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Wozniak Praises 'Beautiful' Windows Phone
judgecorp writes "Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak has praised the user interface of Microsoft's Windows Phone, saying that aspects of its user interface are more 'beautiful' than comparable sides to the iPhone. The comments, in a New Domain, follow on from a comment by Forrester boss George Colony who blogged that Apple would decline in the post-Jobs era. Both pieces have kicked off the kind of online argument you would expect."
However, that is about to change now that Nokia will be putting out quality WP7 smart phones.
'Nokia' and 'quality' should not be put in the same sentence.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
Come on, that's not fair. The first poster, TechCar, has a long history of 8 posts dating all the way back to two days ago! :)
The one Windows Phone evangelist who claimed the current devices would be upgradable, quickly walked those statements back.
Source here .
If you buy one of these "beta test" phones, you will soon be stuck in a multi-year contract with a device that will not be upgradable to the current version of the OS. There is nothing beautiful about that. Do not buy before Win Phone 8 is released!
Pretty much everything you just complained about is not true anymore. When they released Mango it allowed for more than just http requests and also the SkyDrive API is quit open. You should give it another gander because things have changed drastically in the last year.
My relative got W7 phone as her first smartphone. During contact export from SIM card some phone numbers got reattached to wrong contacts. This is exactly what I told her: it is new, raw and un-patched, you bought it at your own risk.
You meant "Java" and "Objective C", right? Because regular apps aren't programmed in C++ on either iOS or Android (although I believe the former supports it for regular apps, it's just most are Objective C anyway given the OPENSTEP API); yes, games on Android usually require a stub written in C++, but again, it's not the recommended way to write an app except for extreme circumstances.
Also, I must admit to genuine confusion (I'm not saying you're wrong here, I'm asking...): If WP7 is .NET based, can't you use a C++ compiler that compiles to the CLR? Or have they prevented that in some way?
In the end, I have to say I don't see what you're saying is a problem. I rather like the fact that Apple, Google, and Microsoft are doing their own thing. It's been a long time since we saw major tech companies implementing different visions of how computers should be - to me, personal computing died with the bankruptcy of Commodore, and we're finally, FINALLY, seeing a break in the idea that all platforms should be the same.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
Microsoft's role is somewhat overblown. The 150 million from MS was to settle a lawsuit and represented 7.5% of Apple's cash reserves at the time.
And out of his eight posts, four are negative of Google, one is negative of Linux, and three are positive about Microsoft.
You meant "Java" and "Objective C", right?
No. I meant C++. iOS and Android requires a bit of Objective-C and Java respectively, but you can write all your heavy lifting code in C++. For instance, you can write a whole C++ library and reference it in your Objective-C code, through Objective-C++.
So you can essentially share quite a bit of code between iOS and Android. As an example, OpenSceneGraph (openscenegraph.org) runs on both iOS and Android, and that is a C++ based library. I wish I had specified this in my parent post so I didn't have to clarify this.
Also, I must admit to genuine confusion (I'm not saying you're wrong here, I'm asking...): If WP7 is .NET based, can't you use a C++ compiler that compiles to the CLR? Or have they prevented that in some way?
Only Phone Manufacturers are allowed to write unmanaged code for WP7 so that excludes native c++.
And even if you can run managed C++ in the CLR, most C++ codebases can not compile this way without major changes.
I purchased a Lumia 900 on 4/8. Previous phones include Nokia N900 (still "running" MeeGo...) and HTC G2. So far the Lumia experience has been good. Pros: - Fluid, smooth and intuitive UI - Majority of everyday apps I use are native MS/Nokia, or good quality 3rd party (UC Browser, Nav, Google Voice, social networking, email, music player) - Excellent Nokia Drive navigation, probably best nav app I've used. Very quick GPS lock, nice UI while driving, good voice navigation - Good battery life. 16 hours of moderate/heavy use (not always on LTE though), with still juice left. - For me the home screen tiles work. IMO they are a nice compromise between an icon and widget, obviously this boils down to preference. Then again, if you load up your home screen with tiles, you've effectively made your home screen an app menu, just with super large icons... - Display works well in daylight - VKB is ok. Pretty quick swapping from portrait to landscape mode, but like with any touch keys, nothing beats the real keyboard. Pleased to find my native language as a quick switch option while typing. - LTE speeds so far have been good (7-8 mbps download in West L.A.; good/great 4G-speeds in Miami) - "Multitasking". Obviously nowhere near what the N900 offered, but in my daily use I find it similar to Android. - Last but not least, though this one seems to be an ignored feature of a modern smartphone: fantastic call quality -- mind you this on AT&T's famously shitty network. Cons: - Browser options (for now): IE9 is ok, not great, but I'd like to see Firefox and Opera Mobile as options. UC Browser as an IE9 variant offers some welcomed tweaks. - App menu: minor gripe in my use, but if you load your device with apps, the single file scrolling can become a real nuisance. Not that I found Android's App Drawer with 4-5 pages (or a cube/wheel/cylinder...) that much better. I use the KISS principle, worked on Android, works on WP7. - Battery (no percentage) and time displayed only on main screen, not when in app menu. - Display: while it works well outdoors, the screen res. does show its numbers, especially while browsing. Pixellation is apparent on the browser while zoomed out, after you pinch zoom in the text/font looks ok -- for some reason I'd think this would be the other way around. - Camera: Not bad, but not excellent either. It seems like my N900 takes as good pictures as Lumia 900, though this is subjective as I am not a photo-pro. So, the cam is a minor disappointment. - Integration with Zune. Only reason I've used Zune was to do a firmware upgrade. But, signing up with Microsoft/Apple, you kinda know that this is the shit you have to put up with. - Lack of specific apps. I haven't found an app yet that I couldn't live without -- i.e. I've modified my phone usage, like I had to do with the N900 -- but Android app market makes life much more fun if you have the time and energy to read about, test, and install/uninstall apps. - The non-upgradeability to WP8. This one's going to bring some suckage. Though I have to admit, I wasn't even thinking about it when I bought the Lumia 900 (ok, so I got a refund for the purchase price, thanks Nokia!). So I guess I shouldn't complain after all. And it's not like my 2-yr old G2 was getting any love from HTC/T-Mo (ICS Beta on it, ran like, a beta...). I have no idea how the app devel process varies between WP7, Android and iOS, but from an enduser, albeit not a superuser, experience, IMO Lumia 900 works well. I've dumbed down my device requirements, but so far I'm liking it. When I want to dig into an OS, I'll just continue tweaking my Arch with OpenBox :)
You can, but you don't. The point here is not that there's some hypothetical apps out there that might be easier to port if there was a C++ compiler for WP7, it's that there are, in practice, very, very, very few, because C++ is not the recommended language of development for either iOS or Android.
Look I really wish you would just speak for yourself because you lack the knowledge to speak for the rest of us. As someone who is actually writing a cross platform OpenGL game and knows how possible what I'm saying is, I'd like to ask you how you think all those cross platform blockbuster 3d games and classic game ports came along (I love all the classic point and click adventures)? Do you really think they rewrote everything in Objective C because it's the "recommended way" hen they could just slightly adapt their existing c++ code base and write a small Objective C fronted.
I sincerely don't think you know what you're talking about when you say "not many", "a small minority", etc unless you only talk about toy apps like third party alarm clocks or "flashlights". It's not like each app says which programming language it was written in and you have provided absolutely no evidence.
Also, I must admit to genuine confusion (I'm not saying you're wrong here, I'm asking...): If WP7 is .NET based, can't you use a C++ compiler that compiles to the CLR? Or have they prevented that in some way?
Like Silverlight in the browser, WP7 only supports the subset of CIL that is verifiable (i.e. memory-safe) for third party apps. While VC++ can compile pretty much any C++ code to managed without changes to the source with /clr, the output is not verifiable (because C++ has things like pointer arithmetic), so it doesn't run on WP7. There is /clr:safe, which produces verifiable code, but it does so by restricting the use of all C++ constructs that cannot be compiled that way - which is most of the language. So it certainly won't help you take an existing C++ codebase and recompile it for WP7.
You meant "Java" and "Objective C", right? Because regular apps aren't programmed in C++ on either iOS or Android (although I believe the former supports it for regular apps, it's just most are Objective C anyway given the OPENSTEP API); yes, games on Android usually require a stub written in C++, but again, it's not the recommended way to write an app except for extreme circumstances.
Most Android games, especially 3D ones, are, in fact, written almost entirely in C++, with only a small Java stub to handle input & sound.
Portable regular apps are often programmed with Obj-C/Java for UI, and C++ on the background. This is because, right now, it's the only way to reuse code between iOS and Android, and both platforms are sufficiently popular that doing so is an explicit goal from the get go. Because WP7 does not support C++, it does not benefit from this arrangement; but if it did support it, then it would (because then porting an app to WP7 would mean only rewriting the UI in C#, not the whole thing).
In the end, I have to say I don't see what you're saying is a problem. I rather like the fact that Apple, Google, and Microsoft are doing their own thing. It's been a long time since we saw major tech companies implementing different visions of how computers should be - to me, personal computing died with the bankruptcy of Commodore, and we're finally, FINALLY, seeing a break in the idea that all platforms should be the same.
There is a big difference between platforms being the same, and code being portable between them. There's no good reason why platform-independent code (that does not use any platform-specific APIs) should not be portable.
That is your opinion, which you are entitled to, but with which I disagree. While I don't own any Apple products, I have used them before, and found their functionality and user interface to be lacking.
that was Steve Jobs fucking mantra.
Hate to burst your bubble but IMO your human Adonis, The Great and Powerful Jobs, was an abject failure in following his own mantra, then. If so, why do I hate their stuff? Oh, right - because locked down, proprietary bullshit that I pay for but technically do not own is the complete opposite of "functional" in my book. BTW, how long did it take Jobs to catch up to the PC industry, by realizing that having to click the mouse and hold a hotkey down is not the most functional way to access a context menu? 20 years?
It WHY they are successful, you git.
Negative, Ghost Rider - they are successful because they managed to turn being a douchebag hipster with more money than sense from a niche market to the mainstream... or maybe because douchebag hipsters became mainstream on their own...
Their image comes from having better products.
Again, this is a purely subjective topic, but what exactly makes their products "better," and what are they better than? Their OS is interesting but not spectacular, and kind of a pain-in-the-ass to use; their MP3 players are pretty, sure, but require locked-down, proprietary software; Their tablets are... well, as useful as any other tablet (which, to me, is not useful at all), but hardly anything to write home about.
Their products are "pretty," I will admit. Unfortunately, in this case, pretty doesn't make the sale.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese