Last month I decided to switch to Verizon and in doing so switch to an HTC 8x after around 4 or 5 years with an Apple iPhone. I wanted to try something new and see what the other side was like and I wanted to give Microsoft a chance. The phone I had moved from prior to choosing my first iPhone was a Motorola Razr with barely any type of text messaging or data. I initially switched to the iPhone, because I was carrying a phone and music device. I wanted something simple where I could put my massive music collection and also talk/text with people. In those 5 years I grew in the app world and social media world by using twitter, facebook, email, meetup, and gps maps more and more. So here are a few things I found disheartening when I switched to a wp8 device...
- There is no official meetup.com application. I use meetup as half my calendaring system and I use the app to remind me when to go to meetups each day. It helps me plan my schedule for the week and tells me what new meetups exists in the 50 or so groups I'm in. I am a huge meetup addict and without this app it was a big loss for me.
- Small tiles that would not show a distinction between GMail or Office 365 accounts. I have 5 email accounts - 2 Office 365 Accounts, 2 Gmail Accounts, and 1 Live.com Account. I could not tell which Office 365 tile was which in the smaller tile version and the same problem exists with GMail and any other mail system where you have multiple accounts. I like the smaller tiles because it gives me better real estate. I was saddened that I would have to make the tiles bigger to determine which tile went to which account.
- No folders or grouping exists. I use folders and grouping constantly on my iPhone. I am a heavy search driven user on my iPhone. The search on the WP8 was pretty terrible and no form of folders or grouping exist yet. I did not like having to scroll on my home page. The search went to Bing search and not some native app search.
- The search button does not go to an app search. The search button goes to Bing search unfortunately and was just not quite what I was looking for in search. I wanted a more native app search that found the various apps and could launch the internet search like on the iPhone.
- The Spotify app killed the battery life of the phone. I have no issues streaming Spotify on the iPhone 5 or 4, but on the 8x it killed the battery in 30 minutes. Even the native music app could kill the battery within a few hours. It was pretty terrible.
- Notifications do not integrate with apps. You could receive push from some applications and not others and none of the apps integrated with the centralized hub like in iOS and Android. I don't want to type in multiple user accounts and passwords in the hub and in each application I download. Not all applications include push and most of the official apps were terrible compared to there Android or Apple counterparts.
- Battery life was terrible. I could last a few hours and not even an entire day on the battery using push on twitter, email and Facebook. I expected a higher battery life and not having to turn off certain push features to make the battery last longer.
- Some of the applications were not touch responsive, such as Facebook. A lot of the applications that were official versions were terrible, such as Facebook, Twitter, and Foursquare. I couldn't click on notifications on Facebook half the time it wouldn't register my finger. I had similar problems with some other apps like twitter replies would not launch without a few touches. Also, there were more arbitrary clicks to like things on Facebook and sharing features were missing.
- The music app on the home screen would not pop up with the controls half the time. I had to hit the power button a few times to get the play and pause buttons to work. Also, I could not get the podcasting apps to integrate properly with the music app and keep the place of my podcasts. I had to constantly move the bar forward if it even allowed me to move the play spot. Sometimes on a video or music item I could not even go forwards or backwards.
- Apps in memory were only 5 apps and they were not in a specific tray of apps that I had clicked on and wanted opened. I could not close apps really, because the back button was really more like a go back 5 places button. It was not like the suspended apps in memory in iOS or other devices. You really don't have control on what you can open and close in that back area. It's more like a browser history. If you go back all the way you no longer have anything in memory, so you no longer have the 5 items in the back try anymore.
- The power buttons were pretty flimsy. I had to push the power button pretty hard to get it to respond to anything. Turning on the phone and off was a pain plus getting the music controls to pop up on the lock screen was hard.
- GMail would not sync and delete items most of the time. I had to manually go on the website and delete items. The syncing with the WP8 device was pretty poor.
My desktop is a great gaming pc and has Windows 8 on it. My Macbook Air is great for presenting with Office 365 and traveling light. My work Lenovo is great for SharePoint 2013 development and if I'm traveling with some spare hotel time I can play World of Warcraft and a few other video games. Each device serves a purpose and I like all of them equally, but I cannot vet the WP8. I really tried and it failed in testing. Hopefully this saves some of you from disappointment on the phone front.