yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[Windows Phone 7 General] eaglesteve:
@gullum

Good personal story you have there which I can relate to very well. I too have always been a proud Microsoft product users since 1981 when the IBM PC versus Apple computer war began. Had never wanted anything from Apple. Had always been using mobile devices from MS. When iPhone was first released I adviced all my friends to stay away and buy an HTC phone. I had spent close to $2000 on software, some if which no longer work on recent devices. I didn't go into ROM cooking like you, but certainly spent lots of time flashing ROMs, tweaking registry, and battling all the weaknesses of window mobiles. When iPhone was first released there was no Application Store or third party software so it was impossible for me to even want to consider it, when my winmo phone was loaded with all kinds of applications. My first exposure to Apple product came when my son asked fir an iPod Touch as his birthday present and that was bought at the same time as my HTC Touch HD. When I was demonstrating some games to him, to my surprise he laughed at it and turned around to show me his! I then played with his Safari and compared with the crude Opera browser I had on my HD. Before I bought that iPod I had done some serious research on iPhone including playing with it for a few hours in the Telco shop but wrote it off. The main objections I had was the lack of Navigation software and office document editing software. With my son's iPod Touch I began exploring the applications available on the App Store and was stunned with the variety and quality. The speed and fluidity of iPod Touch amazed me. The music player, game, even YouTube player all seemed so much better than mine. I decided to try out an iPhone 3G after that. It was frustrating in the beginning as it was not jailbroken and I could not multitask third party applications, cut and paste, explore the file structure, transfer files via Bluetooth, or customize the phone much. I didn't know how to jailbreak, didn't know which forums to go to in order to get help and had assumed that there's nothing like xda in the iPhone world. Fortunetely all these worries proved to be unnecessary. There are so many forums I could get help from and people there are really friendly and helpful. I customize my iPhone far more than I did on my winmo phone. The applications are so much better designed and filuntionalities seems to be better and more up to date.

As to iFart programs, I've never used any of them. I do know one thing though, and that is they will find their ways into the MS market place also. The Android folks also laughed at the Apple's App Store for having such applications. Now I can find at least 60 fart applications on the Android App Store. WP7S' turn will come, trust me.

Wish you well in your journey of exploring iPhone. BTW I recommend you wait for iPhone 4G which is expected to be around June/July. Cheers.
[Windows Phone 7 General] vangrieg:
There are many things to like about the iPhone (I bought a 3GS for my wife), but also a lot of things that are mediocre (the screen was superior in 2007, but is really substandard now), dubious (like the slippery body which causes the iPhone to be dropped like 5 times more often as smartphones on average - yeah, I've seen stats, but it's also my experience, and 99% of iPhones I see have cracks) or outright awful (like the iTunes, at least on Windows). And I can easily see how the good things are in many respects a result of the lockdown, so I don't see it as that big of a problem if you can jailbreak it. The real problem is that there's no usable JB for 3GS, and it completely kills this for me as an option. I'll certainly be looking at 4G, but it's much more of a showstopper than lack of copy/paste even.

So with regard to the thread topic, we'll really need to see how difficult it will be to JB WP7 devices. One problem with jailbreak is that it unlocks everything in one move - i.e. you get access to locked things, but that includes the ability to pirate apps. I believe that the latter, not the former, is the reason why Apple is making JB more and more difficult. If MS make these two things really separate from each other then we can hope that we could get long-lasting satisfaction in hacking the thing without risks of being locked out in every software update, and yet have a nice user friendly device at hand. If they don't...
[Windows Phone 7 General] amb9800:
No usable jailbreak for 3GS? Are you stuck on 3.1.3 or something?

iTunes is pretty bad, but it actually syncs more consistently with Outlook than Microsoft's own ActiveSync and WMDC. In two years I've never had any catastrophic data errors with iTunes, whereas over the last five years, I've had AS/WMDC on multiple occasions duplicate thousands of calendar events, mess up contact entries, and such. iTunes always connects to the iPhone, whereas WMDC sometimes, for whatever reason, just doesn't connect and sync my TP2 (I'll notice the next day when content hasn't been synced).

The iPhone 2G was slippery-- the 3G/3GS' plastic backing is less so (I'd say it's actually easier to keep in hand than my TP2). Incidentally the 2G's aluminum build makes it feel more solid than any other phone I've come across. The iPhone is also much more resilient than most HTC phones. I've dropped my iPhone several times- once down a set of stairs (initial 4 ft drop plus stairs), and it has barely a scratch on it, whereas a TP2 dropped just once from 3 feet ended up with gouges, scratches, etc., and after just a few months of use has paint flaking off, scratch marks along the sides of the slider keyboard (which happens with all HTC sliders-- my Blue Angel had the same issue), etc. The HD2 is probably the first HTC device to approach Apple's build quality.
[Windows Phone 7 General] vangrieg:
It's this new baseband issue that only allows tethered jailbreak.

The glossy plastic is still slippery. I've dropped it several times, my wife drops it every day. I've never dropped my HD2 or (previously) HD. I'm not very careful with devices. iPhone is sturdy but it only matters so far as it doesn't fall on the screen.

I don't use ActiveSync these days at all (I sync everything with Exchange/MyPhone), but when I did, I didn't lose any data ever. I did lose all apps once on my wife's iPhone though when I paired it to a new PC and didn't right-click(!!!) the little "iPhone" thingie on the left to select "Transfer purchases" (not that big of a deal apart from re-downloading, but with apps gone were downloaded and paid-for ebooks). It just said "Cannot backup your iPhone" for some reason and then "Your applications were deleted". How the hell was I supposed to know about this "Transfer purchases" thingie, I don't know. It also took me like 40 minutes to figure out how to copy a video to my wife's iPhone (she tried for half a day and couldn't do it). It also loves to hang because I have some media files on a network storage - the morons who wrote it just couldn't grasp the concept of threading on MSDN. So I absolutely loathe iTunes, it's the crappiest piece of software I'm using right now. Even Windows ME is a perfectionist masterpiece compared to this atrocity. I also have no interest whatsoever in "syncing" my files, especially the way it's implemented in iTunes - i.e. inconsistently for music, videos and photos, no way to transfer docs, and in any case a simple drag and drop is so much simpler and better than going through the slow crappy media player instead of file manager.

And at this time I'm locked to it, so iPhone isn't an option, no matter if I can appreciate its good sides, which are numerous but in essence are behind this jailbreak glass wall. What's going to happen with WP7 in this regard I don't know.
[Windows Phone 7 General] eaglesteve:
This is an interesting article relevant to this thread.

http://mobileblab.com/bad-news-windows-phone-7-series-very-lame-imitation-of-iphone/
[Windows Phone 7 General] vangrieg:
Well, that's certainly a showstopper for me, together with iTunes. Without jailbreaking, on the other hand, I'm not interested in this device.
[Windows Phone 7 General] gogol:
But, by default, you can install freeware apps or any apps on WM, no restriction there.

You dont need custom ROM to install those apps.

You dont need custom ROM to tweak or improve certain things (registry, config files).

You dont need custom ROM to have multitask.

You dont need custom ROM to customize the UI or looks and feel.

By default, WM on comparable hardware is much powerful, more features, more freedom than iPhone.

Except that iPhone OS without jailbrake is much fluid, but thats because it does not do much (boring UI, no customization, no multitask).

Again, thats the fact.

And you are absolutely correct about WP7S, at least at current state and first release plan (no copy paste, no multitask, no file access, no no no ... too many noS).

I cannot see WP7S is more attractive than iPhone. If I have to pick one, I will definitely pick iPhone. But I moved to Android anyway :)
[Windows Phone 7 General] vangrieg:
Are we talking about WM or WP7 here?
[Windows Phone 7 General] eaglesteve:
Fair enough. For me, my 3GS does not require tethered reboot so I may not understand the trouble as well as those who do.

I would also explore one more route which should not require tethered reboot - the route of pre-jailbroken firmware. This is in my understanding similar to cooked ROM where a modified ROM is distributed so it is more likely to get into trouble with the law (In contrast, jailbroken does not involve distribution of firmware, it modifies it on the device itself). If that does not please you still, there is always the Android route, which is also what I'll do when it is no longer possible to jailbreak. The disadvantage of Android however are the inferior capacitive multitouch technology and storage mechanism. The advantage is the potential of having up to 4.3 inch size screen with higher resolution. Not sure which way I would go until I see iPhone 4GS, what functional improvements are in the firmware, what improvements are with its hardware, and how successful could it be jailbroken. I'd have to weigh all these factors before making my decision.

WM6 is history and nobody in their right mind will stay with it forever. Think about this: 10% of microsoft's own employees are secretly using iPhone to access their own employee email system according to a report. For all we know, some of the people making up this 10% might be the one influencing the design of WP7S because they like what they see in iPhone. If it is that perfect as some die hards seem to be suggesting, then why does MS have to come up with a new OS? We're talking about WP7S here.
[Windows Phone 7 General] vangrieg:
There are many more disadvantages of Android than its implementation of multitouch (which I never use anyway), and I'd rather stay with WM, with which I'm fairly happy so far. It has its problems but so does Android. And if WM is off-topic here, Android is even more so.
[Windows Phone 7 General] eaglesteve:
But for how long though? Just to buy time and hope that WP7S will change? Surely you would have to abandan WM sooner or later, right?
[Windows Phone 7 General] vangrieg:
Right, but it's certainly not a reason to switch to Android. WP7 may or may not change in the way I like, but itdoesn't change Android. I'll wait to see what happens to the iPhone, wait to see if WP7 is jailbroken, and decide what to do then.
[Windows Phone 7 General] landslide:
What if, - shock horror -, iPhone announced Silverlight support? I was surprised to read recently that Microsoft have abstracted the UI and removed the underlying dependencies on Win32 to the point now where it has been ported to Symbian! ;)

I can imagine that this might happen if Apple get frustrated enough with Google... This would leave Google very much isolated with their second rate developer experience.
[Windows Phone 7 General] musschrott:
There is no doubt that MS would love to jump on any platform it can, they even support a linux port of silverlight. Not really surprising they support symbian as well. No reason why apple should have any interest in it however. They're not trying to kill flash, to get that back in the form of silverlight.
[Windows Phone 7 General] sids911:
Not possible, I think. Mr Jobs doesnt want flash/silverlight because it can be used to create flash/SL based apps and games which wouldnt require their draconian approval process. They like to remain in control of their devices.
[Windows Phone 7 General] amb9800:
There's going to be a significant challenge involved in making WP7S useful, because the interface is not suited for complex applications. The iPhone UI is flexible enough that jailbroken apps can add significant functionality while keeping the existing UI paradigm and its great usability. With something like iFile, for instance, you get a touch-friendly but fully-featured file explorer. I can't imagine that happening on WP7S unless someone completely ignores the WP7 UI (in which case you're talking about separate apps instead of plugins).

Also, basic things like file system access (it's encrypted, like the iPhone and Zune) have to be worked out-- and for much of this, you need to find a way to run native code (outside of the SL/XNA sandbox), which I'm sure MS is not too keen about. The point is that the challenge much beyond just enabling unapproved apps to run (like a jailbreak).

The iPhone has an incredible array of apps (much more so than Android-- try finding 3D games on Android, for instance), and the OS is still smoother than Android.

Jailbreaking on the iPhone is a very easy process. Not for the average user, maybe, but it's much easier than even installing (non-Marketplace) apps on a WM device (let alone flashing ROMs).

Apple's hardware is "lacking"? Really? The HD2 is the only HTC phone I'd rate as even coming close to Apple's build quality and materials. Everything else before it is nowhere in the league-- phones like the TP2, or anything out of Samsung, LG, Palm, RIM, etc., really don't compare.

Apple's only disadvantage today is screen resolution, but keep in mind that when the iPhone was introduced with HVGA (480x320) res, almost all other smartphones had QVGA panels. All Android phones except the very latest generation have also had HVGA panels, as do Palm's phones, and as well future WP7 phones. The iPhone's touch screen sensitivity and accuracy is still unmatched as well. Also, some would rather have a smooth, well-functioning HVGA panel than a WVGA panel on a device/OS that can hardly handle QVGA well, let alone WVGA.

With the iPhone 3GS, Apple has solid internals as well-- the 600 MHz Cortex-A8 was top-spec when it launched last June, and it's still quite competitive. The GPU (PowerVR SGX535) is the fastest available on any smartphone in the U.S. today (it's a good deal faster than Snapdragon's GPU).
[Windows Phone 7 General] C:Sharp!:
You still don't get some features. E.g. you get file system access, but since apps from the AppStore do not have mechanisms for scanning the file system or built in file explorers, you still can't simply copy files to the iPhone and launch them in any app.

Something that's very easy on Android (and WM, of course).

That's just one example. The main problem is that apps are not made for jailbroken iPhones. File system access, for example, would make things a lot easier (simpy copy files to the phone) but in reality, it doesn't help that much.

Are you f*ckin' kidding?! The iPhone's materials are among the cheapest you can find on any smartphone. They're crap, to put it mildly. The chrome frame and Apple logo get scratched without even touching them, not to mention the cheap plastic. They've used the same crappy materials as for the 3G, despite thousands of complaints about hairline cracks, scratches etc.

Don't tell me the iPhone's build quality is any good. You know that's a lie.

- Build quality: The iPhone is made of very cheap plastics, whereas the HD2's internals sit in a soft touch unibody case with an aluminium battery cover.

- Camera: Resolution is not everything, but the iPhone's camera can not compete with the HD's. Picture quality doesn't even come close. Plus, it's useless in the dark, since there's no flash.

- display size

- display resolution

- RAM size

- processor speed

Please stop talking obvious bull****.
[Windows Phone 7 General] eaglesteve:
The number one concern I have with iPhone is weather or not Apple manage to totally stop the jailbreaking. If the block is a companied by enhanced stock functions such as multitasking, then I'll have no issue. If not, I would have to consider Android. The 4.3 inch higher resolution screen, 8mp camera etc are added attractions. However the immaturity of the Android OS, inconsistency in UI, touch screen quality, application software are some of the other factors which must be carefully considered. I did an extremely thorough evaluation before adopting iPhone and giving up winmo. I expect the same level of detailed consideration if and when I switch to Android.
[Windows Phone 7 General] eaglesteve:
iPhone's built quality is the best for all smartphones from my viewpoint. I beg to differ here.
[Windows Phone 7 General] C:Sharp!:
Sorry, I can only laugh about that. :D:D:D

The iPhone's build quality is crap, period. It doesn't even deserve the word "build quality".

Touch an HD2 and you will know what great build quality feels like.
[Windows Phone 7 General] cp_kirkley:
+1. I had both a 3g and 3GS before getting my HD2, and they are WORLDS apart. plastic backing vs. legitimately brushed metal with rubberized ends = no contest.

The only areas I think that the 3GS is better is in screen response, marginally, and with sound/speakerphone quality. They both suck garden hose but Apple wins by a smidge.
[Windows Phone 7 General] eaglesteve:
Well. We would just have to agree to disagree don't we on this one. Let's hope we can find agreements in other areas.
[Windows Phone 7 General] C:Sharp!:
Thanks... I already thought the world was going crazy :D

Nobody in his right mind can seriously believe the iPhone has better build quality than an HD2... :rolleyes:

Sorry, Steve.
[Windows Phone 7 General] vangrieg:
Silverlight is flexible enough to make any kind of applications UI wise, and making a file explorer UI is a complete no-brainer, especially with the development tools available from MS. So no, this is not an issue whatsoever. With regard to consistency with the rest of UI, it's easy as well, even at MIX they showed apps that use a rather different approach but still fit well. If WP7 excels at anything, that's definitely UI creation tools. Heck, they even showed doing in in Photoshop and importing the phile into Expression Blend so that it recognized layers, after which all you had to do was to add event handlers for the newly created controls. I can hate many things about WP7, but in this particular aspect they're just like MacOS X compared to DOS.

Actually, that's exactly what you have to do - enable unapproved apps to run. Just like in the case of the iPhone, it's a privilege escalation issue in the worst case scenario.
[Windows Phone 7 General] eaglesteve:
And I think nobody in his right mind will think HTC phones are better built than iPhone. They are simply world apart, but not to HTC's favour. I've seen so many of my friend's HTC phone with peeling paints, discoloring and flimpsy backcover (which also happened to my HTC HD), unevenly laid screen, sharp edges, pink camera lenses, and even loose cover due to repeated taking off and on the cover to reset the damn phone. Sorry, we have to disagree here. Even if you're so unluckly to get a defective batch, getting it replaced by Apple is a simple matter of doing an iTune backup, go to an Apple Store, have the unit replaced (most often with a brand new one, even for phones nearing the end of warranty period), and do an iTune restore to the new phone. Try getting that kind of service from HTC. No wonder iPhone users' satisfaction level is so incredibly high.

HTC is probably going to be one of the top, if not the very top WP7S phone producer. With the other manufacturers, the built quality may be even more difficult to predict. Apple, on the other hand, controls the entire process from end to end and is in the much better position to ensure that everything works well together and maximum optimization and quality achieved, especially when Steve Jobs is still in charge with his level of attention to details.

You're free to disagree, and it's okay with me.
[Windows Phone 7 General] Spike15:
I've owned an HTC TP2 and HTC HD2, and have had neither of these problems.

I guess we wouldn't know since the iPhone doesn't have a removable battery.

Wait...wouldn't this be advantage to HTC?

Again, my HTC TP2 and HD2 haven't had either of these problems. A buddy of mine owns a TP2 and has no complaints, and my girlfriend owns an HD2 and has no complaints.
[Windows Phone 7 General] eaglesteve:
I once visited a Telco shop to look at a HD2. I played with it, including taking some pictures and videos with it. Then I noticed the pink hue in the middle, and asked the shop assistant (wearing a HTC shirt though, and he said he had been sent to HTC Taiwan for training). He said only some phones have this defect, but his is perfect, then showed me his phone. His had exactly the same issue, but he just refused to admit that the centre part is pink. I know HTC tried to use software correction to remove the pink hue on still pictures, but the problem still persist with videos. I'll never be able to convince the shop assistant and neither will he convince me, so let's leave it at that.
[Windows Phone 7 General] gogol:
Your life with iPhone is just sad and boring. I dont have to elaborate, you knew it very well.

A single type of hardware, single type of look and feel which controlled and dictated by a totalitarian draconian regime for what you can and cannot do on your phone.

And yes, you're free to disagree, and it's okay with me.
[Windows Phone 7 General] cp_kirkley:
Apple is really losing the whole "root for the little guy" thing they had going on in the mid-late 90s. Every week you hear more things coming out about them, and there really is no difference between Apple and min 90's Microsoft, from a business practice standpoint. Very disappointing.

And for eaglesteve, I understand what you are saying about the pink hue issues. They are well documented, however they are the minority. Of all the HTC devices I;ve ever owned, (check the sig), the only problem I had on any of them was on the Kaiser, with the crappy driver implentation, and this weird creaky sound the hinge made after a year of use. Now having owned both the 3gs and 3g, I can tell you that apple is no mr. perfect when it comes to quality assurance. I've had the plastic around the port break, the goddamned mute switch is an abomination, the speakerphone stinks, and the software you have to install to use it is the most horribly optimized piece of crap the computing world has ever seen. You should get an idea of how bad it is when improved response time when loading the store is a bullet point on an update. No proper library updating after 8 years of development, have to you ever tried to add songs from a mounted network drive? iTunes is the WEAKEST link to owning an iPhone. Glad to be back on WinMo to get that toxic piece of garbage off my machines.

That rant is about itunes on a Macbook Pro, mind you. Windows version is even worse than that.