[Windows Phone 7 General] tboy2000:
I love Windows Phone 7 but style has taken over substance. The large fonts used at the top of each screen and sub titles below it, mean there is less screen estate for the content that matters most. Eg: People Hub - the top half of the screen is taken up by large 'People' text, then an 'all/search/new' line, then a 'me' photo tile line, then two 'groups' lines, then the 'A' alphabet line and FINALLY my first and only visible contact name visible on the entire screen. All of that space is taken up by everything and anything except.. contacts. In any other OS you would see a list of at least half a dozen contacts straight away.

Don't get me wrong. I LOVE the OS AND style and WP7 will be my OS of choice (having tried WinMob, iOS and Android), but the reason why I refer to the above when the topic is about app categories, is because sometimes useability needs to be more important than styling.

I have been in favour of app folders/categories since day one. As soon as I saw the app list view I thought no way - what happens if you have lots of apps and and need to scroll through so many? I understand the jump list in Mango build helps to minimise the scrolling but ONLY and I repeat ONLY if you know what the title of the app you want is. It depends on how sensible the developers are when they name their apps. Eg: Say that the best looking and functional stopwatch app on the market you downloaded is called 'Platinum Stopwatch'. If you don't use it much you may forget what it is called and so scroll to the 'S' apps to look for the Stopwatch app and its not there. So you scroll and scroll searching for it and then find it. If the developer titles the app in a most generic way (eg 'Stopwatch' or 'Stopwatch Deluxe') so that the first word of the title is what the app does, it would help us find it more quickly. Having said all that, if we had folders/categories we would easily find it no problem - no matter what it was called. Why? Because we would put the app in a Utilities group and know where the app is even if we did not remember the proper name.

Folders/Categories have been used in multiple OS's for years now. Android, iOS, Windows Mobile, Symbian, Blackberry, WebOS, Mac OS, Windows, Linux etc - all use folders for their apps/progroams. Why? Because it makes sense. When you have a lot of something, it makes sense to break them down into groups.

A list of apps may break from the norm to 'be different' but at the expense of functionality? Sadly, I think the grid system is the best way to display app icons. Again, Android, iOS, Windows Mobile, Symbian, Blackberry, WebOS, Mac OS, Windows, Linux - all show their apps (or can show) in a grid format. You get to see more icons per page and with minimal scrolling/swipping you can get to see the last app you have. If it ain't broke, why fix it? Maybe a compromise is to what a two column grid like the tiles on the home screen, that way it stays within the same style guide.

So how can this be fixed? 'Jump list' is a start but only if you know the app name. Categories would help though. At the top of the app list there could be words like (Audio, Video, Photo, Health, Utilities, System etc) - just like the new People Groups list in latest Mango. Below the Category titles is the full app list - as it is now. Tapping on one of the Category titles expands the list downwards to the apps in that group. Tapping on the title again closes the expanded group. Alternatively, tapping on the title could activate a screen swipe from right to left (same as tapping on arrow from home screen). This new screen could show the new list of apps etc.

At the end of the day I am sure it would be just an option - to enable or create app groups. No one is forcing anyone to create app categories if they don't want any (like no one is forcing anyone to create people groups). Stick to a long list if you prefer. BUT... let there be 'that' option at least, for those that DO want it. Then everyone is happy. :-)