageous WP review in InfoWorld

[Per Kjellqvist]

This review is full of so many holes, biases and lack of knowledge it is not even funny.

Windows Phone 8.1 hands-on: The good, the bad, and the ugly | Mobile Technology - InfoWorld

Luckily several people have already taken the time to add comments.

 

[anon(5335899)]

While the 'reviewer' obviously is biased in his points about WP 8.1 copying from (mainly) android are justified IMO. WP8.1 moves the OS much more towards how Android works, looks and interacts and I am not so sure I like it. With all it's additions and improvements with 8.1 Windows Phone has lost much of its own identity and differentiating features.

 

[OzRob]

This review is full of so many holes, biases and lack of knowledge it is not even funny.

The article seemed pretty fair to me. Perhaps you'd be kind enough to point out some of the holes, biases and lack of knowledge you're alluding to.

While I think it's clear the author is not a huge fan of WP, he's also not criticising it unfairly. Most of the points he raises are real issues, particularly on the enterprise front (my organisation has recently done an evaluation of mobile platforms for enterprise deployment and there are serious issues on this front facing WP that aren't fully resolved in 8.1).

And I completely agree with his conclusion - 8.1 does make WP a much more competitive smart phone OS, but it isn't the giant leap forward needed to close the market share gap with iOS or Android.

 

[Christian Holmstedt]

Seems legit. Why is it outrageous?

 

[zorb58]

"Given how few apps use Windows Phone's live tiles feature..."

That's a pretty unfair remark. I haven't been deprived of live tiles on a majority of apps since WP7 (save for xbox music of course haha).

 

[tgp]

"Given how few apps use Windows Phone's live tiles feature..."

That's a pretty unfair remark. I haven't been deprived of live tiles on a majority of apps since WP7 (save for xbox music of course haha).

I'm not sure either what he means by that line. Maybe he meant that they're used mainly as icons, or shortcuts. I never found the live part to be very reliable. They usually flipped, but often with old information. It also could be somewhat of an overload to have the whole screen flipping and flashing. To me it didn't fit in with WP's minimalist claims.

 

[shmsnh]

It's not as bad as some other "reviews". He did get a few points wrong though. For example, he says there's no way to jump to songs starting with a particular letter.

 

[travis_valkyrie]

This post is outrageous!!!

 

[rex.reyesiii]

This review is full of so many holes, biases and lack of knowledge it is not even funny.

Windows Phone 8.1 hands-on: The good, the bad, and the ugly | Mobile Technology - InfoWorld

Luckily several people have already taken the time to add comments.

LOL yeah the comments are great.

 

[Michael Dontigney]

"Given how few apps use Windows Phone's live tiles feature..."

That's a pretty unfair remark. I haven't been deprived of live tiles on a majority of apps since WP7 (save for xbox music of course haha).

I agree... Someone should ask him "How many apps have live widgets for Android?" I can answer.. not many at all.

 

[chezm]

I agree... Someone should ask him "How many apps have live widgets for Android?" I can answer.. not many at all.

This is true, every time i downloaded an app on my Android phone i was excited about i went to check the widgets section, and alas 95% of the time there was nothing for the app itself. While i do agree I wish there were more Live Tile options, Android's availability is less in widgets than what we have in Live Tiles.

 

[A895]

This is true, every time i downloaded an app on my Android phone i was excited about i went to check the widgets section, and alas 95% of the time there was nothing for the app itself. While i do agree I wish there were more Live Tile options, Android's availability is less in widgets than what we have in Live Tiles.

I think it depends on the app. I know a good portion of apps do have widgets. What apps in particular were you looking at? I personally only have a Google Keep widget and a calendar widget.

 

[A895]

I agree... Someone should ask him "How many apps have live widgets for Android?" I can answer.. not many at all.

That is false. Where is this misinformation coming from?

 

[iamtim]

There is nothing "outrageous" in this article. It has some bias, but what human-written article does not? I thought it was a good article.

 

[Jorge Holguin]

Why is that everybody that is reviewing WP 8.1 do not disclose that this is a preview OS, that is still in the making? These people keep treating 8.1 as if it was the final version. It is not people get that fact first before throwing the kitchen sink through the window.

Although, I am not necessarily agree with the all review, he has some very valid and important points.
1- The music: The music has been a gad experience on the WP. MS has to change this if it want to attract people. Make it easy to transfer their music from iTunes and Google play.
2- Yes WP has copied many things from iOS and Android but so are they.
3- This I don't get it still, with the experience MS has in the business world I have know idea ad do not understand why WP is not the more secure mobile OS on the market, there is not excuse for this none.
4- MS has been in the e-mail business since what, 10,15 20 yrs. now, why is that the email synchronization is easier and cleaner.
5- Yeah, with still have some premium apps that haven't show up but the gap is closing by the hours and days. And some developers are too lazy to put continues work on WP apps. We can blame developers and MS for this.
But I am glad to see this hard critics punching MS right in the nuts, why? Because it show them that they are not in the same wonderland they used to and the have to bring the best to the game. MS are you listening? When it comes to mobile OS there is a new standard and there are not excuses now to lag behind. I now you can do it.

 

[anony_mouse]

I agree with most of the posters here. The review is hardly negative - it has the tagline "The forthcoming Microsoft smartphone OS is the first version you can take seriously" - and most of what it says seems fair.

To be honest, I've been really seen a bad review of Windows Phone. Most of the shortcomings of earlier versions that are listed here were rarely mentioned before.

 

[Seketh]

The article seemed pretty fair to me. Perhaps you'd be kind enough to point out some of the holes, biases and lack of knowledge you're alluding to.

While I think it's clear the author is not a huge fan of WP, he's also not criticising it unfairly. Most of the points he raises are real issues, particularly on the enterprise front (my organisation has recently done an evaluation of mobile platforms for enterprise deployment and there are serious issues on this front facing WP that aren't fully resolved in 8.1).

And I completely agree with his conclusion - 8.1 does make WP a much more competitive smart phone OS, but it isn't the giant leap forward needed to close the market share gap with iOS or Android.

What?

Have you people even bothered to actually read the review? OP is right, it is an outrageous review.

The whole review is filled with negative adjectives like "Weak, ugly, issue, suffer, lack, worse" and pretty much every paragraph is written in a negative connotation. He also implies that every single feature in 8.1 is a copy or a clone.

And just read his Good and Bad approach properly. The only good things he writes about WP is Cortana and the Calendar, the rest of what he thinks about is "good" is all about iOS and Apple products compatibility.

There's nothing else good on WP! How on earth is that not unfair?

Seriously, Windows Phone has issues, we all know what they are. But not even you people are looking at Windows Phone fairly if you think this review was nothing but bias taken to the extreme.

 

[chezm]

I think it depends on the app. I know a good portion of apps do have widgets. What apps in particular were you looking at? I personally only have a Google Keep widget and a calendar widget.

A lot of the widgets are limited to 1 size, very few allow size changes which disappointed me...now mind you this was when i had a Galaxy S3 and using my Nexus 7 running 4.4. Specific apps, im sorry i cannot remember them now but recall being disappointed multiple times...mainly because the few widgets I had were awesome and figured there would be more. My fav widgets were Flipboard and the music player, both allowed adjustable sizes. The calender one i remember only option was it would take up a whole page which looked nice but would have preferred a week view. Now, im not saying WP Live Tiles all work well or the way i want, but i find there are more Live Tiles avaliable than widgets for Apps on the respective platforms.

 

[Zeem Frostmaw]

The review is hardly negative - it has the tagline "The forthcoming Microsoft smartphone OS is the first version you can take seriously"

In other words, every version of Windows Phone beforehand is a joke. =/ Sounds pretty negative to me.

 

[A895]

A lot of the widgets are limited to 1 size, very few allow size changes which disappointed me...now mind you this was when i had a Galaxy S3 and using my Nexus 7 running 4.4. Specific apps, im sorry i cannot remember them now but recall being disappointed multiple times...mainly because the few widgets I had were awesome and figured there would be more. My fav widgets were Flipboard and the music player, both allowed adjustable sizes. The calender one i remember only option was it would take up a whole page which looked nice but would have preferred a week view. Now, im not saying WP Live Tiles all work well or the way i want, but i find there are more Live Tiles avaliable than widgets for Apps on the respective platforms.

It's not true but maybe for your use case it was. Resizable widgets has been around for a while on Android.

Sent from my XT907 using Mobile Nations mobile app