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How I Know that Windows Phone is Perfect for Me

WP7-WinWhat’s that old cliché?  You never truly appreciate something until it’s gone?  Something like that?  Well, as some of you now know, I royally screwed up my beloved Venue Pro the other day.  Since my Windows Phone has been out of commission, I’ve been forced to rely on my other indestructible device, the iPhone 2G. 

Now, switching from the iPhone to Windows Phone was quite nice, I enjoyed the faster navigation through the phone(minus a few hiccups like searching for contacts to make a phone call) and the general look/feel of the OS.  However, I didn’t think of it as a momentous evolution or a huge change by any means.  Did I prefer it? Yes.  But it was a slight victory in my eyes in terms of usability.  Since I’ve had my gripes about Windows Phone and I don’t think it’s perfect by any means, even though I generally enjoyed my time with the OS, and haven’t regretted making the move yet.

Now that I’ve gone back to the iPhone, I can safely say that I’ve never missed not having an electronic device as much as I miss my Venue Pro.  The iPhone just feels like a fossil in comparison.  The iPhone is just as I remember it, but ever since I’ve gotten used to the ease and seamlessness of using Windows Phone, the iPhone doesn’t seem nearly as elegant as it did before.

The email client for the iPhone is complete garbage when compared to the Windows Phone client.  I get a ton of emails everyday and being able to see just the unread ones makes my life much easier when it comes triage time.  Since the iPhone cant show me just the unread emails, I have to scroll and scroll until I get to where I left off and then stop.  With Windows Phone I would just swipe to the unread column and then scroll to the very bottom and boom, I’m in.  When I’m done looking at the ones I want, I can quickly mark the remaining messages as read and await the next barrage of emails. 

Oh, and did I mention Office?  Holy crap, is opening/editing an Excel spreadsheet a luxury, but it’s now become a luxury I can’t live without.  Yea, I can open spreadsheet on the iPhone but it’s not perfect.  For instance, I have huge problems switching between tabs on my iPhone.  It gets confused a lot and doesn’t open the right tab, if it can figure out there are tabs to begin with.  Microsoft being the author of Excel, doesn’t’ have any problems transporting the Excel experience to the mobile interface and man…it’s unparalleled.

Facebook integration is great on Windows Phone and I sorely miss it.  I confess I don’t use twitter much so I don’t care the it’s not natively supported.  But it’s so easy to update my status on Facebook and see what my friends are up too.  I rarely even use the Facebook app except when I want to see photo albums of my friends or check messages.  But now I have to keep checking the stupid Facebook App.  And whenever I check it, everyone around me knows I’m a Facebook whore.  On the Windows Phone, if I’m in a public area, it looks like I’m just working away since Facebook’s blue/white color scheme is nowhere to be found in the People’s Hub.  But with the stupid app, I cannot it.

Zune anyone?  Interface stomps all over iTunes(both on the desktop and mobile device).  Not even going to go into ZunePass, I love how Zune downloads artist bios for me as well as nice backgrounds for the music I have.  It fills the screen in a pleasant yet unobtrusive way.  iTunes just displays a bland background with a album cover…big whoop.  Awesomeness beats boring any day of the week!

I even miss the Netflix app , something available on both the iPhone and Windows Phone is better on the latter.  Maybe it’s because I have a bigger screen to work with on the Venue Pro(4.1” vs 3.5”) but swiping around to get to other sections of the app is so much nicer than looking at a row of ugly icons at the bottom.

Bottom line, without Windows Phone, my life is not the same.  Microsoft, you made a great product and I hope you keep working to make it even better!  With all the potential Windows Phone has, I don’t see myself jumping ship unless someone drops the ball in Redmond.

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