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We've already covered the overall impressions of what you may experience should you decide to make the switch from Android to Windows Phone, and now it's time to deal with the meat of the smartphone experience: the apps, including the stock apps, the Marketplace, and Google services you may not want to leave behind. Just as a quick recap, we talked about general impressions and some specific features you may miss in a move from Android to Windows Phone, and the overall impression was quite positive. If apps are the meat of a mobile platform, the UI is the flavor, and Windows Phone tastes good. It's a much more unified and well designed system than Android 2.x, which still dominates the market. Android 4.0 comes a long way, but as we mentioned, ICS is technically the 7th major iteration of Android, while Windows Phone 7.5 is really just the 2nd major iteration of the platform, so WP has something of a headstart in that respect.
Covering the overall wonderful design of Windows Phone was important to hit first, because Microsoft has some pretty strict design standards that filter down throughout the app ecosystem. This makes all of the apps, even the 3rd party apps really feel like they are part of the cohesive WP whole. Android apps can certainly be designed very well, and Android 4.0 has brought a style guide and the Holo theme to help unify the app UI with each other and with the system UI, but Android apps can also have very different designs, and some simply reuse the design of the iOS version of the app. Of course, neither way is necessarily better, it's a matter of preference. If you want the apps to feel like they are part of an extremely well-designed system, Windows Phone may be better, but if you don't mind diverse design and want more hooks into the system, maybe Android is better for you.
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Miscellaneous oddities
Before jumping into the stock apps of Windows Phone, there are a couple oddities of the system to be aware of if you're coming from Android. First is the dedicated Search button that you find on your phone. Unlike the dedicated search button found on many Android devices, the search button found on WP devices is actually a dedicated Bing Search button, which can be useful, but is odd to get used to. With Android, the search button could be used to trigger in-app searches, or a Google search if you're already on the home screen. However, with WP no matter where you are, in-app or on the home screen, the search button launches the Bing Search app, and any in-app searches can only be triggered with the on-screen search buttons found in the app. This can be a bit more confusing because sometimes an app will have a search button in the top right (like the IMDb app), or as an icon at the bottom of the screen. For a system that's so concerned with a unified UI, this is an extra odd bit of inconsistency.
Multitasking can also be quite frustrating with Windows Phone. First of all, it's not true multitasking where any app can be performing tasks in the background. Rather, it is more of the iOS version of multitasking where certain apps can perform certain functions in the background, but most apps are put into a sleep state in the background. Unfortunately, unlike iOS, it's not as smooth or fast with Windows Phone and you'll end up spending a lot of time watching apps "resuming" from the sleep state, or reloading completely, even if you only exited for a second. And, speaking of exiting apps, you have to be careful how you exit apps if you want them to be present on the app switcher menu. If you use the home button, the app will end up on the app switcher menu, but if you use the back button, the app will disappear from the switcher menu, even if it is still running in the background (like a music app.) Of course, even these habits aren't 100% consistent, because some stock apps will stay in the switcher menu regardless of how you exit them, but 3rd party apps are more likely to disappear. And, the switcher menu is limited to just 5 apps, unlike the image on the right.
The back button also becomes strange with multitasking in WP. The back button's main priority seems to be allowing you to cycle backwards through your app history, and often this can take priority over being an in-app back button. So, if you open IE, then go to the homescreen, then open the People app, the back button will cycle through those three things, and when you get to IE the back button will then work as the IE back button and go through your web history, although IE seems to be one of the few apps where this always works properly. Sometimes, when using the app switcher to jump between apps, the back button won't cycle back through your in-app history (like in a news reader app where you'll drill down from headlines to articles before bouncing out to IE), but rather it will exit the app, forcing you to relaunch the app to regain your place. It's quite confusing and annoying at times.
Bing apps
There are more core apps to the smartphone experience like the phone, contacts, etc., but in switching from Android to Windows Phone there is nothing more central than making the switch from Google to Bing. Sure the mail app may be different, but you can still use Gmail relatively well with Windows Phone, but the switch from Google Maps or Google Search to Bing is one that worries many users, so we wanted to tackle that first. But, we've found there isn't really all that much reason to worry.
Google Maps has become something of an institution. It's the go-to maps service, and it can be hard to imagine how any other service could live up to it, especially with the constant upgrades that Google brings to the Android version. But, the dirty secret is that Bing Maps are actually really good, and set to get even better when Nokia Maps is folded in for all Windows Phone users. Even so, it's missing quite a lot of the features you may have come to rely on with Google Maps, even though those features may not get a huge amount of use.
The features that are considered maps basics are all there. If you just need to find places or get directions, Bing Maps should be a serviceable replacement and not cause you any problems, and could be even better than Google in some respects. Navigation is well laid out and easy to follow, the only big trouble here is the complete lack of public transportation information, which Google has been doing a great job with. Walking and driving directions are fine, but if you live in a city, not having public transport directions can be frustrating.
The maps are crisp and easily readable, and do a great job of giving a good amount of information without feeling cluttered on a wider zoom level. Unfortunately, you'll notice when you zoom in that popular places aren't surfaced the way they are on Google Maps, so Bing Maps themselves aren't that great for discovering places. But, Microsoft does have a companion app Bing Maps called Local Scout, which will give you quick access to searches for restaurants, tourist spots, things to do, or shopping.
Of course, you can still search Bing Maps to find restaurants or stores if you'd like, and the Place pages have all of the info you may need like the address, phone number, hours of operation and the link to the official website, as well as another interesting addition which will give you a link to the neighborhood the business is located in. This is especially nice if you are in a big city and want to see other businesses in say the Beacon Hill area of Boston, the Mission District in San Fran, or the Old Port in Montreal, because the neighborhood link will automatically open Local Scout and search that area. There are also reviews for businesses, and they are often quite helpful, because Bing pulls reviews from TripAdvisor and CitySearch. The only thing you may miss from Place pages in Bing are all of the images Google provides like the storefront of a business, etc.
Much like the images offered by Google, Bing Maps is one of those weird spots where it lacks the various extra features of Google Maps, and it's really up to you whether this matters. In general, the extra Google features like biking directions, Street View, or Labs features like downloading area maps or measuring distances may have a much smaller user base, or may be options you use, but not that regularly. So, you may not really notice or mind the missing features there, but if you do rely on some of those features there is a 3rd party Google Maps app, which we'll cover in Part 3 of this series.
Bing Search is the other big difference between Android and WP, and the difference is pretty big just in the way the apps are laid out, and how they work. Google's search app will search not only the web, but your phone and apps on your phone as well, so you can find contacts, bookmarks, messages, or media on your phone from the Google search app, and the results will bounce you to the app you need. You can trigger a Maps search, YouTube search and it'll launch those apps, or if you're doing a web search, all results will be displayed in your default browser, contact results will open the contacts app, etc.
Bing Search on the other hand is more self contained, and it doesn't search your phone's data at all. So, both Google and Bing have options to trigger a search via voice or text, but Bing's results will keep you in the Bing app and give you the swipeable Metro UI to flip between web results (which is split between news and web results when necessary), local results, and image results. Image results open in the Bing app, web results open in IE, and local results will open the Place page, which can make the search experience quicker since other apps don't need to launch as often. Web searches will also give quick answers you'd expect like movie showtimes, and sports scores, but not some Google standards like unit conversions or flight tracking.
Even though the Bing Search app doesn't include searches of the info on your device, it does have some extra features on Google Search. Bing Search also includes easy access to place searches (aka the Local Scout app), music recognition (like SoundHound or Shazam,) and visual search (like Google Goggles), so you really can get quite a lot of info from the Bing Search app. And, that's one thing that makes the dedicated search button pretty nice, even though as we mentioned it always launches Bing Search and cannot be used for in-app searches.
Stock Apps
It may be hard to believe for our readers who tend to be more on the passionate side of the mobile user spectrum, but there are quite a few people out there who buy smartphones, but never even bother to download apps for that phone. They live life in the stock apps, and at most may download a game or two. Even more advanced users will spend quite a bit of time in many stock apps. Windows Phone has some pretty solid stock apps, but there are some small issues here and there which tend to show the relative immaturity of the platform.
One thing that is odd right from the start is in the Phone app, where for some reason, Microsoft decided not to use the paneled Metro UI, and opted for simple buttons to get where you need to go. We expected the Phone app to be set up in Windows Phone like it is in Ice Cream Sandwich, where you can swipe between recent calls, the dialer, and the contact list, but that's not what you get. No matter what, the WP Phone app will open to the recent calls list, and you need to use the icons to get to either the dialer or your contacts (which actually will bounce you out of the Phone app and into the People app). Also, an annoying habit is that the dialer will clear any time you exit the app. So, if you start dialing a number or have a number dialed, but have to jump out for any reason, that number is going to disappear on you if you don't save it first. Luckily, there is a save button available, and it's nice to see that it's labeled with the actual word "save".
That's one of the toughest things to get used to with WP is that everything is navigating by icons, which can be tough to get used to. You can always pull up the labels if you need, and for the most part the icons are intuitive, but sometimes the drive for consistency can be a bit jarring. For example, throughout all apps - stock or 3rd party - a plus sign will be everywhere, but it's contextual as to what "new" item it will create. In the People app, the plus sign will let you create a new group or contact (for either your Windows Live contacts or Gmail). In the Calendar, it will let you make a new event (again for Live or Google). In the Mailbox, it will create a new message. All of these are pretty straightforward and intuitive, but in some 3rd party apps, it's not always so clear what the plus sign will do. For example, in GoVoice (a Google Voice app) the plus sign brings up a hybrid dialer/message compose box. Microsoft knows how it wants things to be unified, but developers can have trouble making things clear.
It's clear that Microsoft focused on certain apps over others, and the top of the list is the People app. The People app in Windows Phone is exactly what Google wished the People app in ICS could be, except for one thing: WP's version actually works. Google left it up to Facebook, Twitter, and others to hook into the People app, which gives it a lot of flexibility, but it also means that the content won't be there unless providers hook in, which they haven't yet. In Windows Phone, if you sign in to Windows Live, Google, Twitter, Facebook, and/or LinkedIn, all of the content and information from the various services (minus Google+) will be pulled into the People app or to any Live Tiles you set for contacts. When adding or editing contacts you can add to or edit Gmail contacts as well as any Windows Live contacts you may have. The People app even does a pretty good job of linking together the same contact from various services, unless of course the person has set their name very differently, then you may want to link them manually.
As we said in part one of this, Live Tiles are a great feature, but their usage can be sporadic. The People app uses Live Tiles to their fullest potential. You can pin Tiles for individual contacts or groups and the Tile will cycle through names, pictures and social updates, which is a great way to get info quickly and in with an interesting visual flare. The trouble, as we mentioned is that Live Tiles aren't everywhere you'd expect. As we've mentioned before, there is no way to pin individual settings from the Settings app, which is annoying simply because it seems like a wasted opportunity for something that would have been pretty easy to implement.
The Mail and Calendar apps for Windows Phone don't really need much time devoted to them. Both are perfectly serviceable, and do what you'd expect. Mail is laid out in a way that's very easy to read and can link multiple inboxes into a unified view. You can add major webmail accounts like Gmail, Yahoo! and of course Windows Live in addition to POP/IMAP accounts. The big upgrade over Android here is the Exchange support, which should be no surprise since this is a Microsoft system. Exchange e-mail has always been a bit wonky on Android, but it works quite well with WP. The Calendar app is also nothing special, but nothing bad. It works as it should, and has the added bonus of having a built-in To-Do option for things that don't require a full calendar entry, which is definitely a nice touch.
The star of the communications apps though is the Messaging app, because not only is it the standard SMS/MMS client that you expect and need on a phone, but it benefits greatly from the partnership of Microsoft and Facebook. Part 3 of this series will delve more into using various Google services on WP, but one major switch that will make your life a lot easier is in switching from GChat to either Windows Live, which not many of your friends may use, or Facebook, which almost everyone has. The WP Messaging app has an option to sign in to Facebook, which will allow any Facebook chats or messages to be pushed directly to your Messaging app, and you can even see your FB buddy list as well. One odd thing is that the Messaging app does allow for group messaging, but it has to be turned on in the settings, and isn't on by default.
Probably the biggest negative that we found in our switch from Android to Windows Phone is in the web browser. Android has a whole mess of amazing browsers to choose from, even if you don't like the stock browser. There's Dolphin, Opera, Firefox, and even Chrome if you've got Android 4.0. However, on Windows Phone there is Internet Explorer, and that's about it. Yes, there are a couple alternatives in the Marketplace, but they only add some cosmetic enhancements to the browsing experience. You'll still be faced with the same absolutely terrible HTML5 support. Sure, IE works well enough for general browsing, but HTML5 has added so much functionality to mobile browsing recently, that to lose out on that is a pretty huge problem. As we've seen IE10 in Windows Phone 8 is going to seriously beef up the HTML5 support, but for WP7, it's rough going. And, aside from the HTML5 support, we found that IE on WP7 gets overwhelmed pretty easily, and will crash or simply stop loading images if you're checking out an image heavy site.
But, we want to end on a high note so lastly, there is Microsoft Office. Office has been the star of Microsoft's software arsenal for about 20 years now, and it gets some very nice treatment with Windows Phone. The Segoe font makes documents crisp and incredibly easy to read, and documents can be pulled from a number of sources. You can load files from SkyDrive, Office 365, or SharePoint, not to mention docs you have on your device itself. It doesn't allow real-time collaboration like Google Docs, but it has plenty of other features that set it well ahead. With Office, you can not only create and edit docs, but there are doc and Excel templates to choose from when creating, and you add or read comments or notes on docs and PowerPoints. Excel is also far better than Google Docs spreadsheets, which we always found very annoying to control. Excel, however, is very easy to navigate, select cells to edit, and even tap and drag to select blocks of cells. OneNote is also likely the best notes app for Windows Phone. Any doc can be pinned to the start screen, allowing for easy access as well. The move from Google Docs/Drive may be a daunting task for some, but Office/SkyDrive works extremely well with Windows Phone, so it should prove worthwhile after the initial migration.
We say lastly, for Microsoft Office, because the other stock app that we left out is the XBox Live app, which we felt should be included in Part 3 of the series, because XBox Live is the game hub for the system, and in Part 3 we plan to talk about the games and general app Marketplace ecosystem of Windows Phone, and any 3rd party apps that may make your transition easier. Keep it tuned for that!
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Michael Heller is known for his clear and informative articles on mobile technology. He explores important topics such as the rollouts of 5G networks and the advancements in mobile payments, offering readers insights into the evolving tech landscape.
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