It has been quite a revelation watching Nic grow to love Nokia's Lumia 800 and Windows Phone 7. The Lumia really is the handset that Microsoft needed, and in turn, the beautiful design and sleek lines of the Lumia 800 makes up in many ways for the awful hardware that was Nokia's last high-end Symbian foray, the N97.
We have been big fans of Windows Phone 7 since its launch, and last year's Mango update just made it even better Core to this is the fact that Microsoft didn't just try to replicate the way iOS and Android do things, but rather made its own mark with the Metro interface. I've actually been using a Windows Phone 7 handset as my personal phone for some months now, and as a day to day phone OS it is slick, intuitive and easy to use.
The biggest problem Microsoft has with Windows Phone though is the situation with Apps. While there are plenty of them to be had from the marketplace, you can almost guarantee that anything you actually need won't be available on Windows Phone 7.
Over the past month it seems that every time one of us goes to find an App there isn't a version for Windows Phone 7. As an example, a few of us in the office have started playing the Star Wars: The Old Republic MMO. Being security conscious types, we were keen to use the protection provided by an Authenticator, which generates a key used in conjunction with username and password when logging in (they are highly effective at preventing account hacking). For some reason EA don't ship the physical keyfobs to some nations, forcing antipodean gamers to use one of its smartphone Apps. Of course, these Apps are only available for iOS and Android.
Another, more general use example is Dropbox. We are pretty heavy Dropbox users, loving the convenience it provides and the multi-platform nature of cloud storage. Again, no Windows Phone 7 App can be found. We could use Skydrive, but given that all the other devices in our lives support Dropbox. its both frustrating and impractical to adopt another means of cloud storage.
This lack of the obvious is Windows Phone 7s Achilles heel. Apps are increasingly becoming a major part of the purchasing decision when upgrading phones, a window that only happens for most people every two years. Given the relatively low cost or free nature of most useful Apps transitioning platforms is only a mild financial inconvenience, but not being able to get access to something that is core to the way you use your smartphone is a much greater one. If Microsoft can't drive the creation of Apps like Dropbox, Smartr, Teamviewer or LogMeln then ii becomes harder and harder to recommend the OS.
Hopefully this will kick into gear once Metro starts turning up on ARM-based Windows 8 devices While it still isn't clear just whether Metro Apps in Windows 8 and Windows Phone 7 will share some kind of commonality. one would hope that it makes it much easier to port them between devices at the very least. If this doesn't happen then Microsoft will be squandering one of the best products it has.
We have been big fans of Windows Phone 7 since its launch, and last year's Mango update just made it even better Core to this is the fact that Microsoft didn't just try to replicate the way iOS and Android do things, but rather made its own mark with the Metro interface. I've actually been using a Windows Phone 7 handset as my personal phone for some months now, and as a day to day phone OS it is slick, intuitive and easy to use.
The biggest problem Microsoft has with Windows Phone though is the situation with Apps. While there are plenty of them to be had from the marketplace, you can almost guarantee that anything you actually need won't be available on Windows Phone 7.
Over the past month it seems that every time one of us goes to find an App there isn't a version for Windows Phone 7. As an example, a few of us in the office have started playing the Star Wars: The Old Republic MMO. Being security conscious types, we were keen to use the protection provided by an Authenticator, which generates a key used in conjunction with username and password when logging in (they are highly effective at preventing account hacking). For some reason EA don't ship the physical keyfobs to some nations, forcing antipodean gamers to use one of its smartphone Apps. Of course, these Apps are only available for iOS and Android.
Another, more general use example is Dropbox. We are pretty heavy Dropbox users, loving the convenience it provides and the multi-platform nature of cloud storage. Again, no Windows Phone 7 App can be found. We could use Skydrive, but given that all the other devices in our lives support Dropbox. its both frustrating and impractical to adopt another means of cloud storage.
This lack of the obvious is Windows Phone 7s Achilles heel. Apps are increasingly becoming a major part of the purchasing decision when upgrading phones, a window that only happens for most people every two years. Given the relatively low cost or free nature of most useful Apps transitioning platforms is only a mild financial inconvenience, but not being able to get access to something that is core to the way you use your smartphone is a much greater one. If Microsoft can't drive the creation of Apps like Dropbox, Smartr, Teamviewer or LogMeln then ii becomes harder and harder to recommend the OS.
Hopefully this will kick into gear once Metro starts turning up on ARM-based Windows 8 devices While it still isn't clear just whether Metro Apps in Windows 8 and Windows Phone 7 will share some kind of commonality. one would hope that it makes it much easier to port them between devices at the very least. If this doesn't happen then Microsoft will be squandering one of the best products it has.
