The Windows Phone 7 Review
by Anand Lal Shimpi & Brian Klug on October 20, 2010 7:00 PM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- Windows Phone 7
- Microsoft
- Mobile
Notifications
Notifications are still a sore spot for iOS users. Thankfully, Microsoft did a good job with notifications in Windows Phone. In general WP7 uses a small slice of the top of the screen real estate to deliver both the kind of information about phones that users need (signal, battery, and status), and also deliver ‘toast’ notifications.
I’ve shown some of that before already. Incoming messages show up and have the contact’s name or number (depending on whether you have a contact card for them), and a snippet of the message. You can tap on that and dive into the messaging application, or swipe the message off to the side and ignore it:
It’s sort of a hybrid combination of WebOS’ notification system. The only small concern I have is that after a toast fades away, there’s no way to see it again. If you’re browsing and want to finish reading a paragraph before responding, you’ll probably miss the message toast. Then you’re forced to hop out of IE, hop into messaging, and get back. You end up missing out on the otherwise excellent IE -> messaging -> back to IE workflow enabled by the back button. It’s a tremendously minor gripe, but it’s important to differentiate that WebOS keeps those notifications at the bottom until they’re dismissed, WP7 dismisses them for you after a few seconds.
Voicemails also result in a notification the same way, popping up a simple new voicemail toast when something is incoming:
On WP7, there really are about 4 different ways to get notified about messages, missed calls, and voicemails. With toasts directly like I’ve already shown, with tiles on the start page that change and show a simple counter, and at the bottom of the lock screen:
Push notifications from applications will also show up as toasts, and there’s an in-application notification system as well. I’ve yet to encounter either of these two, but they’ll definitely be leveraged at one point or another.
I’d say in general that WP7 has struck a balance with its notification system that puts it some place inbetween the competition. iOS either freezes whatever you’re doing and pops up a big bubble right in the middle of your screen, or you can turn that off and get nothing at all. Android sticks everything in the notifications bar at the top and expects users to check that by dragging down. The result is that one gives you a ton of information at the cost of being annoying, the other keeps it all hidden away. Again, it’s obvious that WP7 takes nods from WebOS.
As we already mentioned, the top of the screen isn’t just used for toasts however. WP7 still needs to deliver basic information critical to the operation of the phone. Information like signal strength, network status, vibration status, and battery level. WP7 will drop down status indicators as appropriate, but only when it’s relevant. In a call, signal bars will drop down, but nothing else. When you’re hopping on or jumping off of WiFi, the wireless indicator will animate appropriately. It’s an interesting way of keeping the interface clean. I still prefer seeing all this information all the time, but I understand what the WP7 team was going for here.
Tap volume, and you’ll bring up another toast-like notification where you can toggle vibrate/ring and change the current volume level:
When playing music, there’s a similar kind of notification toast, except now you can skip tracks and pause:
There’s also a black on white version of all these if you change your theme settings:
Though the toasts remain the solid accent color set in themes.
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Shadowmaster625 - Friday, October 22, 2010 - link
It cant play avi files? What do you call a $500 device that cant play avi files? FAIL.beefnot - Friday, October 22, 2010 - link
I'm so sick of seeing "fail" in user comments. 99% of the time, it follows a point or points being made that wouldn't have swayed them to deem it worthy anyway. YAWN.mutatio - Friday, October 22, 2010 - link
I'm glad you guys found it to be as smooth and useful as you did. Based on what you described and the corresponding pictures, however, I'm having a hard time understanding something "just works" when the UI looks like a crap sandwich and almost makes my eyes bleed. "No, we don't use those oh-so-80's icons that graphically represent what the App does. We're much too posh for that, minimalist traffic signs for everything! Brilliant!" Maybe it'll be different with hands on, but it looks like MS went out of their way to try and make this thing look clever and almost abstract. Think myspace made into a smartphone, and if you're like me and think that myspace pages more often look like pop culture chewed up, swallowed, and thrown up onto a web page, then you get where I'm coming from. If that is the case when I get my hands on one of these, I can't see how MS can get any significant traction in the smartphone market. They might get some young emo hipsters who dig the abstract layout, but the appeal thus far of iOS and Android is the overall ease of use. My impression from your review, despite your reassurances, is that MS has again made a product much more complicated than it needs to be. I hope for MS' sake that is not the case when actually using the phone.MacGyver85 - Saturday, October 23, 2010 - link
You'll just have to try it to appreciate it I guess.I can understand people when they say the interface looks bland or overly simplistic based on "screenshots" of the UI. But when you see it in person it's so much better. Really.
Likewise with how you navigate around it. It's just so intuitive you don't for a second have to think how to do something. Every time someone asks me if what it's like I always respond that they'll have to use it themselves. And everyone that does loves it. Seriously :)
Dare I use it but what the hell: it just works!
DJJoeJoe - Saturday, October 23, 2010 - link
I don't think any OS at this point can grab a drastic number of market share like we see in the phone space obviously, or even the slightly slower moving browser space. Modern Operating Systems are so mature at this point that there is really little you can do, both Win7 and Snow Leopard were just small refinements to their previous versions.I think it's doubtful that even something as force-ably drastic as Chrome OS will do anything to the landscape either, even if Google bucketed down and really nailed it. Sadly the market share is ruled by the people going to costco and grabbing up a pre made pc, or large corps running xp, and I can't see something drastic being sold to either groups in the next handful of years.
tis all in the phones these days, and I wish I had a time machine so I could get the second wave of hopefully nicer wp7 handsets and maybe a good update to the os itself. Don't got the money to spend on a 'amazing start'.
Sabresiberian - Monday, October 25, 2010 - link
Looks to me like Vista's bad press helped Apple reach 9% market share, but that's as far as they've moved up. Win 7 is sweet and everyone knows it so Apple is no longer making headway.I don't want Microsoft execs to think that way though - like was written in the article, I think Microsoft performs better as an underdog, and if they think more in terms of being threatened by Apple or someone else then perhaps they'll be more inclined to put a shining example of what they can do out on the market.
Glad to see Microsoft did produce a product with some shine.
;)
dotroy - Thursday, October 28, 2010 - link
Windows 7 phone is good ...umm ..some things not as good ..but win7 phone is good, there are somethings done better by others OS but win 7 phone is good. I never felt like this before. This is a paid advertising. Anand is making good money.pete2s - Thursday, October 28, 2010 - link
Will Windows 7 Phone store apps on the ROM partition? If so, this severely limits the number and size of apps as well as their quality.Although Android is evolving past this limitation, Android, Blackberry and Palm phones store the OS and all apps on an encrypted partition referred to in the specs as the ROM. Usually, this ROM is 512MB. After the OS is installed, the phone has less than 300MB for apps.
Initially, I thought Windows 7 Phone would not store apps on the ROM because of its unified storage system that creates a single volume. If this were the case, however, there'd be no point in having a larger ROM because the ROM would only be holding the OS + the 60MB limit of pre-installed software. Some phones, like the Samsung Focus, do have larger ROMs though (1GB compared to 512MB). The only point of having a larger ROM would be to store more apps because apps are installed to the ROM.
If the above is true, Windows 7 Phone will be severely limited in app size and thus development.
drwho9437 - Monday, November 1, 2010 - link
"It’s almost as if Microsoft is taking Apple’s approach and simply letting everyone build iPhones."Exactly and it is genius, it means the cost margin will vanish and the experience will still be as the software people want, people won't think poorly of these phones just because of a few badly designed devices they used. Let's hope it works out.
owbert - Monday, November 1, 2010 - link
best review of win7 phone amongst others. great work!