Having spent the last week using only Windows Phone 8 smartphones such as the Nokia Lumia 920, we figured it's as a good time as any to talk about the mobile OS. Microsoft has beefed up its mobile operating system with plenty of new features, so here are the five main things that we love and hate about the smartphones running Windows Phone 8.
We love the new start screen
The Live Tiles on the Home screen can now shrink to a quarter of their former size, which means we can add more tiles as well as change the look and feel of the display. As it's the first thing that you'll actually see when using a WP8 smartphone, this tweak means the smartphone has become more personal.
We love taking screenshots
It may not be the fastest OS to add this feature, but you can finally take screenshots on your phone. We used it mainly for pointing out terrible grammatical mistakes on the Internet, but in our line of work, the ability to not have to use a developer kit just to take screenshots for our reviews in priceless since we can just get right into things without having to set things up. There are plenty of other uses, too. Achieved a record time at Minesweeper? Snap it and share!
We love and hate Internet Explorer 10
IE10 is fast and works great. But that's not to say it's perfect. There are some questionable design decisions that gave rise to frustration. For example, opening a Web page from an app, and it will overwrite your current page. You can change this to open a new tab, but why this isn't the default setting boggles the mind. Other things include a lack of quick access to tabs--you have to choose between favorites, stop/refresh or tabs. There's also no software "back" button (and we'll get to this in our next part).
We hate the multitasking
Like most other mobile OSes, WP8 has the ability to let multitask and switch between apps. Unfortunately, this isn't quite as simple as it sounds. Developers need to use the API provided by Microsoft, and even then it doesn't quite return you to where you previously left off. Furthermore, the back button ceases to function properly if you don't use the multitasking feature to switch between apps.
Here's an example: Say you are surfing the Web on IE10 and hit a few links, then exit the app by hitting the Home button, open another app, hit the Home button again, load up IE and you'll find that you won't be able to go back to the previous Web page when you hit the physical back button. Doing so brings you back to the Home screen, which is certainly silly UI behavior. For the physical back button to work for your history, you have to long press the physical "back" button to access the multitasking gallery, then switch to the app to get it locked. This happens with other apps, too.
We love Kids Corner
Though some of us don't really have kids, the idea behind Kids Corner is simply genius. If you want to share your phone with children but don't want them accidentally deleting your work emails or making long distance calls, the feature is just the thing.
Kids Corner is basically a sandbox environment for your kids to play with and, more importantly, they won't have access to the main features of the phone. You also have control on what apps they get to use, though children are allowed to customize the corner with a name, picture as well as change the colors used for the Live Tiles.
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