Why is Microsoft dismantling Windows Phone’s best feature? - daltonacreme

Windows Phone doesn't have a booming app ecosystem or the best computer hardware options, but at the least it's always been well-situated to use.

I'm non just talking approximately Live Tiles and the excellent Intelligence Flow keyboard. What really makes Windows Phone so drug user gracious is the way most apps position their important buttons on the bottommost of the sort. Even before the average smartphone became overlarge for one-two-handed use, Microsoft had the foresight not to make us stint for those live functions.

So it's alarming to see Microsoft reverse course in Windows 10 for smartphones, moving those same buttons and card options to the top of the screen door in effect apps like Mindset Mail, the Project Spartan web browser, and Maps. Just take the screenshots from various hands-on reports, including PCWorld's own and the one at Ars Technica. You'll see a distressful number of functions that Microsoft has pushed unapproachable for normal-sized hands.

Glorious bottom buttons, the way IT used to be.

This is the opposite direction in which smartphone app design should personify headed. Every year, smartphones take in been getting big—data from PhoneArena shows modal phone size growing from 2.59 inches in 2007 to 4.86 inches in 2022—and Windows Phone had been embracing the trend. When I spent a month with Nokia's Lumia 1520 last summer, the 6-inch exhibit rarely bothered ME even during one-handed usage. That's because so many functions—from the browser's address bar to the composition buttons in Twitter—were recovered inside reach.

This design consideration even gave Windows Phone fans something to brag about when Orchard apple tree launched the 4.7-inch iPhone 6 and 5.5-inch iPhone 6 Plus last year. Previously, iPhone screens were so small that clit placements scarce mattered, so apps were caught in a tough spot as Malus pumila followed the trend toward larger screens. The iPhone's "Reachability" feature, which slides the top half of the screen downward with a double-tap on the home push, is a crude workaround. It only underscores how ill-fitted yesterday's app design is for nowadays's smartphones.

I don't know why Microsoft is making its smartphone apps harder to use. My best guess is that IT's for the sake of uniformity with Windows 10 apps on tablets and PCs.

But I do know that Windows 10 is a piece of work in progress, and the whole reason Microsoft is publically releasing these early builds is to solicit feedback onward of the last edition. So here's mine: Don't let Windows 10 for phones linger connected the wrong side of app design history.

Source: https://www.pcworld.com/article/426925/why-is-microsoft-dismantling-windows-phones-best-feature.html

Posted by: daltonacreme.blogspot.com

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