Is WP7 UI really more efficient then iOS/Android?

[articuno1au]

Generally speaking, most people don't cram icons all over their Android homescreens, so the argument that Android gives you the freedom to access apps more quickly is pretty weak. In reality, even after two years of using Android, I prefer my primary home screen to be fairly empty and more about information than applications (time, weather, battery, notifications, calendar--stuff I can glance at, not stuff I'd necessarily tap). In that sense, live tiles actually make a lot of sense. The first thing most users--even power users--want to see when turning on their screen isn't a shortcut to Angry Birds. Anyone can visit any homescreen screenshots thread on XDA/PPCgeeks and see even the deified hacking community prioritizing enormous battery meters over frequently used applications--and these are the people developing the very homescreen apps praised for being more functional than alternatives.

Not that they aren't. You can take my Go Launcher EX from my cold, dead hands.

But arguing that an extra tap or an extra swipe is somehow a reduction in efficiency stinks of fanboyism and using obscure and unlikely scenarios as examples of superiority. ANYBODY can come up with a scenario where any platform ever written is superior. DOS 20 years ago may have been the most efficient OS ever written at changing which partition you're accessing at the moment (letter + : + return = three keystrokes, max), but who cares? All that matters is what 99% of users are more likely to do, and arguing that the desires or habits of 1% of users constitutes the importance of 'choice' is absolutely absurd, and the day 1% of users has sway over the direction of the market is the day technology falls into the dark ages.

Ultimately, it's about how you use your handset that defines how efficient it is, since many people prioritize different functions. If you primarily use your smartphone for taking pictures, social networking, messaging, and keeping up with schedules and dynamic information, WP7 is perhaps more efficient than Android/iOS. That doesn't make it any less of a smart phone, since the reality is, smartphones are nothing more THAN social/schedule/app devices, and all three platforms today are equally capable. If the freedom to hack and unlock is part of your definition of a smartphone, then I'm sorry, but you're wrong. The freedom to modify is not a part of the smartphone model any more than the freedom to change out components is part of the PC model (or else laptops wouldn't be considered personal computers). It's necessary to remember that people were calling Android a smartphone OS long before it had a Market, back in the early days when it was a horrific piece of crap--but what's new? iOS was a piece of crap when it first launched as well, and the vast majority of raving reviews focused entirely on mobile safari, and despite lacking basic functionalities like MMS, was hailed as the rebirth of the smartphone.

Wasting time on painfully useless semantics may be a great way to make yourself feel like you're making a point on the internet, but lacking perspective, the only people who'll ever agree are people who already do, and without the power to change minds, the love of arguing is nothing but douchebaggery.

Beautiful sir. +1 to you.

WP7 is a lot more efficient. I've never owned a windows phone before my Omnia 7 but I had a iPhone2G and then a Samsung Galaxy S so I've used the main three other than Blackberry, I also have a first gen itouch.

The iphone well the UI is responsive and good but everything is basically an app and it feels that way. Every app you download adds an icon.

Android you can customize a lot, it's a bit better than the iphone technically but 2.2 the animations aren't as nice. It just doesn't feel as polished as the iphones, I've not used 2.3.

WP7, the live tiles are great I can't wait for more live support. They are easy to press and move around. The animations are great, the only complaint I have is that some app tiles don't look nice but they are improving. With the list of all the apps etc when you swipe to the right, I wish you could have folders to group some apps together.

WP7 does have icons as well, they are just massively oversized :p

I just think that the UI is not finished yet. I think the ability to create user-hubs is essential. F.e., I'd want to create a "Video" hub where I'd put Netflix/Hulu and other video streaming service under.

You've never used it and you are saying it's not finished yet. Superb. As stated a little earlier, certain hubs pull different apps in together. There is no need for folders with that model.

I saw a few shots of a Mango handset a MS rep had, with the updated live tile system, and it's crazy how dynamic his start screen was. Lots of things in motion and updating with info without him even doing anything. Hell right now on the default 7.0 I often just unlock the phone, check out if I have some updates like to FB (now that it has a live tile), twitter, and check out the weather etc, without doing anything else.

It's really about what info you want to see quick and that's what you pin to the screen, to that extent it's like widgets yet I bet, specially in mango, that you can get more info on that single screen of life tiles compared to Androids 5 or so home screens. Lets face it, gadgets/widgets, depending on what they do, can take up quite some space. Not that that's wrong, if you like it fine.

Live tiles are awesome. It's like built in notifiers JUST FOR THE APPS YOU WANT :o It's beautiful.

I much prefer it over the iPhone I used for a few months. I also prefer it to Windows Mobile 6.5 for pure simplicity.. I do miss a couple of things from 6.5 though :(

All in all, I'd buy another one. I think that's the best "props" I can give the platform.

[guru]

Does your thread actually have a point other than your usual trolling?

How can you comment on WP7 if you've never actually used the damn thing.

come on.. he's right.. There's got to be a way of organizing all Apps

While WP7 UI is better than Android and iOS. like most things it could do with a few options and additions here and there.

dude, what's the point of this thread?

you know what beats ALL the smartphones in primary functionality? a dumb phone. no swipes, no clicks, you can make a phone call immediately.

get yourself one and go away troll.

do you have to be so hostile ?

[articuno1au]

With Mangos we are getting the letter sort feature like we have in our contact lists >.< Should help a bit.

I've never felt the need for grouped apps. That's not to say others don't or wont; but I've never had the need >.<

[guru]

I saw a few shots of a Mango handset a MS rep had, with the updated live tile system, and it's crazy how dynamic his start screen was. Lots of things in motion and updating with info without him even doing anything. Hell right now on the default 7.0 I often just unlock the phone, check out if I have some updates like to FB (now that it has a live tile), twitter, and check out the weather etc, without doing anything else.

It's really about what info you want to see quick and that's what you pin to the screen, to that extent it's like widgets yet I bet, specially in mango, that you can get more info on that single screen of life tiles compared to Androids 5 or so home screens. Lets face it, gadgets/widgets, depending on what they do, can take up quite some space. Not that that's wrong, if you like it fine.

(Y)

[BajiRav]

So basically WP7 is a social networking OS rather then a fully functional phone OS.

I just think that the UI is not finished yet. I think the ability to create user-hubs is essential. F.e., I'd want to create a "Video" hub where I'd put Netflix/Hulu and other video streaming service under.

Somehow OP and your subsequent posts in this thread makes me feel that you never intended this to be a serious discussion but just some quick cheap shots.

I will still bite though, try these tasks on iOS/Android and let us know how long it takes (I haven't used both in a long time to know better)

1. Take a picture from a locked phone (WP7 = press camera button)

2. Call from a locked phone (WP7 = press windows key and call)

3. Shoot a photo, back it up online and upload to facebook at the same time; and post a comment on this facebook photo. (WP7 = one tap on upload to facebook, it automatically backs up to skydrive. while it is uploading - type away in the comment box)

I am sure iOS/Android will have similar tasks where WP7 may take longer. So it's all relative and it's stupid to say that WP7 is not "a fully functional OS".

[norseman]

I just think that the UI is not finished yet. I think the ability to create user-hubs is essential. F.e., I'd want to create a "Video" hub where I'd put Netflix/Hulu and other video streaming service under.

You do understand that under the Music/Video hub they already have that right?

Video/Multimedia services are already linked from inside there. It is up to the developers to add that feature to their app.

Ignorant troll. Yeah you.

[Julius Caro]

Does your thread actually have a point other than your usual trolling?

How can you comment on WP7 if you've never actually used the damn thing.

Frankly, it goes both ways. Mango has been incessantly hyped for months, and nobody has actually used it. Well, I guess they have now with the developer release.

One first has to define efficiency before comparing the three main mobile OSs, and I doubt the number of taps required to get somewhere is a valid one.

[Dick Montage]

Y'all be postin' in a troll thread!

[thechronic]

Quicker, perhaps not but simpler?

[Dapen]

WP7 is easily the most intuitive and easy to use phone I've used, since owning, Androids, Windows Mobile, iPhone, NOKIA, Samsung, etc.

[Microsoft_Bob]

Having used all three, I can safely say that both Android and iOS blow Windows phone/mobile out of the water. Microsoft's tile/metro UI is blocky, dated, and inefficient to use. Android's home screens are much nicer. In addition, I have to say that the Windows mobile app store quite frankly sucks. It's just filled with low quality fart apps. I'd be surprised if any developer working on the Windows mobile platform can even break even given the the cost of the SDK/fees.

If I had to choose between iOS and Android though, I would choose Android because of its customisability, ease of use, and functionality.

[Prince781]

Having used all three, I can safely say that both Android and iOS blow Windows phone/mobile out of the water. Microsoft's tile/metro UI is blocky, dated, and inefficient to use. Android's home screens are much nicer. In addition, I have to say that the Windows mobile app store quite frankly sucks. It's just filled with low quality fart apps. I'd be surprised if any developer working on the Windows mobile platform can even break even given the the cost of the SDK/fees.

If I had to choose between iOS and Android though, I would choose Android because of its customisability, ease of use, and functionality.

Ignorant post is ignorant. Care to elaborate on how the UI is "blocky, dated, and inefficient"? Seems to me like those all apply to Android's UI instead.

[articuno1au]

Having used all three, I can safely say that both Android and iOS blow Windows phone/mobile out of the water. Microsoft's tile/metro UI is blocky, dated, and inefficient to use. Android's home screens are much nicer. In addition, I have to say that the Windows mobile app store quite frankly sucks. It's just filled with low quality fart apps. I'd be surprised if any developer working on the Windows mobile platform can even break even given the the cost of the SDK/fees.

If I had to choose between iOS and Android though, I would choose Android because of its customisability, ease of use, and functionality.

And we've never seen you give a biased opinion ever.

Go crawl back under your bridge..

[micro]

Having used all three, I can safely say that both Android and iOS blow Windows phone/mobile out of the water. Microsoft's tile/metro UI is blocky, dated, and inefficient to use. Android's home screens are much nicer. In addition, I have to say that the Windows mobile app store quite frankly sucks. It's just filled with low quality fart apps. I'd be surprised if any developer working on the Windows mobile platform can even break even given the the cost of the SDK/fees.

If I had to choose between iOS and Android though, I would choose Android because of its customisability, ease of use, and functionality.

I couldn't disagree more! Metro being outdated and inefficient? Hardly.

Ive used all three and I have to say that by far I thoroughly enjoy using wp7 over the others. Every day i find something new that makes me love it even more.

Also there are many many great apps in the marketplace.

[guru]

Ignorant post is ignorant. Care to elaborate on how the UI is "blocky, dated, and inefficient"? Seems to me like those all apply to Android's UI instead.

yeah... +1 not sure where got that from..

[Microsoft_Bob]

Care to elaborate on how the UI is "blocky, dated, and inefficient"?

I don't find a long strip of tiles with oversized text and garish, overly done animations particularly useful, nor do i find scrolling through them efficient. With regards to the blocky and dated comment, I say that because it's so unattractive and looks like something from the late 80's/early 90's. I guess the public agrees with me because at the moment it's not selling well.

[articuno1au]

I don't find a long strip of tiles with oversized text and garish, overly done animations particularly useful, nor do i find scrolling through them efficient. With regards to the blocky and dated comment, I say that because it's so unattractive and looks like something from the late 80's/early 90's. I guess the public agrees with me because at the moment it's not selling well.

Your opinion is noted. Now please cite design principles and foundation policies towards a factual statement and conclusion. You made an assertion, now support the assertion or retract and acknowledge it was opinion of the most biased and useless sort possible.

Furthermore, please provide sources showing that Windows Phone is not selling well. I've already sunk you on this once, feel free to prove me wrong.

Looking forward to you posting your combined usage numbers for Windows Phone and Windows Mobile again :)

[snipped]

[articuno1au]

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Edited July 11, 2011 by articuno1au

[Microsoft_Bob]

Your opinion is noted. Now please cite design principles and foundation policies towards a factual statement and conclusion. You made an assertion, now support the assertion or retract and acknowledge it was opinion of the most biased and useless sort possible.

It isn't selling, or at least very poorly. Is that not an indicator that the tile/metro UI isn't resonating with the public?

Furthermore, please provide sources showing that Windows Phone is not selling well. I've already sunk you on this once, feel free to prove me wrong.

It hasn?t sold as well as Microsoft or we would want it to.'

Source

If AT&T's De Vega says it isn't selling well, I tend to listen to him. AT&T is after all one of the biggest carriers in the US. I've also read reports of even worse sales elsewhere in the world.

Looking forward to you posting your combined usage numbers for Windows Phone and Windows Mobile again :)

Microsoft doesn't provide sales numbers (to customers), or activations, so all but impossible to separate the two. What we do know though is that Windows marketshare in the mobile sector is in decline. That means what ever Windows Phone is selling, it's not enough to counteract the slowing sales of Windows Mobile 6.x. Users, businesses etc seem to be jumping ship to competing operating systems.

[articuno1au]

It isn't selling, or at least very poorly. Is that not an indicator that the tile/metro UI isn't resonating with the public?

Source

If AT&T's De Vega says it isn't selling well, I tend to listen to him. AT&T is after all one of the biggest carriers in the US. I've also read reports of even worse sales elsewhere in the world.

Microsoft doesn't provide sales numbers (to customers), or activations, so all but impossible to separate the two. What we do know though is that Windows marketshare in the mobile sector is in decline. That means what ever Windows Phone is selling, it's not enough to counteract the slowing sales of Windows Mobile 6.x. Users, businesses etc seem to be jumping ship to competing operating systems.

You fail to provide proof that it's still not selling.

What you have provided is an anecdotal statement of an executive saying it hasn't sold as well as Microsoft would want it to.. How does he know what Microsoft's goals are? Do we know that their goals are unreasonable? In short, Microsoft could wish it would sell 100000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 units. It failed to do so, thus is below their expectations. This so called source proves nothing.

Even more telling is that it's a single wireless provider quoted. It's also a single wireless provider in a single market. If it had been a Vodafone exec, at least they would have global numbers. You have again failed to provide any form of proof.

I like that you've adapted to my argument about Windows Phone/Mobile market share. You are learning slowly but surely. Microsoft had an EXCLUSIVE hold on the enterprise market, of course they aren't going to be able to sell Windows Phone as fast as Windows Mobile is released. This does not prove that the phone is not selling well. You are also mixing Microsoft's CONSUMER operating system with the numbers from their enterprise markets. Not to mention that a large percentage of the enterprise market devices never access the sites that your previously provided metrics (from another thread) were talking about.

As a side note, it's very easy to separate the two. Both devices have different operating systems and IE versions. If the companies bothered to add the check, they'd know. In fact I am betting they do know, they just choose not to publish it.

I disagree with the last statement, but I do not believe I could meet the burden of proof necessary to make my point.. There is something to be taken away from the "Bring your own device" approach that a lot of businesses take now days. It certainly skews business numbers.

Whichever way we choose to take it, I don't think you could reasonably say people are "jumping ship". Making the move is probably right, but it's not a sinking ship, and thus there is no need for jumping.

[Pettor]

The hubs has great potential. What I see now is people using Android/iPhone and similar apps without any interaction between them. The hubs has been used by Microsoft to represent information from many different places in the same UI, e.g. the people hub. This is great I think. Say Spotify register to the music hub then it will allow this hub to fetch information and integrate it with the other music services. Great way for applications to participate and interact without loosing control.

But this will require continuously updates by Microsoft because the vision is not complete yet. Mango will be a great improvement and work towards this vision. Anyway as a last note, I really like my WP7 phone. I don't hesitate for the moment to continue buying WP7/WP8 phones in the future.

[LaP]

Like for 99% of things it's really a matter of taste.

I did not use WP7 just saw some video. I got an ipod and a desire.

I think the app centric design of the ipod/iphone works well. I got a mail icon on my home screen. It shows how many new mails i got. From a single click i have access to my mails. Can't really be more productive than that. The facebook app is great. There's lot of great im apps around. It's simple to use.

I like my desire too.

I'm not a fan of desktop widgets on windows vista/7. But it's mostly cause there's no good widgets and no community support at all (as well as no support from MS). If WP7 have better community and 1st party support it's surely a great idea. Rain meter desktop posted here on neowin all look awesome.

Like for almost everything it's a mater of taste. I hate the ribbon UI. People keep telling me i'll get used to it and once i get used it'll be the best thing since sliced bread. Yet i've been using the ribbon ui for half a year and still can't stand it. Doesn't mean it's a bad UI just that i don't like it.

[Dick Montage]

Having used all 3 (so don't start criticising me of not knowing)...

iPhone: I found the interface to be VERY slick and very uniform. HOWEVER, the absolute fail that is iOS multitasking, lack of a "home screen" or widgets - it hardly felt the most efficient.

WP7: I disliked it until I used it. I like the paradigm of "seeing a view of the whole", which to me is what metro represents. I actually found it a lot more usable than it looks from screenshots. HOWEVER, it's inability to have much on-screen at once (homescreen blocks felt like they used too much space for too little usage) wasn't very efficient either. FAR superior to iOS though.

Android: I'm a huge android fan, but I wasn't always. Early handsets featuring earlier builds felt almost like a "wtf is this" OS. It's become a LOT better, and a lot more customisable to the way people want their phones to be. My only gripe is that not everything is as "integrated" as it can be, it's not as "uniform" - but that's the nature of the beast.

[articuno1au]

Like for 99% of things it's really a matter of taste.

I did not use WP7 just saw some video. I got an ipod and a desire.

I think the app centric design of the ipod/iphone works well. I got a mail icon on my home screen. It shows how many new mails i got. From a single click i have access to my mails. Can't really be more productive than that. The facebook app is great. There's lot of great im apps around. It's simple to use.

I like my desire too.

I'm not a fan of desktop widgets on windows vista/7. But it's mostly cause there's no good widgets and no community support at all (as well as no support from MS). If WP7 have better community and 1st party support it's surely a great idea. Rain meter desktop posted here on neowin all look awesome.

Like for almost everything it's a mater of taste. I hate the ribbon UI. People keep telling me i'll get used to it and once i get used it'll be the best thing since sliced bread. Yet i've been using the ribbon ui for half a year and still can't stand it. Doesn't mean it's a bad UI just that i don't like it.

I'm going to +1 you. Intelligent and considered posting. I like it.

WP7 has the same approach with emails :) MS have directly included Facebook integration, which works for some people.. I personally don't have a Facebook :p If I did I can see notifications on my home screen, just like most of the others.

I loath widgets on Vista/7 for exactly the reasons you stated.

The ribbon is meh for me. I do however notice that new users pick it up a lot faster then they did the older system, which is good I guess?

Either way, props for not being a retarded fanboy.

Having used all 3 (so don't start criticising me of not knowing)...

iPhone: I found the interface to be VERY slick and very uniform. HOWEVER, the absolute fail that is iOS multitasking, lack of a "home screen" or widgets - it hardly felt the most efficient.

WP7: I disliked it until I used it. I like the paradigm of "seeing a view of the whole", which to me is what metro represents. I actually found it a lot more usable than it looks from screenshots. HOWEVER, it's inability to have much on-screen at once (homescreen blocks felt like they used too much space for too little usage) wasn't very efficient either. FAR superior to iOS though.

Android: I'm a huge android fan, but I wasn't always. Early handsets featuring earlier builds felt almost like a "wtf is this" OS. It's become a LOT better, and a lot more customisable to the way people want their phones to be. My only gripe is that not everything is as "integrated" as it can be, it's not as "uniform" - but that's the nature of the beast.

I like Android for the customisation. It's the strength and weakness of the platform.

I also agree that WP7's tiles are a bit big sometimes. There are a lot of tiles I would like to shrink to a quarter of their size..

+1 to you to.

[rijp]

It seems that it requires more swipes to get to an app because of limited real estate compared to iOS/Android where you can fit 20 icons(including the dock). I fail to see how the hub approach makes accomplishing a task easier. It's nice eye candy, but it doesn't seem like it's user friendly.

Yeah it's all relative. I have WP7. I was a previous iPhone user. You couldn't PAY me to go back to an iPhone. HATED it.

Yeah you can put 20 icons PER screen. Now if you have 80 apps.. what screen is it on? Yeah you didn't think about that did you? It takes more swipes to do the same thing? I think not. I can put whatever tiles on the MAIN screen I want, then you swipe only once to get a FULL list of APPS in one place.

So I am not sure what you are talking about. WP7 is much better more organized, and it's more customized.. I will take WP7 over iPhone any day of the week, but it's all user preference.