Windows 7 Phone

Honestly, is Microsoft just playing a massive joke on everyone? 

I’ve been using a Windows 7 phone for about a month now and I cannot figure out how Microsoft thinks this platform is a good idea.  Granted, the user interface is fun and cool and consolidating contacts from all sources seems workable and cool.  I am always nervous imagining how Microsoft will translate out to Facebook and LinkedIn but the inbound consolidation is very nice. 

Here are the show stoppers for the Windows Phone: 

Tombstoning:  This is a firing offense. Well, I don’t want someone to lose their job over my phone but I would station whoever came up with tombstoning at the Antarctica station.  If you don’t know, tombstoning is when the phone unloads an app to move on to the next.  The phone will load it back up when you go back to it.  What does this means to you?  Say you’re watching Netflix and you switch your phone from one hand to another and you accidentally press the very sensitive search button.  Search loads up and Netflix is tombstoned.  Why is this a problem?  Well, it takes Netflix about 2-3 minutes to reload and reconnect to whatever you were watching.  Netflix, iHeartradio, and on, and on, it’s the same for all apps.  Imagine you want to reply to an SMS; same problem.  It really is the most horrible idea ever. 

Tethering: Excuse me?  I have to attach my phone to a computer to load the media? Really?  Is this 2008?  Are we trying to move forward? Copy Apple? Finally do something interesting with Zune?  What?  Ridiculous.  I’d love for someone in Microsoft to call me and explain how I should be listening to the Dan Patrick Show around the time its really aired.   Maybe Microsoft feels on demand media is a fad and will be going away soon? 

Closed OS:  You literally cannot do anything interesting with the platform.  There are no provisions for installing business applications that are useful, e.g. compliance monitoring.  I promise them, I will never edit an Office document on my phone, please move on.  For a company chasing Apple so hard they seemed to forgot how much grief Apple is getting for having such a closed system. 

There are various small annoyances but really nothing more than any platform so I don’t think it’s fair to nitpick every hiccup.  In general, I love the phone and Samsung has a beautiful form factor but I simply cannot waste another 15 minutes trying to get the latest Jim Rome show on my phone before its completely outdated and I’m pretty sure I will spontaneously explode the next time I’m watching Doc Who on Netflix and just need to reply to my daughter’s text message