After over two weeks getting acquainted with the Windows Phone 7 OS, I can now give you a good list of suggestions to improve the Windows Phone 7 which is now attached to my HTC HD7. Before I proceed, let me first clarify that I believe my suggestions will make the OS better, and probably give Apple iOS and Android a good run for the money. Well, without further delaying, here’s the list of suggestions:
#1 Cut & Paste Please
Microsoft claims that people rarely use this feature, but I rely on it heavily, and it hugely sucks not having it around.
#2 Smaller Tiles
Yeah, I love the ’tiles’ the WP7 has introduced. It’s bold and different, but also they are too large resulting in countless scrolling. Make the tiles smaller, or jumble them up as below… It would make much more sense, and save space.
If it’s not too much to ask, why not enable users to choose longer tiles for things they frequently tap on (as shown above), hence making the WP7 different and very user friendly.
#3 Battery Percentage
Only having the battery icon is so old school. That was something normal mobile phones use. Smart phone users demand more and hence their preference of having battery percentage for a crystal clear image of when they will run out of juice.
#4 Different Volume for Different Tones
This is one thing I found very neat in Android, but missing in the WP7. The ability of customizing the volume for different tones will enable you to choose how loud you want your alarm tone, ring tone, message tone, email tone to be. For people like me who sleep well like a log, the alarm tone would be definitely set to maximum.
#5 Custom Brightness
Yes, WP7 does have the ability to customize the screen level of brightness, but it’s only set to High, Medium and Low. This sucks because sometimes, you’d want to set it between Medium and Low to save power.
Why not have a custom brightness controller which you can adjust easily?
#6 Speed Dial Section
Microsoft may say that I could just pin up the person’s ’tile’ on the start screen, but that too possessed a problem because it’s a two step thing to make a call. You have to click on the person’s tile, and choose ‘call’ and that does not include the fact that you need to scroll down to locate the contact tiles.
Why not have a proper speed dial section where a tap on the name/tile would immediately dial the number?
#7 Custom Ringtone / Message Tone / Alarm
Having your favorite song as your ringtone or at the very least your alarm clock would make us wake up happy. Don’t you agree?
#8 Simplify Call Answer
When someone calls, you’d expect to tap/swipe and answer immediately. In the WP7, you have to swipe and then tap to answer. If you ask me, that’s too much of a process.
Have a simple and direct way to answer calls by making this process from a two step, to a one step.
#9 Save Camera Setting
For some odd reason, your camera resets its setting every time you start the application.
Why not do away with the ‘auto reset’ 😛
#10 Number Look-up
One thing I notice is that when you dial a number, the person’s name does not come up although you are matching a particular phone number. I can’t figure the name of such function, but I’ll settle for number or contact look-up.
#11 Flash Support
It’s bad enough that Apple has an outstanding problem with Flash, and now Microsoft decides to join in the fray by opting flash out of the WP7.
I bet I didn’t cover the whole list, but I think the 11 listed are the basic things which most WP7 users would love to have added on the WP7 OS. An update on the WP7 is slated in January or early 2011. Let’s hope out of the 11, at least over half makes the cut. To conclude, the WP7 OS is not bad, but it needs significant improvement to chase Apple, Blackberry and Android.