Jonathan Rogers

I had the chance to try out Windows Phone a few weeks ago. I came away very pleasantly surprised. It is elegant and simple without feeling like it is lacking any features. In fact, many features that require apps on other platforms are built into the OS on Windows Phone. This leads to a nice speed advantage at certain tasks, namely social sharing features.

However, there is one feature that kept me from making the switch (reverse switch?) from Apple to Microsoft. Notifications are terrible on Windows Phone. Notifications happen in two ways. First, is through the Live Tiles that are the face of Windows Phone. The home screen on Windows Phone is a series of squares and rectangles that you get to customize. Kind of like Widgets on Android,they can show updated information like weather or mail notifications. Some apps, will show updates on the tile. One could imagine a Twitter app that shows a number for new @ replies or DMs. The second type of notification is a bar that comes down from the top, in an identical manner to iOS if something happens. For example, if someone posts on your Facebook wall a pop down appears for about 10 seconds saying “Joe Smith posted on your Wall”. You could click this banner and get taken to the post in the Facebook App.

The problem is that Windows Phone doesn’t store old notifications. In iOS, if you miss that banner, you can just pull down from the top and see a list of your missed notifications. You cannot do this in Windows Phone. If you miss a notification, it simply disappears into the ether! Did you win that item you were bidding on in eBay? Did you get pinged about a new job on LinkedIn? Hope you open the app in the near future bc if you miss the notification you have no idea.

I suppose Microsoft’s solution is that you add a Live Tile and get the tile to update you next time you look at your phone. But if I think about all the things that notify me on my iPhone – news apps, Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, Skype, eBay, ESPN – I don’t want ALL of these tiles to be on the Home Screen. It kind of defeats the purpose.

Even the original iPhone system of notifications, where you got a pop up that you had to act on – dismiss/ok/open/whatever – at least notified you that something was going on. That should be the chief concern of a notification system in an OS. I have it set to notify me because I want to see this when something happens the next time I look at my phone. Windows Phone flat out fails at this. It is the most glaring example of what separates the otherwise fantastic OS from its competition.

I’m a big fan of Apple’s mobile operating system. I think largely it is successful because of its ease of use and visual polish. There are some features which is is missing that other competitors have, but I think the platform allows these to be easily implemented by third parties, so it tends to not be a big fault.

However, there is one area where iOS is severely behind the competition and it should be addressed in the next update.

Apple needs to revamp it’s Maps app.

The Maps app has gone largely unchanged since the phone launched. When the iPhone debuted, Android was not out yet, and Google was the obvious partner with their superior Maps product. However, since Android has become Apple’s chief competitor in the mobile space, one can’t help but feel the Maps app on iOS has been neglected as a result.

Above all, Apple needs a turn by turn voice guided navigation feature. Google’s phone has done this since Android 2.0. Windows Phone now has a turn by turn function built into it’s Bing Maps app. This is a major differential selling point for these other phones. See Samsung’s latest ad – a campaign I tend to snicker at as smelling of jealousy but on this point I think they are spot on.

Note how they mention “it just comes with it” as opposed to Apple where you have to buy an app for another $40 on top of your new phone.

Second, Google’s maps on their Android platform has added features that make Apple look silly by comparison, such as indoor maps of airports and malls. (Again, Windows Phone does this too, something that really should make Apple ashamed considering how young WinPhone is)

Worse, Apple’s lacking of updating their maps shows how reliant they are on Google. Google has little incentive to update a competitor’s maps app, it would take away a great selling point.

Therefore, Apple needs to come out with their own Maps app. There are hints they might be working on this. They acquired a 3D mapping software company. There was a small controversy when it was discovered your iPhone was keeping track of your location – and theories Apple might be collecting this data for mapping purposes.

Hopefully this is the big new feature of iOS 6. Apple needs to stay innovative in the face of a (potentially negative) constantly updating Android platform. This is the weakest part of the iOS platform currently.

One of the lesser touted additions to iOS 5 was the ability insert emoticons (called emoji) on the iphone in imessage and texting to other iOS devices. Technically this was available before, but you had to install sketchy apps from the app store and do some light messing around with the OS. Now the process is super simple and apple approved.

Basically you now get a second keyboard that lets you insert smiley faces, or other symbols in your texts.

In order to enable this feature there are a few really simple steps. Go to your Settings App. Pick “General”. Scroll down and choose “Keyboard”. Hit “International Keyboards”. Now, click “Add New Keyboard.” Scroll down and pick “Emoji”. That’s it!

Now to use it, go to your iMessage app. There is a globe in the bottom right. Tap that and you get the emoji icons. Tap again and you go back to your normal keyboard.

I recently won an HTC Titan Windows Phone from a contest on GDGT. If you are a gadget geek and don’t know about GDGT you should check them out. Its a community supported gadget review and information site.

I was happy to win this particular device because I have heard really great things about Windows Phone since Microsoft scrapped the old Windows Mobile and went with the new Metro UI design. However, I’m so tied into the Apple iOS world that I didn’t want to spend my own money (and burn a 2 year contract) to test it.

HTC TITAN

The phone itself is a flagship device. The HTC Titan lives up to its name – it has a giant 4.7 inch screen. It dwarfs the minuscule-by-comparison iPhone, which comes in at 3.5 inches. I really appreciated the extra screen real estate. When watching video or even scrolling around apps that are image heavy like maps or photos, it was really nice to have a big screen. I did run into that situation where it might be too big to the point of bad usability at specific times. It fit in my pocket fine really, but when I would need to use it with one hand it was difficult to hit the power button on the top and then slide to open at the bottom, or hit the volume button on the right while holding the phone with my left hand.

The phone was not onerously heavy either. In fact, because it OS longer than the iPhone, the weight is distributed and not compact in the hand. Therefore it actually feels lighter to hold. It does this without feeling cheap, despite being plastic.

On a side note – I don’t think Apple magically determined 3.5 to be the easiest form factor for usability in one hand. 3.5 was quite large when the original iPhone came out. I think they simply haven’t gone larger because they don’t want to fork developers who would then have to create a new version of apps for a larger screen, and then have a legacy version for old devices.

The phone performed quite well. It has a nice 1.4 processor, which is only single core because of Microsoft’s OS limitations, but you don’t notice it at all. And one of my biggest complaints – loudness – was not an issue on this phone at all. The speaker phone was fantastic. And it has a great feature where if you turn the phone on its face while on a call, the speakerphone comes on automatically. This is a nice touch and something I miss on my iPhone.

Having a large screen was also helpful while typing. We are all familiar with autocorrect’s shortcomings. With a larger screen, the keys are also larger and I found myself making fewer typos.

The Titan has an LED, another nice touch that many Androids have and somehting that I wish Apple would incorporate. However, the Titan’s LED was not utilized as it could be. It only showed charged status and missed calls. No voicemail indicator, no missed email or text indicator. Weird. Like a good idea not executed fully.

One note I found interesting – Microsoft still insists its phones all have 3 physical buttons. A search, back, and Windows button. Android recently moved to a completely buttonless design, and Apple has for long had one home button and nothing else. I will be curious if Windows Phone follows suits, or stays the course with their design choice.

The HTC Titan does not have expandable memory. This means you get the 16GB that come built into the phone, much like the iPhone model of memory design. Windows Phones had expandable memory when they first came out, but as of late this option has gone missing, so it is not an unusual decision. This limited memory didn’t seem to be a problem for me, as even after I installed all the apps I wanted, I still had 90% of my memory left. Whether this is because Windows Phone apps are more efficient in their storage use, or there simply aren’t as many available I am not sure where to place blame/praise.

The one shortcoming understandably is the battery. I could not get through a day with light to medium use with one battery charge. Likely this is due to the large screen. Windows Phone does have a nice feature called “battery saver” that nicely turns off some features when your battery is very low so it doesn’t completely die. This is a nice automated feature that replicates a manual process users of other smartphones have to do when they get the dreaded “10% battery” warning like turning off push, gps, and others in the background unless you use an app that needs it.

Windows Phone

The HTC Titan came with the latest version of Windows Phone – 7.5. I will say, Windows Phone is a very visually appealing OS. I prefer the look of it over iOS. It has a nice way of integrating widget-like functionality of android without the clutter. It also has a nice way of feeling personal. Your favorite photos make up the wallpaper in the photos app. Album covers make up the wallpaper of the music apps. Your friend’s social network profile pictures populate the contacts app (called “people”) in Windows Phone. It’s very good at making you feel like the phone is a part of your personal life.

Setup

The OS makes set up a breeze. Much like Android makes you log in with a google email account, or Apple likes you to set up an iCloud account, Windows Phone uses Windows Live accounts. Most people roll their eyes here, but I bet you there are a ton of people with Windows Live accounts from using their PCs, more than there were MobileMe accounts, or even people with Gmail accounts. Plus, while the Windows Live interaction is useful, if you don’t use their services, it is very easy to simply log in from a Google account and use it for contacts, email and calendar.

The phone did come with some crapware apps installed. A few AT&T for pay apps for navigation, radio, etc. This is similar to many Android phones that come with trial games or pre-installed apps. However, unlike most of those Android phones, these apps were easily uninstalled without needing to root or hack your phone.

Microsoft insists users use their Zune software to sync with PCs. The fact that you can’t simply plug in and drag files over is strange, but I have a feeling it is because they want more people to use the Zune software, and maybe buy music and movies through it. However, much of its functionality is just redundant with Windows Media Player. The nice thing is that, like with iPhone, while it is an arguably better experience if you sync, you don’t HAVE to. Really all you need syncing for with Windows Phone is a backup and to sync music and media from the computer. Everything else is in the cloud.

OS

Microsoft’s OS really differs from iOS and Android in how you get things done. While the other mobile OS’s are app focused, Win Phone tries to put most of its functionality in the OS itself. For example, Windows Phone has a “Me” tile and a “People” tile. The Me tile allows you to see any social network activity involving you – like when someone tweets you, or posts a facebook photo. This all happens outside of those “apps” and instead can be done in the Windows Phone Me App. Same with People. you get a list of your contacts, which you can choose to email or call, but you also can see all of your social network news feeds from all your contacts together in the app. Instead of being app-centric, Windows Phone focuses on bringing all your networks together in one mesh.

When Windows Phone first launch, Microsoft’s ads focused on these features allowing you to stop staring at your phone and getting back to the real world. What I found in normal use was kind of the opposite though. Because these Microsoft apps are dependent on the features being coded into the OS, some things are missing. For example, you don’t get notified of Direct Messages in twitter. And notifications don’t work like I’m used to in Android or iOS. You don’t get a ping for every mention. And the twitter app doesn’t do notifications at all! So, in addition to constantly turning on the phone to check the Me tile, I also have to go open twitter to see if I get any DMs. I felt like I was actually checking social media MORE often.

I think it really comes down to how you use social media. For me, I post often, but I also use it to communicate. So, I’d rather have my phone passively on me, then ping and notify me when someone interacts with me. Windows seems to prefer to leave you alone, but when you check immerse you in everything. It’s a decision you have to make about active v passive, and if you prefer setting aside a time for social media, but getting it done very efficient during that period – go Windows Phone. If you prefer to react at a moment notice, but individually perhaps Android or iOS is a better choice.

However, like the integration of social media, there are other nice touches where things are integrated nicely throughout Windows Phone. The photos/camera app allows different apps to create a hook and be added to a list of choices for where to share photos. This is very similar to Android’s “share this” jump list. For example, when I wanted to share a photo, I could share it on Flickr, Twitter, Facebook, Email, Text, WordPress, evernote, and skydrive. Any app thats wants this functionality can just use the API.

Similarly, the contacts integration is the one software feature I most want Apple to integrate. Once you connect the OS to all your social networks, the OS then combines your contacts across those networks and so the contact on your phone show their last facebook update, their twitter handle and any contact information from their Google, LinkedIn and facebook profiles. Really nice way to fill out your contacts for people you don’t have addresses for. And their photos update whenever they change their facebook photo. Really nice touches.

There are some small polish quirks that I found annoying. When there is a field to enter your email address – like when you log into many of these apps for the first time – sometimes you get an email specific keyboard, complete with @ sign. Sometimes you get the normal keyboard where you have to hit the symbol key to get to the @ sign. Likely this is a developer issue where some just aren’t using the “email field keyboard” string, but it give you the feeling that developers have a mentality of not caring about developing with as much care for this platform as others and are just putting something out.

I also could not figure out how to scroll to the top of a page quickly, like when you tap the icon bar in iOS. I would have to annoying scroll scroll scroll to get to the top of a long web page. It is small things like this that spoil iOS users.

Apps

The most common complaint about Windows Phone is the lack of apps in the marketplace. This is kind of a tired argument now. There is a thread of truth to it- the Windows Phone app universal is certainly not as robust as Android’s or iOS. However, most popular apps are on there. Microsoft has provided plenty of incentive to developers to create apps for the platform. Practically all of my most used apps were available – Amazon Kindle, eBay, ESPN, Evernote, Facebook, Fandango, Flickr, Flixster, Foursquare, Groupon, IMDb, Kayak, Netflix, NYtimes, ShopSavvy, Spotify, Twitter, Weather, Yelp. There are admittedly some glaring omissions – Pandora and CNN for example. These I consider apps that everyone has on their phone, and it is unforgivable to not have. But, as I said, almost all are on Windows Phone now.

Where apps really come across as lacking are in two situations – 1) that one midsize app that isn’t hugely popular but you use very often and can’t live without, or 2) those small apps that some guy makes in his basement. The first case I’m talking about things like the Starbucks app. Both Android and iOS have this app that lets you pay using your phone. Its annoying, but not a big oversight to not have, as not that many use it. Another would be Songkick that tells you about local concerts based on artists you listen to. Personally, I can’t use this phone without a good Google Voice app, and the third party solutions available just don’t cut it.

The second example is something like my Movember app that I used when raising money for charity in November. These latter small apps are just examples of situations where a developer has limited resources and is going to go with the platform that satisfies the most users. Microsoft can’t do much about this. Another example of this are small community banks. My stepmom uses a small community credit union, not a national bank. But they have an iPhone app. Not a mobile website, an actual app. They don’t provide one for the other platforms, because with their small number of customers it just wouldn’t make sense to serve those 5 people with Windows Phones. And it would be hard to convince my stepmom to switch if you told her she would be losing that functionality.

Sometimes, apps aren’t available, but that is ok because the OS provides the functionality itself. There is no Shazam app – but you can do the same search by doing a voice search in Bing and just playing the song. I didn’t need a panorama app because the camera has that functionality built in. There is no dropbox app, but Microsoft’s cloud storage solution, SkyDrive is nicely integrated and free. This continues that trend of the OS replacing many of the functions of individual apps and trying to be easier and quicker to use. Again, it relies on Microsoft to keep up the pace of advancement though.

So, for the most part, the apps are there. The problem comes in with them being updated with new features or having limited functionality. This is where Microsoft being a third place also-ran is most obvious. Developers want to bring their features to the most users first. For example, Flixster doesn’t have UltraViolet support, while its iOS counterpart does. Yelp doesn’t let you review restaurants in the app. It simply betrays the feeling that developers think of Windows Phone as a third priority.

Microsoft kind of straddles the line between Android’s open platform and Apple’s closed curated one. One of the weird negative quirks that carries over from Android’s marketplace is the number of weird fake apps. I ran into MULTIPLE fake apps made by some random programmer. Many fake “HBO” “TED” and “CNN” apps. Annoying and potentially dangerous. One of the weird characteristics carried over from the Apple store is that the “big 3″ games (Angry Birds, Fruit Ninja, Doodle Jump) are paid apps in Windows Phone Marketplace. This is similar to apple’s pricing for these games. But on Android they are free with ad support. Strange decision for those developers to make.

In the long run, Microsoft’s next desktop operating system – Windows 8 – is taking a lot of design cues from Windows Mobile’s Metro theme. I have to think developers will develop for an OS that has 90% of the market. My prediction is that many will port their apps over to Windows Phone pretty easily, you will see the Marketplace explode at that point, and this fault will be a non-issue.

Conclusion

The HTC Titan is a great phone. It has changed my mind that big phones are unwieldy. It was nice having a big screen to watch videos and see pictures on. If the battery could be improved, I would be interested in a large screen device next time I’m shopping for one.

Windows Phone is a beautiful operating system. It has a different method of user interaction that is task focused instead of app focused that can appeal to users. While it is lacking polish, it certainly is a great system that competes neck and neck with Windows Phone. The issue is that with Microsoft coming into the game so late, its hard to convince users to switch after they have invested in an ecosystem – buying apps and accessories, investing time and effort to using another system already.

If I was buying a smartphone for the first time, I would definitely be tempted by Windows Phone. It is easy to understand and efficient for someone who uses social media in a certain way. Microsoft has done really well when they feel like they are the underdog. The Xbox came into a market dominated by Sony and Nintendo and has completely turned the tables. I get the feeling they really are thinking about usability on a level like Apple with their “People” tile and also technology like the integration of cloud service like Google. The question is timing, and did they come in too late. Microsoft has money to burn and (again like they did with the original xbox) is not afraid to spend in order to support a new platform. I am hoping it develops into a robust and popular system.