Comment by glass- | Hacker News Reader

Comment by glass- | Hacker News Reader

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> the excessive amount of scrolling and swiping required. Even on the larger display devices the amount of information I can see without scrolling/swiping is a fraction of what I'm used to from iOS/Android. It leaves me with kind of a stuck-in-the-mud feeling that I'm just doing a lot of extra work to access the same amount of information.

This isn't something that even remotely occurred to me, as someone who moved from an iPhone 4S to a Lumia 920. I never noticed any difference, but now that I think about it and how my workflow has changed since I got the new phone, what you said couldn't be more wrong.

Just by unlocking the phone (button press + one swipe, same as iPhone) I can see emails (subjects and sender), text messages (sender and message), calendar events, and notification text (not just a numerical count) for every social network I have an account on. And that's just from the start-screen, without opening any apps or scrolling at all. One additional swipe down and I can see stock live stock information and news feed.

Getting all that information on an iPhone would involve individually opening and checking around 7 different apps.

And even if you ignore the information from the start screen, just from within apps, I'm not seeing any additional scrolling needed, or where extra effort is required to access information. Especially to a level that makes it so arduous that it disappointed you so much that you were compelled to complain about it on the internet.

Can you give specific examples of where all this extra scrolling and swiping that you're talking about is required?

Can you give specific examples of where all this extra scrolling and swiping that you're talking about is required?

One quick example is the mail client. You can only see about 5 messages at a time and that's with only a one line preview of the body. On iOS with a 1 line preview I see 8 messages and I can usually see the entire from/subject line. May seem like a minor gripe but it just adds extra steps to everything I want to do. Is there an option to reduce the font sizes? I couldn't find it last time I looked.

Getting all that information on an iPhone would involve individually opening and checking around 7 different apps

Depends what type of notifications you have setup. I can just look at my lock-screen or Notification Center for most of this. This morning when I picked up my phone I had a few CNN news alerts, a bunch of FaceBook notifications, some text messages, a game reminding me it was my turn, weather, calendar events, etc.

Mail is a joke of an app on Windows. But unlike on iOS, the Windows Mail application can be replaced. If you were frustrated with the default Mail app, did you seek a replacement?

Do you have a better example of an epidemic WP UI fail? Anyone can build a terrible UI into an app, including the makers of an operating system.

> Mail is a joke of an app on Windows.. What windows are you talking about? I agree that windows 8 mail app sucks.. but mail app on windows phone 8 is one of the best mail app on a smart phone..

Yea, it's a shame that a comment from someone who has barely used WP is at the top of this thread, as opposed to the people who have actually used it and iOS or Android heavily.

If there was a cheap WP8 device available I would pick one up just to play around with but there's nothing at the price point of say the iPod Touch / Nexus 4. My original post is probably how a lot of people feel about WP at this point. It's just not appealing enough to replace the iOS/Android devices they are currently using. The number of people who are going to switch just for the sake of switching is very very low. Most people are going to need a damn good reason to switch. Microsoft's best bet is with first time SmartPhone buyers who aren't already invested into iOS/Android.

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