Windows Phone Thoughts: Maximum PC's 10 Ways to Make Windows Phone 7 Mo' Betta'

"Earning Xbox Live achievements on the toilet? Awesome. Being able to play online multiplayer games with my other Xbox Live friends and earning achievements while on the toilet? That would be even awesomer. Right now, Windows Phone's link to Xbox Live is only medium satisfying, but the potential for amazing things is eyeball-explodingly obvious. Full-on Xbox Live multiplayer. Xbox Live Arcade games that you start playing on your Xbox and then pick up waiting in line at Starbucks, like Castlevania: Symphony of the Night. Earning items in a Fable Windows Phone game to use in Fable IV. Truly ubiquitous Xbox gaming, so even the most atrophied addicts can leave the house and still get their game on. Windows Phone should be the portable Xbox. (And it should be a remote for your Xbox too.)"

There's no shortage of ways that Microsoft can improve Windows Phone 7 - despite the version number, it's really 1.0 software, and has lots of growth required before it's on even footing with rival platforms that have 3-5 years of growth behind them. There are some interesting things on this list, though some of them are kind of odd - would you really power off your phone in the middle of a game instead of exiting the game, then powering it off? The author of this piece is complaining about how it takes a few seconds to resume a game that's behind the lock screen when he powers the phone back on - I'll have to try the same thing on my iPod Touch to see how iOS handles it...