yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[Windows Phone 7 General] thx1200:
I'm not sure what the "straw" for me. Really, the totality of the lack of control is bad. The sad thing is, MS could implement about two of the things they left out from WM6.5 and it will receive great fanfare and eventually the other great things we miss will be forgotten by most.

That's basically what happened with iPhone. The big frustrations outweighed the little ones to the point of where the users forgot all about it. Once they got copy-and-paste, it was like no multitasking, no background processing, no battery removal, neutered enterprise features, and on and on were a non-issue. *shudder*

I hate to keep beating a dead horse, but Android is our best hope. Not even necessarily an OS to "switch to" (not everybody likes it -- I understand) but since it still lives in the hybrid device category as both consumer and business, plus since it has fewer restrictions than iPhone or WP7, PLUS since you can get rid of even those restrictions as long as you can live without the Google Experience, PLUS since you can download custom ROMs, it's the only phone that puts pressure on Apple and Microsoft to open up their restrictive platforms.

I disagree. They may be frustrating to deal with, but that's more eyes on the device, your apps, and your tweaks. You stand only to gain donations, fans, and exposure! It's good for the whole ecosystem.

Part of the reason WP7 is a "clean break" is because those non-tech savvy people did not get the device. Which is pretty sad, because Windows Mobile is not (and was never) hard to use -- it was just not "pretty."
[Windows Phone 7 General] vangrieg:
I think there's some confusion here - a "business" phone should do business functions well, not necessarily be flexible and open for tweaking etc. So it should have office, be a robust emailing machine, have full Exchange support. Multitasking (i.e. streaming Pandora in background), changing UI etc., aren't necessarily attributes of a business phone. The latter are for "power users". With regard to business functions as listed here, I'm not at all sure that Android is any better than WP7. It's much more consumer oriented in that it's about Google services first.
[Windows Phone 7 General] thx1200:
I agree with your definition, but disagree that Android is no better than WP7 for business. Android is not bundled with a whole lot of business apps, but there are fantastic third party apps out there for Android and they are not expensive at all. A company looking to deploy a single solution for all their employees would find an Android solution to be competitively prices to WM6.5 and far cheaper than Blackberry (assuming they already had Exchange).

In addition, many small companies use google's services for their business, so integrated gmail support (and so on) is a plus for their business.

I guess I am calculating the potential of each device, as opposed to how they come out of the box. Restrictions in the OS directly relate to the potential. For example, the iPhone's Exchange support will only ever be as good as Apple makes it. Android's Exchange support could come from Google (not likely), but also HTC or any third party -- and there are some really good solutions already.
[Windows Phone 7 General] vangrieg:
Well, to begin with, the word "Android" doesn't mean much in terms of Exchange support - it varies from one device to another. There are third party programs that compensate where the OS itself is lacking, true, but as a long-time HTC user I personally won't ever want to depend on HTC software for anything important.

We'll have to see how WP7 evolves and what MS brings to the table at the time of release, but the videos recently published on windowsphone7series.com ("Backstage") that show integration between Office, calendar and Outlook there look really great. It's definitely not a "comlete FAIL" as a business platform with that kind of stuff built in, plus native multiple Exchange server support, Sharepoint etc. For any business using Google for mail and stuff WP7 will work automatically because Google is using Exchange as well (although in their own buggy and incomplete implementation).

This is not to bash Android, but just to point that it's not such a clear winner in the business category.
[Windows Phone 7 General] joe_coolish:
Yeah, I agree that Apple is the most successful user of the AppStore, but statistically, having an app in the AppStore (Ok, getting an app into the appstore) gives you a much greater chance to have your app bought. The purchasing process is quick, secure, you don't have to worry about it being malicious (well too much at least) And people are much more apt to buy from the AppStore than from some website online. I know that the Dev's get screwed hardcore (even more now with iAd... what a low and insulting way to make more money.... steal it from your devs...) But atleast you have some sort of chance.

I go to school with an apple fanboi/dev and he's produce four or five apps. He said that they all took on average a weekend and he's already paid off his student loans with the money off of them. So, idk, as long as you are making apps that are useful, original, and not an iFart app, there is some chance for success. I think the Windows Marketplace will be similar
[Windows Phone 7 General] gom99:
I hope he understands what taxes are :).
[Windows Phone 7 General] vangrieg:
Well if I had Office and Outlook for Android I definitely would prefer that to any Google's implementation. I don't know what Touchdown does wrong but I'm sure there are things where it fails - there's no single third-party Exchange client that doesn't fail in one area or another. It may not download attachments, or not forward them without downloading, or (an area where WM itself is lacking) not support multiple accounts, or have trouble with my company's quirky certificate, or use its own calendar instead of default one, or whatever. I just don't want to buy a phone and then figure out it doesn't do the second most important function well. Besides, while it's fun to try out alternative browsers or media players, some things should just be there from the very beginning, I don't want to spend days trying out alternatives with their own bugs etc. for Exchange functionality. In addition to that, I absolutely hate the way this Touchdown looks.

I'm interested in high-end devices only so I don't care really. Price is not important for me when I choose my phone (not that I like parting with cash, but I just wouldn't buy a worse phone because it's cheaper).

Well, if that's the only thing you saw - fine. And you are obviously in the minority there, go to Engadget and look through the comments to get a quick idea.
[Windows Phone 7 General] jessiethe3rd:
Evolution...

It's hard to believe that I have been in the PPC/Windows Mobile arena since its inception. I have been a devote fan for so long and although my WM Phone could do things other phones only dreamed of back in the haydays it was mired in one specific issue... experience and complexity.

Most of us on here are true hacker types - we code, we re-image, we like to get under the covers and play with our toys. We have been the lifeblood of Windows Mobile for a long time and many are not happy with not being able to dig in and do things like we once did... we don't have the control, we don't have the ability (at least right now) to change interfaces - change or modify the experience to our liking. I feel that too...

However, like every other device out there there is a community of hackers who are pushing the limits... trying to do things that make their device that much better.

Whether you admit it or not the application challenges with Windows Mobile today is VAST and CONFUSING for any general user. We pride ourselves in being able to do some very cool things with our devices but let's be honest - we are not able to tap into those revenue streams like the iPhone has layed out. We are an egotistical brash bunch but we do not really consider about how much value we can bring to this phone. I think Microsoft is trying hard to give us flexibilities and new lines of opportunities. Think about the Xbox Live market place and the indie titles...it's an opportunity for us to make games and apps truly cross platform. Microsoft's three-screens strategy is something that many of the platforms only wish they could get to (Three Screens = Windows, Xbox, Phone.)

For now - let's wait to see how things pan out. Let's begin to refine some ideas that can help drive the community - get in at the base level. I for one do not doubt these devices will have a sizeable following. This is not Zune folks - there is a lot of other people involved on this one - we need to mobilize to take advantage of the potentials.
[Windows Phone 7 General] rorytmeadows:
It's all going to come down to advertising. Most likely, the new devices aren't going to sell as much as Apple and they aren't going to sell as much as WE (at XDA) think they might to those fans of Microsoft products. But I have a feeling Microsoft will change to accommodate the loyal IT/techie types that want the roots, the registry, the kernel. And at that point, it's up to Microsoft to advertise. Windows Mobile didn't sell because of it. Will Windows Phone?
[Windows Phone 7 General] thx1200:
Well, we obviously have a very different set of opinions. I think Touchdown's UI looks way better than WP7's current look in the leaked bulds.

Those who see WP7 as a step backward are not just a tiny minority. Go to MSDN and look at what developers are saying about WP7. The majority of posts are "why can't I do this simple thing that was available on WM6.5" and then some fanboy saying "use the cloud or get left behind" or something equally condescending. My favorite thread was one about the lack of inclusion and (more importantly) the lack of PLANNING TO EVER include SQL CE on WP7. It's hillarious how some people think that a "cloud" database is equal to having a local one. Basically, the fanboys were saying that developing for WP7 should be like making a dumb terminal: all the logic in the cloud, and just a UI on the phone. Good times.

But who am I to begrudge that design decision? You obviously gain server power, but lose in low/bad internet connectivity or when the server is down, etc, and most importantly, freeness (running a server is expensive). Maybe it will satisify the target end user, who is not me. To me, I just shake my head and think... wow, WP7 will basically be like my Nintendo DSi, but with Exchange support. If you like that design decision, more power to you. I want a general computing device.

Maybe in two years they will make it more power-user friendly, but I'm not holding my breath. Especially since the specialty/rugged device division at MS will be continuing on development of what is now 6.5 for those types of non-phone devices (think devices like what the UPS guy carries around to track packages and gather signatures). They demand very high development flexibility and backward compatibility, so forcing them onto the WP7 platform was not a feasible idea.

I would agree with you up until the latest 6.5 builds and the many wonderful tweaks HTC has added in recent years. My wife picked up the TP2 and loves it. She's not a techy and she doesn't think it's overly complex. I would say the same thing for the sales team at my work. THey also have TP2 and love them. I have had to do ZERO support for them so far. They've used a wide variety of phones, so they are not historical Windows Mobile people either. Complexity can be fixed without throwing out the history. Look at Windows 7. The entire theme of every commercial is making it simpler. They did that without a ground-up rewrite. This is not rocket science, people!
[Windows Phone 7 General] vangrieg:
Hmm, wait a second, I said you are in the minority as regards assessment of the new Outlook+Office stuff shown off. You won't find disagreement here as regards this whole "cloud" stuff and the whole crippled API story.

Yet if we look at this thread's topic I doubt that SQLCE is more important for the OS adoption than the phone's emailing and document editing capabilities.
[Windows Phone 7 General] jbauls:
I was excited to buy my HD2.

Really!

What I got was a very capable piece of hardware. Almost dreamlike, I thought. Wow this thing is so smooth, and fast. Wow Look out Iphone I thought. This is it for them.

Well too bad I didn't do my research. After using this phone for less than a month I want to perform a lobotomy on it. I know it's not the phone itself. This phone locks up multiple time DAILY for me. Simple normal tasks lock the phone up A LOT. The only redeeming qualities for this phone is the speed and quality of movies booting up and the camera quality.

I wish I could rip the WM6.5 out of here and put something worthwhile on it. I wasted my money investing in a windows phone.

Not sure how popular, liked or disliked the iphone is around these parts but I I have a quick anecdote. I asked a few of my buddies with iPhones if their iPhones ever locked up. They sighed and said YEAH IT LOCKED UP A COUPLE TIMES. I asked them A WEEK, A MONTH, A DAY? They said it has only locked up 2-3 times for the life of the phone and they've had it for a long time.

As a consumer and a businessman always on the move I just want a phone that works and does what I NEED IT TO DO WHEN I ASK IT TO DO IT and doesn't lock up. The iPhone although disliked by some doesn't lock up. it is smooth and responsive. I thought my 6.5 HD2 was the answer to the iPhone. Boy was I wrong.

It's like there was NO quality control at Microsoft. No user-consumer testing and feedback focus groups.

I can simply say that in comparison the iPhone seems like it was designed by stoners. Meaning that they thought, "Hey, when I'm fried out of my mind, can I still figure out my phone and not get confused and lost in its' infinite complicated hallways and end up locking my phone up?" and the individuals at Microsoft who designed their software were a bunch of old politicians who drive Mercedes Limousines spreading Grey Poupon on their customer feedback printouts laughing all the way to the bank and a grave in Hell.

And a couple more finger wags at HTC for allowing such a masterful device as the HD2 to be cursed with a clearly delinquent, operating room, jerry rigged operating system. This shall definitely influence businessmen like myself who are more concerned about quality than price in their next buying decision for a phone.

I am truly P.O'ed that I allowed myself to fall into another Windows trap. I may start to go apple and not look back. I want to spit on the shoes of every person in charge of quality control at Microsoft. Realizing what I just said I am thinking that I will be able to save my spit because there aren't any shoes to spit on in that department. I am sure I will find that when I open the door with the "Quality Control" plaque on the door and Microsoft software headquarters I will fall into a deep never ending pit of a black abyss. While falling I will only hear the sounds of evil men laughing deeply, almost villainous like faded with the sounds a cash register cha-ching noises in the background.

iPhone may have some things to have a finger or two wagged at them over but at least their damn phone works.
[Windows Phone 7 General] JAguirre1231:
Define "Phone works". I've had people tell me that their iPhone's drop calls (ATT) and that the phone experience is not of what they are used to (Something about call quality and their ears hitting on screen buttons constantly). The only thing they had to praise about the iPhone was it's NON-phone functionalities.
[Windows Phone 7 General] rorytmeadows:
Windows Mobile is like a computer: install too much JUNK and it's going to run like JUNK. Visit JUNK websites and it's going to run like JUNK.
[Windows Phone 7 General] leonatan25:
jbauls falls in this category:

:rolleyes:
[Windows Phone 7 General] sketchy9:
This.

I don't think people on this forum realize how outside the mainstream they are. I've read so many comments complaining about the inability to hack, or access the file system, or any number of things that Windows Mobile allowed. I can definitively tell you that the vast majority of mobile phone consumers DON'T CARE. They want to pick up the phone, turn it on, and call or text their friends, or take a picture, or listen to music without a hassle. They don't want to wade through a system directory trying to find a large cache file to delete to improve their phone's performance (and hoping they don't delete something essential). They don't want their phone locking up when it receives a call, or taking 5 seconds to wake from sleep (if it wakes at all) because some rogue process is eating CPU cycles. They certainly don't want to install a task manager to monitor all of their processes to ensure that nothing is running that shouldn't be.

I certainly appreciate the hacking culture of WinMo. I owned 4 WinMo devices and tinkered with them endlessly, putting custom ROMs on, trying to tweak performance, editing the registry, etc. etc. I was (am) amazed at the technical savvy brought to bear on these devices by incredible forum members. But the bottom line is most of those tweaks and custom ROMs were addressing some deficiency in the phone. One must question the quality of an OS that *requires* two major online forums (here and ppcgeeks) with thousands of members each in order to bring it to a workable condition (not to mention 3rd party software like HTC's TouchFlo/Sense or Spb's work). WinMo is a dying platform, and frankly wasn't that good to begin with.

All that being said, there are clear areas where WinMo is superior to WP7: copy and paste; true multitasking of any process; ability to sideload programs; access to deeper system APIs (so I've heard-- I'm not a developer or a programmer); ability to skin the UI. However, the argument could also be made that, with the exception of copy and paste, many of those WinMo features are what contributed to its instability.

And let's not forget the benefits of WP7: more gaming options; a REAL media player built-in with Zune Marketplace support (that honestly destroys any 3rd-party app available for WinMo); the ability to sync multiple Exchange Servers (absolutely huge IMO); an updated UI, especially compared to the poorly-aging WinMo with its endless submenus and stylus-driven inputs.

So the key question becomes again, is MS trying to sell to people on this site, the fanboys if you will, who love to tweak and hack, often out of necessity? Or are they trying to sell to a broader demographic? Not just the Joe Sixpacks who don't know a mouse from a paperweight, but people like me and my friends, reasonably tech-savvy people who fought the good fight with WinMo for years but ultimately got sick of a phone that never seemed to work the way it was supposed to? I think they're making the only choice they can, and I happen to think it's the right one.

Sorry for the long rant. Your rebuttals are welcome.

-R
[Windows Phone 7 General] CSMR:
Yes it's crazy but these tweaks are bug fixes and workarounds in the main. If Microsoft fixed the bugs WinMo would be quite good.

Possibly but I think bugs and the fact that manufacturers and operators produce their own versions of the OS are the main problems. An accessible file system is the major omission for me and that isn't something that causes instability. Multitasking may cause performance problems but it's so important for advanced users that you can't just leave it out.

Lack of file system access is a big problem for having a good media player. You can't get files to your device without proprietary sync software. And you can't browse them by folders because there aren't folders.
[Windows Phone 7 General] thx1200:
Assuming you haven't installed a lot of crap since you bought it (or, worse, installed some sort of highly tweaked out unstable ROM), you likely have a bad device. Exchange it before whatever grace period T-Mobile gives you expires. Or if you have a maintenance plan, exchange it at your leisure.

I had a Touch Pro 1 (Sprint) that did the same thing. Exchanged it and it was smooth as silk.

The problems you are describing are not WM's problem. Do you really, really, think that HTC beta tested these things, had them freeze up three times per day and just said, hey this is good enough! Release the kraken--er--product!?
[Windows Phone 7 General] vangrieg:
Which WM bugs are we talking about here, may I ask? If you go to, say, HD2 forum and look at the problems discussed there you'll quickly notice that all of them are problems introduced by HTC - drivers, OEM software etc.
[Windows Phone 7 General] thx1200:
I keep seeing this. Name some specific bugs, please? I know of only one bug, myself. It was introduced in 6.5 and may be fixed in the latest 6.5.5 (I don't know -- I haven't tested.) It's not a "crash" bug, just a minor annoyance.

I think what happens is that there is SO MUCH snake oil out there, that people try random registry tweaks when they don't know wtf they are doing, then they really mess something up, and then that's when they need help. They don't realize they are the problem because they assume that if they found somebody on the internet say that changing this registry value improves performance, it must be gospel. With great power comes responsibility and all that nonsense. If you have the power to tweak the registry, you have hte power to completely hose your phone. The same goes with third party ROMs.

Say what you will about OEM ROMs, but they are at least, for the most part, STABLE. The same can't be said for many custom ROMs. I use a custom ROM, personally, but not because I think I'm getting some massive performance boost. I just didn't want all the bundleware and I wanted the UI tweaks -- that's it. And even then, I did a lot of research to find one that is stable.

No wonder MS wants to lock all that down. I hate not having the power, but when they are blamed for every single crash that has nothing to do with the core OS, I can see why they are taking that stand and sympathize with them.
[Windows Phone 7 General] Shiprat:
Haters gonna be hating.. But seriously WP7 has some potential, even if it seems to be the end of the epic pure windows-in-a-phone era.

If you can, come hang out in the Windows phone backstage forum, lot of discussions and idea-throwing going on overe there..

windowsphone7.com/backstage/

:D
[Windows Phone 7 General] thx1200:
I agree. The CFO where I work hates his iPhone for the reasons you cited, in addition to just the general lack of enterprise features. I'm not exactly sure what he was expecting, but well, there you go. Not everybody loves their iPhone. He is going to Blackberry next. I should also point out he is no fan of Windows Mobile. He had three Treos previously.
[Windows Phone 7 General] thx1200:
Lol.. Thanks. I didn't really do much on IContact. I have pretty much abandoned that app now. The contact manager in Sense UI blows it out of the water.

I don't take such a hard line on WM Classic. I think it's a great general purpose OS. Personally, I don't care if the user interface is made by MS or HTC. I just want it to be usable, powerful, and look decent. HTC did that when MS didn't really. I could not possibly care less who did it. In fact, I'd prefer MS didn't do it and concentrated on the core OS and just left the UI to somebody who has proven to be able to make very capable, beautiful, and powerful UIs, like HTC.

If there is further development on 6.5 (which their might be, there is no definitive statement either way), I will stay where I am. I have all the apps I need and new apps come out every day. But if not, then I will join you in Android land, and probably several of my apps will join me for the ride too. ;-)
[Windows Phone 7 General] CSMR:
Yes almost all bugs are introduced by phone makers. I shouldn't have put it like that.

But there are bugs in the operating system. (Meaning things that don't work.) The ones I've come across:

-Audio routing does not work/is absent. Not only does this affect 3rd party apps like Skype but even the official Microsoft SIP often can't route audio through the earpiece without hacking.

-Activesync to PC isn't 100% reliable, in my experience.