4 ms·

I guess I live in some alternative reality where my HTC desire is actually much more enjoyable to use than an iphone. I can see how iphone users could enjoy the

I guess I live in some alternative reality where my HTC desire is actually much more enjoyable to use than an iphone. I can see how iphone users could enjoy their device more, I just wish they would extend the same courtesy. fanboy ranting aside I dont think I could trust microsoft to give me a nice computing experience again, even if some people like it superficially, there must be something wrong in there.

cryptoz 16y ago
> there must be something wrong in there. There sure is. It ships with a browser that's "halfway between IE7 and IE8." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Phone_7#Web_browser http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Phone_7#Web_browser Ouch.
- recoiledsnake 16y ago
  But the first version of it still matches or outperforms the Android and iPhone web browsers. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zgvphQx9MY8 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zgvphQx9MY8
  - cryptoz 16y ago
    Maybe, for certain definitions of "outperform". I can't watch the video right now (at work), but no HTML5 or modern JavaScript engine means that it'll fall behind the web very quickly unless Microsoft provides updates. Personally, I doubt that MS will provide those updates. The reason they keep IE6 outdated is because large companies want it that way; that can't handle epic change or their apps will break. If MS is marketing this phone to businesses, you can bet that the browser won't change much.
    - ugh 16y ago
      The comparisons are about load/render speed of normal websites (like Engadget) and scrolling/zooming – not really about HTML5 or Javascript performance at all. I wouldn’t say that anyone outperforms anyone else in that video – all three phones seem to be doing those tasks equally well (save for choppiness on Android).
    - recoiledsnake 16y ago
      They keep IE6 outdated? I thought they released IE7, IE8 and now IE9 after that. I don't think companies are going to develop for just IE mobile like they did for IE6. And how exactly does adding support for HTML5 break the HTML for older web apps?
      - rbanffy 16y ago
        Their strategy relies on fragmenting the browser space. So, they have various subsets of various versions of HTML, each supported by a different browser on different platforms. All that so you can't deliver web applications easily. Companies who swallowed their poison pill in the early 2000's and built their intranets dependent on IE 6 are feeling the pain now, having to deploy intrusive security measures that don't really secure anything while shouldering the cost of "upgrading" the apps to browsers that run on the OS they want to deploy.
    - profquail 16y ago
      MS isn't marketing the phone to businesses. WP7 isn't shipping with support for 'enterprise' features like domain enrollment (though it does support Exchange, to some degree). Also, let's say that companies start buying WP7 phones for employees, and that they pay to build a mobile-friendly version of some internal webapp. If you were designing/coding a site today, and knew you didn't have to support IE6, you most likely code it in a fairly standards-compliant way so that it didn't break when browsers were upgraded; a lot of companies are stuck on IE6 because they didn't code their sites like that.
  - rbanffy 16y ago
    You should try running NetScape 3 on modern hardware... It flies. It's easy to optimize a subset when you can define the subset to exclude everything you can't make fast...
- blub 16y ago
  Opera mobile solves that problem. Not that it is a problem in the first place. What bothers me about this phone are the missing features like copy-paste and multitasking.
  - ryanpetrich 16y ago
    Considering there is no NDK and no userbase, Opera would be crazy to port Opera mobile at this time. (I can see maybe Opera mini, but not mobile)
- runjake 16y ago
  I think the problem is they didn't ship a browser based on WebKit, and from what I can see in my testing, it doesn't necessarily try to be WebKit-like in its rendering. This means that website owners who have already written advanced web interfaces for the mobile browsers on iOS, Android, and BB 6.0 will have to re-engineer their code base for WP7. That probably isn't going to happen until Microsoft establishes an impressive user base.
spiffworks 16y ago
I've been using Android solely for the past 2 months and I'm going to start developing for it soon. The one thing that I genuinely hate about it is the menu button. So many great features in so many great apps go undiscovered because the user is expected to have the idea to press the menu button in the right activity. And even when you have discovered the feature, pressing the menu button is just that bit of cognitive overhead which subtracts from a delightful experience. The most powerful features that Android's architecture(intents, etc) enables are stuck behind hidden menus. I would guess that most users use their phones just like an iPhone- with the exception of widgets on homescreens. I love this OS, but this madness has to stop. Edit: Add to this the long press of a list item, and between them, most actions are stuck behind an undiscoverable layer of UI.
- daleharvey 16y ago
  Sure, I actually share this annoyance, at the very least I wish the menu item would be kept consistent between activities. But the point remains, I also have a lot of annoyances with i-devices at the same time, compared to the two I prefer my HTC Desire, it would be nice to not be regarded as some type of idiot for possibly thinking that i-whatever arent the pinnacle of design that all things aspire to.
  - spiffworks 16y ago
    Please don't think that I was siding with MG Siegler. I would choose my ancient G1 over an iPhone any day, but then I've been told that I'm a philistine.
- NickPollard 16y ago
  I've found the long press in Android one of the most instinctive and consistent pieces of the UI language; I love it. I don't know about the menu button, I certainly wouldn't cry if it went away, but the distinction between a short press (go, activate) and long press (configure, customise) is great. Long press is the right-click of smartphones.
  - metageek 16y ago
storm 16y ago
10 points and climbing for a reply that essentially says, "Bah, it's Microsoft, there must be something wrong with it"? That's really disappointing, HN. I foresee some serious cognitive dissonance playing out as Microsoft manages to do a whole lot better than hive-mind "HA HA too little too late / M$ sucks" sentiments have been allowing for. And frankly, Microsoft deserves the success they've got coming to them here. Somehow, the teams responsible for WP7 have been able to overcome the bureaucratic, backstabbing inertia that Microsoft is famous for, and they've produced something pretty damned good for a 1.0. Shame that so few people bother to actually examine the platform in any detail before pontificating about it, predicting its doom, etc.
- daleharvey 16y ago
  To be honest it was a pretty vacuous comment, and was mostly about iphone / android than windows mobile. But I didnt say it sucks, or that there must be something wrong with it, I said I couldnt trust them (with a lot or money) not to suck, and my opinion isnt formed from some hivemend, its formed from the last 10 years of my experience with microsoft products.
  - Timothee 16y ago
    I didnt say it sucks, or that there must be something wrong with it Actually you did, almost word for word: "there must be something wrong in there" :)
- robryan 16y ago
  Just like the side by side search engine tests without branding it would be interesting to test peoples perceptions not knowing it's Microsoft, although it would only work on people outside tech who haven't used either interface.
- SnowLprd 16y ago
  Windows Phone 7 is... 1.0? While I believe the WP7 team does indeed deserve credit for overcoming all the entanglements endemic to Microsoft's current bureaucratic mess, I think it's a bit silly to call this a 1.0 product. Even if the WP7 software was a complete rewrite, I think you lose the ability to refer to your mobile OS as 1.0 when: * You've been shipping mobile software for years * You have "version 7" in the name of your product Not trying to be pedantic here -- I know what you mean when you refer to this new mobile OS as "1.0". I just think it's more appropriate to refer to, say, the original 2007 iPhone as 1.0 than the WP7 product.

cryptoz 16y ago

> there must be something wrong in there. There sure is. It ships with a browser that's "halfway between IE7 and IE8." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Phone_7#Web_browser http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Phone_7#Web_browser Ouch.

recoiledsnake 16y ago
But the first version of it still matches or outperforms the Android and iPhone web browsers. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zgvphQx9MY8 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zgvphQx9MY8
- cryptoz 16y ago
  Maybe, for certain definitions of "outperform". I can't watch the video right now (at work), but no HTML5 or modern JavaScript engine means that it'll fall behind the web very quickly unless Microsoft provides updates. Personally, I doubt that MS will provide those updates. The reason they keep IE6 outdated is because large companies want it that way; that can't handle epic change or their apps will break. If MS is marketing this phone to businesses, you can bet that the browser won't change much.
  - ugh 16y ago
    The comparisons are about load/render speed of normal websites (like Engadget) and scrolling/zooming – not really about HTML5 or Javascript performance at all. I wouldn’t say that anyone outperforms anyone else in that video – all three phones seem to be doing those tasks equally well (save for choppiness on Android).
  - recoiledsnake 16y ago
    They keep IE6 outdated? I thought they released IE7, IE8 and now IE9 after that. I don't think companies are going to develop for just IE mobile like they did for IE6. And how exactly does adding support for HTML5 break the HTML for older web apps?
    - rbanffy 16y ago
      Their strategy relies on fragmenting the browser space. So, they have various subsets of various versions of HTML, each supported by a different browser on different platforms. All that so you can't deliver web applications easily. Companies who swallowed their poison pill in the early 2000's and built their intranets dependent on IE 6 are feeling the pain now, having to deploy intrusive security measures that don't really secure anything while shouldering the cost of "upgrading" the apps to browsers that run on the OS they want to deploy.
  - profquail 16y ago
    MS isn't marketing the phone to businesses. WP7 isn't shipping with support for 'enterprise' features like domain enrollment (though it does support Exchange, to some degree). Also, let's say that companies start buying WP7 phones for employees, and that they pay to build a mobile-friendly version of some internal webapp. If you were designing/coding a site today, and knew you didn't have to support IE6, you most likely code it in a fairly standards-compliant way so that it didn't break when browsers were upgraded; a lot of companies are stuck on IE6 because they didn't code their sites like that.
- rbanffy 16y ago
  You should try running NetScape 3 on modern hardware... It flies. It's easy to optimize a subset when you can define the subset to exclude everything you can't make fast...
blub 16y ago
Opera mobile solves that problem. Not that it is a problem in the first place. What bothers me about this phone are the missing features like copy-paste and multitasking.
- ryanpetrich 16y ago
  Considering there is no NDK and no userbase, Opera would be crazy to port Opera mobile at this time. (I can see maybe Opera mini, but not mobile)
runjake 16y ago
I think the problem is they didn't ship a browser based on WebKit, and from what I can see in my testing, it doesn't necessarily try to be WebKit-like in its rendering. This means that website owners who have already written advanced web interfaces for the mobile browsers on iOS, Android, and BB 6.0 will have to re-engineer their code base for WP7. That probably isn't going to happen until Microsoft establishes an impressive user base.

spiffworks 16y ago

I've been using Android solely for the past 2 months and I'm going to start developing for it soon. The one thing that I genuinely hate about it is the menu button. So many great features in so many great apps go undiscovered because the user is expected to have the idea to press the menu button in the right activity. And even when you have discovered the feature, pressing the menu button is just that bit of cognitive overhead which subtracts from a delightful experience. The most powerful features that Android's architecture(intents, etc) enables are stuck behind hidden menus. I would guess that most users use their phones just like an iPhone- with the exception of widgets on homescreens. I love this OS, but this madness has to stop. Edit: Add to this the long press of a list item, and between them, most actions are stuck behind an undiscoverable layer of UI.

daleharvey 16y ago
Sure, I actually share this annoyance, at the very least I wish the menu item would be kept consistent between activities. But the point remains, I also have a lot of annoyances with i-devices at the same time, compared to the two I prefer my HTC Desire, it would be nice to not be regarded as some type of idiot for possibly thinking that i-whatever arent the pinnacle of design that all things aspire to.
- spiffworks 16y ago
  Please don't think that I was siding with MG Siegler. I would choose my ancient G1 over an iPhone any day, but then I've been told that I'm a philistine.
NickPollard 16y ago
I've found the long press in Android one of the most instinctive and consistent pieces of the UI language; I love it. I don't know about the menu button, I certainly wouldn't cry if it went away, but the distinction between a short press (go, activate) and long press (configure, customise) is great. Long press is the right-click of smartphones.
- metageek 16y ago

storm 16y ago

10 points and climbing for a reply that essentially says, "Bah, it's Microsoft, there must be something wrong with it"? That's really disappointing, HN. I foresee some serious cognitive dissonance playing out as Microsoft manages to do a whole lot better than hive-mind "HA HA too little too late / M$ sucks" sentiments have been allowing for. And frankly, Microsoft deserves the success they've got coming to them here. Somehow, the teams responsible for WP7 have been able to overcome the bureaucratic, backstabbing inertia that Microsoft is famous for, and they've produced something pretty damned good for a 1.0. Shame that so few people bother to actually examine the platform in any detail before pontificating about it, predicting its doom, etc.

daleharvey 16y ago
To be honest it was a pretty vacuous comment, and was mostly about iphone / android than windows mobile. But I didnt say it sucks, or that there must be something wrong with it, I said I couldnt trust them (with a lot or money) not to suck, and my opinion isnt formed from some hivemend, its formed from the last 10 years of my experience with microsoft products.
- Timothee 16y ago
  I didnt say it sucks, or that there must be something wrong with it Actually you did, almost word for word: "there must be something wrong in there" :)
robryan 16y ago
Just like the side by side search engine tests without branding it would be interesting to test peoples perceptions not knowing it's Microsoft, although it would only work on people outside tech who haven't used either interface.
SnowLprd 16y ago
Windows Phone 7 is... 1.0? While I believe the WP7 team does indeed deserve credit for overcoming all the entanglements endemic to Microsoft's current bureaucratic mess, I think it's a bit silly to call this a 1.0 product. Even if the WP7 software was a complete rewrite, I think you lose the ability to refer to your mobile OS as 1.0 when: * You've been shipping mobile software for years * You have "version 7" in the name of your product Not trying to be pedantic here -- I know what you mean when you refer to this new mobile OS as "1.0". I just think it's more appropriate to refer to, say, the original 2007 iPhone as 1.0 than the WP7 product.