What exactly puts Windows Phone so behind?

[Yuriman]

I had to think about it for a moment, but I'd like to point out that although the touchwiz launcher apk is only 3mb, the running memory requirement is much larger due to graphical effects, widgets and live wallpapers which are not present on iOS. Perhaps a change to how widgets work might help.

 

[zerocool84]

I'll just leave this right here:

http://www.engadget.com/2012/12/14/editorial-windows-phone-future-without-google/

 

[Deeko]

I'll just leave this right here:

http://www.engadget.com/2012/12/14/editorial-windows-phone-future-without-google/

A) Did you even read the article? It was Darren Murph waxing poetic about how much he loves Google services. Those people exist. The vast majority of them have Android phones and will never buy a different platform, no matter how much he talks about the iPhone's Google apps. He also seems to lack understanding of how business works. Does he think that if you say "hey Google, pretty please write your apps for our platform" that they'll do it?

B) Are you....gloating? Is that the emotion you're attempting to display? Seems curiously misplaced.

 

[zerocool84]

A) Did you even read the article? It was Darren Murph waxing poetic about how much he loves Google services. Those people exist. The vast majority of them have Android phones and will never buy a different platform, no matter how much he talks about the iPhone's Google apps. He also seems to lack understanding of how business works. Does he think that if you say "hey Google, pretty please write your apps for our platform" that they'll do it?

B) Are you....gloating? Is that the emotion you're attempting to display? Seems curiously misplaced.

There are millions more people that use Google services than have Android phones. That's the point the article is trying to make. No official apps only hurts the platform. No other way around it.

 

[Deeko]

There are millions more people that use Google services than have Android phones. That's the point the article is trying to make. No official apps only hurts the platform. No other way around it.

Yea I now people use Google services - but its not like you can't use anything Google on Windows Phone. The average user has never heard of, and therefore certainly doesn't care, that there is no Drive or Voice app. There is a search app, which is their biggest product, the 3rd party maps app is actually decent (and largely unnecessary for Nokia users). Yea, losing gmail syncing would hurt, but they have time to figure out a solution.

The whole "there aren't a lot of apps on windows phone" refrain has been played out. This article is really nothing new, and the basic premise (a platform lives and dies if Google lets it) is silly.

 

[s44]

Yea I now people use Google services - but its not like you can't use anything Google on Windows Phone.

When Google kills the Exchange connector for individuals, it will be a lot harder to use Gmail on WP.

edit -- and holy crap, I hadn't realized WP doesn't support CalDAV and CardDAV!? totally boned

 

[notposting]

In the end, although disappointed that they are axing EAS support (for new devices) after January, it won't matter much anyway. I don't care about the contacts that much, they basically serve as a back up solution to the MS contacts, and while I do have one shared calendar from a Gmail user I would miss, I can live without it (I'm on WP7 for now).

Outside of that...Metrotalk and jiTalk will still work fine. I have gMaps Pro but have never used it. Gmail isn't my primary email anymore, and tbh, I nearly never use email via the web anyway. It's all through devices or WLM. I have filters set up so any multiple labels happen automatically. Shoot, I even use Bing on the desktop...and get a $5 Amazon card every month or two as my reward

Hopefully however, MS will jump on this and they will be able to offer updates (at the very least, to WP8 customers) without waiting for carrier approval. I love that article as he goes through the things that WP doesn't offer (or he takes a swipe at the 3rd party apps...which are nicely designed Metro apps?): Translate (try MS), Voice (Metrotalk), Earth (so...you can see a globe before you zoom into city level? I'm serious...what is the draw there?), Currents (no idea what this is, sounds like the riptide lovechild of Wave?), Calendar (well, WP currently supports Google calendars fine). He counts Chrome, to me it's a web browser....and I don't particularly like it on desktop either. Still on Firefox for now. He cries about Youtube...try Metrotube, jackass. Google Docs and Google Drive...well, shit. Try Skydrive (works on all platforms) and web Office too. Just a shit article.

Oh well. If WP fails, then I will look for something new. Such is life.

 

[BenSkywalker]

The Android camp has basically turned smartphones into this whole CPU race/video card race.

Yes, they have.

That's not what phones were about.

You are correct, phones used to suck.

You want to apologize for the backwards thinking that having less is better. If that's what you want, stick with an i/dumbphone and be happy. Leave people wanting a full featured computing solution in their pocket for the grown ups and go update your wall on Facebook to make yourself feel better.

 

[pantsaregood]

Turning phones into a CPU/GPU race isn't a good thing. Prior to ICS, Android was a laggy mess without much to show for it.

Again, more processing power means absolutely nothing when productivity and user experience aren't improved. I'd take a modern mid-range desktop without any bloatware over a high-end PC with a load of bloatware that can't be removed for this purpose.

Also, this CPU/GPU race tends to lead to poor app development. Inefficient code becomes excusable because "lol throw more ghz at it."

No one is proposing that "less is better." Simply that some features being thrown into modern phones are absurd. When I see a 1080p screen on a 4 inch device (I fully expect Apple to do this), I will facepalm simply because it is a point of extremely low return. Similarly, "moar corz" is taking hold of the phone market with no clear direction.

 

[deathBOB]

Turning phones into a CPU/GPU race isn't a good thing. Prior to ICS, Android was a laggy mess without much to show for it.

Again, more processing power means absolutely nothing when productivity and user experience aren't improved. I'd take a modern mid-range desktop without any bloatware over a high-end PC with a load of bloatware that can't be removed for this purpose.

Also, this CPU/GPU race tends to lead to poor app development. Inefficient code becomes excusable because "lol throw more ghz at it."

No one is proposing that "less is better." Simply that some features being thrown into modern phones are absurd. When I see a 1080p screen on a 4 inch device (I fully expect Apple to do this), I will facepalm simply because it is a point of extremely low return. Similarly, "moar corz" is taking hold of the phone market with no clear direction.

This. What's particularly annoying is the focus on meaningless benchmarks rather than actual app/UI performance or actual usage.

 

[pantsaregood]

The benchmark performance is completely unrelated to comparison between operating systems, of course.

First-generation WP7 devices were easily comparable to the Nexus S and iPhone 4. The issue at this point was app support, not a hardware disparity.

Second-generation WP7 devices were overshadowed by the Galaxy Nexus and iPhone 4S when it came to hardware, but in practice they were pretty comparable in performance.

 

[s44]

In the end, although disappointed that they are axing EAS support (for new devices) after January, it won't matter much anyway. I don't care about the contacts that much, they basically serve as a back up solution to the MS contacts, and while I do have one shared calendar from a Gmail user I would miss, I can live without it (I'm on WP7 for now).

Well, it may not affect your particular use setup *directly*, but it does matter. This is, among other things, el Goog's attempt to strangle WP entirely. Reduced platform adoption (if/to the extent it succeeds) will be felt by all users in the form of app availability, device/OS support, etc.

 

[zerocool84]

This. What's particularly annoying is the focus on meaningless benchmarks rather than actual app/UI performance or actual usage.

Yes benchmarks CAN be meaningless but faster hardware definitely helps with everything. Ask iPhone users how much faster a 4s is than a 4 or a 5 is to a 4s. It's just how it is and anyone saying otherwise is just trying to fool themselves into saying specs don't matter at all. An efficient OS can only go so far.

 

[deathBOB]

Yes benchmarks CAN be meaningless but faster hardware definitely helps with everything. Ask iPhone users how much faster a 4s is than a 4 or a 5 is to a 4s. It's just how it is and anyone saying otherwise is just trying to fool themselves into saying specs don't matter at all. An efficient OS can only go so far.

I don't disagree. But I think they are fairly useless when comparing across platform (or even within the Android platform) nor do they reveal exactly how useful performance has improved.

With a PC, the benchmarks = real performance either in the form of higher frame rates or shorter processing times and it's always running the same software. To be fair, Anandtech does employ some simple time based benchmarks, but all I see bandied about on the forums are stupid synthetics. And nothing solves the cross-platform software issue.

I generally assume that all phones within a given generation are equivalent until proven otherwise.

 

[BenSkywalker]

Turning phones into a CPU/GPU race isn't a good thing.

If I was short sighted and ignorant I would absolutely agree with you, alas, I'm not.

While the peasants of the intellectual heap will continue to argue about the UI fluidity what they fail to notice is how much better current crops of phones can pop open that expense report pdf to double check, pull up control over your desktop once you realize that you were given the wrong type, send yourself a copy of the proper file to get it straightened out and submit it. While drinking your coffee before even making it to your desk.

Yes, the children will still talk about 'look how smooth the UI is'.

Again, more processing power means absolutely nothing when productivity and user experience aren't improved.

You get right on opening a 600MB Excel file on your single core phone with 256MB of RAM and tell me all about it. Keep trying to tell yourself the world is simple because Twitter runs just fine on your phone. If you keep your head down, and work the drive through at McDonalds your entire life, then you can probably get away with that as a realistic perspective. When I have to pull up invoices that are a few hundred MBs on my phone, and I can on a quad core without a problem- while single core phones roll over and die, you can sit their with your smooth UI and say- 'would you like some fries with that'.

Also, this CPU/GPU race tends to lead to poor app development.

And great app development too. Funny thing, once devices are powerful enough to complete a task, people will get them to complete that task.

No one is proposing that "less is better."

You did, explicitly and clearly. To quote you-

Turning phones into a CPU/GPU race isn't a good thing.

Without a CPU/GPU race, we would have less. So, according to what you explicitly stated, less is more.

An efficient OS can only go so far.

To follow up on this point, Windows ME is a *far* more efficient OS then Windows7, anyone going to talk up how it is better? Didn't think so.

 

[pantsaregood]

If I was short sighted and ignorant I would absolutely agree with you, alas, I'm not.

While the peasants of the intellectual heap will continue to argue about the UI fluidity what they fail to notice is how much better current crops of phones can pop open that expense report pdf to double check, pull up control over your desktop once you realize that you were given the wrong type, send yourself a copy of the proper file to get it straightened out and submit it. While drinking your coffee before even making it to your desk.

Yes, the children will still talk about 'look how smooth the UI is'.



You get right on opening a 600MB Excel file on your single core phone with 256MB of RAM and tell me all about it. Keep trying to tell yourself the world is simple because Twitter runs just fine on your phone. If you keep your head down, and work the drive through at McDonalds your entire life, then you can probably get away with that as a realistic perspective. When I have to pull up invoices that are a few hundred MBs on my phone, and I can on a quad core without a problem- while single core phones roll over and die, you can sit their with your smooth UI and say- 'would you like some fries with that'.



And great app development too. Funny thing, once devices are powerful enough to complete a task, people will get them to complete that task.



You did, explicitly and clearly. To quote you-



Without a CPU/GPU race, we would have less. So, according to what you explicitly stated, less is more.



To follow up on this point, Windows ME is a *far* more efficient OS then Windows7, anyone going to talk up how it is better? Didn't think so.

Drop the condescending attitude. If you honestly need a quad-core CPU to open a spreadsheet, clearly the software you're using is awful. Aside from reflowing text, your CPU shouldn't be getting taxed very much while viewing a spreadsheet - it isn't actually rendering anything.

Also, no. That comment in no way implies that I stand against progress. I clearly stated that I stand against hardware being the sole deciding factor in the purchase of a phone.

You've pretty effectively killed your credibility when you claim that Windows ME was a more efficient OS than Windows 7. Windows ME was inherently inefficient because the OS itself had grown to a point that the DOS kernel couldn't handle it. The DOS kernel was unstable, incapable of using the hardware it was on properly, and completely outdated.

 

[lothar]

Android is no bastion of well designed medical apps either as far as I could tell from researching online...it's why I ended up getting my wife an iPod Touch as her nursing school graduation gift.

This is absolutely false. Lexi-Comp, Micromedex, Clinical Pharmacology, Johns Hopkins, and countless others are available. While it's not as much as whats on iOS, it is by far more than anything available on Windows Phone.
We use Android and iPads here. I'm the only one with a Nexus 7, two people have the Galaxy Tab 2, and 4 other people have iPad 2.
Not a single one of our ICU team walks around with a Windows phone or tablet. Not one.

Again, count me the number of reliable medical apps on Windows Phone.
And I'm not talking about WebMD type crap either.

 

[Deeko]

You get right on opening a 600MB Excel file on your single core phone with 256MB of RAM and tell me all about it. Keep trying to tell yourself the world is simple because Twitter runs just fine on your phone. If you keep your head down, and work the drive through at McDonalds your entire life, then you can probably get away with that as a realistic perspective. When I have to pull up invoices that are a few hundred MBs on my phone, and I can on a quad core without a problem- while single core phones roll over and die, you can sit their with your smooth UI and say- 'would you like some fries with that'.

Hahah grow up dude. That's wonderful that you are so smart and successful that you require opening giant documents on a smartphone - and your insight that a fast food worker doesn't need to do that is truly eye opening. I guess it didn't occur to you that the vast majority of people - even successful ones - never encounter 600 MB Excel files, even on a desktop, let alone have a burning need to do so on a smartphone.

I get what you're saying, more power is good, it allows you to do more with the devices than you could before, opens up new frontiers, etc. However, when you're trying so desperately to be condescending while doing so, your point is irreversibly lost.

 

[jacktesterson]

I was curious to try a Lumia 920 but no SiriusXM app is a deal breaker for me. Use it daily, love MLB network radio

 

[BenSkywalker]

Drop the condescending attitude.

In my experience if you use extreme condescension you can provoke utter idiocy to expose itself for the ignorant dishonest trolling it actually is. Guess what? It worked again

You've pretty effectively killed your credibility when you claim that Windows ME was a more efficient OS than Windows 7. Windows ME was inherently inefficient because the OS itself had grown to a point that the DOS kernel couldn't handle it. The DOS kernel was unstable, incapable of using the hardware it was on properly, and completely outdated.

Windows ME runs smoothly on a Pentium 300MHZ and 64MB of RAM. *You* are the one claiming that making software work on lesser hardware is a good thing- Windows ME works on *far* lesser hardware then Windows 7.

Take your pick, was it idiocy when you said lesser hardware requirements is by default better, or was it idiocy when you try and say that Windows 7 is superior?

Obviously there is only one correct answer, condescension inflates people's image and almost always gets them to expose the enormous shortcomings of their discourse. I was planning on having to use at least a few posts, thanks for being an excellent puppet

Hahah grow up dude.

Is the world flat?
64KB enough memory for anything?

When you see something that stupid posted on a tech forum you shouldn't try and even pretend it has a shred of intellectual honesty. Clearly it is a very young child who doesn't have a clue about the world yet or they wouldn't be posting anything that stupid

 

[pantsaregood]

You're the foolish child if you can't see how a 12 year old operating system that was dead out of the box is different from appreciating well-optimized code.

Did you go to college hoping to be a programmer and failed to make the cut because of sloppy coding? It's okay, no one's judging you for it. We can't all be good with logic.

Again, lesser hardware is not better. Needlessly inflating use of resources, however, is. Bad programming is almost encouraged today because of how powerful hardware has become. It's okay, though; my awful 1.5 GHz Snapdragon S2 with 512 MB RAM happily opens and edits spreadsheets.

Dumbing software down isn't an acceptable practice. Neither is being lazy with code to the point of running poorly on hardware that should be accommodating. Android 2.2 to Android 4.1 shows a massive increase in optimization - no more garbage performance on a device that shouldn't have any trouble.

 

[BenSkywalker]

You're the foolish child if you can't see how a 12 year old operating system that was dead out of the box is different from appreciating well-optimized code.

Fresh ones are so fun to play with

In the particular instances that we are discussing at the moment we are looking at the relative performance characteristics of three different operating systems. The overall level of functionality of said systems has massive differences in how they operate and the level of layers of code involved with handling things such as screen transitions. iOS is the most dumbed down, at most having to deal with, in essence, an animated .gif for an icon along with a static background.

When we swap over to Windows based phones we have the addition of monocolor live tiles that require an updated state, but nothing else. On Android we have animated icons, live wallpaper and widgets that all need to have their program states updated in order to draw the next frame. When swapping between two panes with multiple widgets on each you could be waiting on states from ten different programs prior to being able to start a state update on your redraw which is going to be handled on multiple layers before final raster and flip.

Now if I was a retarded monkey that got kicked in the head by a donkey, I may try and compare what the mobile OSs are doing on a UI basis as if they were remotely in the league of being comparable. Alas, I am not. I understand what I am looking at. I am not utterly ignorant to what is happening utilizing the technology I am holding in my hand.

The comparison between WinME and Win7 was not accidental.

Did you go to college hoping to be a programmer and failed to make the cut because of sloppy coding?

No, but I did laugh and belittle the helmet heads that couldn't understand the differences between code loops with orders of magnitudes difference in capabilities.

Dumbing software down isn't an acceptable practice.

Then point out that Windows Phone and iOS aren't acceptable. They *are* dumbed down on a UI level compared to Android. That is a point of fact. I would not be willing to state that you just did due to differing needs. What I'm not dumb enough to do is try and compare the performance of things I know *nothing* about.

Android 2.2 to Android 4.1 shows a massive increase in optimization - no more garbage performance on a device that shouldn't have any trouble.

Along with a massive increase in system requirements. The amount of base RAM, the functionality of the GPU and the performance of the CPU all had to reach a certain level or the code structure wouldn't work. 4.1 swapped to a timed code loop for UI refresh instead of a wait to update state. If the hardware isn't up to par you would have your screen scrolling and half blank on older hardware. This could have also been dealt with by doing things like removing widgets, but I certainly wouldn't have been OK with dumbing down the functionality of the OS to pick up a few fps of smoothness on a task that serves no purpose besides bragging rights.

There are many different ways to approach render states, Apple uses the simplest, MS isn't far off, with Android's being *far* more complex. They could start removing features and get it dumbed down to the point where the render states are trivial to handle much like the other two with performance that would be comparable on older devices. Personally, I'll take the vast improvement in functionality for my uses and deal with a hiccup scrolling through the UI(the horror).

 

[notposting]

This is absolutely false. Lexi-Comp, Micromedex, Clinical Pharmacology, Johns Hopkins, and countless others are available. While it's not as much as whats on iOS, it is by far more than anything available on Windows Phone.
We use Android and iPads here. I'm the only one with a Nexus 7, two people have the Galaxy Tab 2, and 4 other people have iPad 2.
Not a single one of our ICU team walks around with a Windows phone or tablet. Not one.

Again, count me the number of reliable medical apps on Windows Phone.
And I'm not talking about WebMD type crap either.

I didn't say WP had any, though they do have the Unbound Medicine lineup available. I did say well-designed on Android, since they seemed to be all over the place regarding quality in reviews along with wildly different interfaces.

s44, yeah, in my case hopefully not, though the calendar issue is the one I will like the least. Hopefully we some improvement there from MS (and seriously, the WL Calendar program on W7 can't import Google calendars either, the Vista one could, arrrggghhh).

On the bright side, this thread has totally derailed. I think Skywalker and pants should go get a room and whip it out to settle things once and for all.

 

[darkewaffle]

Well this is clearly going places.

 

[dagamer34]

Anyway, I bought, played with, but ultimately returned the Lumia 900 in April because it had 1.5 year old hardware however, I also bought, played with, and made my daily driver the Lumia 920 because while the software has some deficiencies, those can be fixed over time, but hardware cannot. The original iPhone was great with iPhone OS 1.0, but so much better after 2 years of continuous development with iPhone OS 3.3.1 (last supported version). I think we've finally reached a point where software will be the big different between platforms instead of constantly pushing for more cores, larger screens, and higher DPI.