5 ms·

I have played around a bit with a Lumia some weeks ago (it was available earlier in Europe), and I have to say I was quite disappointed. Microsoft waited too lo

by manmal 15y ago

I have played around a bit with a Lumia some weeks ago (it was available earlier in Europe), and I have to say I was quite disappointed. Microsoft waited too long with screen resolution upgrades, and its low resolution makes it feel like an Android from 2 years ago. That makes it hard to trump modern Androids like the Galaxy Nexus UI-beauty-wise. The navigation paradigma Microsoft uses is not for me, I prefer Apple's more natural approach. Also, most apps in the store look the same (establishing context by design, anyone?) because there are only so many possibilities of laying out monochrome elements (mostly HUGE text) on a black or photo background. But I'm clearly not part of the intended audience, Woz demonstrates that there are people who like that.

diminish 15y ago
I want to say "Woz is the most handsome man in tech business." just to emphasize that beauty is subjective. But I am curious, a lot of praise comes to windows mobile from iphone fans (I am not talking about Woz but many others). Would there be a lot of Apple fans really switching to Lumias or are they simply telling it just to criticize Android?
- redthrowaway 15y ago
  The latter, I suspect. In Apple-worshipping circles, they bought the "Android is a stolen product" bit hook, line and sinker, conveniently ignoring the fact that the iPhone's interface was just an iteration on everything else that had come before. They look at the Windows phones and say, "see? You didn't have to copy the iPhone!" They would never use it, but it's necessary to praise it in order to validate their indignation that Android is more successful and widespread (which feeds into their sense of superiority as being among the select few who see the light). I'm seriously not an Apple hater. I have a MBP and a 3gs. I'll probably get a 5 when it comes out. I love the industrial design of Apple's products. But a good half the people I know who use them have a near-religious attachment to them, and fully buy into the Jobsian reality distortion field. It's kind of like how, as a Canucks fan, I love my team but hate half the fans.
  - gnaffle 15y ago
    I think many iPhone fans see WP7 as an attempt to innovate, whereas Android seems more like an attempt to imitate (of course, Android has had many innovations as well). Apple made the first usable and popular touchscreen smartphone, and Androids success is largely due to the fact that Google recognized this and quickly repositioned Android, and I think that's pretty evident by looking at the evolution of the Android OS. The original Android prototypes didn't look very innovative, they looked like imitations of Symbian or WM6.
    - kelnos 15y ago
      I think many iPhone fans see WP7 as an attempt to innovate, whereas Android seems more like an attempt to imitate (of course, Android has had many innovations as well). So what? At the end of the day I care that my phone works well and in a way that makes sense to me. I don't care whether or not it's a "copy" of another user interface.
    - wmil 15y ago
      The iPhone UI looks a lot like an updated Palm Tungsten T3, I'm not sure how innovative it actually was.
      - Xuzz 15y ago
        The major innovation was the scrolling: none of the previous touchscreen phones had smooth, natural, physics-based scrolling on a capacitive (e.g. finger, not fingernail) touchscreen. The home screen is a prettier version of the Palm OS one, and much of the UI is similar, although it feels a lot more natural with animations and without a desktop-style menu bar.
        pedalpete 15y ago
        Are better scrolling and natural animations really innovation? It's much more of a progression. Touchscreen is the same? I believe the quality of touchscreens weren't good enough before 1997.
- tedunangst 15y ago
  As an iPhone user, Android is "the same, but different". The Windows Phone sample I played with was actually different. Whether Android cloned iPhone or not, it feels like their design was, in many cases, "do what they do." With WP, it just seems more like they actually stepped back and asked, "What are we trying to do again?" Of course, all three end up being fairly similar, there's only so many solutions to the same problem.
ConstantineXVI 15y ago
IMHO, if you used Android phones 2 years ago (I have, they sucked), you'd be killing to have a Lumia. I find the overall experience stunning despite the relatively low resolution (which is still plenty usable); their attention to detail should have Apple quaking. ICS is just now catching up in terms of polish; and they still have ways to go. I'm using the Galaxy Nexus now, but I was impressed with the Lumia enough that I'm likely switching to WP full-time when Apollo phones hit
- damptrousers 15y ago
  Quaking? Please. Apple doesn't quake. If it pushes them in terms of innovation, great. But if you think they're quaking, you're clueless.
- nextparadigms 15y ago
  So are you impressed with the phone itself or the OS? I get the feeling that all this interest in WP7 started because people really like the phone. WP7.5 has been around for at least 6 months, and style wise its the same as it was late 2010. If Nokia didn't make a nicely designed phone, WP7 would still be as little talked about as it was before and with just as little interest. I agree with Joshua Topolsky that a lot more people would be interested in it if it had ICS on that phone.
  - ConstantineXVI 15y ago
    The OS, it's absolutely solid. I was using the 710; which isn't nearly as impressive hardware as the 800/900 (I've yet to see one in person). I should note that Silverlight is equally pleasant to work with, can't say the same for Android's SDK.
  - clarky07 15y ago
    I've developed apps for all 3 devices, and while I use the iPhone personally, I think WP7 is much better than android. Im talking about WP7 phones from a year ago too. Every time I use an android phone it is buggy and not at all responsive. When I click a button I don't like waiting for it to do something.
untog 15y ago
The navigation paradigma Microsoft uses is not for me, I prefer Apple's more natural approach. I'm fascinated to know what is "natural" about Apple's approach. I think it is "natural" because you are used to it. To me, it feels overly (/incredibly) app-centric. Both Android and Windows Phone (to differing degrees) feel far more task based: "You have a photo. What would you like to do with it?", as opposed to "You opened Instagram? I assume you want to do stuff with photos". By example, when I look up a contact in my address book in Windows Phone, it allows me to look up my history with that person. Emails, texts, IMs, tweets, everything- all in one place, because who thinks "Dave tweeted that at me" over "Dave sent that to me"? By contrast, iOS keeps every interaction siloed in-app. Apple's most "natural" interactions result in making the address book look like a leather bound book.
- eddieroger 15y ago
  A good majority of apps use a hierarchy of views, which is exceptionally natural since we see generations of things everywhere, including our own families. One view is parent to the next, and so on.
- ImprovedSilence 15y ago
  "By example, when I look up a contact in my address book in Windows Phone, it allows me to look up my history with that person. Emails, texts, IMs, tweets, everything- all in one place, because who thinks "Dave tweeted that at me" over "Dave sent that to me"? By contrast, iOS keeps every interaction siloed in-app." that's a very good point. And that sounds like a FANTASTIC feature I'd love to have on my phone. your right, if the windows phone is more "people centric", as opposed to "app centric" And now that you mention it, I'd love to try out the windows phone, because it really sounds like they have it together. I think Android could go this way too, there's a lot they can do. But as fass as buggieness, and overall satisfaction, I've had a rather disappointing time with android (only smartphone I've owed.)
  - HorizonXP 15y ago
    And it's funny how BlackBerry has been doing this for several years now, but people seemed to have just glossed over it. RIM has had NUMEROUS missteps over the last few years, but they do have some good ideas in there. Let's hope they shine this week with BB10. Oh, and let me get the obligatory, "BlackBerry? They still exist?" out of the way.
RandallBrown 15y ago
Windows Phone is a breath of fresh air, design wise. I'm not saying iPhone is ugly, but I've just used it for a few years so it no longer seems as shiny and nice. Windows Phone is fun to use and I really enjoy some aspects of it. The Lumia is a good phone, but it's still not as good as my iPhone 4. The screen and camera are what really ruin it for me. Software wise, I miss a lot of apps, and while some of the stuff windows does with merging contacts between twitter, Facebook, etc. is cool, it falls down when it isn't done perfectly (which is rare) I will say using a Windows Phone is MUCH "nicer" than an Android phone, but it still has a ways to go feature wise.

by manmal 15y ago

diminish 15y ago

I want to say "Woz is the most handsome man in tech business." just to emphasize that beauty is subjective. But I am curious, a lot of praise comes to windows mobile from iphone fans (I am not talking about Woz but many others). Would there be a lot of Apple fans really switching to Lumias or are they simply telling it just to criticize Android?

redthrowaway 15y ago
The latter, I suspect. In Apple-worshipping circles, they bought the "Android is a stolen product" bit hook, line and sinker, conveniently ignoring the fact that the iPhone's interface was just an iteration on everything else that had come before. They look at the Windows phones and say, "see? You didn't have to copy the iPhone!" They would never use it, but it's necessary to praise it in order to validate their indignation that Android is more successful and widespread (which feeds into their sense of superiority as being among the select few who see the light). I'm seriously not an Apple hater. I have a MBP and a 3gs. I'll probably get a 5 when it comes out. I love the industrial design of Apple's products. But a good half the people I know who use them have a near-religious attachment to them, and fully buy into the Jobsian reality distortion field. It's kind of like how, as a Canucks fan, I love my team but hate half the fans.
- gnaffle 15y ago
  I think many iPhone fans see WP7 as an attempt to innovate, whereas Android seems more like an attempt to imitate (of course, Android has had many innovations as well). Apple made the first usable and popular touchscreen smartphone, and Androids success is largely due to the fact that Google recognized this and quickly repositioned Android, and I think that's pretty evident by looking at the evolution of the Android OS. The original Android prototypes didn't look very innovative, they looked like imitations of Symbian or WM6.
  - kelnos 15y ago
    I think many iPhone fans see WP7 as an attempt to innovate, whereas Android seems more like an attempt to imitate (of course, Android has had many innovations as well). So what? At the end of the day I care that my phone works well and in a way that makes sense to me. I don't care whether or not it's a "copy" of another user interface.
  - wmil 15y ago
    The iPhone UI looks a lot like an updated Palm Tungsten T3, I'm not sure how innovative it actually was.
    - Xuzz 15y ago
      The major innovation was the scrolling: none of the previous touchscreen phones had smooth, natural, physics-based scrolling on a capacitive (e.g. finger, not fingernail) touchscreen. The home screen is a prettier version of the Palm OS one, and much of the UI is similar, although it feels a lot more natural with animations and without a desktop-style menu bar.
      - pedalpete 15y ago
        Are better scrolling and natural animations really innovation? It's much more of a progression. Touchscreen is the same? I believe the quality of touchscreens weren't good enough before 1997.
tedunangst 15y ago
As an iPhone user, Android is "the same, but different". The Windows Phone sample I played with was actually different. Whether Android cloned iPhone or not, it feels like their design was, in many cases, "do what they do." With WP, it just seems more like they actually stepped back and asked, "What are we trying to do again?" Of course, all three end up being fairly similar, there's only so many solutions to the same problem.

ConstantineXVI 15y ago

IMHO, if you used Android phones 2 years ago (I have, they sucked), you'd be killing to have a Lumia. I find the overall experience stunning despite the relatively low resolution (which is still plenty usable); their attention to detail should have Apple quaking. ICS is just now catching up in terms of polish; and they still have ways to go. I'm using the Galaxy Nexus now, but I was impressed with the Lumia enough that I'm likely switching to WP full-time when Apollo phones hit

damptrousers 15y ago
Quaking? Please. Apple doesn't quake. If it pushes them in terms of innovation, great. But if you think they're quaking, you're clueless.
nextparadigms 15y ago
So are you impressed with the phone itself or the OS? I get the feeling that all this interest in WP7 started because people really like the phone. WP7.5 has been around for at least 6 months, and style wise its the same as it was late 2010. If Nokia didn't make a nicely designed phone, WP7 would still be as little talked about as it was before and with just as little interest. I agree with Joshua Topolsky that a lot more people would be interested in it if it had ICS on that phone.
- ConstantineXVI 15y ago
  The OS, it's absolutely solid. I was using the 710; which isn't nearly as impressive hardware as the 800/900 (I've yet to see one in person). I should note that Silverlight is equally pleasant to work with, can't say the same for Android's SDK.
- clarky07 15y ago
  I've developed apps for all 3 devices, and while I use the iPhone personally, I think WP7 is much better than android. Im talking about WP7 phones from a year ago too. Every time I use an android phone it is buggy and not at all responsive. When I click a button I don't like waiting for it to do something.

untog 15y ago

The navigation paradigma Microsoft uses is not for me, I prefer Apple's more natural approach. I'm fascinated to know what is "natural" about Apple's approach. I think it is "natural" because you are used to it. To me, it feels overly (/incredibly) app-centric. Both Android and Windows Phone (to differing degrees) feel far more task based: "You have a photo. What would you like to do with it?", as opposed to "You opened Instagram? I assume you want to do stuff with photos". By example, when I look up a contact in my address book in Windows Phone, it allows me to look up my history with that person. Emails, texts, IMs, tweets, everything- all in one place, because who thinks "Dave tweeted that at me" over "Dave sent that to me"? By contrast, iOS keeps every interaction siloed in-app. Apple's most "natural" interactions result in making the address book look like a leather bound book.

eddieroger 15y ago
A good majority of apps use a hierarchy of views, which is exceptionally natural since we see generations of things everywhere, including our own families. One view is parent to the next, and so on.
ImprovedSilence 15y ago
"By example, when I look up a contact in my address book in Windows Phone, it allows me to look up my history with that person. Emails, texts, IMs, tweets, everything- all in one place, because who thinks "Dave tweeted that at me" over "Dave sent that to me"? By contrast, iOS keeps every interaction siloed in-app." that's a very good point. And that sounds like a FANTASTIC feature I'd love to have on my phone. your right, if the windows phone is more "people centric", as opposed to "app centric" And now that you mention it, I'd love to try out the windows phone, because it really sounds like they have it together. I think Android could go this way too, there's a lot they can do. But as fass as buggieness, and overall satisfaction, I've had a rather disappointing time with android (only smartphone I've owed.)
- HorizonXP 15y ago
  And it's funny how BlackBerry has been doing this for several years now, but people seemed to have just glossed over it. RIM has had NUMEROUS missteps over the last few years, but they do have some good ideas in there. Let's hope they shine this week with BB10. Oh, and let me get the obligatory, "BlackBerry? They still exist?" out of the way.

RandallBrown 15y ago

Windows Phone is a breath of fresh air, design wise. I'm not saying iPhone is ugly, but I've just used it for a few years so it no longer seems as shiny and nice. Windows Phone is fun to use and I really enjoy some aspects of it. The Lumia is a good phone, but it's still not as good as my iPhone 4. The screen and camera are what really ruin it for me. Software wise, I miss a lot of apps, and while some of the stuff windows does with merging contacts between twitter, Facebook, etc. is cool, it falls down when it isn't done perfectly (which is rare) I will say using a Windows Phone is MUCH "nicer" than an Android phone, but it still has a ways to go feature wise.