Hmm, just wondering. Why do you think windows phone is better than android?
Android is easy to hack about with, custom roms, the source is open and out there (most of it anyway)and generally has great usibility.
Usability. I strongly disagree that Android has much of that, and I suspect that a great many Android users simply don't know any better. Windows Phone really is that much better.
Rant: My first smartphone was a Lumia, and then when it broke i went to a Sony Xperia (with a rather clean Android 4.3 on it).
I never even realized how well-designed WP was until I went to Android. Examples:
- Operation. Nearly all of WP is easy to operate with just a thumb, single-handed. All important controls are either near the bottom or reachable by swiping. On Android, I have to reach to the top for all kinds of stuff. It's simply, apparently, an Android design pattern to put a bar with buttons on the top, as far away from my hand as possible. This is plainly ridiculous. On WP, there's a clear relationship between "how important is this action" and "how close is it to the bottom". As it should be.
- Consistency. All well-designed WP apps work the same. Swipe left/right for different screens/tabs, touch the left-side of an item for select-boxes, operations on the bottom and more operations by selecting "...". This is the same nearly everywhere, both for built-in apps and for most well-designed apps from the store.
- Cleanliness and clarity. The Xperia forced me to choose a home screen background picture, making it very difficult to read text and icons. I google-image-searched a "black.png" to work around this, but still, it's cluttered by default, and you need to do work to clean it up. Similarly, most good apps are really clean and uncluttered. I get the info I want to see or manipulate, no bullshit bells and whistles.
- Quick. WP's live tiles are a perfect middle ground for me between bloated Android widgets and app-icons-only like in iPhone. My homescreen only contains the stuff i do often, with bigger buttons for stuff i do more. All this, without cluttering the UI like doing something similar on Android would do (by hand-dragging around a combination of widgets and icons).
Needless to say, I went back to Windows Phone (anyone want to buy a Sony Xperia SP, btw?). Upgraded to WP 8.1, which added:
- The best mobile calendar app I've ever seen. The week view is simply amazing [1].
- Fix for every single thing I want that Android had and WP hadn't: better volume controls, action center for notifications and quick access to settings, stuff like that.
I'm well aware that none of the above includes the things you mention: customizability, open source, etc. WP indeed doesn't have that - it's much more like iOS in that respect. I thought I'd miss this, but with 8.1 fixing all the issues I had with WP, I realize that actually I don't want customizability, I want the thing to work great out of the box.
You only need customization if what you start with sucks.
On the hackability aspect though, WP app development is a very smooth experience compared to Android app dev (assuming you have a Windows computer ready somewhere). The API is very well designed and documented, and the tools are great (assuming you can stand Visual Studio).
This is one of the things I hate about the >4" screens, the interfaces were all designed with things being reachable, but now, I with large hands even, can't do it.
Most people who buy a phone don't really care about hackability, open source and custom roms. I own both a WP and a Nexus 5 and frankly, usability and consistency is better on the WP. I prefer Android for the reasons you stated, but you need to understand most people don't think about it that way.
For me, it's because Windows Phone is more task-oriented than app-oriented. There's a "flow" to the interface that just jives with my way of working on mobile.
To be sure, Android is more powerful in many ways, but with my Windows phone I can do all the same things I did on Android: SSH into my servers, VNC to support clients, etc. I'm missing a few games and novelty apps, but I don't use my phone as a gaming platform or toy, I use it to get work done.
And even on a fairly modern Android phone running JB, I've more than once had the same old issue I've always had on Android: If a call comes in when it's low on free RAM, there is simply no way to answer as the screen doesn't respond to taps. This has been the case on every Android phone I've used since 1.5 on a Motorola Cliq. Android is great when you need a mobile computer, but not so much when you need a mission critical device.
Rant: My first smartphone was a Lumia, and then when it broke i went to a Sony Xperia (with a rather clean Android 4.3 on it).
I never even realized how well-designed WP was until I went to Android. Examples:
- Operation. Nearly all of WP is easy to operate with just a thumb, single-handed. All important controls are either near the bottom or reachable by swiping. On Android, I have to reach to the top for all kinds of stuff. It's simply, apparently, an Android design pattern to put a bar with buttons on the top, as far away from my hand as possible. This is plainly ridiculous. On WP, there's a clear relationship between "how important is this action" and "how close is it to the bottom". As it should be.
- Consistency. All well-designed WP apps work the same. Swipe left/right for different screens/tabs, touch the left-side of an item for select-boxes, operations on the bottom and more operations by selecting "...". This is the same nearly everywhere, both for built-in apps and for most well-designed apps from the store.
- Cleanliness and clarity. The Xperia forced me to choose a home screen background picture, making it very difficult to read text and icons. I google-image-searched a "black.png" to work around this, but still, it's cluttered by default, and you need to do work to clean it up. Similarly, most good apps are really clean and uncluttered. I get the info I want to see or manipulate, no bullshit bells and whistles.
- Quick. WP's live tiles are a perfect middle ground for me between bloated Android widgets and app-icons-only like in iPhone. My homescreen only contains the stuff i do often, with bigger buttons for stuff i do more. All this, without cluttering the UI like doing something similar on Android would do (by hand-dragging around a combination of widgets and icons).
Needless to say, I went back to Windows Phone (anyone want to buy a Sony Xperia SP, btw?). Upgraded to WP 8.1, which added:
- The best mobile calendar app I've ever seen. The week view is simply amazing [1].
- Fix for every single thing I want that Android had and WP hadn't: better volume controls, action center for notifications and quick access to settings, stuff like that.
I'm well aware that none of the above includes the things you mention: customizability, open source, etc. WP indeed doesn't have that - it's much more like iOS in that respect. I thought I'd miss this, but with 8.1 fixing all the issues I had with WP, I realize that actually I don't want customizability, I want the thing to work great out of the box.
You only need customization if what you start with sucks.
On the hackability aspect though, WP app development is a very smooth experience compared to Android app dev (assuming you have a Windows computer ready somewhere). The API is very well designed and documented, and the tools are great (assuming you can stand Visual Studio).
[1] http://conversations.nokia.com/2014/04/17/windows-phone-8-1-...