Nov

2010

Android Rant – Android OS vs Windows Phone 7 Customizing Screens

by Jesse Bauer
tagged Android, Android Applications, android os, Android rant, Android smartphones, apple, applications, commercial, customization, Google, home screen, iOS, marketing, microsoft, Rant, smartphones, widgets, windows phone 7, wp7, youtube

Let me state my point on this article right out of the gate, and give the marketing team over at Microsoft (or whoever they hired) props for the Windows Phone 7 “Really?” ads. Pure genius. I’ll save the theme of those commercials for another rant, because what you see in those ads really is what the mobile market has made of us humans…bumbling idiots with no ability to respect or properly communicate with each other. Like I said, genius!

The emotion of this article is to highlight the marketing message that those same commercials are attempting to fool you with. That somehow, the main screen on a Windows Phone 7 device will magically save you time, thus keeping you up to date with your mobile life, allowing you more valuable time with things that ‘should’ matter, and thus… not ruin your relationships with family or friends.

I ask…how?

Again, great commercial…but false messaging.

On an Android Phone, you can customize your home screens (yes, I said home SCREENS…plural) allowing you to place anywhere from 1 huge widget to 16 app icons on each screen. For most of us, that’s 7 screens. You can select different sized widgets for most applications, and you’re not necessarily stuck with the plain over-sized icons with the color options you’d find on a fisher-price toy for toddlers.

Sure, you can “Pin” apps to the screen, but you can only place up to 8 icons on a the main visible screen, and scroll down to see a few more. Certainly not 7 * 16 icons (that’s up to 112 icons if you so desire).

The thing is that most of have more than 8 things we want to keep up with on our mobile devices, therefore, I’ll need more space on my main home screen. Compare my Android Home Screen to a Windows Phone 7 screen.

I ask you this Microsoft, how can a Windows Phone 7 device save me time keeping up to date on my mobile matters if I have more than 8 things I need to keep track of… without having to slide down? On my Android, I have 8 main apps I need to watch, and 5 power options which I use frequently. That’s 13 items I access often with out swiping screens, and then the Phone function of course.

Great ads, but completely incorrect marketing message for choosing Windows phone 7 OS over Android, or even iOS for that matter. As you can see Android offers much more customization than Windows Phone 7 can offer.

I’d love to hear your opinions on the matter. Please leave me a comment below.

» See more articles by Jesse Bauer

Categorized as Android Rants, Widgets

Comments

http://twitter.com/leecasey Lee Casey

What are you so angry about? I really don’t get this article. They are both great operating systems in their own right. Stop being such a fanboy.

Anonymous

LOL, it’s not anger. simply a point of view and a matter of discussion. Thanks for contributing to the discussion!

Luciano

The Android can even get more Widgets, but that’s UI of Windows Phone 7 is more practical, beautiful, simple and dynamic this is.

http://twitter.com/BrenUK Brendan James

You’re absolutely right – and you haven’t even mentioned the status/notification bar yet! I think the status/notification bar is one of the genius aspects of android. You could be in the middle of doing somehting in an app or service and get an email, tweet or other – and just swipe down, read the email or whatever and go straight back to your original task absolutely seamlessly without even leaving the app! See what I mean – Genius.
http://twitter.com/beardoc BearDoc

I think you’re trying to read too much into marketing. Marketing is about generating a buzz and mindshare and these ads have done that for Windows Phone 7. What WP7 is doing is launching a new product that is untested in the marketplace, and it’s a marketplace that is already saturated with “Apple/iOS vs Google/Android”, and the endless fanboy arguments as to whether one is better or not. They’re aiming for a different market – those that don’t want a smartphone because they see everyone else walking around completely engrossed in their phones. As to whether it actually does do any better than iOS and Android in getting you back to real life faster is debateable, but that’s not the point of the ad.

I get the feeling you won’t be happy until there’s a citation in the ad from a reputable scientific journal that demonstrates that users of WP7 platform are more engaged in life.

Of course it’s no better, but it’s targetting a currently untapped group in in the smartphone wars.
FD Mick

Can you tell us what the widgets / apps on your home screen are? Some look incredibly useful and I’d like to get them.
Howard Ha

I think WinPhone 7 is a pretty cool platform, but that homescreen is crazy ugly
Riggs

I got you all beat download slidescreen home replacement. Fin.
Jesse Bauer

BearDoc – I won’t believe anything microsoft says until I have documented proof from years of testing… kidding. Their ad shows exactly what people are going to do with a WP7 device as much as they do with any other…act like retards. myself included! lol

FD Mick – top to bottom, left to right apps
Android power widget (stock)
TweetDeck widget
Android Weather widget (stock)
“Silentmode” app from market
Android browser (stock)
People (stock)
“gReader” from market
gmail (stock)
messages (stock)

Hope that Helps!
micah

I always got the impression from those commercials that they were saving us from our phones by making a phone no one wants to use. Maybe your take is correct also.
kato

“Really”, the ads can be for Android.

Maybe the marketing teams were mixed up on who these ads were for. Replace WP7 with Android in the commercials and you will see what I mean.

Also, glancing at WP7 “Start Screen”, you are presented with no actual information. Depending on how the user has it set up, you may see the weather, contact photos, and numbers from email or messages. That’s it.

On my main home screen, I am presented with my actual text, email, and tweets. Very useful information to me, and I don’t have to click or swype, to get to information that is important to me. All thanks to Pure Messenger. Not to mention my pull down notification bar, which has switches for Wifi, Wireless, GPS, and airplane mode.

WP7 was a huge disappointment to me, as I was a die hard WM fan.
rottunix

What’s the fuzz about wp7. They were never great IMHO. And this new release is looking ugly. The ads are great but that is what M$ is good at, like apple, marketing.
But for me Android is is way better in functionality.
Anyways we will see how is will do on the market …
ricky

Ok. Like beardoc said winpho 7 is meant for the ones that don’t want a smartphone and walking around sucked into the phones. Then may I ask what are the means to get winpho 7 ? And if they’re meant for nonsmattphones people then should winpho 7 be called a dumb smartphone platform? I mean what is the point of getting a smartphone then not using its smart abilities? To me, you’ve just threw a $199 out the window for a “dumbphone”
bamboze

It’s not about features and possibilities, it’s about Android users statistically being more geeks and WP7′s aim at “serious” businessmen

There was some research published on this topic.
Jesse Bauer

Good call Micah and Ricky! Agreed
Howard Abraham

The “Really?” ads were talking about the glance-and-go design of WP7. The lock screen shows the time, date, the details of your next appointment, and the number of new texts, voice mails, and emails you have. If that’s all the information you require then no further interaction with the phone is necessary. Once past the lock screen each app has the ability to offer a live tile, which can offer dynamic information in the form of pictures or text.

If you don’t like the pictures hub on the top of your start screen you can move it to the bottom and show eight tiles. Or remove the tile altogether if the pictures aren’t important to you. You can easily select apps that aren’t on your start screen by pivoting to the applications list.

Scrolling around the screen in WP7 is so fluid and responsive it isn’t much of an inconvenience if you you have more than eight favorite apps pinned to your start screen.

That being said, I doubt WP7 will appeal to anyone who runs Linux on the desktop. I see WP7 as a mass-appeal consumer device and Android for people who like to tinker, tweak, and hack. Sure, they are close to jailbreaking WP7 but I don’t see that entering the general social consciousness any more than jailbreaking the iPhone.

It will be interesting to see how Google and Apple respond to WP7. People who hate WP7 should hope it succeeds just as much as those who love it. Competition drives innovation and it would be a sad day for Android if the only thing driving Google was Apple’s yearly iterative feature-creep.
Pieter

Sure it’ll save you time. You can do much less with it!

Seroiusly, based on your comparison, the ipod shouldn’t be succesful because it does 2% of the Winmo smartphones which were around at launch time. The Ipod however was simple & straightforward.
“Johns Phone” could become a huge succes for this very reason.

Microsoft had to come up with something different to al the TouchSenseWizBlur approaches, and seems to try to address people who want to do smart things with there phone, without being beyond smart (read: being a nerd). Altough there is a sense of fear also (you can really use a Windows phone quick, something Winmo never accomplished).

Another factor is that some people are scared off by wizzkids messing with their phones, thinking they will never be able to use those smart features. So maybe WM7 isn’t a smart phone, nor a dumbphone, but a ‘really’ usefull phone to them.
http://www.twitter.com/irishgeek IrishGeek

Thank You for echoing what I have told so many people about Windows Phone 7, it brings nothing NEW to the table.
zaiger

Why would you want to buy a smartphone if you don’t want to use its functionality? Just don’t buy a smartphone.
j.a.l

stop being such a fanboy, you start sounding like an apple user…
Android is great – specially because it’s java and I can code with whatever I want (and how I want)- but the first time I saw a wp7 I ask myself, this is a microsoft product ? really ? this menu is great : friendly, useful, simple.

and how many people really need to look at more than 6 applications at a time ? (I barely use 3)

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