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"Now that Windows Phone has managed to clobber iOS when it comes to customization without losing its aesthetic charm, it’s time for Apple to step it up" This s

"Now that Windows Phone has managed to clobber iOS when it comes to customization without losing its aesthetic charm, it’s time for Apple to step it up" This sentence really leapt out at me. Are we looking at the same rainbow disaster screen shots? Windows phone looks like a unicorn puked on a phone. I don't think it give any compelling reason on it's own for iOS to shift.

pilgrim689 14y ago
I guess it's subjective, but you would be in the minority [1] for thinking Metro UI is a "unicorn vomit/rainbow disaster". [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metro_UI#Response http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metro_UI#Response
- vibrunazo 14y ago
  How can you be sure? Your link only have a few select critics, whose opinion are 99% useless. I wanna know what real users think. My own personal anecdote asking a few people about it is closer to unicorn puke than acclamation. But I don't like anecdotes. Are there are quantitative study with a large sample of users' opinions about how Metro looks? I'd be very interested in one. There have been many reports here and there about how people like metro. But without such study, anyone saying it looks "good" or "bad" are just worthless anecdotes. Of course it's subjective, what really matters is what the majority of the target audience thinks.
  - hdctambien 14y ago
    I think you have to use WP7 to get past the "unicorn poop" look. To you, looking at the screenshots, you see a mess of a UI. My me, looking at the home screen my my WP7 I see my Fiance, my brother, my Mother and my Best friend and it toggles between their picture and their latest Facebook updates. My phone doesn't look like "unicorn poop" to me. It might to you, though. I imagine Microsoft has data about what people like/dislike about Metro, and they are doubling down on it so the data is probably leaning in the "good" direction.
- meepmorp 14y ago
  I hate the Metro UI. I hate the live tiles,I hate the way text seems to drift off the edge of the screen; I hate the way it looks, and navigating through it annoyed me. I've only ever seen it on a phone, though, so maybe a tablet would improve things. I'm not a UI expert, so maybe I'm missing something awesome. I am, however, a user of consumer electronics, and as far as that qualifies me to comment, I think it looks like crap and would never buy a Metro UI based product.
  - nkerkin 14y ago
    Haters gonna hate. Having used (and developed for) Palm, WM6, Symbian, Android and iOS over the years, I find WP7 to be the most joyful, intuitive OS I have ever used. Have you used WP7 for any amount of time or just seen screenshots? If so, I'm genuinely interested in why you hate it so much. The "text seems to drift" is an excellent UI/Navigation feature, it combines the title of the page AND indicates which tab you are on, rather than having a little row of dots.
- cmelbye 14y ago
  I think he/she is talking about the screenshots of the new start screen that accompanied the announcement. Personally, I love the current WP7 and I thought that the new screen ditched a lot of the simplicity and looked very busy and unattractive.
  - nkerkin 14y ago
    Agreed. The fixed size live tiles differentiated WP7 from the others. Now they just look like android widgets, albeit with more consistent styling.
electrograv 14y ago
Well you could also say that the iPhone home screen looks like a bin of shiny colored glass children's toys were spilled onto the screen. This type of criticism doesn't really help, because the vast majority of people seem to think both (metro, and iOS) look fine, if not great. What matters is how usable these phones/OS'es will turn out to be once people start trying them.
- mrdodge 14y ago
  The critics think it looks great. I haven't heard anything positive, however, from normal people. Just my experience though.
  - untog 14y ago
    Everyone I showed my WP phone to absolutely loved the look of it. Anecdotal evidence, for sure, but I'm of the impression that Metro is more or less universally well-regarded. The OS as a whole is a different story.
  - jsz0 14y ago
    I like the visual style and even the home-screen but I am not sold on Metro actually being a good UI toolkit for applications. It may just be the immaturity of the platform at this point. It's just not even in the same ballpark of flexibility/power that you get for 'free' with Cocoa Touch. As a result a lot of the Metro apps I've used are just very basic and lacking features -- or they have to jump through hoops to make a UI workflow for powerful features. If you have any recommendations for Metro apps that are really pushing the limits of the UI framework I'd like to check them out.
untog 14y ago
It's a matter of taste, really. I disagree with you, but I can't exactly say that you're wrong. For me, the iOS homescreen is too limiting. All an app can do is show its icon and a number of pending notifications. Android is too far the other way- widgets can be far too attention grabbing and obtrusive- silly animations of clouds moving in front of a sun, nonsense like that. WP hits a great balance between the two- widgets/tiles are of a fixed size, and the metro aesthetic means that none are too visually invasive. I have a Windows Phone that I used as my primary phone for a few months before switching back to Android. The third party support wasn't there and the Maps functionality was dire. But I think that it has the best UI of any mobile OS out there right now- it's genuinely a joy to use. Getting Nokia on board looks to solve the issue with maps, and hopefully this codebase synchronisation will result in more third party developers making quality apps. We'll see. Well, I won't, because my phone won't run WP8...
- hammersend 14y ago
  Android is "too far the other way" because some developers throw everything they have at making a whiz-bang widget? How about just not using that widget instead of using it to cast the platform in a negative light?
  - untog 14y ago
    Because almost every single widget is that way. I don't know what it is about Android, but it seems to encourage absolutely awful design. Maybe it's because Metro is very specific and sparse that WP is less visually offensive. Maybe it's the design tools available. I have no idea. But the number of Android widgets I've found that look even moderately good can be counted on one hand.
    - hammersend 14y ago
      "Because almost every single widget is that way." Pure unadulterated BS. Carry on. Edit: The mod down is funny. So "almost every" Android widget has "far too attention grabbing and obtrusive- silly animations of clouds moving in front of a sun, nonsense like that" now? Almost every single one? Because that's what he said. I actually have several Android devices and it is absolutely not true that almost every widget is like that. And furthermore, who says weather widgets with the sun and clouds and whatever else are silly? There are a lot of people that actually like those widgets and it seems a bit arrogant to condescend their tastes just because you think you know better. This brand of partisan hate and mod-bombing is why I avoid the comment section on almost every tech site these days.
huggyface 14y ago
It is odd when people hold subjective aesthetic opinion as fact. Personally I prefer ICS, by leaps and bounds, over either iOS and WP8, but that's just my personal taste. And what accounts for all of the fawning over the Lumia devices? Those things are terribly ugly in my opinion. Subjective opinion again.

pilgrim689 14y ago

I guess it's subjective, but you would be in the minority [1] for thinking Metro UI is a "unicorn vomit/rainbow disaster". [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metro_UI#Response http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metro_UI#Response

vibrunazo 14y ago
How can you be sure? Your link only have a few select critics, whose opinion are 99% useless. I wanna know what real users think. My own personal anecdote asking a few people about it is closer to unicorn puke than acclamation. But I don't like anecdotes. Are there are quantitative study with a large sample of users' opinions about how Metro looks? I'd be very interested in one. There have been many reports here and there about how people like metro. But without such study, anyone saying it looks "good" or "bad" are just worthless anecdotes. Of course it's subjective, what really matters is what the majority of the target audience thinks.
- hdctambien 14y ago
  I think you have to use WP7 to get past the "unicorn poop" look. To you, looking at the screenshots, you see a mess of a UI. My me, looking at the home screen my my WP7 I see my Fiance, my brother, my Mother and my Best friend and it toggles between their picture and their latest Facebook updates. My phone doesn't look like "unicorn poop" to me. It might to you, though. I imagine Microsoft has data about what people like/dislike about Metro, and they are doubling down on it so the data is probably leaning in the "good" direction.
meepmorp 14y ago
I hate the Metro UI. I hate the live tiles,I hate the way text seems to drift off the edge of the screen; I hate the way it looks, and navigating through it annoyed me. I've only ever seen it on a phone, though, so maybe a tablet would improve things. I'm not a UI expert, so maybe I'm missing something awesome. I am, however, a user of consumer electronics, and as far as that qualifies me to comment, I think it looks like crap and would never buy a Metro UI based product.
- nkerkin 14y ago
  Haters gonna hate. Having used (and developed for) Palm, WM6, Symbian, Android and iOS over the years, I find WP7 to be the most joyful, intuitive OS I have ever used. Have you used WP7 for any amount of time or just seen screenshots? If so, I'm genuinely interested in why you hate it so much. The "text seems to drift" is an excellent UI/Navigation feature, it combines the title of the page AND indicates which tab you are on, rather than having a little row of dots.
cmelbye 14y ago
I think he/she is talking about the screenshots of the new start screen that accompanied the announcement. Personally, I love the current WP7 and I thought that the new screen ditched a lot of the simplicity and looked very busy and unattractive.
- nkerkin 14y ago
  Agreed. The fixed size live tiles differentiated WP7 from the others. Now they just look like android widgets, albeit with more consistent styling.

electrograv 14y ago

Well you could also say that the iPhone home screen looks like a bin of shiny colored glass children's toys were spilled onto the screen. This type of criticism doesn't really help, because the vast majority of people seem to think both (metro, and iOS) look fine, if not great. What matters is how usable these phones/OS'es will turn out to be once people start trying them.

mrdodge 14y ago
The critics think it looks great. I haven't heard anything positive, however, from normal people. Just my experience though.
- untog 14y ago
  Everyone I showed my WP phone to absolutely loved the look of it. Anecdotal evidence, for sure, but I'm of the impression that Metro is more or less universally well-regarded. The OS as a whole is a different story.
- jsz0 14y ago
  I like the visual style and even the home-screen but I am not sold on Metro actually being a good UI toolkit for applications. It may just be the immaturity of the platform at this point. It's just not even in the same ballpark of flexibility/power that you get for 'free' with Cocoa Touch. As a result a lot of the Metro apps I've used are just very basic and lacking features -- or they have to jump through hoops to make a UI workflow for powerful features. If you have any recommendations for Metro apps that are really pushing the limits of the UI framework I'd like to check them out.

untog 14y ago

It's a matter of taste, really. I disagree with you, but I can't exactly say that you're wrong. For me, the iOS homescreen is too limiting. All an app can do is show its icon and a number of pending notifications. Android is too far the other way- widgets can be far too attention grabbing and obtrusive- silly animations of clouds moving in front of a sun, nonsense like that. WP hits a great balance between the two- widgets/tiles are of a fixed size, and the metro aesthetic means that none are too visually invasive. I have a Windows Phone that I used as my primary phone for a few months before switching back to Android. The third party support wasn't there and the Maps functionality was dire. But I think that it has the best UI of any mobile OS out there right now- it's genuinely a joy to use. Getting Nokia on board looks to solve the issue with maps, and hopefully this codebase synchronisation will result in more third party developers making quality apps. We'll see. Well, I won't, because my phone won't run WP8...

hammersend 14y ago
Android is "too far the other way" because some developers throw everything they have at making a whiz-bang widget? How about just not using that widget instead of using it to cast the platform in a negative light?
- untog 14y ago
  Because almost every single widget is that way. I don't know what it is about Android, but it seems to encourage absolutely awful design. Maybe it's because Metro is very specific and sparse that WP is less visually offensive. Maybe it's the design tools available. I have no idea. But the number of Android widgets I've found that look even moderately good can be counted on one hand.
  - hammersend 14y ago
    "Because almost every single widget is that way." Pure unadulterated BS. Carry on. Edit: The mod down is funny. So "almost every" Android widget has "far too attention grabbing and obtrusive- silly animations of clouds moving in front of a sun, nonsense like that" now? Almost every single one? Because that's what he said. I actually have several Android devices and it is absolutely not true that almost every widget is like that. And furthermore, who says weather widgets with the sun and clouds and whatever else are silly? There are a lot of people that actually like those widgets and it seems a bit arrogant to condescend their tastes just because you think you know better. This brand of partisan hate and mod-bombing is why I avoid the comment section on almost every tech site these days.

huggyface 14y ago

It is odd when people hold subjective aesthetic opinion as fact. Personally I prefer ICS, by leaps and bounds, over either iOS and WP8, but that's just my personal taste. And what accounts for all of the fawning over the Lumia devices? Those things are terribly ugly in my opinion. Subjective opinion again.