Windows Phone 8 comparative analysis
If you are into using many many apps, iPhone is still way ahead of WP8
Over a long time this will change, but at least for now, there is still quite a void of solid and useful apps for Windows Phone. I could not find anything good for DropBox, simple text note syncing like PlainText, and the Facebook for Windows Phone is not nearly as good as iPhone's FB app. Notifications are not reliable - I can have 20 notifications on the real site and they don't show up in the app. It is just hard to use in general. For specialty apps, like the Cyclemeter that is available for IOS, there is nothing even close to that level of sophistication on Windows Phone, though several have similar names and functions.GPS
Nokia's built-in GPS app on my Verizon work cell was OK, had turn-by-turn built in. It often seemed to forget the route because there is no semblance of multitasking. On my wife's HTC 8X on AT&T it is extortion to get a real turn-by-turn GPS and the silent 2D stuff on it is crap. After a long time a Waze app came out, but with no the 8X there is no expandable memory so she's currently hesitating to add a 27 MB app. It will be worth it, just need to use SkyDrive for all it is worth sync'ing photos and just delete them from the phone often.Live Tiles
I do like the Live Tiles. I have a lot to figure out about how I want to place mine. After you accumulate enough apps, in the full list of apps to the right, it shows all the letters of the alphabet, allowing you to quickly navigate to your apps that you don't use frequently enough to warrant using space on the Start Page. There are only a couple reasons that matters -- how far you have to scroll to get stuff at the bottom (it goes to the top of the Start Page whenever you tap the Start Key, or turn the device on), and when you pin something new to the Start Page, how far you have to drag it up to go where you want it, since tiles always land at the bottom of the Start Page at first.It is phenomenal to be able to pin to start custom live tiles of mutiple email inboxes, even down to the folder level! Makes it easy to keep up with my favorite discussion forums, having them filtered by gmail to go into a subfolder.
1st phone was locking up A LOT, got it replaced
UPDATE: No more locking up after I got the phone replaced!---
It has locked up about 7 or 8 times, especially in the first couple of days. The first time was the first morning I took it off the charger and went to use it. It seems to happen 2 to 3 times some days. I've been lucky the past two days though now! Nokia's answer is long press the power button but this does no good if it is truly locked up. I long pressed several times to no avail. Then they say to remove and reinsert the battery if nothing else will work. This is the only way I could get it to work. So if the phone locks up and I don't know it, I will be missing calls, messages, reminders, everything until I notice, and take the battery out and reboot. The documentation does not say whether it is possible to physically soft-reset the phone like older Windows Mobile 5 and 6 devices with a stylus, though there is a teeny tiny hole top left but I'm not sticking a pin in it unless the User Guide says to! Now that it is not happening so much maybe it is starting to calm down. I don't know if I should ask for a new one or just deal with it.
You actually CANNOT do much at all with Excel
This would have been a deal-breaker for me had I known. Even though initially it appears you can edit Excel, as soon as you try to do any real work it becomes apparent that its usefulness is extremely limited, and not just the usual limitations you might expect having a mobile version of something! Example - you can't even insert a new row!!! Microsoft knows about this and their answer is oh well just use the web app on SkyDrive (which is also lacking many features).
See my gripe to Microsoft and help join in if you are interested in actually using Excel for anything on a mobile device.
Also, it seems you can only edit cells if they already contain some information - so you can't go and start typing in a blank cell. (I wonder if editing other Office documents like Word will be this much of a problem, I haven't been there yet.).
I have actually kept collection the old old Windows Mobile phones mainly because they still do Excel Mobile PERFECTLY, and with SpreadCE you can even do much more.
Having your own wi-fi hotspot isn't necessarily going to happen
Take that off the list of cool WP8 features unless you check and make sure it will be supported by your company's plan (or added to your personal plan if that is the case). When you go to try to use it, you get a message saying "Your current data plan doesn't include Internet sharing. Do you want to open an app from your mobile operator to add it? Internet sharing uses your cellular data and may incur additional charges. [Yes] [No]". If you click Yes, you get: "Use of this service requires a subscription to Mobile Hotspot or Mobile Broadband Connect", and call customer service, etc.Find My Phone doesn't seem to work
I turn it on. It still says off.Editing text
In some ways editing text is much easier than on the iPhone. If you tap a word, it immediately selects that word. I miss having Select All as an option. It seems you have to tap a word and then grab one or both anchor points and swipe to the top and/or bottom. Placing the cursor in a certain spot is a bit tedious too, you tap and hold, and then fuss a bit to get it in the RIGHT spot. The on-screen keyboard is much easier for me to hit the right keys. Autocorrect is not arrogantly changing things you type very often. In general, WP text editing does not fight you as much as it does in IOS so that is overall a plus for WP to me.Nokia Music
The Nokia Music environment is really quite cool. Saving music offline is great, and they included my favorite genre which I have not seen featured like this anywhere else, progressive rock.Overall
IOS does certain things so much better and has many better apps, and I have my old Windows Mobile 6.1 for personal use especially for Excel. One day I hope things will get simpler instead of more dispersed among many devices. WP8 is not the answer to that! For my sanity, I'll see if I can avoid mobile computing until that day ever comes.A detachable laptop (where the brains are in a tablet-like display, that disconnects from the keyboard) is a step closer but from the other direction.
