I do not like Windows Phone

After reading the article “ Why Windows Phone is doomed to success, ” I decided to express my opinion, trying to give only facts. In the topic there are a lot of rhetorical questions that are addressed to those people who claim that their Windows Phone suits everyone. I am sure that you can also write about Android, and, probably, iOS.



Disclaimer: I had Lumiya 710 for about 6 months. Of these, she spent 90 days in repair (official warranty). Unfortunately, the second repair did not survive. I write programs for vinfon and I closely follow the news of this platform. It is beneficial for me to develop the system. This post does not pursue the goal, to show that the system is hopeless, I just want, firstly, to answer all the ardent fans who say that “they are satisfied with everything”, and, secondly, to pay attention to Microsoft. It seems that they just do not see any problems
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At the same time, I deliberately do not mention all the known problems, and do not talk about the many convenient notions. Much has already been written about this.

Interface

Consider the call log screen.



Same calls are not grouped at all. This is convenient only because you can always see how many times the call was made to the subscriber. Maybe by scrolling through a long list of calls, you can make an impression. “Look how many times I called you!” And a long scroll down. Impressive. I have no other ideas.

The guys from Microsoft are very proud of the interface. He is truly revolutionary. But why didn't they do a good job on it? In general, an adjective unfinished is best suited when you characterize a new interface. Why is there so much graphical garbage and redundancy? Please note, most of the information on the screen is a repetition.

Why is a buggy and non-innovative Android showing me that the call was today or yesterday in human language? And the revolutionary content-oriented Windows hints at me dryly that I called Vika on Fri. It remains to remember what day today and count how long it was.

Consider the scenario of creating a new contact in Windows Phone and Android. The contact will consist only of the name and number and will be created from the main screen of the contacts application.

So in Android: Add contact - Select account - Click on the name field - click on the number field - ready. 5 tapov .
And in Windows: Click the plus sign - Select to create a group or contact - Select an account - add a name - save a name - add a number - save a number - save a contact. 8 steps . It turns out not so easy.



Go ahead. Again, there are questions that I can not answer. Why a comma in the name? And the operator code without brackets, as if this is the usual part of the number. Yes, and the name is not completely fit. For some reason, under the button "call the keyboard" allocated half the space than under the "disconnect the microphone." All these shortcomings seem insignificant, and I admit it. But how can you do that when the whole system only consists of letters and squares. Where is the love of content?

Then I will talk about the problem that appeared in 3 months using the viphone about 5 times. For some incomprehensible reason, after clicking on the "complete" button, the call did not end, but the string "completion" hung. Sometimes it lasted 30 seconds. And it is not known whether my desperate attempts to complete the call were heard at the other end of the line. Good, if not.

Consider the keyboard. I'm not talking about the fact that there is no svayp and there is no voice input yet. Iphone also does not. The backspace and shift keys in the Russian layout are the same size as the rest. Nothing critical, but flawed. Missing cut tool. Yes, it can be replaced with the copy-erase combination, but this is called flawed.



A separate line would like to note the system prompts when entering. It works exclusively in native applications. In all other strip with words, hints remains, but does not respond to pressing. In fact, the spell checker is available only in native applications. And this is not a trifle.



Wi-fi does not know how to work with Ad-hoc networks at all. Just do not see them. On Lumiya, I sometimes stopped connecting to the network. Saved reboot. I do not exclude that the problem is only my apparatus.

There is no way to set different sound levels for different signal types. My dreams, so that the volume of the system and the level of the call were different and remained dreams.

The application bar works interestingly.



By clicking on the dot, a complete list of available options leaves, but for some reason it is not done so that it leaves the svayp anywhere. It would obviously be more convenient. Plus, in the player it is translucent, in other places it is not.

Noticeable line under the item "new entry". And this is in the native application in the system, which is believed to pay attention to detail. There is no point in even talking about the wrong quotes, although they want to show the beauty of the letters. Transfer the quality of a good typographic set to the interfaces of mobile devices. Yes, yes, I honestly read press releases.

The player is a little not finished yet. If usually when you remove the headphones composition is paused automatically, then in Windows Phone there is just a change of state. It turns out if you press a pause, and then pull out the headphones, the music will play through the speaker. It is not comfortable. They say there is no such problem.

Applications

It is foolish to talk about applications, mentioning only their number. It is very strange for companies to enter when they announce a prize for the number of applications sent to the competition. In the Marketplace a lot of unworthy of attention applications.

And with those that I use every day, not everything is so smooth.

Skype does not work in the background. Yes, they promise to make a new version. But I won’t tell my contacts that they would wait until my revolutionary phone learns how to work with Skype.

The official application "In contact" every time loads the history of messages from the Internet, good, at least it works in the background.

In the "standard" no voice recorder, timer and stopwatch. All sacrificed in favor of simplicity.

There are not many games: Cut the Rope, the sequels of Angry Birds. No native Instagram application and Yandex. Metro,

Conclusion

I do not leave the feeling that the system turned out to be simple, just because it hardly has half the functions that exist in Android or iOS. If you do nothing, then increasing the functionality, the system will become similar to Android, only with squares.

In order for the new mobile OS from Microsoft to become a really cool one, we still have to work very well on it. It is simple, and even in such simplicity, developers have managed to make mistakes. I do not get tired of repeating, as the Metro concept is very good, it is interesting and has the full right to life, exactly like the concept of imitation of the real world in iPhone. It's nice that in Microsoft they saw and developed a different path, it is not worse, not better, it is just another. But so far, unfortunately, a significant amount of work is required.

I watched a live presentation of Winfon 8, then the system pleased me very much. But on the other hand, I expected that in the time that Microsoft had, they would make the system close to ideal, in terms of the interface. As the designers say "pixel perfect." The concept itself requires it. But no, the work was not done again.