Re:Microsoft Is Writing Checks to Fill Out Its App Store
by Joeri on Friday April 06, 2012 @01:54AM
(#3806149)
I feel that windows phone is more realistic in its assumptions of how tiny and dense content can be and remain usable, but that's probably because i don't have perfect vision. I also think the chromeless look is more future-oriented, because it won't look dated as quickly. The iOS look already seems dated to me (perhaps because i used a mac for years before i saw iOS).
Oh, and the app-centric model of iOS and Android is in my opinion a design flaw. A humane design shouldn't organize based on apps but based on tasks, and those tasks shouldn't get equal visibility an an icon grid.
Re:Microsoft Is Writing Checks to Fill Out Its App Store
by underwater on Friday April 06, 2012 @12:25AM
(#3805999)
When I switched from iOS my first thought was "there's so much chrome." Useless borders, shadows, textures and gloss abound. Generally the phones are similar in capabilities but I think the overly complicate iOS design makes people assume it's a more advanced product.
This has actually been a well known criticism of WP7 that goes under the name "low information density". People counter that by saying it's a feature, not a bug.
For me, it creates a problem because every time I pick up a WP7 handset it feels like a feature phone. The nicest feature-phone I ever held, but it still has this limited, focused, prebaked feel that I find hard to explain but which exactly reminds me of the same feeling I get with feature phones. I think the smart phone market is very much an aspirational one where people expect to feel like they're stepping into the future, and WP7 just doesn't feel like that. As much as everyone praises iOS for it's polished and slick nature, that's not actually why people are buying phones (and also why Android succeeds in spite of having missed the polish). They are trying to empower themselves with something more advanced than their previous phone which probably already had things like a facebook widget and weather app, etc.