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Saturday, October 26, 2013

Windows Phone: Serious make over needed ASAP



When Windows Phone 7 was released, we the users were convinced that the OS was so modern and that we would have PCs in out pockets. Unfortunately that wasn't to be. The so called modern OS was full of nothing but limitations like no support for SD cards. Microsoft promised that all would be well with WP8, code name Apollo




A couple of years later , Apollo was released and without any surprise to anyone, it was called Windows Phone 8. You should have seen the excitement especially from the Nokia fans who were desperately trying to hold onto anything for their Finnish brand. Unfortunately the excitement didn't last long as they found themselves riding the same wave all over again.


Windows Phone Notification Tile Idea
Microsoft said that Windows Phone 8 was running on the same Windows Core OS as the desktop OS. This clearly meant that the OS was so flexible, it could run almost anything including PCs. We were told that it had support for a lot more than just two or four CPU cores. This however wasn't to be as it turned out that the OS needed to be re-written a few years later so as to support a very similar chipset with four CPU cores and 1080 display resolution. Don't forget, it cannot really multitask. In fact it cant multitask at all. All it does is play music while you do something else. Java phones did this years back. Apps, and by apps, I mean something like 7 apps only can be frozen and then reloaded in memory when you need them. They don't run in the background.



Windows phone is still so limited that it doesn't support file management. As a result there are no file management apps. File management is a necessity in the modern world. These kind of limitations are the reasons some apps are not available on the platform.


Windows Phone Lacks enough Personalization options


Windows Phone notification screen idea
Windows phone really lacks personalisation. All windows phones will for that reason look the same. Changing tile color alone doesn't do us any good. Credit for multi sized tiles but something that simple shouldnt have taken years to implement. The extra large font arent loved by most users but till today, there is no otion to make them smaller. For some reason there is an option to make them bigger. Who would want to do that?






Why not allow for more color backgrounds like Windows RT and also allow for tile categorization. The home screen is so tightly packed. Its not pretty at all. Most of those Windows tiles are boring. Why make the Xbox tile more colorful than the rest when Xbox ix not even supported in most countries. Give users what they want, not what you want them to want.


The Windows Phone UI needs a complete overhaul


I don't know about the rest, but the Entire UI  needs to be re-designed. The App list is so ugly and wastes a lot of precious space. And whats so difficult about just Putting a notification center at the left of the home screen or putting a tile with dynamic size on top of the screen that expands out when touched for notifications. Oh sorry I forgot, the OS doesn't support it yet. We need to wait till WP9.

Click here for more images







The competition offers desktop grade Operating systems. They can actually run on desktop PCs. Windows phone won't run on a tablet. (RT is equally bad by the way)

All this is putting aside the fact that there are no basic Apps as well. Just bribe the developers for crying out loud. But no, I will say something about apps. It's so difficult to get a Windows developer account. Secondly, you need to be in certain countries to be a developer. Thirdly, apps go through alot of checks that most never make it for no big reason.

Update

Windows Phone has no support for implementing static ip address when using WIFI. In other words you cannot connect to a network that doesn't offer DHCP (Dynamic Ip address allocation). Really , this should be something basic now. Further more, there is no quick access to settings and that is pretty annoying. You cannot just turn on and off WIFI, Bluetooth, Network Data, etc.. You have go go all the way to the settings menu and scroll through that annoying list that is in a random order to find what you are looking for. Somw apps help with this but it's just not as good.

Some devices like the 920 have sensor issues. This is a Windows phone problem as sometimes the sensors ie accelerometer, gyroscope and other sensors don't respond. This makes certain apps like the camera unusable.


Am concerned not because am a hater, but because I'm hurt by the very slow pace of developments coupled with the intentionally put limitations with in the OS.

3 comments:

  1. That definitely was amazing, but still not as "lively" as a modern OS should be. It's just too "flat" and I know that's the point of it, but as a matter of personal interest, I'd even rather have a Windows Mobile 6.5 because that has way more customizable features. But yes, WP can definitely be improved by these concepts people are giving out. But I don't think Microsoft listens...

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  2. I was snooping around and came across these. Windows Phone should definitely look like this. Check this link out.

    http://www.neowin.net/news/a-vision-of-how-windows-phone-81-could-look

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  3. Personally I think some device manufacturers ie Nokia have to write better drivers for their devices. I mean all first gen WP8 devices run the same chipset. But they are all different in terms of functionality. For example Lumia 920 has less than average audio playback quality. The music is dirty. The sensors have problems. And its all down to device drivers. Nokia needs to re write all their drivers for the next update. Accelerometer and compass need to be fixed and the music quality needs to be improved.

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