Windows Phone Thoughts: Looking for a Good Rant on Windows Phone 7? Here's One...Maybe?

"I love trying out new operating systems and gadgets. That's why I blog on technology. So despite any doubts I had on Microsoft's latest effort in the mobile arena, despite their history with Windows Mobile 6.5 (could have been way better than what it was) and KIN (duh!), I decided to give Windows Phone 7 a try."

If you are looking for a good rant on Windows Phone 7 you might want to check this out. I went through each one of the rants in this article and while I find most of them accurate I also find that most of the comments are more related to this being a generation one OS than anything else. In fairness, he points this out but I think by and large this is a great list of things that Microsoft could improve on.

Tops for me out of this article are:

• Stop the Scrolling Madness: The author has a lot of apps as do I and unfortunately I end up scrolling A LOT! I realize this is more due to the clean simple UI of Windows Phone 7 and there is definitely a trade-off as soon as you start adding folders or drop down list or whatever. I am not a UI genius, but I would love to see this improved.
• Camera Settings Don't Save: This one was always a "Really?" to me. I don't get it. I don't think there is a good reason for the camera settings to not save.
• Dead Marketplace, Music and Video: I know this one is being worked on in "No-Do" but man that's aggravating and needs to be fixed.

One's that I take issue with:

• "Office is terrible. It's too basic and I'm unable to open a lot of simple Excel files which work on every other platform." - Ummm....I don't know what version of Office you are using but I love the version of Office on Windows Phone. I am a OneNote fanatic and this app enables me to store my notebooks on a Windows Live SkyDrive and synchronize the whole NoteBook to my phone. I can make changes where ever I am. Word, Excel and PowerPoint are awesome. I have not idea how your docs are displaying correctly...especially Excel. Seems way off to me.
• "The ads are misleading. Taking photos with Windows Phone 7 is not faster than iPhone or even Android." - Might want to check the facts on this one as well. This is a pretty well documented item. You need only to look to Youtube and see the many demonstrations of this. You can take a picture from "sleep mode" to "camera click" more quickly than any other platform. So if you need to be quick on the draw in taking pictures Windows Phone is definitely the way to go.
• "Slow apps. Try scrolling in the Facebook and Twitter apps. Elements will start disappearing if you scroll too fast. Also try zooming in and out, notice the choppiness? Is it the OS or the 1Ghz processor that fails to keep up with touch gestures?" - Umm....did you have bad phone? I see none of what you are referring to. My 1Ghz processor keeps up just fine. As a matter of fact I've experienced this exact thing with Android phones, but yet to experience it with Windows Phone 7.

The one's that I put in the "Really?" Category:

• "No virtual button in the camera app. Sure, you have a physical button but an option of a virtual shutter button wouldn't have done anyone any harm whatsoever. We're used to on screen keyboards and buttons so why don't you understand, Microsoft?" - No harm except clutter the UI. I already have a camera button that my fingers already on...why do I need a button to start the camera? This is definitely a personal preference (not judging) and it certainly wouldn't take a lot of screen real estate to plug one in, but I'm not sure its really needed.
• "Brightness. Just low, medium and high. Why isn't there a slider for this? What age are we living in? I know you're a Nokia partner now, but you didn't have to take design cues from Nokia's series 40 phones." - Ummm...I'm going with personal preference here as well. I never even touched the brightness since I've taken the thing out of the box. I'm sure this will become an adaptive element as the hardware platform grows anyways, but I don't really need 100 different brightness elements as it might be with a slider.
• "Resale value. Pathetic. The OS has had no positive impact on users so far. I’ve seen older Samsung Galaxy S handsets selling for more than Samsung Omnia 7." - I don't by a phone like I buy a car. Resale value is not important to me, but doing a little research would show that you are off on this one. I found Omnia 7's on eBay selling for $450+.

In fairness, I've think the author makes some pretty valid points and then he loses me on a few others with comments that might apply to a small set of users but really not necessarily to the masses. There is a ton of room for improvement with Windows Phone 7, but I think Microsoft has done an astoundingly good job of releasing a version 1.0 product that gives users what they are looking for. The OS is surely going to get better and Microsoft in my opinion has started with a version 1.0 product that is much more finished and complete than Android was. They now have to tackle the refinement of the Apple's platform.