I'm Regretting Going WP7
theleagueofpaul.com
theleagueofpaul.com
WM7, on the other hand, still sounds like a black sheep, so I'm always curious to hear how someone decides to opt for this choice. I think the most common I hear is "I was waiting for a long time, and I was hoping this time Microsoft got it right."
Signed, a former loyal Microsoft customer/fan who one day stopped waiting.
Also, I may be completely overstating how slow it was. It definitely wasn't unusable, but it felt slower than it should have been. This was after multiple wipes to multiple ROMs too.
Even having skipped an entire sprint (~10 days) to focus more on Android, the WP7 app is progressing along further and faster than the other clients. Just having support for (albeit limited) databinding is a huge win. Plus, you get great looking apps pretty much for free with the theming defaults.
That said, I have access to a few Windows phones (HTC Surround, HTC HD7, and some keyboard phone) and I would not be able to switch to any of them over my Nexus One. Dealbreakers for me:
* The search button is locked to Bing (not configurable)
* The browser is not only IE, but a crappy offshoot of an old version of IE (I believe IE7 w/ a few patches)
* No Pandora
Also, since you are attacking simultaneously on four fronts - a blog post about the advantages and disadvantages of developing code and assets (graphics) for each platform would be great (obvious one - no IB/ExprStudio for Android?).
As for usage stats, I'd have to check with the client (not sure they'd want that public).
Which isn't to say that I expect(ed) WP7 to be any better in those regards, though there was always hope. I didn't go out and buy one/start developing for them, but I can certainly understand how someone might come to choose door #3.
There is always no better choice until suddenly there is one.
HP/Palm has a very good door #3... I am in love with my Palm Pre.
But I guess that wouldn't be juicy enough of a headline.
Maybe this was a restriction in the past, I'm not sure, but I've been happily running iCab Mobile for quite some time and enjoying it's more grown-up featureset.
http://www.icab-mobile.de/faq.html
Each Tab is creating a WebKit object, which eats up additional memory.
Here is what someone from Mozilla said rather recently:
http://techcrunch.com/2010/12/27/firefox-iphone-2/
First, he gave the obvious and fairly well-known official answer, “We have no plans to release the full Firefox browser for Apple iOS devices,” Brubeck wrote. Why? Because the current iOS SDK agreement forbids apps like Firefox from including their own compilers and interpreters, Brubeck explains.
But he continues on to note that there are a couple of ways to work within Apple’s system, notably what Skyfire is doing (using Apple’s own build-in WebKit libraries) or what Opera Mini is doing (using a proxy server to execute their JavaScript). “Mozilla could create a browser that did one of those things, but it wouldn’t be related to Firefox in any way,” Brubeck explains.
When she talks about cell phones she talks, with the exception of the iPhone (which she just calls iPhone), about manufacturers – HTC, Samsung – and she only recently said that she quite likes the HTC Mozart (which, to my surprise, runs Windows Phone 7).
Here is your text: “She'll like it until she realizes it actually sucks. Which is why consumer electronics manufacturers can still turn a profit in last place. But eventually she'll see everyone else doing cool things she can't do, and she'll switch. Or convince herself she didn't want to do those things.”
The HTC Mozart was recommended to her from a friend – I’m really not all that sure that the differences between WP7 and Android matter to all that many people.
I really bought it because A) I like to try new things and B) I like developing with .NET/Silverlight because of the awesome development tools.
I had a G1 before and although not as slow as that was (I updated it to 2.2 at the time), this OS isn't a good buy.
The phone itself though is really nice, it has a high resolution screen (480x800) with a 5 mega-pixel camera and it's really light.
WP7 software RAIDs (kinda) the SD card with the internal flash and treats it all the same. One nice thing about it is that unlike my Nexus One, all storage is first class storage. Apps, music, photos, video - All of it can go anywhere, with no special casing. The bad thing is that if your SD card is slow, everything is slow.
That said, Microsoft should have known OEMs would expose the card slot, and that users would put in slow cards. They should have gracefully handled it, or had the OS ignore/reject crappy cards, like they did with ReadyBoost on Windows.
I was concerned about the lack of upgradable memory before the purchase but it's nice to not have to worry about switching in and out cards and worrying about exactly where anything is saved. I did make sure I purchased a 16MB model though, being stuck with 8MB would suck.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=834144
Confirmed Working(Data remains after soft reset):
Centon 8GB Class 6
Kingston 4GB Class 4
Kingston 16GB Class 4
Microcenter 16GB Class 2
Patriot 16GB Class 2
PNY 8GB Class 4
PNY 16GB Class 2
SanDisk 8GB Class 2
SanDisk 16GB Class 4
Currently Unstable/Unsure:
Kingston 8GB Class 4
Kingston 32GB Class 4
SanDisk 16GB Class 2
SanDisk 32GB Class 2
Confirmed Not Working(Data gone after soft reset):
A-Data
A-Data 4GB Class 6
A-Data 8GB Class 6
A-Data 16GB Class 6
Lexar 16GB Class 6
Transcend 8GB Class 6
Transcend 16GB Class 6
Also, just found Patriot 16GB Class 4 on Amazon, it now claims it works on Samsung Focus
http://www.amazon.com/MicroSD-Memory-Samsung-Mobile-MicroSDH...
When I bought a memory card from Fry's I just picked a cheap 16GB one
Which happens to be that Patriot 16GB Class 4.
I did perform the reset and all of the setting up upon initially putting it in
I do also have a lot of music, my phone has around gigabyte or two of leftover space on it but it should never be this slow.
However, aside from that, the post just seems to have a laundry list of minor complaints about the marketplace. Some of these problems have existed on itunesconnect as well. (For instance, on one occasion, I had to use Firefox for a part of the app submission, because Safari couldn't do the job)
I'm surprised that these issues are the cause of his regret. (Note: I say this an iOS developer, who considered WP7, but decided against it).
@d_r: Had Android, just last week my Milestone finally got Froyo. The dev tools - particularly UI - just don't exist. I like to be able to program for whatever I have. That's not going into how bug riddled either Android or far more likely Moto's Android implementation was - including gems like rebooting far more often than WP7, played music at random times without touching it, having to reboot the phone if it was put into flight mode to get signal back, etc. Don't get me wrong, there are a lot of good things about Android, but wasn't for me. v3 (when its on phones), might be though - the improvements and more attention to UI/consistency are looking really nice.
Yes, there was certainly a fair bit of "I hope they got it right this time" to it. If they hadn't lied and delivered the updates when and how they said originally, it may be a different story.
@credo: they're more the most recent issues that have caused regret. As a developer, getting my (few) apps up there has been a nightmare, even with help from MSFT AU's DPE trying to speed things up.
http://android.doshaska.net/cm7
Can't fix the defective headphone jack in software, though.
As far as I'm concerned, the only Android devices worth talking about are the Nexus phones. Everything else is a second-class citizen. And yeah, going with Java and shoving XML everywhere...ugh. Fortunately the NDK is now good enough to develop a game entirely in C++, so it doesn't bother me.
Once you've paid your $25, believe me there is little bureaucracy in the process of submitting an Android app.
This same holds true with IOS dev center and Safari. For all of apples talk about html5 and standards and all that, their own internal pages don't appear to be tested on anything other then safari.
Development tools and technical documentations are outstanding. Visual Studio has excellent WP7 support. The submission process was actually quite smooth. Never had problem except, yes, IE only. Shame on MS. The phone user experience is called Metro, the icons are actually Tiles, original design and different from the icon-based iOS and Android. I would say, for once, MS tried to not be a copycat.
What's bad
My biggest headache, the phone build-in search is useless. The Marketplace search is also useless, and it crashes a lot and had to restart the phone to be able to use the Marketplace again. Little apps available in Marketplace, 10,000(WP7) vs 150,000(Android) vs. 400,000(iOS), though this will changes over time as WP7 picks up momentum. No copy & paste. NoDo is supposed to add this feature ,but the roll out is WAY TOO SLOW (my Samsung Focus is the last device on the list). Overall, I am still anxious to see how WP7 will do in 2011.
An experience like the one described would have been par for the course in 2007 or 2008. But 2011? When it really has to be humming from Day 1? WTF times a million.
If this is what's going to save the ghost of Ericsson, they're toast.
Do you mean Nokia, the company that just abandoned their own software platforms and signed a deal with Microsoft?
This time, it won't be so easy as IE6: Google bets on html5, Apple (although somehwat), and they both have very good browsers already.
Nice try MSFT.
It's just a shame it's shackled to Microsoft's marketing machine.
The marketplace update process I've never had a problem and I've used both Firefox and Chrome never IE. I'd love to hear some of the marketplace rules that he feels are broken. Most to me seem pretty up front.
If WP7 becomes too problematic, why bother with it. It's not like the devices are flying off the shelf anyway.
Not that it excuses it, but if the competitors are anything to judge by, don't expect the One Ring to Rule Them right off the bat.
There are lots of people who seemingly never used a smart phone before the iPhone came out[1] and seem to think that everything that existed in iOS was always the first of its kind.
Nokia's smart phones did copy/paste fairly well and long before the iPhone even existed. Yes, the iPhone set the bar higher for many features but it was certainly not the first to do many of them.
[1] It's debatable that you could even call the first iPhone a smart phone since you were basically stuck with whatever preloaded apps came on it - though it was obviously a very good phone nevertheless.
From what I have seen of WP7, it is nice, but not nearly the revolutionary step ahead that iOS was compared to Symbian/Windows.
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