Initial thoughts on windows phone
This week I upgraded my wife's phone to a new Nokia Lumia 900, from her aging iPhone 3GS. while many have blogged about the pros and cons for switching and what you lose gain but making the switch. I'm taking a development approach to how i assess windows phone as a platform. I currently develop for both Android and iOS and the development experience is mostly the same with each platform having small differences in the overall experience but for the vast majority of apps moving from iOS to Android is not a huge shift in UI development. In our short time as owners of a WP there is a fresh and newly engaging way the best apps are presented to the user. Comparing the major apps on each platform, your Twitter, Facebook, Netflix, etc. the windows phone apps just have a sort of polish and cleanliness to them, which to be fair is the point of the metro UI Microsoft is building for WP and Windows 8. However, more to my point the departure and ability to make apps that look that way is very attractive to me as a developer. I want to make my apps look that good and it makes me want to support windows phone as a platform because i think design this good is key to pushing mobile further and building more engaging experiences for our users. That being said just as there are bad apps on the other platforms a badly done WP app is just a hideous and some times even more so as it jars you from the niceness that you get accustomed to looking at. So my verdict give WP a chance its pretty good right now and I think it has the ability to be a really good very soon, so please don't disregard it because it's a Microsoft product, I would have to say that just like the Xbox its not your standard Microsoft product. In speed, smoothness, and overall quality I think it has advantages over the other platforms the only thing it lacks is a full catalog but that where we as developers need to step up and deliver. This is a platform we should want to support.