yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[Windows Phone 7 General] Seraph321:
@kanwal236 - I actually didn't say anything about whether the decisions they made were GOOD, at least not in this post. I was just trying to explain that these were conscious design decisions, and they have purpose behind them.

I think you know you're not the target audience (for this release) so I won't bother addressing why they "took away" the best parts of windows mobile other than to say that they based the design on how they see their target audience (which they call the life-maximizer; generalized as 30-something people with busy lives, not geeks who know all the platforms and their features).

You also asked what the sales pitch is for WP7 over the iPhone for the target audience. I think the WP7 team would say it's their relentless focus on the user experience, and the great apps they believe will follow with their more modern development platform.

Now, obviously Apple would claim they focus just as much on user experience. Apple is a very design-oriented company and they do great UX work, so it's going to come down to personal taste for the most part (that's aside from the many more apps on iPhone, but that gap will close over time). I do think Microsoft has done some innovative stuff in this release, and the UX is generally ahead of Apple. I'm not alone here, I've heard many design professionals and normal consumers remark about how much more modern WP7 looks.

But who knows what Apple will do next? They are a bit more restrained now because they may not want to completely overhaul the iPhone OS, but I certainly don't count them out. At least it's an interesting battle again.
[Windows Phone 7 General] x-mann:
So far what i did saw about win 7 interface is ugly as simplest game in a world... X - 0

HTC UI = most beautifull for now and most usable.
[Windows Phone 7 General] LBN:
@Seraph321, your response is the best I have seen on this thread, the WM7 concept getting from app concept to a person concept is cutting edge innovation. Apple will have a hard time following WM7 because it will take a paradigm shift to switching from their current approach. Any WM6 version is that attempt to stick an almost fully fledged pc desktop on a phone, and the concept is not working, you only have to look at sales and market share figures to see that, and the fact that we cannot click fast enough to install SPB on the device to make it user friendly enough, I am sure that you will be able to tweak the OS eventually to make it just the way you like it.

Yes, WM7 is sandboxed to some extent, but having new platform to hack, man I would think this would be sweet nectar for people here, I mean, chances are someone is going to deploy a traditional WM 6.x look on the WM7 phone and create a hybrid, just like we have Android on our WM phones, people take what works and create hybrids, that is what I love here, break the sandbox, design a cut and paste function to work where it's missing, tweak the system to allow tweak app priority on the suspended apps, Silverlight and XNA sounds ligth great technologies to play with. And hey why not customize the 6.5 WM to have Silverligt embedded and start doing some really cool stuff preserving the the thing that we really like but boosting the performance on the device as a result.

How many times have we not complained about missing graphics drivers for the Tytn II, WM7 should be on par in performance with Apple as they have worked closely with Qualcomm in getting proper drivers for the OS, something that was never really resolved here for that device. Imagine the the things you will be able to do on a hacked version.

I personally cannot wait to see what can be cooked up here for my WM7 device once it comes out, there will be as much need for XDA as ever to complement features on WM7 as ever. MS have gone through a vast evolution not to be like iPhone and yet design something that appeals to the masses.

Will it suit everyone, of course not, but it still has much more clever or concious decisions behind it than any of the previous WM versions before it, of course that is going to stir some uproar when everything you know suddenly isn't valid any longer.

I think there is cool factor over this, and I cannot wait to get my hands on one of these bad boys ;)
[Windows Phone 7 General] johnlujl123:
I would definitely agree with people that find WP7 a "good-looking" OS, IF more than 75% of the voters had voted for "beautiful". As you can see, from this post, half of the people are saying WP7 is "ugly".

By "ugly" I mean UI look is unattractive. (=> incomplete words displayed on screen, icons from the next screen can also be seen on current screen, inconvenient hard buttons....etc.)
[Windows Phone 7 General] lordcanti86:
Dead even? That's a hell of a change from where it would have been in February (which would have been 70/30 Ugly)
[Windows Phone 7 General] ~~Tito~~:
To General!

~~Tito~~
[Windows Phone 7 General] Windcape:
Necro topics!
[Windows Phone 7 General] Z80-Man:
That's it. The Zune-style screens are interesting, with very attractive panoramic scrolling wallpapers, but the home screen is the ugliest ever seen.

But if the tiles were customizable, maybe it could be easily cured.

Nonetheless, the OS itself is still a bad joke (no multitasking, cut/paste, file browser, etc.), but we're only talking about cosmetics here, don't we ?:D
[Windows Phone 7 General] Windcape:
Broaden your perspective -- read the other topics.

And thou you shall realize how wrong thou art.
[Windows Phone 7 General] GbrilliantQ:
I like it, I just can't get over the side and top not being used in the homescreen. You have this big space not being used at all, besides the single button...
[Windows Phone 7 General] lordcanti86:
I think the right side may be unused because you'll be able to swipe your finger to access the master app menu rather than just hit the arrow on the top-right
[Windows Phone 7 General] Twinnie:
I always found that gap to the side implies there's more to be found that way, that's how I feel.

I love the UI, I especially love the way that letters of a few long apps stretch off the side of the screen. The whole thing feels so uncompromising and very Howard Roark.
[Windows Phone 7 General] RustyGrom:
I would encourage all of you to watch this video.

[youtube]GpoJW_ziGNs[/youtube]
[Windows Phone 7 General] deepakoffline:
when i first saw the photos and videos on engadget, when microsoft showcased it during MWC, i was really impressed and felt the desire to get a new phone powered with WP7, but now i find it not that much interesting. all i want to say is that they have taken it too long to bring to the masses. showing videos and photos so early was not a good move. thats what i think. maybe i am wrong, but still.
[Windows Phone 7 General] paperclips:
Showing videos and photos early was to let all of us who are into the latest tech news know what it is. It was also shown to let developers develop apps for the phone so it can have some done by the time the first device launches. You have to understand that most of the market has no idea what Windows Phone 7 is. They don't even know it exists yet. I believe the plan is to launch the campaign around a month prior to launch to build hype so the consumers won't get tired of waiting.

There isn't really much of a gap at all on the top if you factor in that there are status indicators there. That is also the space in which notifications drop down such as current call, text message, gamer challenge, etc. Also, the icons go into the negative space if you scroll.
[Windows Phone 7 General] ari-free:
I just don't understand what they are doing with this look. Take away the personal pics and it is just baby blue squares and white text. Even the icons are simple blue and white and they all look the same at a small size. Lower case text that is cut off appears to be more pretentious and 'hipster' than casual.

WP7 will be on some very expensive high-specc'ed phones. X-box integration will be one of the biggest draws. Why not make a UI that looks like it actually uses that power and get inspiration from the xbox UI
[Windows Phone 7 General] paperclips:
The color actually is changeable so it's not always just white on blue. The style is called minimalism for a reason. Text is cut off to hint "keep scrolling."

Phones will most likely retail for around $200 on contract. These phones do have impressive specs but I would actually appreciate a slightly higher resolution. The UI does indeed use some of its power with the live tiles and the beautiful transitions.
[Windows Phone 7 General] Windcape:
$200 on contract? Does that contract include your soul, or is prices in the US just extremely low? (And are you talking without VAT and Tax?)

I'm thinking they'll go for at least $500 on contract here.
[Windows Phone 7 General] doministry:
I'm not sure.

From one hand I love this minimalistic design, from the other - it may be terribly boring after 3 days,

and I think people love eyecandy.
[Windows Phone 7 General] RustyGrom:
LOL. Yes, we do sell our soul when we buy phones on contract. The "discount" is generally at least $150. The going rate for most smartphones is $200. Here's the pricing for the Evo 4G on Sprint...

Regular price	$449.99

Instant savings	-$150.00

Mail-in Rebate	-$100.00

New price	$199.99

The "Instant savings" and "mail-in rebate" are both available only with a new contract. That's not including sales tax but we don't have a VAT (yet). Sales tax varies by where you live. For me, it's 6.5%
[Windows Phone 7 General] IM0001:
The simplistic UI does look a bit plain, but its functional and snappy. I bet their will be custom UI's in the future, but for now its an interface thats interactive and works without it being something we have all seen before. Now for those that say it doesn't mimic the Xbox must not have an Xbox since the same slide away animation is almost a complete rip from the Xbox interface lol.

Still I feel it could use a bit more variability with color (Especially the mention of it within text messages to show your message bubble and the person you are chatting with in a slightly different color at least.) but overall I feel its something you can hand your mom and she can figure out where to go and things she can do with limited guidance. That is what Microsoft is aiming for. Simplistic while still having function.
[Windows Phone 7 General] doministry:
Yep, I'm sure they will develop this.

I also think it actually looks 2 times more better live.
[Windows Phone 7 General] vangrieg:
That's what many people who handled it in their hands say. It's not as 2D live as it looks, due to animations "parallax" background scrolling etc. Also, black looks gorgeous on AMOLED screens. I kind of can see that with Android as well, it's much less boring in real life than on screenshots and videos (even though it remains tasteless kitsch).
[Windows Phone 7 General] doministry:
Exactly.

I just wish those default hubs and apps icons would be a bit more colourful.

Or at least, to be able to set a picture as first thing you see on homescreen, not those squares.

May be possible with moving pictures hub as first.
[Windows Phone 7 General] vangrieg:
In one of the reviews, there was a screenshot with WP7 with Brown selected as "Accent color". That, together with the device being "live" with people and photos and stuff, makes it really colorful. You wouldn't want to add a background picture there.
[Windows Phone 7 General] Moronism:
A point a lot of people seem to miss with the whole 'it's too plain' issue is the extensive use of animation in Metro. It's something that really can't be shown in screenshots, and I'm not sure if there're enough videos that show it clearly.

The whole simple, but animated aesthetic that Microsoft is shooting for in this case is fundamentally different from the detail-rich, still-life 'card' interfaces which the iOS and Android exemplify. In a sense, Microsoft compensates for the lack of dimensionality in Metro by integrating motion into the interface, which creates an illusion of object interaction and lessens the abstractness of the interface. Of course, this is processor heavy, which is part of the reason for the high base standards they set.

While I do have some concerns about the extent of animation used (people have pointed out, rightly, that there is a fine line between fluidity and impediment), it does serve to emphasize the goal of the UI, which is to break down the walls between OS and programs, making for a fluid user experience without the 'choppy' transition of Program -> OS -> Program.

Another problem which I have not seen raised is the possibility of the tiles being 'too' animated, creating a sensory overload akin to the excessive use of marquees in HTML. Thankfully, WP7 seems to have found a sweet spot in this aspect, but we shall see.
[Windows Phone 7 General] RustyGrom:
That's a really good point. The whole OS practically begs you to play with it. It's all really subtle and unobtrusive. The transitions, for example, are extremely quick so it doesn't waste your time. The OS really does look better in person than it does in stills. I'm saying this based on both the emulator and time I spent with a real device.
[Windows Phone 7 General] gerryjoson:
The little xbox live man begs to be hit with a ball peen hammer when he pops his head up....wouldn't that make a great game, like those old fairground games where you had to hit the jack in the box.Guess you would only get one go though.
[Windows Phone 7 General] gerryjoson:
In my opinion the home screen is hideous, plus there is way to much input required to navigate anywhere.

Once your past the endless swiping from the home screen it looks good, just everything is 10 times too big, thus necessitating even more swiping, scrolling, pinching.

But hey, I guess the fact it out swipes the iphone, must mean it's better.
[Windows Phone 7 General] addicus:
That looks awesome as a system. I have no idea why anyone really wouldn't like it once they've given it a honest fair try. The system is very fast, comprehensive and allows both business and personal life to occur yet stay separate. To me the only visual drawback is the blue and white panels that are not color customizable.
[Windows Phone 7 General] vangrieg:
http://i.zdnet.com/gallery/445841-600-800.jpg
[Windows Phone 7 General] Windcape:
There's a Light and a Dark mode for each theme, and a large set of different color themes.
[Windows Phone 7 General] vangrieg:
From the UI perspective, it looks too different from everything else, so many people might be scared off by it radical approach to looks.

Also, I kind of see the point when some people complain about the boring looks of many parts of the OS - Zune hub and such are cool, but dialogs and some other pages with just white text on black background (or vice versa) doesn't look like eye candy really.

I personally like the chromeless approach, but even I will admit that buttons in WP7 suck (the standard ones, with just white border, white text, black background and variable width).
[Windows Phone 7 General] OndraSter:
Metro UI is IMHO highly industriable and IMHO really awesome. Everything like soft edges, shadows and what not is just eye candy. Here are basic shapes and it looks AWESOME. If I would have the choice to have this look on Android (if I'd ever buy any Android device), I'd take Metro UI. And I am really serious. All current OSes are eye candy - Android, iOS, WinMo 6.5.3/6.5.5, MeeGO. This brings simplicity and speed in terms of user experience - text is easily readable (check real black and awesome white on AMOLED screen). When you will see it on your own eyes, I'm pretty sure you will go into your knees.

Microsoft has done awesome job. This style is totally different from any other current mobile OS. This one is for productivity, not for eye-candy (actually, for me this is eye-candy too :D).
[Windows Phone 7 General] RustyGrom:
There's beauty in it's simplicity. No need to gussy it up with a bunch of faux-3D gradients.
[Windows Phone 7 General] Intervenient:
Absolutely beautiful.
[Windows Phone 7 General] iamcrazyfire:
The UI good for Latin.. only

I think the Metro UI is not suitable for Chinese /Japanese:(
[Windows Phone 7 General] vangrieg:
That's an important observation, I've been thinking about it as well. The UI is very heavy on typography which makes it very sensitive to things like length of words etc. We'll see...
[Windows Phone 7 General] Windcape:
How so?

Sure, it'll be different for a Pivot or Panorama control due to short words, but I don't think it's bad.
[Windows Phone 7 General] Fermat:
Beautiful! Most beautiful UI ever created...

I wish it came with the functionality of WM6.x!

And some elements need tweaking, so that there's less wasted space. But overall, it's beautiful!
[Windows Phone 7 General] iamcrazyfire:
Yes, it 's not bad,but also not elegant
[Windows Phone 7 General] Windcape:
How would it be elegant? It's Chinese, it's written like that!

I actually think Silverlight provides a better platform for Cyrillic and Asian characters than any other, since localization is thought through the entire framework.

You'll notice it also handles font-resizing very well.
[Windows Phone 7 General] vangrieg:
There's nothing special about supporting Cyrillic apart from having capable fonts (which in the times of Unicode isn't a problem anywhere). It's not like Russian needs IME or anything.
[Windows Phone 7 General] Windcape:
Ah, I thought it required IME as well. How do you handle writing both western and Cyrillic on the same keyboard?
[Windows Phone 7 General] vangrieg:
Oh no, nothing like that, Russian is a typical European language, it's just the character set that was derived from Greek rather than Latin that makes it different here. And all products have had support for Russian, even IBM System/360, not to mention anything that's called Windows.

You switch layouts. Just like you'd do for AZERTY from QWERTY if you want to type in French.
[Windows Phone 7 General] Windcape:
Désolé, je ne parle pas français :)

But I see your point in regards to the c-cedilla.
[Windows Phone 7 General] addicus:
:) thank you - that orange is ugly too, but I could find a nice purple/gold mix to make it Lakerstastic!
[Windows Phone 7 General] addicus:
From what I am seeing it seems as if MS is creating an experience where the information creates the environment. What I mean by that is the interaction with the information is what becomes important and access to this information at various levels with ease and visual stimulation becomes the key. WP7 is all about the information interacting with itself from different sources and the user just picking and choosing what he/she wants at the moment. Keeping the UI simplistic actually improves the user experience so the millions of icons become unnecessary and the consistency of flow and shape become even more important as more information is added to the system. To summarize, expansion is easy and the more info you have the prettier the UI will become.

I study water treatment/distribution and basically the key to having a great distribution system is making sure the pressure is high enough to get the water to all your customers. That means the pipes have to be big enough for high usage days.

I say this because with WP7 MS has created a distribution system for our information that will be able to handle high and low usage of all our data. The system will be able to handle the mega business user with 2000 plus contacts, 20 meetings daily and 300 emails a day or the teenager with 1000 texts per day, 500 facebook messages and an ungodly amount of twitter interaction (tweets, pics, etc...).

This is where I find beauty in the system. The look is okay. It doesn't blow me away, make me say "That's the ****!!!!". What it does do is continue to give me my information in a streamline manner that never stutters, gets jumbled or falters under the pressure just like when I turn my faucet on full blast. I was a heavy business user for WM6.1 and handling 120 phone calls, 150 emails daily was pushing the system interaction wise. That was in 2006 before twitter/facebook really took off and we have all this real time interaction with each other added to the mix. I wouldn't imagine handling those calls, the emails and social interaction would make the system break a sweat. At the same time we can have gps turn by turn navigation, music, movies and pictures!!!!! Hell yeah this is beautiful!!!
[Windows Phone 7 General] vangrieg:
Well I agree. I like the content-centric approach and find the lack of chrome good riddance.

I was trying to say that it's just not very conventional, and people seem to like things like flashy backgrounds, bubbly buttons etc., so when they'll look at WP7 phones in stores, without any content in them, that could be too radical of an approach to attract some parts of the audience.
[Windows Phone 7 General] Windcape:
@vangrieg

The Live Titles (Home Screen) perhaps isn't very flashy, but "Hubs" (Panorama applications) are very much eye-candy, and regular applications can add eye-candy themselves as well.

But it do make sense to use high contract layouts for clarity.
[Windows Phone 7 General] vangrieg:
Clarity in WP7 is awesome. So is the uncluttered and clear UI. You don't have to convince me. :)
[Windows Phone 7 General] gbajra:
Ugly. HTC touchflo looks better than windows 7. I hate the home screen and the unused portion to the right just to let you know there is some stuff in the right. We are not so stupid that we need a quarter of the screen blank to notice there is some next screen too.

I agree the usability and the concept is great but the aesthetics of UI is terrible. I know they are trying to keep the UI simple but simple can be beautiful.
[Windows Phone 7 General] ericc191:
Wow tied 50/50

119 119
[Windows Phone 7 General] makoute:
It is slowly growing on me, I really didn't like the colored squares in the beginning, I liked the other parts, but as I've seen videos of the os in use, it is growing on me.
[Touch Pro2, Tilt 2 Themes and Apps] telegraph0000:
Whenever I place in a destination (be it a poi or address) and I reach it, I get the message attached...any ideas?
[Touch Pro2, Tilt 2 Themes and Apps] drewcam888:
sounds like you are missing some needed file. Maybe reinstall igo8
[Click Android Development] suoko:
has anybody thought about it ?

htc sells them (http://www.htcaccessorystore.com/it/p_htc_item.aspx?i=187495) while mini-usb headphones i have (i found them on an alcatel phone) do not work
[Click Android Development] Super Jamie:
I just bought a little adapter off eBay which plugs into HTC MiniUSB and has a 3.5mm jack on it. It lets me use my own normal headphones.
[Click Android Development] suoko:
why didn't you just use the 3.5 built in jack of tattoo ???
[Click Android Development] terminal 7:
g1 dont

hi.

my G1 headphones have the htc mini usb ( the one thats a bit odd and has extra wires for audio and tv out ) but the headphones dont work on the tattoo.

so why has the tattoo got this type of jack for its usb ?? it certainly has the extra contacts on it, you can see them !

may be we will someday have an app that enabled you to select the usb output as the default audio out.. may be not.. lol..

.
[Hero CDMA Themes and Apps] d12bn:
I heard Moto X Mayhem is coming to Android Market very soon, I'm first in line to buy!
[Hero CDMA Themes and Apps] dmc971989:
isnt that the game where you tilt the phone to control the angle of the bike?

if so ive had the Iphone port of that game (that works fine) for months...
[Hero CDMA Themes and Apps] d12bn:
yep

Yep I had it on my Hero but no sound.

Did you get sound to work?

Anyway its coming to Market early April

http://www.motoxmayhem.com/
[Hero CDMA Themes and Apps] dmc971989:
mine has working sound?
[Hero CDMA Themes and Apps] d12bn:
Let me have sound

I love the game, give me sound?
[Hero CDMA Themes and Apps] mrcharlesiv:
Where can I find the port w/o sound?
[Hero CDMA Themes and Apps] KBizzle:
Yeah I played it as well. It was ok. Same as the teagames.com moto game they have. I played the hell out of that so didnt really stir my fancy.