I've had an iPod touch (jailbroken) for the past few months. So I'm familiar with the iPhone OSX UI and was thinking that I'd ditch my iPod and get the iPhone when my crappy CellC (with Nokia N80) contract expires. Then came the doubts...the thought of spending R7K and getting sub standard features (compared to the Touch Pro, Omnia etc.)
So after wasting precious hours at work and reading almost all the reviews and comments on sites I decided that if I was going to move to a windows mobile device, the Omnia's my best bet. I've had a fair amount of experience with windows mobile in the good 'ol PDA days, so I was was sure move to the Omnia and enjoy the superior features on the phone, right? WRONG.
I finally got to test one of these phones yesterday, and what a godawful experience it was! Yes, granted I only tested it for a few minutes, but it just doesn't matter. The problem with this thing (and almost all these "next gen" WinMO smartphones) is simply that they've chucked a PDA OS on a phone .. and now expect you to somehow navigate "preferrably" without the stylus. I know there's a larger icon UI chucked over WinMO to make thumb navigation possible, but I wouldn't want to be caught dead using that half assed clown-color-inspired little interface. Yes, I know, you're probably thinking of flaming comments to throw my way, things like "you obviously don't know WinMO", "You're just not a power user" etc. etc.
I can assure you, I know my way around my devices and always try to stay objective when testing one, and always try to find workarounds to make the device suite my lifestyle. The problem here is, even if I could tweak WinMO to somehow work better, I can just imagine how irritating that finicky little UI will be to use after the original "wow" factor on the Omnia disappears. And what's worse is the fact that the touchsreen is simply too unresponsive, I've read about other users complaining about this, but never dreamed it would be this bad. Now and then I kept pressing items on the menu with no response, not knowing whether windows was lagging or whether there were too many tasks running, several times it turned out that the screen simply wasn't picking up my thumb presses and pushing any harder felt incredibly akward.
Seriously, I don't care about the iPhone hype and the fact that it has generated a whole community of mouth foaming anti-apple crusaders that spend so much time trying to find faults on the device. I know there are happy WinMO users out there, and I know that the Omnia has some really great features (read:specs) that I would have loved to see on the iPhone, but to somehow state that the Omnia is superior only means one of several things:
1. Either the iPhone has some critical feature missing you cannot live without (Which in most cases I doubt, unless your girlfriend lives in Siberia and MMS porn is the only action you get)
2. You've never actually USED an iPhone and compared it to the Omnia
3. You can't buy an iPhone (for whatever reason) and you're now looking for justifications as to why the Omnia is somehow superior (which in some aspects it is, but overall it's a terrible experience to get to the superior functionalities).
4. You really truly think the Omnia is superior and don't mind spending hours on end trying to get used to it and customizing the UI and applications (in which case ignore my rant, years of tinkering with gadgets and trying to get them to look and work "cool" has burnt out my geek-side and I am now part of the group of people who prefer ease of use and practicality above a fake smoke screen of IT gadget twiddling superiority with strangers and my peers)
5. Your never ending search for individualism has led you to believe that it's cool to hate popular devices just because everyone else loves them and somehow they're just "stupid, uninformed or petty"...even to the extent that you try to defend software from companies like Microsoft whose had many years and almost infinite resources to design a Mobile OS with a UI that could easily trump the iPhone. No to mention the fact that this is (technically) Apple's first attempt at a phone, and already ALL of the other cellphone manufactures are clambering to keep up to regain or sustain market share.
I can just see myself on this thing, changing registry settings, adding apps to bridge the WinMO shortfalls etc. and then loading new ROM's that are supposed to be "better", only to have to redo all the customizations I made....*eish*
For those of us that enjoy a phone with AWESOME mobile browsing, multimedia features that truly stand out and create an attachment between you and your multimedia, and the easiest way of adding apps, music, games etc. Bite the dust and get an iPhone. For those "power users" out there that claim it's a great device, great, I'm glad some folks out there can get this thing to work brilliantly, just remember that most people don't want to play with their devices for weeks to get used to it, only to find out that functionality has been compromised to make way for superior features that constitute about +-10% of the average use of the device.
P.S. and as for Apple locking down on the iPhone apps, I don't give a rats ass what they do to the app. store. At least they monitor it so that not every Tom Dick and Sally can put their crappy app. on there and screw up thousands of user experiences on the device. Even if every app. was forced to put on an icon of Steve Jobs' hairy ass, I'd still get some free useful apps and would still rather pay money for decent applications and developers who deserve it.
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