Not sure if WP8 is going to do it for me

I like my Android but to be honest I get bored quickly so I'm considering jumping to BB10 or WP8 this spring. Now that WP8 is actually out I found a few things that are bothering me about it.

-No app folders. I always categorize my apps into folders, it's so much easier to find one app among a hundred if it's in the "Tools" folder I created. I'm very surprised MS didn't think of this. With WP8 you have 2 options: Pin the app to start screen or scroll alllll the way through the app drawer to find it. The WP8 Start Screen is just too big and filled up. Now if you could create app folder tiles on the Start Screen, that would be pimp. Ironically, you actually can do that on the WP7 lookalike launcher made for Android.

-Live tiles don't really interest me. Android has widgets, while not as pretty or built-in but essentially do the same thing. But I rarely use widgets much either. I would much rather see my incoming communications in a central notification area. Android does this via the pull down status bar. You can also do it in BB10 with the Hub. MS claims they're going to work on adding a notification area interface in a future update though so we'll see. As for the other uses of live tiles, I really don't have any urge to know what the weather is every time I look at my phone, nor do I need to see a constant stream of news on my phone screen. Live Tiles are at the heart of the WP8 unique look and feel, but IMO they're just widgets made prettier.

-Maps and Turn by turn Nav doesn't seem as integrated nor as good as Google's, even on the Nokia versions. I'm a heavy user of the whole Google Maps suite and to have that baked right into the OS and also the browser and other apps is a huge deal for me. This is something I'm going to be watching BB10 very closely for.

-Kid's corner. Yeah because my $600 smartphone doubles as a toy for a raging pre-teen. What bling-bling messed up cultural mindset prompted this idiocy? Not only useless, but stupid too.

Those are my main beefs so far with it. Overall I think it's a 'nice' OS, and yes it is very fluid and fast. And the hardware on the Nokia and HTC phones looks pretty good so far (although not perfect. there have been known hardware issues) but there's nothing hitting the ball out of the park with it as far as I'm concerned. Plus I can't get that image out of my head of a fat balding Ballmer skipping across the stage screaming and prancing like an monkey "WOOOOOO GIVE IT UP FOR ME WOOOOO!!" :eek:

I pretty much agree with every point you said!!!

Personally, I'm just not a big fan of widgets and live tiles. I don't need my phone telling me every single thing, I like that RIM has decided to hide the notifications away in the hub, If I want to look at it later then so be it. Active frames are great because it's stuff that I've opened, I want to run and if need be I can see snippets of that information later because its running in the background and when I don't need it sucking up battery or showing me tidbits throughout the day, I can shut it down. The weather info, like you said, I don't need to see it everyday. Once in the morning (if that) is generally good enough for me. I don't know WP8 allows but i think it'd be a little more calming turning off live tiles, it is my homescreen after all.


I think categorising apps is a miss step by WP8 and I just think it's going to become cluttered if I start pinning down stuff and even then WP8 dictates which one gets a bigger tile.


Don't get me wrong, there's still a lot I like about WP8 like the deeper integration of apps, the eco-system with gaming and productivity but it's not really exclusive to their phone and personally that deeper integration is better than android and iOS for now but the lack of a notification centre is beyond me. I can see why people who didn't have blackberry phones were up in arms about RIM not having emails on their playbook .(BB users had bridge)

I don't know how good RIM's turn by turn will be. I never got to use traffic which never took advantage of the mapping system but with RIM partnership with tomtom it can only get better. Also, RIM has a little more experience than Apple did even if certain users felt bb maps was lacking and it certainly did with turn by turn navigation.