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Windows Phone 7. My god, it's full of tiles!
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But I don't know if that's what actually HAPPENS, it's just a half-remembered thing from a old promo vid, so feel free to disregard/prove me wrong.
FTC: HONK.
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While I agree that contextual menus and "smart" technology can do away with some copy-paste functions, I still feel like it's necessary. Drives me nuts when I can't use it in an app on my BlackBerry that doesn't recognize the standard copy/paste functions. Fortunately they plan to implement it in early 2011.
As I've said a million times, WP7 would make an AMAZING competitor to iOS 3 and Android 1.6.
The problem is that it's coming out a year later.
Its features are probably lacking compared to my old iPhone 3GS but I haven't found it... yet. I am not looking forward to using Bing for everything but it seems to be going ok so far. Hopefully a future update will allow us to choose which search engine we use ala Internet Explorer.
The Bluetooth connection doesn't allow you to add contacts to it, which is a pain.
I have run into something weird - when trying to connect to support.xbox.com a survey overlay would move whenever I zoomed in to find the button to hit, it would move further and further away. It made things quite difficult.
My messenger account is full of garbage - when I first started the phone the live account I added automatically added all the people who were on my list and cluttered up my phone - so I have created a new account and am hoping to switch my gamertag over to my new MSN dealie. Apparently this can be done, but it needs an xbox or the assitance of the xbox live support line which is closed at the moment.
The xbox live integration is really cool though. The screen is beautiful, very responsive. The sound is crystal clear and the speaker is very good.
Annoyance - Stupid USB dealie for charger and connection.
EDIT: Other annoyances: Zune has ads when you first boot it up. What the hell is that?
No custom phone number types for contacts
No custom sounds/ringtones/messages.
No countdown timer.
No vpn.
If HP can pull their finger out webOS can be a major competitor too. HP should forget windows 7 tablets and make webOS tablets. I've been lucky enough to have used ios, android and webos phones. They're all excellent with ios and android are pretty damn well established now. I think webos would make for a better tablet os than android in its current state.
Anyway, I'm going off subject. WP7 has sort of differentiated itself but has also doomed itself, like forbidding native code. Which means no web browsers other than shitty IE, right now Apple can get away with forbidding other web browsers because ios devices are highly popular and sought after. But I suspect that may change when android starts taking serious inroads.
My current phone is an iphone and I am getting tempted by android because of things like the new firefox mobile which is looking pretty damn good.
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I've got a spare copy of Portal, if anyone wants it message me.
edit: but yeah android's greatest strength is that google does not really give a shit what developers do with it
not that having a well curated experience can't be an equally big strength, though
Have you had any issues trying to send files to the Omnia 7 via bluetooth (pictures mp3 etc?). Im having issues trying to pair the phone to other phone devices.
it's a trade-off
If iOS or WP7 already do everything you want to do with a phone, then they are the beter way to go
but if you want to do somethng else, like run a different browser, or what have you, then android provides the flexibility that you need.
Android is oddly enough taking the position that Windows Mobile devices used to hold, in terms of customizability.
how is that odd?
One of the things I like the most is the case design, which is angled to let you know which way is up and isn't all slippery like iDevices.
Didn't get too much deeper into it than that though.
I haven't had a chance to try it, unfortunately.
because it feels like a step backwards.
they had a bunch of features for generations that they have completely scrapped
Yet if you look at windows mobile upto 6.5, the whole system wasn't built for phone use but for PDA and pocket PC's. It was painfully obvious when I used the old HTC Vario with Win Mo 5 I think it was. To have all the features of the older OS onto windows phone 7 and have the user experience on these phones couldn't happen.
Hence why Windows Phone 7 is such a nice surprise.
you know, I can get behind this
Winmo required a stylus (not a negative in my mind, a stylus is accurate), and didn't really have apps, but otherwise there is not much that can be said against it that can't be said against other smartphones.
I guess that's why WinPho seems so odd to me. It got rid of so many features in order to add what? a capacitive screen and an app store?
My phone runs Windows Mobile 6.5, Froyo and Ubuntu flawlessly (and apparently any day now WP7) and I've realised I generally prefer Windows Mobile to Android. I do go back and forth between them every now and then though.
The ability to install your own software is ANOTHER feature removed from WP7, though.
(and, as I said, I've never begrudged a stylus)
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I've got a spare copy of Portal, if anyone wants it message me.
Let's also consider that some of the best Android phones made so far have just released this past spring and summer, meaning people just picked up a new two-year contract. They aren't going to break it for a completely different platform.
They really should have tried to release before Droid X and Galaxy S did, and they should have gotten phones for all carriers together before dumping into the market like this. I thought it was equally stupid for the Galaxy S phones to not all release at the same time.
HD7 is exclusive to O2 on quite expensive 24 month contract (thats the only phone on O2 for now) O2 are pushing the advertising though through its own stores as the flavour or the month.
T-Mobile has the Omnia 7 but has had difficulties in getting supplies in (they are on the cheapest contract (£35 pm 24 month contract).
Orange has the Omnia 7 and the Mozart with the mozart being heavily pushed by orange and microsoft, (quite honestly is very average phone handset when you compare the likes of the galaxy s and blackberrys on same contracts)
vodafone has the Lg Optimus 7 but has virtually no advertising for the device or windows phone 7.
Positive impressions:
-The screen is beautiful. It really is impressive.
-The UI feels smooth and fluid. It is hard to describe but it just has a pleasant flow to it.
Negative impressions:
-Lack of a unified inbox app is a bit annoying for those who manually fetch email from multiple accounts.
-Microsoft's own services hurt the experience. Bing maps look pretty but the maps have no details at all and you have to zoom in too much to get most street names. Bing search just isn't as nice as google. I realize this is personal preference but the phone would benefit greatly from the ability to choose the map and search service.
-Marketplace limitations. You can't download podcasts or video from the phone. You have to connect to a pc to sync them. Why podcasts should be different than music is beyond me.
Overall I love the UI. There are certainly a lack of some features that other more established platforms have that I really want and don't want to wait around for. This is frustrating but I recognize it is a first gen. Once they catch up a little in the feature area I think windows phone 7 has big potential.
I'm just trying to decide if I want to stick out the initial growing pains with the Samsung Focus or return to an iphone 4 and wait for the improvements by my next upgrade.
It would be cool if Microsoft took a leaf out of Apple's book in this regard, but that's why things are the way they are.
As mentioned that's only US sales; the Android/Iphone numbers they compare it to (200k/270k in the article they source Here) are worldwide .
Regardless, i take any news related to Microsoft from the Inquirer with the biggest grain of salt in the history of the world. Their MO is to shit on Microsoft every possible chance they can and makes it really hard to take the story seriously.
Compare the tone of the Inquirer article with The Street article they source or a different one here.
Also, I love the ads, like this one:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EHlN21ebeak
Because it's pretty much exactly how I feel about phones and people using them these days. Also I've loved my Zune to death and I really like how the interface for the windows 7 phones works because of it. I was looking into getting an android but now I'm heavily leaning to this. The only thing that really concerns me is the lack of copy/paste on the phone which just seems baffling.
Anyway, tl;dr I think it's too early to be worrying too much about the daily sales on the windows 7 phones. Lets see how they hold up with holiday sales, black friday sales and such. No Sprint certainly can't help.
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One big thing I need a solution for: toast notifications for Twitter lists and Facebook. I set up my iPhone with Push so it would send updates from a Twitter list (about 12 of the 180 or so people I follow) to me directly; any way to do this on Phone 7 yet? I haven't been able to find a dedicated toasting app.
Might have to write one.
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Yeah - none of the apps I have (granted, the only things I have are Twitter, Facebook, some games, and a local bus timing app) use push notifications
Twitter has some timeline refresh setting, but I have no idea what it actually does. It sure as hell doesn't refresh the timeline :?
We also don't known what the G1 sold on the first day (as far as I can find), but it averaged something like a 5500 a day for the first six months. Beyond being unsubstantiated, the 40,000 number is kind of bunk. It also ignores the fact that many stores only had two or three of a given handset (by anecdotal reports, at least). Between AT&T, T-Mobile, and MS stores, 40k may have been most of the available stock.
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