So it will be three weeks tomorrow since I picked up my Icon.
When I first got it, I was frustrated, and the learning curve seemed huge. Then I started to resolve some problems learning from others about what apps I should pick up to do what I wanted to do. Notifications were a sticking point, but that would all be solved with 8.1, coming in April. So I decided to hang in there. I was committed.
I still am, but I feel like I have committed myself to being on the outside looking in - like a mid-90's Mac user watching all the cool programs my friends running Windows rigs had access to. Despite what Nokia says, the app issue is a real issue. Even when there apps, they don't have all the features or the timely updates of their Android brethren.
But that's not all. Many apps never interested me with Android, since I would never want to download an app to do anything I could do on a webpage to begin with. It really didn't make sense. But there are apps other phones don't need that WP does. They don't exist either.
This is my first WP, but what I've learned is that a lot of the things I could do with my Android browser just don't work on a WP browser. And I am not just talking about Internet Explorer, either, although why Microsoft can't create a browser with some 1997 features like forward and back keys doesn't make any sense, but the beloved UC browser can't do it either.
For example, I was watching the NASCAR race on Sunday and I got up to do some work. I wanted to listed to it with headphones on MRN, so I fired up the UC browser, headed over to MRN radio and... nothing. A link to take me to another page that didn't work. A note that if I couldn't access the audio to head over to the tuneinradio.com website. Which I did. Click through to another page, looks great there is a play icon and... nothing. It just couldn't be done. I stopped by the Microsoft store the next day and they told me if a page does not support HTML5 for audio and video it just won't work. Period.
So I would need MRN to create an app for WP. But of course they haven't. If you are considering a WP, I would caution you that you should not expect to do everything in a WP browser that you are used to. Part of the app gap that is invisible to outsiders is the apps that aren't yet created to do things you don't need an app for elsewhere. Check your usual browser workflow and make sure those pages all work before you make the move - so you know what you are getting yourself into.
This is by way of example, but it happens all the time. And the IE browser is limited to SIX tabs (about 10 less than my android browser, and I would hit that limit occasionally). Why? But it is. And despite loading the UC browser, IE is still the browser the system uses when you want to follow a link in an email. So I get to six a lot. At which point the browser just uses the last tab to load the new page, causing me to lose whatever work I had been doing in the last tab.
Then there is the WP OS itself. It seems to be missing about half of the settings you need. They apparently went for a minimalist feel to hide the lack of OS functionality. Microsoft has been in the mobile OS business for over a decade, so it's surprising they have not yet figured out what folks are doing with their phones. I keep disconnecting calls because my ear touches the end button. Android solved this FIVE YEARS AGO. Can you really not sense when the phone is against someone's face and turn off the display until they pull it back away again? Sure, I can hit the answer button, then the power button BEFORE I put the phone to my ear, but if I need to look something up while I am talking, I have to hit the power button again, then swipe up to get back to the call screen. God forbid it's some type of notification, because then I have to go back to the start screen and start scanning tiles to figure out what just happened, then turn the phone back off again before putting it back to my ear.
Sure this is only a few seconds here and there, but it's disconcerting for my caller. Sometimes these extra seconds matter. And don't get me started about call waiting - it takes lots of extra time to switch back and forth between two callers, turning the screen on and off manually and swiping upward all the time. But if you don't take the time to do that, you are suddenly speaking to the wrong caller, without knowing. Yes, you can use speakerphone to solve most of this, but speakerphone is not always appropriate.
Again, I should not have to come up with workarounds for things that the phone should just do. And when smarter people than I come up with a 3rd party app to fix limited functionality in the browser or calendar, etc., they are limited in their functionality as well, because WP does not let them integrate with the system. So I can't move an appointment with True Calendar 8, which I had to pay for because Microsoft could not build a week view in to their calendar app (although they master calendars with Outlook and have been doing so for two decades... explain that). I can't tell the OS to open links in UC browser. I can't use my voice to dictate into any text box in any application I want without limitations.
I guess I am most frustrated because ALL of these limitations are in things Microsoft not only controls but excels in already. Why can't I dictate an entire Word document in WP like I could in Documents to Go in 2010? Why can't I create a PowerPoint in the Office App? Why can't I snap a second app into place on my screen like I can with my Surface Pro? Why can't use file explorer to access files on my phone like I can with WP 8/8.1? Why can't I attach anything but a photo to an email when Outlook is the most flexible email client anywhere?
At the end of the day, I guess I wasn't afraid of WP because I was already wired into the Microsoft ecosystem and I liked it all. But even the Microsoft apps on Android work better than their WP counterparts.
So be careful if you are considering WP. You might think you're getting The Windows 8 experience on a phone. But you're really getting Windows Phone 8. It might look like a small change but it is a world away from the same experience.
I didn't know this post was going to be so long. I thought of deleting everything and just writing "C'mon, Microsoft... you are smarter than this." Because they are. But maybe I just needed to get some stuff off my chest. I will probably have a lot of these posts over the next two years... unless maybe Windows 9 will run on my Icon?
When I first got it, I was frustrated, and the learning curve seemed huge. Then I started to resolve some problems learning from others about what apps I should pick up to do what I wanted to do. Notifications were a sticking point, but that would all be solved with 8.1, coming in April. So I decided to hang in there. I was committed.
I still am, but I feel like I have committed myself to being on the outside looking in - like a mid-90's Mac user watching all the cool programs my friends running Windows rigs had access to. Despite what Nokia says, the app issue is a real issue. Even when there apps, they don't have all the features or the timely updates of their Android brethren.
But that's not all. Many apps never interested me with Android, since I would never want to download an app to do anything I could do on a webpage to begin with. It really didn't make sense. But there are apps other phones don't need that WP does. They don't exist either.
This is my first WP, but what I've learned is that a lot of the things I could do with my Android browser just don't work on a WP browser. And I am not just talking about Internet Explorer, either, although why Microsoft can't create a browser with some 1997 features like forward and back keys doesn't make any sense, but the beloved UC browser can't do it either.
For example, I was watching the NASCAR race on Sunday and I got up to do some work. I wanted to listed to it with headphones on MRN, so I fired up the UC browser, headed over to MRN radio and... nothing. A link to take me to another page that didn't work. A note that if I couldn't access the audio to head over to the tuneinradio.com website. Which I did. Click through to another page, looks great there is a play icon and... nothing. It just couldn't be done. I stopped by the Microsoft store the next day and they told me if a page does not support HTML5 for audio and video it just won't work. Period.
So I would need MRN to create an app for WP. But of course they haven't. If you are considering a WP, I would caution you that you should not expect to do everything in a WP browser that you are used to. Part of the app gap that is invisible to outsiders is the apps that aren't yet created to do things you don't need an app for elsewhere. Check your usual browser workflow and make sure those pages all work before you make the move - so you know what you are getting yourself into.
This is by way of example, but it happens all the time. And the IE browser is limited to SIX tabs (about 10 less than my android browser, and I would hit that limit occasionally). Why? But it is. And despite loading the UC browser, IE is still the browser the system uses when you want to follow a link in an email. So I get to six a lot. At which point the browser just uses the last tab to load the new page, causing me to lose whatever work I had been doing in the last tab.
Then there is the WP OS itself. It seems to be missing about half of the settings you need. They apparently went for a minimalist feel to hide the lack of OS functionality. Microsoft has been in the mobile OS business for over a decade, so it's surprising they have not yet figured out what folks are doing with their phones. I keep disconnecting calls because my ear touches the end button. Android solved this FIVE YEARS AGO. Can you really not sense when the phone is against someone's face and turn off the display until they pull it back away again? Sure, I can hit the answer button, then the power button BEFORE I put the phone to my ear, but if I need to look something up while I am talking, I have to hit the power button again, then swipe up to get back to the call screen. God forbid it's some type of notification, because then I have to go back to the start screen and start scanning tiles to figure out what just happened, then turn the phone back off again before putting it back to my ear.
Sure this is only a few seconds here and there, but it's disconcerting for my caller. Sometimes these extra seconds matter. And don't get me started about call waiting - it takes lots of extra time to switch back and forth between two callers, turning the screen on and off manually and swiping upward all the time. But if you don't take the time to do that, you are suddenly speaking to the wrong caller, without knowing. Yes, you can use speakerphone to solve most of this, but speakerphone is not always appropriate.
Again, I should not have to come up with workarounds for things that the phone should just do. And when smarter people than I come up with a 3rd party app to fix limited functionality in the browser or calendar, etc., they are limited in their functionality as well, because WP does not let them integrate with the system. So I can't move an appointment with True Calendar 8, which I had to pay for because Microsoft could not build a week view in to their calendar app (although they master calendars with Outlook and have been doing so for two decades... explain that). I can't tell the OS to open links in UC browser. I can't use my voice to dictate into any text box in any application I want without limitations.
I guess I am most frustrated because ALL of these limitations are in things Microsoft not only controls but excels in already. Why can't I dictate an entire Word document in WP like I could in Documents to Go in 2010? Why can't I create a PowerPoint in the Office App? Why can't I snap a second app into place on my screen like I can with my Surface Pro? Why can't use file explorer to access files on my phone like I can with WP 8/8.1? Why can't I attach anything but a photo to an email when Outlook is the most flexible email client anywhere?
At the end of the day, I guess I wasn't afraid of WP because I was already wired into the Microsoft ecosystem and I liked it all. But even the Microsoft apps on Android work better than their WP counterparts.
So be careful if you are considering WP. You might think you're getting The Windows 8 experience on a phone. But you're really getting Windows Phone 8. It might look like a small change but it is a world away from the same experience.
I didn't know this post was going to be so long. I thought of deleting everything and just writing "C'mon, Microsoft... you are smarter than this." Because they are. But maybe I just needed to get some stuff off my chest. I will probably have a lot of these posts over the next two years... unless maybe Windows 9 will run on my Icon?