To say that we're attached to our smartphones would be a massive understatement. The furthest our devices are from our persons are generally when we're in the shower and our phones are our primary medium for connecting with the world. We say this to illustrate just how much of a shakeup a change in device and operating system can be and here are some of our thoughts as we're in the middle of this transition right now.
This post is written from the perspective of an iPhone 4 user switching to a Samsung Focus S which runs Windows 7, Mango. We received the new phone a few days ago and here are some of our thoughts.
The Good
New technology is always fun and we have been pleasantly surprised by the quick adjustments we've made for the lighter and larger phone. We love the bright AMOLED screen and have come to enjoy how the operating system handles the contacts we've been able to input. The Xbox Live integration and games are so far one of our favourites parts of the new phone and operating system and we have found ourselves playing far more games on this device than we did on our iPhone 4. Have we mentioned the 4G service is much snappier than our 3G on AT&T?
The Bad
Getting our data onto the device from MobileMe/iCloud has proven to be a huge pain point. We still have not gotten the calendar to sync or been able to import our contacts. Having been a .Mac and an iOS user for years we have never felt the sting of our devices not playing well together and it's not pretty. Our initial set up Windows wise has also proven to be problematic and the syncing with Windows Live took 2 days, while the Xbox Live syncing was instant. The other difficult thing about making the switch is the apps that we have to leave behind, namely Instagram and Skype. We use both of these apps daily and we really cannot go about our work life without Skype. We think for Skype alone we will have to stick with our iPhone as our primary device and keep this new phone as a gaming/music device.
The Pretty
We really love how the calendar and contacts look and operate in Windows Phone 7 (if only they would sync with our data), The design of these apps is very intuitive and the Metro DNA keeps the user experience of the Windows Phone 7 very clean and consistent. Several apps that we have on both iOS and WP7 look better in WP7 and it pained our Apple loving hearts to admit this. We could see ourselves permanently making the switch to WP7 if it would sync with our Macs the same way our iOS devices do and had the apps that are necessary for our work.
What has switching phone operating systems been like for you? Do you have any tips aside from switching to Google Calendar and Contacts for getting the phone to play nice with the Macs?
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Comments (3)
The bad really is that Apple made it a pain to switch out of the iPhone... to any phones.
But if you were an Android user, switching back and forth WP7 is a no brainer - and in many ways, they can even co-exist.
Apps may look nicer on WP7 but they lack the functionality in some areas.
The Yelp app for instance. On my iPhone and Android phones I was able to open up the app and check into the eatery I happened to be in at the time, this functionality is missing in WP7 which is kind of shocking because it seems to be such a large feature of the mobile experience.
The Facebook app is missing chat functionality. Many links found in Facebook and Twitter posts from other users are unclickable for some reason.
The Amazon app is missing the scan barcode functionality that was present in both the iPhone and Android versions of the app.
The ebay app lacks the ability to view completed items in a search, which you were able to do on the iPhone (not sure about Android on that one).
It just baffles me that some of the basic functionality in these apps were left out in the WP7 versions, it makes 0 sense to me. That coupled with the fact that I am STILL waiting for my phone to receive a Mango update, pretty much ensures that when my upgrade period arrives, I will be going back to iPhone. Such a shame because I think that WP7 has a lot of potential and has the sharpest looking UI out there, but it just isn't doing what I need it to do right now.
Switching from ios to android made me realize that the apps for android are not anywhere nearly as nicely designed as those on ios. The difference between the facebook apps is almost night and day.