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by kzkg 5347 days ago
1. It's a phone, not a mass-storage device.

2. Based on my experience, they work pretty well.

3. Or gmail, twitter, facebook? (although bing kinda annoys me as a default search engine)

4. Just wait for WP7 userbase to grow.

2 comments

> 1. It's a phone, not a mass-storage device.

No, I'm sorry. I want to access my files in whatever way I choose. What follows from the lack of mass-storage connectivity is that I can't access my files on a public computer, or a computer that I don't have admin rights over (e.g. computers in my university's labs). To actually defend this restriction is deplorable. It hurts all of us.

> 2. Based on my experience, they work pretty well.

I'm not going to take your word for it.

> 3. Or gmail, twitter, facebook? (although bing kinda annoys me as a default search engine)

This sidesteps my point: that Microsoft's online services, which are mostly pretty crap, seem to be the only viable option on WP7. Is this impression correct? I used a WP7 phone for 15 minutes in a store a few months ago, and it seems pretty heavy on MS.

Other commenters in this thread have pointed out that Gmail on WP is buggy and lacking in features. Gee, ain't that a coincidence?

> 4. Just wait for WP7 userbase to grow.

Hah. I've tried this before.

In Christmas 2009, I bought a hot new phone on a hot new platform. It was the most innovative phone out at the time. It had the best multitasking (), video calling, great PDF reader, and a great, fast, browser. It had a physical keyboard - which provided all sorts of nice features, like quick access to contacts by typing their names, or shortcut keys in every app. The platform was based on Debian Linux, and allowed native terminal access (i.e., it came rooted), so things like overclocking was a sinch.

In fact, save for WebOS, it was the only multitasking phone at the time. But its multitasking is still better than that of Android and iOS today.

The phone was the Nokia N900, based on Maemo 5. What happened? Well, the phone sold well, but Maemo eventually died. My phone is now running on a dead platform, and it sucks (apps are suffering bitrot).

So, I'm not going down that road again of buying a phone based on future aspirations. Buy what works now, because it's a good indication of what will work later.

> 1. It's a phone, not a mass-storage device.

Okay, this is getting silly. It's a phone, it's a mass storage device, it's a computer, it's a global networking device, it's a camera, it's a GPS locator, etc. It's all of them at the same time. Don't call it "a phone" and ignore everything else it can (or should be able to) do.

Why do you want it to be a mass storage device? I don’t get it.
To copy files to it? Music, documents, videos, etc?

Sure, you can use Wifi, but that's slower, more cumbersome and wastes battery life.

Manually? What century is this?

Isn’t there a way to sync? That would be strictly preferable to a mass storage device.

No, it wouldn't, exactly because that wouldn't be OS agnostic.

And who said anything about it being manual? Mass storage devices can be synced. Mine certainly are.

Meh. Just because some geeky stuff is missing doesn’t make WP7 not a great OS. As if anyone cares about Linux.
"We’re getting to the point where everything’s a computer in a different form factor. So what, right? So what if it’s built with a computer inside it? It doesn’t matter. It’s, what is it? How do you use it? You know, how does the consumer approach it? And so who cares what’s inside it anymore?"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vc8QXzYQoBY