
Announcing Windows Phone 8 - vyrotek
http://windowsteamblog.com/windows_phone/b/windowsphone/archive/2012/06/20/announcing-windows-phone-8.aspx
======
reason
I cannot stand their new aesthetic.

I saw a demo of Metro on a tablet at the Microsoft store a few weeks back and
was really, really turned off. Why are the app squares of variable sizes? The
guy accessed a settings menu out of nowhere. I was so confused I had to ask
him to show me how he did it. There were _no_ indications, cues, hints, etc,
that would've led me to believe the menu was there. This isn't only limited to
the settings menu.

I don't want to turn this into an iPod/iPad vs. WP8/Surface debate, but the
first thing that popped into my head after I walked out of the store was
"Jesus, my mom would have a _hell_ of a time learning how to use that." She's
a pro with her iPad, and it'd take her a very long time to reach that same
level of savviness with a tablet running Metro.

Metro isn't designed for the average person. There's nothing that directs you,
there are no consistent UI elements that carry on throughout the design. Every
app the guy opened was designed differently. With iOS, I at least have the top
(and often bottom) nav bar to guide me. I, a guy who's been playing with
computers for _years_ , was utterly confused and put off from Metro.

I think they've got a long way to go if they plan on seeing the same adoption
of their WP8 phone that the iPhone has seen. I'm not sure if that's what they
want, but I assume they do.

~~~
meta
That is interesting because I really like the aesthetic. Some of the apps I
have used are indeed not consistent but I found the same on iPhone and android
as well.

Another thing I think to keep in mind as well is designing and implementing
for a 'metro' UI is new for many developers and it will take time to get used
to (and create) the conventions. I can't recall: when the iPhone came out was
there a period of 'flailing' as devs figured out conventions that worked?

~~~
joe_the_user
I can see "liking their aesthetic"

But I think that's because "like" and "aesthetic" wasn't quite the words the
gp was aiming for.

It's more like their User Interface Paradigm just doesn't work.

A cool sports car with no door handles or keyhole, that the cool kids open
with right twist of the wrist or something can have a really nice aesthetic
but be really annoying in the real world. Multiply that by a thousand and
you've got something where the right mindset will get you love while the rest
of us will hate and hate. Especially, menus in invisible places. That's a
terrible designers are often tempted towards but should know better. If I ever
have to use that stuff, some karma bolts be stinging the aestheticians who
dreamed them up.

I have news. The average person is less, less - not more - less patient with
"getting used to the conventions" than developers. The average person may
wind-up using "conventions" but probably couldn't "describe conventions" more
easily than they could solve differential equations.

If how you use the thing isn't screamingly obvious, how do you expect Joe
Average to shell out the big bucks for something they still expect to be
"mostly just a phone".

------
vyrotek
Some highlights I thought were interesting:

 _Integrated Internet calling: In Windows Phone 8, developers can create VoIP
apps that plug into our existing calling feature so Internet calls can be
answered like traditional phone calls, using the same calling interface.

Device encryption: To help keep everything from documents to passwords safe,
Windows Phone 8 includes built-in technology to encrypt the entire device,
including the operating system and data files.

Windows Phone 8 updates will be delivered wirelessly over-the-air, so you
don’t have to bother plugging your phone into your PC to update anymore.
Second, we will support devices with updates for at least 18 months from
device launch._

~~~
r00fus
I hope full-device encryption is a feature that will be soon supported on iOS
(currently it only encrypts email, contacts and app data that uses the API).

Props to Microsoft for upping their game here.

~~~
danudey
My understanding is that the entire storage device is transparently
encrypted/decrypted on the iPhone 3GS and up. Unfortunately all this means is
that if someone pulls your phone apart they can't pull the data, but if they
jailbreak it they can. If your phone is PIN-locked, you're secure.

This is why 'erase all content and settings' takes only a few seconds on newer
devices, vs. hours on the iPhone and iPhone 3G - all it has to do is erase the
decryption key and the entire partition is effectively garbage.

~~~
r00fus
That's not what this Apple KB cites [1]: "This provides an additional layer of
protection for your email messages and attachments. Third-party applications
can use the data protection APIs in iOS 4 and later to further protect
application data."

That does not imply all data is encrypted - in fact, it implies it requires
app-level support and not even all first-party app data is encrypted.

[1] <http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4175>

~~~
jpxxx
There are at least two different kinds of encryption at work on Apple mobile
products. The one that this knowledge base is discussing, is a crypto
accelerator framework that allows you to quickly do high-quality encryption on
a segment of data.

However there is also fundamental encryption placed on the solid-state flash
assembly that drives all iOS devices. It is not user accessible, it does not
rely on user visible passwords, and guarantees that when the device is off,
the filesystem cannot be read.

The first generation of Windows 7 devices did not offer hardware file system
encryption, ironically keeping them from connecting to most Microsoft exchange
installations.

~~~
ciniglio
This PDF put out by apple is fairly accessible and describes these measures in
some depth if you're interested.

[http://images.apple.com/ipad/business/docs/iOS_Security_May1...](http://images.apple.com/ipad/business/docs/iOS_Security_May12.pdf)

------
at-fates-hands
I have to say I just switched over a Windows 7 phone (more out of curiosity
than anything else) and although there are a lot of features I like, there are
an equal number I dislike. The attempt by MS to completely shut out Google is
annoying. In many respects, I really feel at times I'm being forced into using
MS products.

All in all, I give the Win7 phone a 4 on a scale of 1-10. With the
continuation of the Metro interface, the forcing of MS products and lack of
alternatives (like Opera or FF browser instead of IE) in the Market place, I
doubt the Win8 phone is going to be a substantially better product.

~~~
rlu
How are they shutting out Google? I think Google is more to blame than
Microsoft as far as this goes. Google just simply does not play nice with WP7

~~~
at-fates-hands
Well, you can only sync one gmail account (without buying an app which allows
more) so having multiple gmail accounts means I had to forward one of my
emails to a hotmail account and haven't been able to sync my other google
calendar with my handset. The other program I use a lot is google music. I
tried the CloudMuszik to get around this and it was horrible so I actually
tried the desktop Zune interface. Again, another horrible experience. It
brought my desktop PC to a crawl and would lock up and crash constantly.

Without fully committing to paying for a bunch of apps to get my stuff
working, it just seems like a pain if you're hooked into using a lot of
google's apps. Granted, if I was going to stay, I would invest in the apps,
but I'm not quite there yet.

Just for the record, I'm using the HTC Trophy on Verizon - which is on their
3G network.

Also, if there's something I'm missing, let me know. I'm all for having a more
trouble free experience with the phone.

------
bishnu
18 months guaranteed updates? If you're not going to guarantee Apple-like
longevity why would you even do it, period? I'm sure MS would like to get that
level of support but if they don't want to bet on it why not just have
everyone live in ignorance?

~~~
mgkimsal
18 months is a hell of a lot better than the 0 months you get with many
android-based devices (or, effectively, negative months with 2.1 released
devices).

~~~
kumarm
Why would average person want a major OS upgrade for their phone? I can
understand a minor update (Bug fix etc). But do I really want my Phone OS to
be updated (yes as a developer but no as a user)?

~~~
mgkimsal
When 'new' features are advertised, many people like to use them.

"You can do XYZ on your Android, except not the one you bought brand new _last
month_ because it's really 23 months old already. To use XYZ, you'll need to
shell out another $x00 vs just getting a software download".

Google allowing device manufacturers to even have a hand in deciding who gets
updates and when is... crazy. The damage that can and will do to the Android
brand over time is immense. The biggest 'value' most people see in Android is
"not Apple", which isn't really a long term viable competitive position to
take. MS has (and has had for some time) an opp to eat away at the "anything
but apple" smartphone crowd, and they'll be taking share away from Android.

------
Maakuth
"... will arrive on new phones later this year."

New phones? So WP7 ones are not upgradable then... I think this is yet again
bad news for Nokia, as it deepens their situation of everyone knowing the
devices they are selling are soon going to be obsolete.

~~~
mgkimsal
Many device makers seem to have no problem selling Android 2.1, 2.2 and 2.3
phones that have no chance in hell of ever getting upgraded. Not sure why that
would be much of an issue for Nokia, although, personally, I'd like to see MS
enforce upgrades from manufacturers vs allowing a 'wild-west' Android-style
ecosystem.

~~~
stonemetal
_However, enthusiasts will have the ability to opt out of the carrier
restrictions—likely with some kind of "this will void your warranty"
disclaimer, as their phone will probably cease to be eligible for carrier-
provided tech support—and manually install updates as they become available._

[http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2012/06/windows-phone-8-to-
pr...](http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2012/06/windows-phone-8-to-provide-an-
escape-from-carrier-update-tyranny/)

~~~
rbanffy
This is good news. There are very capable, fairly new phones that wouldn't get
OS updates if it weren't for this unlock switch.

------
yaix
I really like the "tiles" concept for touch screens. After years of not using
any MS product, I may actually use Windows again.

Only that MS should have called it "Tiles" and continued Windows as a
different product line for desktop PCs. PCs will no go away any time soon,
because touch screens are not (yet) good for office work.

------
DeepDuh
MS seems to be pretty much betting their company on their company on the metro
interface and their win RT core. I'm curious about how well this core scales
to low power devices. What's also important is the migration path from win32
to winRT. Apple has brought most of the backend frameworks from OSX to iOS,
which makes porting powerful mac applications easy. Does anyone develop on
winRT already?

~~~
BobPalmer
I've built a few cross-platform apps that work both on WP7 and Win8 - as noted
before, Portable Class Libraries is a huge help. My web services were fully
reused as were all of my base libraries, just had to redo the UI - and between
Silverlight and WinRT I was able to copy and paste a lot of my XAML (just a
few namespace changes and a couple of minor mods).

I actually did a talk at a user group where I showed a few different apps,
then translated them live between the phone, the web, and the tablet.

~~~
DeepDuh
Thanks for the input. So you can do cross platform if you use these portable
class libraries from start. How about about porting win32 code from the .net
era? I would guess that most of today's windows applications are running on
those libraries, don't they?

~~~
BobPalmer
I either use a PCL from the start, or I've taken existing code and moved it
into the pCL (there are a few tricks to get around due to pieces missing from
the various libraries, since they are an overlapping subset).

So if you have existing .net code, I'd try to plug it into the PCL and see
which namespaces, etc. are missing then work backwards from there - even if
you can only get some of your code, it's a better start than copy/pasting
everything IMO.

------
tomhenderson
It's great that they are trying something different from iOS and Android, but
I can't help thinking that most of the icons on those home screens look very
similar. They seem to be mostly either a white icon on a plain square, or a
photo. A bit of colour variation on the icons might make navigation a but
faster.

------
aparadja
On Safari, the whole top left corner is blocked by a sticky "floating" youtube
video. The video can't be played or closed. All clicks fall through to the
page elements under the video.

<http://i.imgur.com/54HB1.png>

------
olenhad
"Internet Explorer 10: The next version of Windows Phone comes with the same
web browsing engine that’s headed for Window 8 PCs and tablets..." Not to
sound trollish, but is that really a feature?

~~~
KeyBoardG
It didnt used to be the case and it can be reassuring to users that they are
getting a decent quality browser and not a hack. Especially for users coming
off the Blackberry and Symbian platforms. So, I think its fair to say.

------
cmelbye
Maybe it's just me, but I liked the simplicity of the Windows Phone 7 start
menu. I hope that's not compromised in the new start menu - it looks a little
busy.

~~~
WrkInProgress
Well, you will have the option to keep the original size "live tiles".

I do agree that many of the examples of the new home screen, looked quite the
mess.

------
chj
I can live with the tiles if only let me customize the shapes. No plain
rectangles plz.

Dropping native code development is a shit decision they made years ago, and I
am glad to see they finally shit it back.

~~~
panacea
You would be sold on Metro if you could specify rounded corners?

~~~
chj
yeah, plus NDK.

------
tmcw
Why does Microsoft have comments enabled on release blogs?

------
briandear
I didn't even know Phone 7 was fully released. I hope Windows Phone 8 has a
Professional-Home-Often-On-The-PATH-Train Edition-for-Workgroups. I couldn't
live without that.

