Windows 10 on Mobile under the scope: Flaws, confusion, and going nowhere fast

Popping down to the Store

The gag doing the rounds is that Adaptive UX “ensures applications look consistently awful on every kind of device”, and unfortunately there’s a lot of truth in it. When Continuum is successful you can see the potential. The Office mobile applications are now very rich, and they’ll be the only Word most people will ever need. They even support footnotes. Writers, rejoice.

It makes sense for Microsoft to have one Store code base, not six. And perhaps, perhaps, to have one code base for a Music app.

But that doesn’t mean Store on phones, which can have a flakey connection, should behave like the Store on desktops, with Ethernet or fast Wi-Fi connections. And it shouldn’t mean that Music (now rebranded Groove) should look the same on all platforms. A phone is an intimate touch device, a PC is not.

I get to use every platform and Windows Phone 7 and 8 is the only one I miss when using one of the three main rivals, such is its good design and ease of use, and flexibility. I didn't realise how good the WP7 design was until switching; it didn't really require you to stretch to the top until WP8, as all others do.

I’m still puzzling why there are 16 action shortcuts, but not one serves as a one-click “Do Not Disturb” or “Silent Mode” function, let alone old school Profiles. I suppose PCs don’t really need a Silent Mode, so WM10 doesn't get one.

There's no 'Silent' or 'Do Not Disturb' shortcut... but there is a Note. And this is what happens when you click it

Another example: phones ask you to enter a PIN as a lock screen code. Here, this is presented as some fantastic new innovation. That’s because on Windows for desktops, it is. They simply kept the desktop wizard. Nobody thought how weird it would look on a phone. What next, a Wizard that shows you you can actually make phone calls? Nah.

At times like this it seems Microsoft’s platforms division really appears to have gone backwards, and discarded a polished and well liked (by its users, anyway) phone UX, and cobbled together an Android clone. Only it’s an Android clone that never existed, from perhaps the 1.5 or 2.x era, years ago. Windows Phone is beginning to seem like a nice dream you once had.

If this sounds harsh, there are good things about it. And just as before, I‘ll start with those.