iPhone or Windows Phone
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I'm thinking about getting a mobile phone. I'm not sure what type of phone to buy. I know next to nothing about these phones. I've impressions and I'll share them here. Don't get upset if you're a cultist of one sort or another - I've already admitted that I don't know. Windows Phone My impression is that these guys have a bit of improvement to make and that the experience isn't as polished as the iPhone. That said, I like the tiles - the UI, oddly enough, seems cleaner to me and I find that appealing. I also like the idea that I'll learn a bit about the Windows 8 way of doing things which might come in handy in the future. iPhone The more mature, polished experience - and yet, the UI seems clunky to me. There might be TOO much going on here and I'm not really excited about buying into the whole Apple ecosystem. Probably the better over all phone but I don't need a new religion either. I dunno... any thoughts?
I've had one Android, which I began to hate after 6 months, and my last two have been Windows Phones (7.5 and now 8). I love, Love, LOVE my Windows phone. My wife loves hers. It's easy and intuitive to configure and reconfigure, and to navigate--even for my wife, the tiles are informative for letting me know if there's a reason to open its app (number of notifications/emails/etc), and it fits well with the Windows ecosystem I'm already a part of. I do not like iTunes because it doesn't work the way I like it to, and like you I don't want to pay the Apple tax and move to their ecosystem. That might sound fanboi-ish, but believe me, I'm getting tired of Microsoft's refusal to listen to its customers, and I'd like to move to Linux some day, so I don't think I'm so pro-MS to be biased. If stuff doesn't work well, I won't use it regardless who made it. The one small bit of ugliness is the syncing application, the Windows Phone Application for Desktop that you need for Phone 8. It's simple, but not configurable enough, and doesn't give you enough info about the photos or music or photos you're seeing in its UI to know which ones you really want to sync if the file names aren't helpful. However, it's easier to use for syncing than Zune was, and not locked to the current Windows user account like Zune was. Can't speak to the iPhone experience, 'cause I've never owned one.
If you think 'goto' is evil, try writing an Assembly program without JMP.
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I have a Lumia 920, Wife as an iPhone 4s.. my view. as other have said, stick with your chosen ecosystem. But if you're unsure, the advantages I get for having Windows Phone *Glance - see texts/emails/missed calls without actually turning screen on/off all the time *Wordflow - the keyboard is WAY ahead of iPhone, many times I can just tap on the list of words at the top... *Tiles - similar to glance, why do I want to open apps for every bit of info? I don't. *OneDrive/One note syncing, I really really like this. *Xbox integration/apps... these are almost always of very good quality, so saves a lot of time finding a game that's actually worth playing Advantages she has for having iPhone *App for our bank to check balances etc. I would really like this (they did a blackberry app FFS!!) *siri everywhere... he's built into the keyboard, which is great if you can't spell something, he's there... the Win Phone mic isn't always shown/isn't on the keyboard. Maybe Cortana will address this. *always first to get the latest apps. *always first to get the latest apps. <- takes up 2 points! And finally, don't believe what people say about a) iOS is simpler to use, or b) it just works.... I often need to figure stuff out for my wife and get emails etc. to work.
Oh yeah, I forgot about Wordflow. It's amazing how intuitive it is at figuring out what I'm going to type, often without having to type even the first letter of the next word. I've created many a long text message by only typing in one or two letters of the next word before I can choose it from the suggestion list, and sometimes no typing is needed at all because the right word is already there in the suggestions.
If you think 'goto' is evil, try writing an Assembly program without JMP.