[Windows Phone 7 General] trappxl:
IPhone 5S you say? I wouldn't be surprised if Apple did for the iPhone what it did to the iPad and call the next one "the new iPhone".

WP is always worth a try. If you plan on spending endless hours on your phone either flashing and tweaking or mindlessly playing with apps, it may not be for you. But if you want a sleek and sexy way to use your phone to stay connected and on track, WP does that better than iOS or Android, IMHO.

I'm very curious as to how MSFT implement s the dreaded "notification center". Personally, they need to enable battery % first and an easier way to toggle settings natively, but maybe I'm complaining too much...

Here's what I'd do:

1. Use the solid bar when a more than one type of notification comes in to to keep the OS looking clean. Use the following statement to be shown in the bar: "you have x notifications". Color code this bar specific to the app. If Twitter is purple, you would see a purple bar if there is one tweet waiting, but once there is more than one unread tweet or other another unread notification comes in, the color of the bar shifts to the standard accent color for the whole UI chosen by the user.

2. Allow the user to decide how long they want that bar to be visible in the same way you have the screen blackouts after inactivity.

3. Allow swipes to remove that notification message.

4. Use a special icon for the notification bar. This will be visible both in the notification bar itself AND on the lock screen. This means MSFT keeps the up to 5 icons limit and the 6th icon allows you to open a new window to see the listed notifications.

5. Double tap on any notification icon to open the app itself from the lockscreen. If you've got dual cores, let them work via pretty transitions! Double tap reduces accidental press from single tap.

6. Have the following options in settings:

- Vibrate only, LED flash only or LED and Vibrate after "x amount of time for x number of times" to remind user of notifications. This allows OEMs to build LEDs if they want to take advantage and add to differentiation.

Level of detail: either a number count for the notification of a preview of the notification. If preview is activated, and multiple notifications come from different people for the same app (i.e. texts or tweets from separate people) show name and number count.

7. From the start screen, swiping left brings up a notification page automatically.

- Give this simple hub look by giving each app with notification its own shade of a color separate from the chosen UI color. - This color would apply for single shade in the notification list here, as well as in the bar mentioned in point #1 above.

- split the notification hub in half: have a top part with WiFi, Bluetooth and tethering (or battery percent) as the options. Put the switches beside those words. Then list the text "settings" as an option to tap to open the full settings hub. You could also make the "WiFi" tappable, causing it to open its own specific option within the settings hub - that way you're not digging through extra menus.

- make tapping the bar and or the notification icon open the transition window to come from the left.

8. When kid mode is active, if there are double taps on icons on lock screen let password prompt come up to access the notification first.

These ideas sound like a lot but if implemented in WP8, and 7.8, they might quell the constant yelling for a notification centre.

Thoughts anyone?