Phil Carbone

Windows Phone 7 After One Week of Use

philcarbone@gmail.com — Fri, 12 Nov 2010 03:52:00 -0900

I have had my Windows Phone 7 for about one week and I thought I would share my perspective on this new platform.

Before I get into it, I want to point out something very important. Anyone can write something and post it on a web page. I have been reading so many “articles” where the writer touts that they are a “developer” and the platform sucks, blah, blah, blah. What qualifies these people? Did they read a programming book? Did they go to some free conference and listen to all the people that actually know what they are doing?

The reason I think it is important to verify who the writer is, is simple… credibility. I haven’t read an article posed against the platform that has told the truth. Most of these writers are just making stuff up that is just flat-out not true. I’ve even seen this type of writing from writers that work for reputable publishers / sites (IE. Washington Post).

So, readers beware. To gain your trust I would like to point out that my profile is on LinkedIn if you would like to review my history. To make it easier, I will tell you more about me. I am a very senior software engineer for a company that makes financial enterprise software. This is some of the most intense programming I’ve ever done. We dance around world-class performance, scalability, usability, security and quality requirements. My development teams need to focus on solid patterns, strong designs and a lot of experience to get the job done right (we don’t just read a book and say we are developers).

More on my background. I am also heavily involved in game development, for about 1 year now. I have developed for the iOS (iPhone) platform for 2 years, the Android OS for 1 week and Windows Phone 7 for 3 weeks. I have owned 3x iPhone 3G phones. Let’s start! I will explain the platform by example.

Speed

Note just assume from this point forward everything that is talked about on the Windows Phone 7 platform, is instant. What I mean by that is that when you touch a button or launch an app… anything… it is instant. The speed on this platform is unbelievable.

Business & Personal

This phone is the perfect merger between personal and professional. I was able to setup my phone to work with multiple businesses exchange servers to keep all of my mail, calendars, contacts and other business information in sync. I was able to do this in less than 2 minutes. I am able to connect and use my SharePoint content as well as use Office for things like Works, PowerPoint, Excel and OneNote (btw, I love OneNote!). Though it is true that the editing capability is limited on this FIRST RELEASE… the most important thing is that you can actually see/read the documents and annotate them for others to change back at the office. The key here is that it keeps you connected. Oh yeah, and did I mention that it is FRICKIN’ FAST!

Design

The design is called Metro. Schooled designers know this type of design. It is the same design used for signage. Next time you are driving on the freeway, pay attention to the signs. The most important information is bigger or bolder and the supplemental information is smaller and out of the way. It is a design that focuses on getting your eyes to see the important information, first. Next moving on to the secondary set of important information and then next and so on. They also took a Metro concept form subways, when you see parts of signs covered up by pillars, walls etc. As you walk the sign moves and you can read other parts of it. Human brains already know what the whole sign says, but is conveys that major signage design of this is the Major topic here.

Usability

Usability is really spread throughout this article, but here is one story for you…
When I walked out of the AT&T store, I was holding my new Bluetooth headset and my phone. As I walked back to my car, I whipped out the manual for the headset to see if there are any special pairing instructions. I noticed the usual, once both the phone and headset are in pairing mode type “0000” to access the headset. So navigate to the Bluetooth screen on the Phone & put my headset into pairing mode and I expected to do more than just a few taps on my phone and holding the power on my headset… but nope… I had to do nothing more! The Phone attempted passcode “0000” by itself and paired. I wanted to really test the usability to I immediately hit the talk button on my headset and said “call Dan”. (btw, I had setup my gmail in the store… that took about 30 seconds). It instantly said “calling Dan Carbone” and btw the voice on that phone doesn’t sound bad at all, it isn’t all computer sounding (the voice sounds very real, but monotone). It did all of that and called my bother right as I reached my car (about 30 feet from the store). Yeeeeahhhh, I’m happy.

Phone Quality

I haven’t had a dropped call in the usual places as with my “other” smart phones (Actually, I haven’t had a dropped call at all). The phone is easy to use… it is RESPONSIVE (also unlike other phones I’ve had that don’t like letting me hang up). Do you know what is accessible via a single tap? The keypad! Sound quality is awesome and I can multi-task while on the phone (not to be confused with the phone multi-tasking, itself).

App Serialization (Tombstoning)

Android and the Windows Phone 7 platform stand alone on this. This is a great story! So, you know how when you are moving around (and a phone may happen to be tagging along) that things just happen… well the phone just lets you change your train of thought, as fast as you do, and then you can resume you previous branch of thought as soon as you finish your latest branch of thought. Here is an example:

I was on my phone playing a kick ass 3D role-playing game and I received a call from a friend.
- I answered the call and talked to my friend about the release date of Inception (the movie).
  - So, I hopped over to the IMDB app and looked it up.
  - We talked some more and I hung up and I see the IMDB app.
- Then I was distracted by my 2-year-old and I started playing with her.
- My phone played a sound because I just got an email about picking up dinner for my family (and my wife placed an order on in the email), so I gather up the kids and go…
  - meanwhile I hit the home button to txt my wife back and let her know that it is underway.
  - We are driving and I hear a song that I like on the radio… I don’t know who sings it. I pick up my phone and open the Shazam app (if listens to the song and tells you what song it is).
    - Once Shazam finds my song I choose the option to buy it. The phone opens the Zune app to download the song. I choose my payment option and hit download (To get this unknown song I did 5 taps). I see the download progress on the same screen.
      - I see that is finishes and flip over to the songs and play it, sweet! I get to the restaurant and need to see my wife’s order; I simply hit the back button (fast) a few times.
    - I pass the Zune play screen
    - …the Zune store screen (with the song that I looked up)…
    - …the Shazam screen (with the song that I found)…
    - …the txt screen (where I responded to my wife)…
  - and now I am at the email screen (with the exact email that I was reading with the order on it)
    
    I had hit back very fast (it took literally about 2 seconds to see that email). I could have also just went back to the home screen and opened my email then selected the email of my choice… but the former seems more natural to me.
  - We get home with food in hand. I sit down to eat and notice that my phone has wirelessly synced to my songs on my computer (this would have happened for pictures too, if I took any).
  - After dinner, I remember my game…
- … I hit the back button and see the IMDB screen (with the move I was looking at)…
…I hit the back button again and I am in my game in the exact location, paused.
I un-pause and continue playing!!!!!!

This is one of those; you have to experience it to believe it. It’s best experienced hands-on… it is amazing though. I am in love!

Email

Here is the Windows Phone 7 experience. I look at my lock screen and it shows that I have 3 new emails on one of my accounts and 1 new email in another account (I haven’t done anything yet… oh yeah, I used my eyes at this point). I unlock my phone. I tap the email account of choice… then I see my inbox, INSTANTLY, oh yeah, and the new emails are already there, I didn’t wait for anything. I have seen the way other phones implement this type of things and it seems, from my experience, that they load something at each step (count of emails, opening inbox, opening email itself) which is not a good design.

Zune

If you’ve never used Zune… you may be like I was, missing everything that is good about music players and music management! Zune is AMAZING! It is fast, it organizes & recognizes songs and genres better. It has more options to clean up song metadata, automatically. And it is more aesthetically pleasing. I love how it shows a picture of the band in the background and how it has bios for all the artists. Really cool integrated experience.

People

Everyone in your social networks are pulled into you contacts and aggregated together. It builds a profile for contacts that is comprised of their online existence, plus anything you define on the phone locally. This includes maps to their addresses (work/home). It also contains all of a contacts different phone numbers & emails. Additionally it includes nicknames, social updates/news, and pictures/videos. You can instantly post updates or comments to friends and family. This is a complete integrated experience and it rocks!

Browser (Internet Explorer)

Well, simply put… IT IS THE FASTEST MOBILE BROWSER I HAVE EVER USED! Fast with a side of fast. It also has some sort of MIME support or something (not sure on the technical details behind this). As an example, if you hit a video on the web, it will launch the video app (If you hit a link for different content it opens the app to handle that content). This is an awesome experience with the “back” button as I described earlier. It feels like everything is fully integrated.

Search

Ba-da-bing… When you search, you use your voice… You say anything… and the phone shows you web related content, content locally found on your phone that matches and news. This includes maps for locating places and things like movie show times. Just by patting the search button and saying what you want.

Maps

Directions are fast, searching is fast, it is all fast!
I love the loading transitions (not just a bunch of squares). The maps feaure follows the same design rules for Metro. The get the most important info to you fast. I love the bolding of the important stuff… It is totally designed to help you read it fast, while driving, without getting into a wreck (as an example). Here is a sample of what a direction looks like:

Take ramp right and
follow signs for I-271 North

Development

I spent months preparing a good app for the iPhone, I spent 10 hours making an awesome 3D game for the Windows Phone 7 platform. iPhone development was buggy and hard to maintain. Windows Phone 7 development was strong-typed and uses managed code. If game development is this easy, you can imagine how fast it is to make a standard app :)

Architecture

Now this is an area that I have a lot of experience around. Microsoft nailed it! They built this OS to be extremely scalable. As apps require more power to do more powerful things, these phones will not be the ones with hiccups. It is hard not getting into the nitty-gritty here, but I am more than willing to share if you would like to email me. Take my word for it (based on my credentials) this is one of the best forward facing architectures I’ve seen for a mobile OS (Microsoft thought of everything). That doesn’t mean that they accomplished everything they need to in the FIRST RELEASE of this OS, but they set themselves up for success. Let’s just hope consumers give it enough of a chance. This is one of those great things that it would be unfortunate to see snuffed out prematurely.

Battery

My battery is lasting days! While I am playing games and downloading songs/apps, All of my email is pushing it is updating all of those tiles and social data. Meanwhile it is also performing speech recognition and rendering text-to-speech. (You would think something would drain the battery). On other platforms/phones I could sometimes open a game and watch the battery level drop, literally.

Summing it up

Well that is all my brain could recognize after a week of having a Windows Phone 7… I will write again if I have more. - Windows Phone 7 is FAST! - It is designed for multi-tasking users - It is easy to find what you are looking for - Designed with usability in mind - Designed for business and personal lifestyles - Amazing environments for developers to work in - Did I say fast? Not just fast, as in speed of the OS, but also in design of number of tabs to do something.

My technical overview of the MSFT/GOOG/AAPL‎ phone platforms

philcarbone@gmail.com — Thu, 14 Oct 2010 03:51:00 -0900

As a developer I preceive a great platform as something that is different than the average consumer. Let’s break

My breakdown

Apple iOS:

Strict design standards (Nib has existed in OS X for a while and was carried over).
Un-managed code (no memory management / leaks)
OS architecture is cowboy-coded
Runs OpenGL for 3D Rendering
Unorganized API
Unstable (apps have to be constantly maintained, just to run on the latest iOS)
Cost to develop high
Cost to maintain high
Market share high

Andriod:

Unsure of the design standards
Managed code
OS Architecture is the best I’ve seen for a phone… designed to last & scale.
Runs OpenGL for 3D rendering
Organized API
Not sure about the stability of the apps from version to version (from what I understand it isn’t unstable though).
Cost to develop medium
Cost to maintain low
Market share medium

Windows Phone:

Strict design standards (Silverlight & WPF have standards and best practices which are carried over)
Managed code
Unsure of the OS Architecture (based on Silverlight/Zune track record, the OS prob. pretty future proof).
The API is the best I have seen for a phone, well thought out.. feature rich (proves that the OS is powerful)
App stability is top-notch (again, trackrecord for .NET/Silverlight shows how it is easy to keep things running… even things that were made a while back)
Cost to develop low
Cost to maintain low
Market share none

My Thoughts

iOS is expensive to develop for.
iOS has the market share.
iOS will continue to have the share for a while, while developers go through denial phases or just don’t know how much easier the other platforms are to develop for. And of course the market share itself is enough to keep people developing for the platform.
Individuals are harder to track (individual developers)
Companies on the other hand are more consistent. They work deals and do favors as long as they can make money for a minimal cost.
Android is a great design and eventually many companies may choose to exclusively develop for that, just base on cost analysis.
Games can more easily convert over to Android due to both iOS and Android using OpenGL
I can’t speak toward the future of WP7, but if people see it’s greatness, like Android… it will surly rise to a large market share. Cost to develop is the lowest.
Games on WP7 are easy to convert form XBox & Zune.
Games are also the lowest cost to develop for WP7 (significantly)

My Conclusion

For technical reasons, I see no future for iOS. The only thing going for Apple right now (not from a consumer perspective) is the market share (first-to-market strategy). Android is a well designed OS and is hardened. It’s share looks promising for it and it’s cost to develop is much lower than an iPhone. WP7 is a very lost cost development platform, running on some of the most performant rendering technologies in a managed stack. If market share wasn’t a factor, WP7 would be the developer’s (company not individual) choice due to the performance, low cost and rich feature set. But… market share is the major factor here.

It is amazing how, throughout technology history, it seems that the technologies that are not first to market are the better ones. Then they struggle to get traction even though they are superior. Linux had that against the old Microsoft. Apple had that against the old Microsoft. Javascript had that against Flash. Java had that against c++ & COBOL. C# .NET had that against Java & COBOL. Silverlight had it against Flash (this one is funny) Microsoft had it against itself (XP to Vista to Win 7) Google to Apple (Andriod to iOS) Microsoft to Apple & Google (WP7 to iOS & Andriod)

Regardless of market share, I always find myself rooting for the guy with the superior technology/platform (and it doesn’t matter if that guy is on top or bottom).

Microsoft used to be a company that I didn’t care much for… their views.. their model.. pretty much everything. Maybe it is because Bill Gates left the CEO position… I’m not sure (it really started before that). Since .NET, Microsoft started to change. They make amazing APIs for developers, the best tools for developers, they support open-source, they care about delightful experiences, they admit faults, they improve products and don’t just add feature to them, and the whole feeling of Microsoft has flipped. The contribute back to the Linux community more than the companies that took the code from the community to make proprietary OSes (Apple, Google).