I upgraded day of release. Look. I actually like the new start screen more than I thought I would. Love it actually. I feel like I have all the functionality of my Android Phone/WP 7.5/whatever in addition to all the power of Windows. I use a Notebook now instead of a desktop, and it's decently portable so this is an empowering feeling. Being able to log in with Microsoft account and have everything sync is nice. Live Tiles are nice, however, there are issues with the Metro apps that I just cannot shake. I'm really struggling with some of them.
1. The Messaging Hub:
The Message Delivery Issues and Notification Issues have been there since Windows Phone was released. I have Facebook for Android installed on my Smartphone and I have no clue where the Notifications will show up. Sometimes on my Notebook, sometimes on my Phone, sometimes on both. Oftentimes the messages don't even show up until I open the Hub. On a PC the connection should be fast as hell, since battery concerns are a bit lower (yes, it's a Notebook, but it's plugged in 90% of the time).
Secondly, cannot send even Pictures from Message Hub. Need at least that.
Thirdly, you cannot change the color of the Message Bubbles, or any of the accent colors in the Hub. It should use the color that you chose for the user interface (Lighter Blue on Darker Blue for me), but I am bombarded with PURPLE EVERYWHERE. I cannot STAND that color. Is it really that hard to simply give us a toggle to use Accent colors we chose when we installed the OS in those stock Hub/Metro Applications.
Right now a User is better off disabling Messenger Hub and simply downloading and installing Windows Live Messenger.
2. Mail App. Cannot set up IMAP or POP3 Email accounts last I checked. It uses an ActiveSync connection last I checked, but my smartphone on the same WiFi connection is consistently faster than the PC. It's still fast enough, but I'm wondering why. A lot of functionality is not exposed in the menus. Needs a bit more in there...
3. People/Contacts: It was a while before I found out how to get to my contacts list, to the point that I thought one didn't even exist. Should be a button there under your contact picture on the first pane to go there. Really, this is fundamental design failure, IMO.
Cannot post pictures to Facebook or Twitter, nevermind Video to Facebook.
Too many clicks/movement just to get to the contact list, and the contact list itself waste way too much screen real estate.
4. Calendar. User interface is beyond poor and you cannot set recurrent appointments across specific data. For example if I want an appointment to occur at a certain time on Tue/Wed/Thurs then I either have to use Windows Live Mail (from Essentials, the Desktop App), or go to Windows Live Calendar on the web and set it myself. And like I said, the user interface needshelp.
5. Photos: Bad font choice, IMO. Cannot share Images or Video to Facebook or Twitter, from the Photos app. You're better off just using Photo Gallery and Movie Maker.
Basically. A lot of the hype I personally had over Metro was the fact that Microsoft was actually doing what they failed to do in the last version of Vista that shipped with all this functionality baked into the OS - Vista came with all these apps but none of them were tied to Microsoft's services.
In the end, they're there, but they are so poorly integrated and disconnected from the other services built into the OS that it isn't even worth using them over the Windows Live Essentials Desktop Application.
You can share Pictures to SkyDrive, but from the SkyDrive Hub you STILL cannot share that Picture to Facebook or Twitter. It's an endless cycle of frustration.
Which makes me think, would I really want to have to deal with that on a TABLET PC which cannot run the Desktop version of Microsoft's app suite (Live Essentials)? In my opinion, "HELL NO!"
Part of the reason I initially got into Windows Phone and part of the reason why I upgraded so early to Windows 8 was to make my life easier, and in the end it turns out that it didn't really change the way I did anything. It just added one more step (open desktop) to the equation. In any case, the performance increase was worth it, but while the new Start screen looks nice and does offer a decent integration of mobile to a desktop OS the stock apps fall way short of the mark and are in need of desperate attention.
No comments:
Post a Comment