Those of you who know me, know that I have been a dedicated Windows phone user since I started owning a smart phone. The reason I chose it initially was it's ability to integrate into the Windows Live software system to use shared calendars and emails and contacts across multiple accounts and devices. This was very important to running my business. Also, I had played with both iPhone and Android and found their interface unnecessarily complicated and their menu systems archaic. Windows offered a very simple and intuitive interface that just worked right out of the box without the proprietary file formats that iPhone used. My biggest complaints about Windows was not supporting FLAC audio files (my preferred format), not having gapless audio (a big deal if you like Pink Floyd, Live albums or classical music), and severe lack of app availability. I truly believed that given some time all of these problems (most minor) would be fixed. Surely a large company like Microsoft would listen to all of the people complaining about these issues and work towards fixing them post haste. All of this was about 5 years ago. Since that time Microsoft has only managed to make the situation worse. Not only have they not fixed existing problems, but they keep creating new ones. Seriously, I have never been so frustrated at a major corporation in my life. Earlier this year, Microsoft announced that they were not putting any more resources into Windows Phone at this time. That was kind of the last straw. I also kept getting emails from major companies letting me know that they are discontinuing their Windows Phone app. This was coupled with my annoyance at T Mobile for the holes in their network around where I live. A change was going to need to happen.
The choice of carriers was pretty easy, Verizon. After looking into alternatives, there was no other carrier that covered the area around me as well. They can claim whatever they want, but if the 1% less coverage they have is 15 minutes from my house, it's a big problem. I will rant about Verizon in another entry.
The choice of software was also pretty easy, I was tired of not having access to apps. The iPhone was out just because of iTunes. I refuse to be locked into a system like that. I have thousands of dollars and spent countless hours transferring it all into FLAC because its lossless and it has the most universal usability and tagging access across different devices and software. I wasn't going to transfer it all over to iTunes. So, it was going to have to be Android.
Android has actually come a long way in 5 years. Things that were issues before, RAM management and viruses, locked down settings etc. are no longer big issues. There are still a few things that Windows does better than Android. There are 2 BIG ones that really should be addressed by Google, handling of text messages in a hands free manner and handling of notifications.
When you plug into the headphone jack, Windows went into a 'hands free' type of state. When texts come in, Cortina lets you know who it is from and asks if you want it read. Basically handling the whole thing without you ever needing to touch the phone. I can't stress how important this is while driving. I always have my phone hooked up to the car sound system because I use it to listen to music.
The next one is about notifications. This starts with Windows having multiple icons for different email accounts. I have 6 accounts because of the business. The next thing it does is to display a number on the tile of how many messages that came in since you last looked at that account. This is very different from Google. I can tell for example by just looking at my home page how many new emails I have that I have never seen in each account. With Google there is no such thing. You have to ope the app and then it tells you how many unread messages are in each account. That means that I have to open each one just to get the number down to 0. Also, in Windows I can open the notification panel and see what each message says (first line or so of the message) if I swipe it away, the number on the tile on the home screen goes back to 0 since it knows that I am aware of the message. This is a far more elegant way of dealing with multiple accounts.
There are other small things that Windows does better, but they are minor little things, these 2 are the best and most important things that should get implemented.
OK, so now that I have decided on a carrier and a software system, the only thing left is to choose a phone...
0 Comments