Our of curiosity, what got you buying MS phones? My sense was that by the time they had a decent phone available, most people were too invested in Android or iOS to readily consider a change. Were you a late adopter of smart phones or did you make the switch at some point?
I was using a galaxy s2 but got frustrated with android (usability and stability issues). My wife bought a lumia 710 to replace an aging blackberry, and I was very impressed with the usability. A bit later, when they did a deal on the lumia 920, i bought it, and over two years later I'm still on the same phone. Very happy with it. I'm waiting for them to release a proper high end phone again to upgrade my 920.
Microsoft made three key mistakes with windows phone after the acquisition. The first was stopping the development of high-end models. No high end model means no evangelists which in turn means price is the only thing you can compete on. The lack of profit in the lumia division is a consequence of chasing after the bottom of the market. I'm convinced windows phone is good enough to win at the high end, but microsoft had to show up first, and they mostly didn't. They made some bone-headed decisions like releasing the high end 930/icon without the one lumia-only feature (glance), while shipping that feature on low end devices.
The second thing they did wrong was messing with the OS itself to make it more android-like (getting rid of hubs and panorama views, introducing hamburger menus, app-ifying the social integration, etc...). Every change made the OS less attractive to people already using it, while doing nothing to convince those who weren't, because those people needed apps which weren't there. Oh, yeah, that's the third and worst thing they did wrong: radically mismanaging the windows app store, both towards the users as towards the developers.
I'm not the original poster, but I bought a Lumia 925 out of pure nerdy curiosity. I'd tried iOS, I'd tried Android and just wanted to see what else was out there. And I have to say it's pretty fine piece of hardware running a pretty great OS.
All that being said, I'm probably going back to Android for my next phone, simply because WP keeps lagging further and further behind when it comes to apps. If WP had the same apps as Android I'd probably buy a new Windows Phone.
Clearly you don't know what are we talking about , Compiling/Uploading your app just exact same way you already did many times for new platform/users is something most dev will do , because it don't have any burden. And as I remember they mentioned 100% compatibility , and they even support most of Google cloud service via Microsoft service's with exactly same API .
Or they could allow installing from apk or third party stores. Though that will help only the more technical users, which doesn't seem to be lumia's target market.
I bought a MS phone because my nexus 4 kept crashing with the latest upgrades. The battery would last max 6 hours, using the camera had a 50% chance of restarting the OS, the touch functionality of the screen would work 50% of the time after reboot, when the battery was under 25%, the phone would act eradically ... etc. As for iphone, too expensive. I got my lumia for 60$ on amazon without contract.
Personally, I switched over to Windows Phone from a Nexus 4 after I bought a generic Windows 8 tablet and started using the live tiles. In my opinion, compared to the iOS and Android "grid of icons", live tiles are just superior in every way. I'm honestly surprised that neither Google nor Apple have copied Microsoft here.
I'm using a brand new LG G4 as my daily driver, and I own two Nexus 7s. You're going to have a hard time convincing me that the Android widgets I can set up on my G4 [1] compare in any way to the live tiles on a Windows Phone [2]. I recognize that this is all subjective, though.
Again, this is all subjective, but I'll try to explain why I prefer live tiles over Android's widgets.
1. Android widgets are huge, I can fit maybe 4-5 widgets on one page of the Android desktop. More than that, they become so scrunched that you can't get any information out of them. This is compounded by the fact that some widgets only allow a certain size unless you download 3rd-party launchers.
2. Widget design is largely up to the app developer, and a lot of widgets are ugly (subjective) or at least don't match the other widgets you have them grouped with.
3. Widgets try to be interactive, and I can't tell you how frustrated it makes me when I'm scrolling across the desktops to look at widgets and I accidentally cross an item off of a todo list, or scroll through my list of emails instead of continuing on to the next desktop.
To me, the Android (and iPhone) home screens feel lifeless and dead when compared to a Windows Phone. On WP, my live tiles are always flipping around and displaying the latest emails, tweets, facebook posts, news articles, pictures from my camera roll, etc. The Windows Phone start screen displays all of that information to me at a glance, and I can pick and choose what to do next based on the summary that I see on my start screen. On Android, though, I have to actively search for that information by going from app to app.
I think there are ways to solve all of your issues on android, including using a 3rd party home screen; but at the end of the day - these are not products that come down to measured specs against measured specs, these are products we use as an intimate part of our daily lives and as a result are subject to purely subjective factors being a core part of the decision making process.
I appreciate your opinion, it has helped me further understand why using subjective reasoning as a driving factor for technology purchases is no longer a sign of the uninformed/uninitiated, and is now instead (rightfully) simply a personal preference.
The UI was what got me hooked. I was coming off of an iPhone and loved the Windows Phone home screen. Once you get hooked on live tiles, its hard to go back.
My first smart phone was an HTC Radar running Windows 7 which was later upgraded to 7.5. My second windows phone is my current phone which is a Lumia 925. I immediately fell in love with this phone because of the camera quality (pictures and videos). My phone is going on three years and it still takes better pictures than most Android and Apple phones except maybe for the newest Apple and/or high end Android devices. I bought my wife a Lumia 520 when they became available and she immediately was able to use it -- now she owns a 640. I never owned an Android or an Apple device but most of my immediate family and close friends own one or the other giving me a chance to compare features. To this day I haven't found a reason to switch. I have tested my phone against high end Android devices and my phone is more responsive and the picture quality is always better to the point where I'm constantly being asked to share my pictures. If I can find a better phone for the same amount of money I spent for my phone ($150.00 refurbished) I will buy it.
Here's my experience: my first smartphone was a Nokia with Windows Phone 7, which I bought when my Nokia N95 was too broken to be used in public. It lasted for around 6 months until it fell off my pocket and cracked, because changing the screen was just as expensive as a new phone.
I was pretty mad at some issues (the camera would hang the phone under certain circumstances, dev tools were painful, Zune as a requirement for sync), so I got myself an Android phone. That one lasted a couple years, until the USB connector broke - since the battery was non-removable, there was no way for me to keep using it.
After having experienced both, I have to say: the experience in Windows Phone feels much smoother than Android. Yes, the development tools are still annoying, but using the phone itself has a nicer "feeling" to it.
I now have the cheapest WP 8 I could find, and so far I'm happy with it. It also seems to be more resistant to drops than its older brother.
I use osmand for free offline maps and navigation anywhere in the world. Should I be doing something different? How does this make Windows Phone special?
I was answering the question of what made me choose a Microsoft phone. Offline maps has always been a strong differentiator of Nokia, now the owner of Navteq. I can't comment on the quality and extension of Open Street Maps. I gather that you are a satisfied user of osmand, so I recommend that you don't do anything different.
Eh, I'm satisfied as to use in the US. The quality of the mapping they have for China is pretty bad... but I kind of figured it wouldn't be great from any other (english-language) provider either. Google Maps is better in some ways, but hard to access and still terrible at things like street addresses.
Anecdote: Friend of sister wanted new phone that could take decent pictures and do Web/FB stuff. Nice man in shop suggested a lower end Lumia. Friend of sister very happy, especially with camera, which indeed produces excellent snaps.
I see quite a few WinPhone screens on my daily round in UK.
