[Windows Phone 7 General] drupad2drupad:
Ok, let me rephrase it. The post asked why not display the things "every other phone" displays these days. - that to the poster there was a positive thing.

"Every other phone" lags, freezes and crashes - the poster labelling others as fanatic fanboys, acted like a fanatic troll and instead of appreciating the fact that "every other phone" freezes, lags but you know what Windows Phone doesn't! - now that is something different than the rest, not following the herd. May be MSFT approach was to be radically different than "every other phone" and hence these changes in design. It's not like the status bar is removed or it's not like the signal strength or battery stregth comes in view an alien language!

It's there, the way it's displayed is in such a way that it fits with the ideology of the OS design - "It will show itself to you" or "Information will come to you, you don't need to go to the info".

When everything is OK, nothing new to see, nothing changes in the whole OS. When there is a new notification, ME tile flips.

When there is low battery and battery saver kicks in the battery drops and becomes visible.

When there is lost network, the network bar comes visible so that you know.

When there is new app notification, app tile flips.

I think the "Live tiles" are live because they behave like things that are alive. As long as there is nothing, it stays dormant, follows the universal law of free energy to be zero. When there is something exciting good or bad, it changes, gives up it's free energy state, it displays itself, it flips, it blinks! - now that is logic to your art, if you like.

About the arrow - the reason being, I experimented on my drunk friend last evening. I gave her the phone. First thing "Oh it's so huge". Second thing, she flips the tiles up and down. She owns an iPhone. Why did she even think of going up and down instead of her regular iPhone swipes of left and right? Because the arrow hardly bothered her. But the 7th and 8th tile that was 25-40% visible at the bottom suggested her inner curiosity that "I think there is something below" and she fliped the screen to 'discover'. That is what humans do right? Be curious and want to know more? Then she got bored that there aren't so many tiles to look at. She realised she could do more, there was an arrow pointing to the right. She tapped there, "woah, you've got so many apps!"

Idea being - in Windows Phone everything in panorama or within the Hubs, is set in such a way that there is something peeping at you from the corner - you automatically know you should swipe to see. On the home screen it's the same - there is something peeping at you from the bottom - the 7th and 8th tile. So you know there is more down there. But nothing to suggest the app list. They could make app list a huge tile each and make it peeping from the right, but then it will be ugly for day to day use. Since we can pin everything that is important to use, we won't need all those apps - that is the philosophy. I know I hardly to go the right of my home screen. Anything and everything that matters to me is pinned on my home screen based on it's priority or based on it's usage. It keeps changing as my routine changes. But it's all there in up and down motion. I only use arrow when I want to use that odd app which I downloaded but will never use or when I want to uninstall the app that I installed inspired by iOS or Android friend who suggested it but then thought, it's all rubbish and uninstalled it.

The reason I brought Android in with lag and freeze because for the sake of my life, I cannot think of any OS that freezes and lags as much as Android. It's the fact. I've used Android and I know. The other OS I knew would beat Android was Windows Mobile, doesn't exist anymore. I would love to be corrected if BB or iPhone can beat Android in freezing and lagging.

BTW - Lovely sunny Sunday out here in London!