Work in progress...
I got my HTC Radar 4G, back in December and having used it for over two months now, I feel comfortable writing down my views on the phone OS. I am not going to write about the hardware as there are numerous reviews out there and there's nothing more for me to add, except for agreeing with the majority out there that it is a great entry level Windows 7.5 phone with solid performance and nothing much to gripe about except for the ability to change battery, but then I think to myself ... Hmmm, why do I need to change the battery? not right now atleast...
I have always had great respect for Microsoft products but always feel that they almost always fail to highlight the best features to the end user. Over the years they have come up with some very promising products but majority of them lost their appeal due to a general perception of them being too complex. For example, OneNote is one of my favorite applications, and I see so much potential in it being a great information organization tool. But MS presents it as a Note taking app, whose utility is not clear to almost 90% of MS Office users who got this product bundled with the other Office suite apps. Majority of the people I have talked to have either never opened it once, and others gave it a try but never understood what should it be used for. Another product I was very fond of was PhotoDraw, that probably never move on from Beta state. I am just dreading the day Windows Phone follow the same path, except in this case it might have some staying power due to the fact that the Metro interface is going to be standard for future Windows OS (Windows 8) and other MS products including Xbox, and Windows tablets. MS came out with Windows phone 7 and it was pitched as a phone OS to get things done faster. Now looking back I can see two major flaws in thWindows 7 launch. First it appeared to be an intermediate product aimed at getting to the market ontime rather than a final product. A lot of features were left for the next iteration named Mango. Coming out with newer versions is standard but coming out with a better version of the same product is not. The success of Apple iPhone and Google Andoid phones is based on the first experience a user get. They know there are updates in the pipeline but what they get are phones they are happy with and not looking for future updates. Windows phone 7 should never have happened, just like Windows Millenium and more recently Vista. Windows 7.5 is such a nice experience but by the time it came around, WP 7 had already confused the people as being a lame attempt to counter iPhone and Android. Now that WP 7.5 is out there, there isnt much of a choice on handsets with various providers. I have T-Mobile as my provider and had a couple of handsets to choose from. Next almost everybody who has a WP, says they just wanted to give it a try and then they loved it. It's hard to find someone who got a WP because he really wanted one, but at the same time it's hard to find someone who used one and is not impressed with it, and that includes me. The Metro interface keeps you focused on the information most relevant to you, missed calls, new emails/messages since you checked them last time, and any number of new notifications/updates on items you pin as LIVE TILES to your home screen. It almost all about LIVE TILES that people either don't understand or understand which makes WP unique. Just as it is difficult to explain how nice a a roller coaster ride is without having someone accompany you on it, it is difficult to explain the usefulness of these live tiles without having them use it for a week or two. That's about how long it took me to convince myself to stay with WP and not switch back to Android.
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