And having been immersed in the world of tech and tech rumours for more than six years, she can spot a photoshopped iPhone 8 image from 20 paces. North America. Audio player loading…. Kate Solomon. It's not like anything you've ever seen before … that is, unless you tried last year's Windows Phone 7, the initial release of this reworked operating system.
I've been trying Windows Phone 7. Here's how impressed I am with Microsoft's mobile efforts: Depending on what happens with Tuesday's Apple announcement about its next iPhone, I would seriously consider switching to a Windows Phone 7.
Instead, the Windows Phone OS first shows a start page filled with tiles, each representing either a program or a cluster of programs known as a hub.
The tiles can be dynamic, showing you information about those programs. For example, the photo app can show you the latest pictures in your camera roll, or images from your Facebook and Twitter friends. When you tap on a tile, the start screen swings away to reveal the app.
A single menu item at the top of the start screen takes you to all your apps, presented in an alphabetical list. At this top level, the software is very simple to use and very intuitive. But as you work with it, you understand that there's lot of power and complexity beneath its surface. This newest version of the software fixes many of the issues found in the original.
Apps that are optimized for Windows Phone 7. But other apps, such as Angry Birds , forced us to restart. We were also shocked to discover that Slacker, a very popular app, still doesn't let you listen to music in the background. Hopefully, developers will update their wares pronto. The new Groups feature in Mango helps you get organized. Users can create groups of contacts, whether it's family members, colleagues, or a specific group of close friends.
You can then place a Live Tile for that group on the Start screen for easy access. We like that you can send texts or emails to the whole group, as well as see group members' social updates in one place.
Unfortunately, Windows Phone Mango doesn't let you check off individuals to add them to a group when they share the same last name.
We needed to add family members individually. One of the hallmark features of Windows Phone 7. Apps are now deeply woven into the software, so that you'll often discover apps or rediscover them while performing a search.
For example, when we searched for the movie Moneyball , the results page led us to a Quick Card that displayed one app we downloaded and three we hadn't inviting us to download them. When we searched for Gramercy Tavern, local results showed up first, and we had to scroll right twice again to see a shortcut to the Open Table app.
That's the frustrating thing about App Connect; the feature is designed to surface apps, but you sometimes have to dig to find them. What's great about App Connect is that it feeds the data from your search to the app. For example, when we searched for the movie Contagion and then tapped on Flixster, it automatically loaded a search results page within the app that displayed the ratings score and other info.
Microsoft has made major strides since the launch of Windows Phone, as its Marketplace now stocks more than 30, apps. The company claims that it offers 90 percent of the most popular titles available through Android and iOS. You can also now download apps through the web marketplace. What's missing? We wish the Marketplace had popular apps such as Pandora, TweetDeck, and Skype though that should be coming. In terms of sheer numbers, Windows Phone 7.
Plus, they offer more functionality. For example, with the latest version of the Foursquare app you can pin places and specials to your phone's Start screen. And the AllRecipes app pushes daily recipes to its Live Tile. That means you'll see updates from all three social networks from within the People hub under the What's New stream.
Don't want to see it all at once? Tap All Accounts and select which services you want Mango to show updates for on your phone. September 3, Its amazing i am keeping this phone. August 16, July 19, The sexiest smartphone OS yet.
June 28, June 6, May 27, Have you seen Windows 8? Or the new Xbox Dashboard? Windows Phone was the future of Microsoft in many ways, we just didn't know yet. When it launched a year ago, it wasn't finished, by any stretch of the definition. No multitasking. No copy and paste. No threaded conversations in email. No Twitter. No lots of things.
No custom ringtones, even. It's more or less a complete thing now. A real boy. Or whatever. And frankly, it's about time for another major phone platform, one that actually feels like it's in the same class as iOS.
It's still Windows Phone. Superflat and swooshy and quick and overly designed and well, very nice. Just more well-rounded. Like, you can finally have one inbox for multiple accounts and email threads are organized like real threads, the way you'd expect from a modern email client.
What's different from iOS and Android, and more so in 7. Yes, it seems kind of silly that a phone in wouldn't have Facebook and Twitter fully and thoroughly integrated, since social networking is about as integral to the modern phone experience as it gets, but it's a step beyond that.
Why use Yelp? There's Local Scout. Or Fandango or Shazam or another visual search app? There's Bing, which more or less replaces all of those though Bing will point you to an app, if it thinks it's helpful. Facebook messaging? Built-in too. Microsoft has more or less succeeded in replacing apps for the core things you do with a phone, like looking at Facebook or Twitter streams or friends' pictures, bringing them all together in the ooey, gooey center of Windows Phone.
The big thing that strikes you while you're using it, though? It doesn't feel like anything's really missing, like before. The Windows Phone interface still feels fresh and new and different and fast, and I'm kind of amazed I'm not tired of it after a year. It still feels like a preview something that's coming next, not that's already here.
Perhaps because it's missing the feeling of simple inevitability, like iOS. Live Tiles, which are starting to live up to their promise. I know at a glance if someone's mentioned me on Twitter with the new Me tile, but it's not in my face, demanding immediate attention like it would on iOS.
Which, the true Twitter integration is pretty excellent if occasionally half-baked-seeming, particularly since you can actually filter streams and contacts by social network now in the People hub.
The People Hub with Groups, and messaging. It works the best of any phone's social stuff because it's altogether, not simply siloed. Oh, and the voice-to-text feature is awesome and reasonably accurate, around 80 percent or so. I could tell the phone, "Text Kyle Wagner," dictate to it "Shut up, Wagner," tell it "send," and seconds later Wagner would know he should shut up. The thing I like most about Windows Phone, really, is that it's the only phone besides the iPhone that feels like it's got its shit together, from the interface to the core apps to the overall experience.
May 20, A gadget unicorn - Engadget. May 17, I used this for several months when I won a Windows Phone through work. The whole time I was underwhelmed, it made me envious for a real smartphone. I had decided to move to this from my BlackBerry because it had Netflix, and that's it. Every other app was a pain to use. You have two options Scroll or Tiles.
The Tiles in apps work okay but when you need more info and your app is forced into the scroll style the experience fails, with the motion of your finger it often flips to the next set of info, and when you flip back it's back at the top of the info list you wanted and you scroll down again, and repeat.
With all the apps looking one of two ways the experience leaves you wanting, little menu buttons at the bottom of the screen often don't make much sense and send you flying into random screens when hit.
The whole experience feels thrown together, with apps like the Internet Explorer being just a small horizontal rectangle for the url and a large vertical rectangle for the websites, if you want to search, you have to hit a capacitive search button on the bottom, you're thrown into a different window, with small strange buttons on the bottom of the screen, and if you use it to search you're still not in a web page, you're in the dreaded scroll style setup filled with extra info you don't want or will ever use, if you mange to find and click on a link you might finally get the horrible two rectangle slow choppy iE again.
Xbox Live Mobile and Office almost seem like a joke when compared to Apples mobile counterpart, with Live having no online multiplayer and Office being anything but usable. All making for a long undesirable experience, it's this the whole time, if you want a smartphone Windows Phone 7.
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