WP7 potentially the fastest/smoothest OS?

[MrX8503]

The WP7 transition animation really helps make it look smooth.

My HD2 is really faster, but I still notice the half second lag if I open an application. If they placed the transition animation in between, it would feel smoother though the wait time is still the same.

Um...close but no cigar.

There isn't an OS out there yet than can handle the extra animations, except iOS and WP7. You add in those animations and the OS will take a performance hit and will lag.

Remember that speed and smoothness are two different things.

Well the problem is the home launcher itself. The Moto launcher is trash and so is the stock launcher. All crap. I liked the videos of the Froyo Droid 1s when it first came out. It was just epic choppy. Of course everyone just tells you to root and overclock or flash a new ROM, but to me that's just unacceptable. They really need to haul ass and develop a launcher that doesn't bog down so easily.

But it's good to know we have solutions like ADW and Launcher Pro that can give you a decent amount of smoothness. Devices like the DROID need memory and kernel tweaks to achieve decent performance.

Even Froyo Droid 2's are choppy. I don't understand how people can tolerate their powerful phones being so choppy.

 

[akugami]

Wrong, Voice dialing is totally shit for a lot of people, there are thousands of posts on the google android support forums about this. Half the time it works for me, the other half it opens my dolphin browser and literally searches for "call [name] mobile" It's such a crap shoot I don't even bother messing with it.....

It's not just just Android. It's no better on the iPhone. The problem is exacerbated for those like me who have non English names in their contacts. I know that in general I say that Joe Public doesn't need a powerful smart phone but this is one of the few cases where extra computing power will do wonders in improving voice recognition.

 

[Deeko]

Well the problem is the home launcher itself. The Moto launcher is trash and so is the stock launcher. All crap. I liked the videos of the Froyo Droid 1s when it first came out. It was just epic choppy. Of course everyone just tells you to root and overclock or flash a new ROM, but to me that's just unacceptable. They really need to haul ass and develop a launcher that doesn't bog down so easily.

But it's good to know we have solutions like ADW and Launcher Pro that can give you a decent amount of smoothness. Devices like the DROID need memory and kernel tweaks to achieve decent performance.

Its not just the launcher - while the browser is fast, scrolling/zooming is jerky compared to other platforms. Android does a lot of things very well - smoothness is just not one of them.

 

[coolVariable]

It's not just just Android. It's no better on the iPhone. The problem is exacerbated for those like me who have non English names in their contacts. I know that in general I say that Joe Public doesn't need a powerful smart phone but this is one of the few cases where extra computing power will do wonders in improving voice recognition.

Well - on android the phone will "understand" the name but not execute the correct function, you will say "Call John Smith" and it will launch the browser and search the internet for "Call John Smith". That's what makes it really, really shitty!

 

[QueBert]

It's not just just Android. It's no better on the iPhone. The problem is exacerbated for those like me who have non English names in their contacts. I know that in general I say that Joe Public doesn't need a powerful smart phone but this is one of the few cases where extra computing power will do wonders in improving voice recognition.

I've owned an iPhone, and about 5 other phones that did voice dialing. All the way back to my Windows Mobile 5x device. Some had issues with a few weird names, but they all worked well for the most part. It's almost like Google's voice dialing is an early alpha. My s40 phone's voice dialing was next to flawless. You say it's no better on the iPhone, but yes it is a lot better. My success rate on my iPhone for voice dialing was about 90%, on my Droid 1 40% might be pushing it. I've stopped used it because it's so piss poor. If voice dialing's a main selling point for a potential buyer I would recommend a 1st gen Windows Mobile phone over an Android device, Google fucked it up that bad.

 

[PhoKingGuy]

Blackberry voice dialing is 100% perfect, I don't think my 8900 has ever gotten it wrong.

 

[akugami]

I've owned an iPhone, and about 5 other phones that did voice dialing. All the way back to my Windows Mobile 5x device. Some had issues with a few weird names, but they all worked well for the most part. It's almost like Google's voice dialing is an early alpha. My s40 phone's voice dialing was next to flawless. You say it's no better on the iPhone, but yes it is a lot better. My success rate on my iPhone for voice dialing was about 90%, on my Droid 1 40% might be pushing it. I've stopped used it because it's so piss poor. If voice dialing's a main selling point for a potential buyer I would recommend a 1st gen Windows Mobile phone over an Android device, Google fucked it up that bad.

I grew up in the US so I don't have a foreign accent. The iPhone has been a complete failure for voice dialing. Less than 50% success rate.

 

[TheStu]

I grew up in the US so I don't have a foreign accent. The iPhone has been a complete failure for voice dialing. Less than 50% success rate.

Whereabouts in the US?

 

[akugami]

I've lived in the USA since I was three. Grew up in Cali, but moved to Philadelphia as a teen.

I'm not saying that voice recognition on the iPhone doesn't work, it just doesn't work for me. And that's not even accounting for the names in my contact list that aren't in English.

I think one of the major reasons why voice recognition is spotty is the processing power available on phones. This will only get better as technology matures so the future outlook in this regards is bright. But for now, it sucks.

Granted having better voice recognition might not always be a good thing. Not only will people be yakking away really loudly in public but they'll be issuing commands to their phones in public really loudly.

 

[DivideBYZero]

Blackberry voice dialing is 100% perfect, I don't think my 8900 has ever gotten it wrong.

For real. The Nuance engine(was/is Dragon) RIM use is epic. It great that it's user independant. It's even cooler when you have Navigation apps and set the destination by voice.

 

[coolVariable]

I've lived in the USA since I was three. Grew up in Cali, but moved to Philadelphia as a teen.

I'm not saying that voice recognition on the iPhone doesn't work, it just doesn't work for me. And that's not even accounting for the names in my contact list that aren't in English.

I think one of the major reasons why voice recognition is spotty is the processing power available on phones. This will only get better as technology matures so the future outlook in this regards is bright. But for now, it sucks.

Granted having better voice recognition might not always be a good thing. Not only will people be yakking away really loudly in public but they'll be issuing commands to their phones in public really loudly.

Then please explain why voice dialing worked pretty much flawlessly on my late 90's Nokia dumbphone. Add to that the fact that Google doesn't even do the voice "recognition" part locally but on their servers.

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

Then please explain why voice dialing worked pretty much flawlessly on my late 90's Nokia dumbphone. Add to that the fact that Google doesn't even do the voice "recognition" part locally but on their servers.

But why do it locally? You're just placing stress on the CPU. It's just like GPS versus Google Maps. While GPS going offline is a very nice capability, speedwise, I hate using my Garmin to search for stuff because Google Maps is so much faster and I can center the search anywhere I want.

 

[akugami]

Then please explain why voice dialing worked pretty much flawlessly on my late 90's Nokia dumbphone. Add to that the fact that Google doesn't even do the voice "recognition" part locally but on their servers.

If I knew the reason why I'd be making an app for iOS and Android to potentially get some bling rather than making this post on a forum. :awe:

 

[vbuggy]

That's one of the big reasons why iOS is smooth. Like others have said I think with a certain amount of control, developers can better optimize their OS to run the best that it possibly can.

Unfortunately WP7 is lacking a few things, namely multitasking. Who knows if the OS will take a big performance hit when MS decides to incorporate multitasking. Something tells me though is that MS is working hard to get multitasking to WP7 without slowing it down. Maybe this is why we aren't seeing these features yet at launch.

Effective multitasking is what almost any mobile OS bar (ironically) some of Nokia's apparently 'smartphone OS for the old generation' (according to encrapget) offerings doesn't yet have.

Apple's implementation is clunky at best. And to be honest, I'm not a huge fan of the way Android does it better - and not because it requires a more "PC like" way to think about multitasking. I like the way Maemo does it for example, which is "snappy and reponkinslim".

Microsoft is not actually that good at being effectively draconian, so I worry for WP7 sprawling over time. Hopefully they can fish a new implementation of multitasking out rather than just following Apple's (rather crud) lead.

 

[MrX8503]

I've never used symbian, but the OS as a whole is Uh...well a freaking mess. Sony and samsung(?) has already dropped symbian so that should tell you something. Apples multi isn't very good but I'm willing to overlook that as it does everything else very well.

I'd like to see webOS multi be implemented in a future OS.

 

[DivideBYZero]

But why do it locally? You're just placing stress on the CPU. It's just like GPS versus Google Maps. While GPS going offline is a very nice capability, speedwise, I hate using my Garmin to search for stuff because Google Maps is so much faster and I can center the search anywhere I want.

Voice dialing doesn't appear to stress an original Pearl 8100. What makes you think today's 1Ghz wonderphones cannot handle it?

 

[BenSkywalker]

It looks like MS is only going after the iPhone with WM7, too bad. Another player with decent functionality would have been nice, instead we get the nice scrolling of the Zune with what appears to be inferior functionality to WM6.5- too bad

Apples multi isn't very good but I'm willing to overlook that as it does everything else very well.

Did they add widget support in some new patch I missed?

 

[Deeko]

Voice dialing doesn't appear to stress an original Pearl 8100. What makes you think today's 1Ghz wonderphones cannot handle it?

While I don't doubt that Google's servers have more processing capability than the cell phone, frankly I think they do it server-side because they just want to be able to store that data. Why do something client side and lose it?

 

[MrX8503]

Did they add widget support in some new patch I missed?

Take your flamebait elsewhere buddy.

Anyways...am I missing something here? I don't see the main draw of voice dialing or recognition.

 

[BenSkywalker]

Take your flamebait elsewhere buddy.

What? You stated that my iPhone did everything very well besides multitasking well, so I wanted to know if there was an update that I missed. Given this utterly crucial usability feature, I was getting my hopes up. That is considered flamebait?

Anyways...am I missing something here? I don't see the main draw of voice dialing or recognition.

Do you not drive?

 

[vbuggy]

It looks like MS is only going after the iPhone with WM7, too bad. Another player with decent functionality would have been nice, instead we get the nice scrolling of the Zune with what appears to be inferior functionality to WM6.5- too bad



Did they add widget support in some new patch I missed?

On the major plus side, with WP7 we'd get media capability that Android just can't seem to manage. The Zune client is solid, and plays nice with other software in a way that iTunes completely fails at.

 

[vbuggy]

I've never used symbian, but the OS as a whole is Uh...well a freaking mess. Sony and samsung(?) has already dropped symbian so that should tell you something. Apples multi isn't very good but I'm willing to overlook that as it does everything else very well.

I'd like to see webOS multi be implemented in a future OS.

Well, it totally fails at being a phone (as in the 'moving-mouth-and-sound-comes-out' way) and as a 3G receiver, but yes - apart from that it is very nice.

 

[BenSkywalker]

On the major plus side, with WP7 we'd get media capability that Android just can't seem to manage. The Zune client is solid, and plays nice with other software in a way that iTunes completely fails at.

I think the Zune is great, the ZuneHD is my personal favorite portable media player. But I need a phone that can give me all the data I need in a few seconds, not one that makes me scroll through and launch half a dozen apps to check each thing. Maybe I'm just missing that functionality, but it looks like WinMo7 isn't going to be improving at all in that aspect over the previous versions. Give me a ZuneHD2 with widget support rocking Tegra2 and a Zune based UI and I think I'd be pretty much good all around

 

[MrX8503]

What? You stated that my iPhone did everything very well besides multitasking well, so I wanted to know if there was an update that I missed. Given this utterly crucial usability feature, I was getting my hopes up. That is considered flamebait?

Nice sheepskin. Don't try to patronize me, I know what you were trying to get at with your original comment, especially with your post history, I'm not stupid. Lets leave it at that.

Do you not drive?

Maybe not as safe as voice dial, but I use speed dial.

 

[DivideBYZero]

While I don't doubt that Google's servers have more processing capability than the cell phone, frankly I think they do it server-side because they just want to be able to store that data. Why do something client side and lose it?

More than likely, that is their business model, after all. However, there will be many a time that poor data availability will hamper a voice dial event, and that's really not good.