{"id":1256,"date":"2011-02-13T21:42:49","date_gmt":"2011-02-13T21:42:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/har0ld.com\/playground\/2011\/02\/windows-phone-is-good\/"},"modified":"2011-02-13T21:42:49","modified_gmt":"2011-02-13T21:42:49","slug":"windows-phone-is-good","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/har0ld.com\/playground\/2011\/02\/windows-phone-is-good\/","title":{"rendered":"Windows Phone is good"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>Seven days with a new Windows Phone 7.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s a very interesting time in terms of competition in the world of smartphones. First despite the amount of hype and how everybody in California owns one, the smartphone market globally still barely represent a quarter of phone sales (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.visionmobile.com\/blog\/2010\/10\/smart-feature-phones-the-unbalanced-equation-100-million-club-series\/\" target=\"_blank\">20% of global sales mid 2010<\/a>). It\u2019s still the beginning. But the growth is on.<\/p>\n<p><strong>\/\/ Before<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I used an Android Phone for a year. I had fun with it except that my HTC Hero had some issues with AES Wi-Fi encryption, making it kind of useless when it cannot connect correctly to the free wireless\u2026 I don\u2019t know if I\u2019m the only one but from my light usage (email\/twitter\/fb\/sms\/reading\/maps) I can say that:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>I\u2019ve pretty much never used the \u201ckiller feature\u201d called copy&amp;paste. I retype, save the link or use the <em>\u201csend by email\u201d<\/em>. <\/li>\n<li>I don\u2019t play games or music because it ruins battery life. It\u2019s a communication device for me first. <\/li>\n<li>What multitasking? I use an app. I quit. I launch another one. I don\u2019t know what you\u2019re talking about. <\/li>\n<li>Also, if I use six or seven apps very regularly, it\u2019s a maximum. <\/li>\n<li>The <em>free app with banner ads in your face<\/em> model is getting annoying really fast. <\/li>\n<li>The Gmail app is plain sad. <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Then the update mess. Holy shit it\u2019s a mess. I started with&#160; the 1.6, missing a lot of good stuff. Then last summer I finally got the 2.1 update which I already had tried with a custom ROM (I don\u2019t want to do that kind of shit again, ever). Then nothing, change your phone. The 2.2 update brought <em>speed improvements with JIT optimization and the Chrome V8 JavaScript engine, and added Wi-Fi hotspot tethering and Adobe Flash support<\/em>. Flash that I had partially from the start with my phone but don\u2019t care about (watching videos on a tiny screen? Really?). My HTC Hero could have used this update but no, I have to get a new Android phone so I can have the last updates and last apps. Or go through <a href=\"http:\/\/www.xda-developers.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">XDA<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>So I said no thanks. Here\u2019s the carrier update coming and I\u2019m going to get this Samsung Omnia 7. BAM!<\/p>\n<p><a title=\"Three_Samsung Omnia 7 4\" href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/56795605@N06\/5367179282\/\"><img border=\"0\" alt=\"Three_Samsung Omnia 7 4\" src=\"http:\/\/static.flickr.com\/5244\/5367179282_bff61457a3.jpg\" \/><\/a>     <br \/><em>Nifty<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>\/\/ UI-UX<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I was really interested into the new <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Metro_UI\" target=\"_blank\">Metro UI<\/a>. Now that I\u2019m playing with it, I can tell that it\u2019s fucking delicious, butter smooth and all. At first you think that it\u2019s gadget, you think that it\u2019s too edgy and unnecessary but everything makes sense after a while: all these words become data and you end up manipulating data instead of representation of data (icons and \u201capp body\u201d). With an accent on natural motion with less clicks and trees and sub-menus and dialog boxes, everything seems more\u2026 Relaxing and focused even if it sounds weird. And what I see works perfectly for business or personal use. Grids of icons don\u2019t look mature or efficient anymore. Navigating on Windows Phone 7 feels like a background process more than any other UI I experienced before. You have to try it for a while to understand. It\u2019s awesome.<\/p>\n<p><img style=\"margin: \" src=\"http:\/\/upload.wikimedia.org\/wikipedia\/en\/b\/bd\/Wp7_musicvideo.jpg\" \/>     <br \/><em>Index to swipe. Thumb to get back. For everything.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s fast, integrated, minimalist, well done, data-driven: you don\u2019t launch your sms app to type a text message, you swipe to your contact list where you can sms\/email\/facebook wall them in one click from the home screen if you pinned her\/him. I could do that on my Android but it was so clunky and confusing. The button just for the camera \u2013love it-, the left or right landscape mode with symbols within icons moving accordingly\u2026 They polished the shit out of their new platform. And Microsoft really has nailed and deeply thought something here with this fancy 2D layout. It\u2019s so satisfying.<\/p>\n<p>Now about the stuff lacking. Like being unable to update a status on FB\/Twitter\/SomeTrendySocialNetwork directly from the Me Tile. Everything is pretty perfect and they miss that for launch? Unbelievable. Or is it to favorite developers to sell apps? Or because \u2013for example- the Twitter API is god-awful to deal with so that engineers pushed to wait before it\u2019s sold to Facebook or Google? I guess it weighs in too. Microsoft took the liberty to create the little apps that count like the weather, translator or unit converter. They\u2019re as polished as the OS. They didn\u2019t want to allow the light smartphone user like me having to deal with shitty third-party apps for basics like that. It\u2019s smart because it ruined my Android experience.<\/p>\n<p>Bad: give me a tool-shortcut to take screenshots of this beautiful UI on my phone please. Let people spread the word MS.<\/p>\n<p><strong>\/\/ Marketplace<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I think the trial mode \u2013not really available on other mobile platforms- is a really good choice for both users and developers. It\u2019s known that while Android is full of apps, nobody is making money. The growth in competition between developers is not going to ease this as we can see on the iPhone where a few make a lot and everybody else pretty much nothing.<\/p>\n<p>For users on Android you have fugly apps with G banner ads everywhere. You don\u2019t want to pay when it\u2019s free and that well, it gets the job done. But you have to deal with all this web intrusion. On iPhone it\u2019s hit or miss: you buy you\u2019re happy, great. Otherwise you\u2019re screwed and try to not tell anyone that you paid that corny Mahjong game five bucks.<\/p>\n<p>Now on Windows Phone everybody\u2019s happy in theory. I\u2019m trying <a href=\"http:\/\/www.superslackerstudios.com\/wonderreader\/\" target=\"_blank\">Wonder Reader<\/a> these days and it works well. I\u2019m willing to pay the developer for its work. I feel that it\u2019s the most balanced relationship: trial without restrictions or ads, I like it I buy it, I don\u2019t I uninstall.<\/p>\n<p>There\u2019s no <em>\u201cI\u2019m trying to scam\/spam you with a lite version and really try hard to sell the full version to your contact list\u201d<\/em> way of doing business. Since the trial model is proven and always has been strong in digital distribution businesses (ask Steam these days), I feel that it\u2019s going to be the same for smartphones. Remember, apps are bought once and for all, if you don\u2019t like it it\u2019s like you just dropped money on the sidewalk. After a couple dozens or more of <em>not expensive<\/em> apps, people are going to really want to try before hitting the \u201cbuy\u201d button.<\/p>\n<p><a title=\"title\" href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/18828270@N00\/5441401886\/\"><img border=\"0\" alt=\"alt\" src=\"http:\/\/static.flickr.com\/4096\/5441401886_924e4600c2.jpg\" \/><\/a>     <br \/><em>The one in the middle is the official Android app. Looks designed by\/for a 7 year old.<\/em>&#160;<\/p>\n<p>About apps quality I think it\u2019s already way better than Android. I already have all the apps I had on my Android: Flickr, Amazon, Foursquare, Wikipedia, Chuck Norris facts\u2026 Kidding. Though they\u2019re available too. Some&#160; apps are a bit slow but they\u2019re all enjoyable to use, much more than their counterparts on Android and iPhone thanks to the sweet UI. I have experienced one app crash so far, a shady Flickr uploader (a Flickr API problem I suspect). Also, apps are all available in France too. For the life of me I couldn\u2019t get the Android Amazon app even with my European unlocked phone, in Paris or L.A. And it happens a lot, even for free apps like Google Reader. So weird for Google the global company. <\/p>\n<p>Bad: get the Zune Music out of the search please.<\/p>\n<p><strong>\/\/ Development<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Maybe nobody has noticed but the pace at which people port iPhone games to Windows Phone is quite insane. Like ten times faster than to port on Android. Thanks to minimum specs and great dev tools and being a bit late to the party which is an advantage in this fast-moving hardware mobile market.<\/p>\n<p><a title=\"title\" href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/18828270@N00\/5441482124\/\"><img border=\"0\" alt=\"alt\" src=\"http:\/\/static.flickr.com\/5295\/5441482124_34c1ce01b1.jpg\" \/><\/a>     <br \/><em>This tool is creepily efficient. It\u2019s called Expression Blend 4.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Anyway I\u2019m saying great dev tools but I should say really great. I did iPhone development saw Interface Builder Xcode, I tried Android and the AppInventor, Eclipse and all the endless annoying Android SDK installation\u2026<\/p>\n<p>Here you download a small exe file that gets everything you need at once and five minutes after finishing the download, you can fire the emulator and have an app page running. How about that.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s been a week that I use Expression Blend 4 and I already have two apps navigation flows running smoothly in the emulator. I just need transition effects, binding real data and I\u2019m almost done with solid alpha beta versions.<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s an amazing achievement and because MS is full of engineer once again, they communicate on the technology making this possible \u2013<a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Silverlight\" target=\"_blank\">Silverlight<\/a>&#8211; when they should introduce people from a product point of view first. Microsoft can\u2019t get PR right, we all know that.<\/p>\n<p>I don\u2019t want to use Silverlight for anything but for Windows Phone for now. But using it through Blend 4 is quite awesome I can\u2019t deny. The product MS, the product attracts designers. Technology, not so much. Remember, the code is <em>behind<\/em>. (not saying that it\u2019s less important, but it\u2019s not the best bridge to consumers right?)<\/p>\n<p>Bad: None really, absolutely no crash at all with the dev tools\u2026 I\u2019d like to be going even faster to build a complete app with Blend 4. Enough about visual stuff like FXG import and Photoshop shit. Let designers build the entire app with real data (at least for the reading part) with a few wizards, give more pre-made transition effects templates etc Ease and fasten the real creation process, it helps so much to not only see the design but the data in it. But it\u2019s just been 7 days with the tools so maybe everything is here and I have yet to find it. Also, make it easier to download tools updates please!<\/p>\n<p>&#160;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Overall: <\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Best mobile experience ever. Minor issues (OMG I don\u2019t have copy&amp;paste bullshit included) about to be fixed. I thought my camera button wasn\u2019t working well but it\u2019s actually because I\u2019m lefty and leave my hand on the proximity detector. So it\u2019s all good and works perfectly now.<\/p>\n<p>Best dev tools ever. Really hard to not fall in love with them. Productivity and classiness to the max. <\/p>\n<p>From my simple and honest experience, I don\u2019t see how Nokia made a mistake. You should really try a Windows Phone if you\u2019re about to get a smartphone. I\u2019m totally serious.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Seven days with a new Windows Phone 7. It\u2019s a very interesting time in terms of competition in the world of smartphones. First despite the amount of hype and how everybody in California owns one, the smartphone market globally still barely represent a quarter of phone sales (20% of global sales mid 2010). It\u2019s still [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/har0ld.com\/playground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1256"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/har0ld.com\/playground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/har0ld.com\/playground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/har0ld.com\/playground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/har0ld.com\/playground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1256"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/har0ld.com\/playground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1256\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/har0ld.com\/playground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1256"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/har0ld.com\/playground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1256"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/har0ld.com\/playground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1256"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}