This is gonna be one long blog post...
So basically this is a big massive rant to Microsoft, mainly about WP7 and the way they support none US customers and the way they think they can do whatever they like, because they "own" the desktop OS market.
Be warned, I sometimes tend to have foul language.
Since as long as I can remember i've always had a PC & it's always had the latest Windows operating system on it, I brought Windows 7 the day it came out and XP the day that came out (I didn't buy Vista for obvious reasons....)
I've always seemed to like the Windows software, I never really ever required any assistance or help getting it set up or help using the operating systems because everything was so intuitive and easy to use.
So of course when Windows Mobile 6 came out, I had to test it out, I loved it, it was easy to use, everything was simple and easy to find and I never had any issues getting started with the phone. I started having a few small niggles with the software when applications failed to load or the whole mobile locked up when doing certain things... so of course I resorted to searching the internet and finding out I wasn't the only person out there having issues. In fact, nearly everyone who had put faith in Microsoft with Windows Mobile 6 was disappointed and very unhappy.
As they are pretty much one of the best software creators in the world, I thought to myself "how did this happen?" "why are there so many issues with this software?"
Needles to say, I sold the phone, I wasn't happy with it.
It then took them a full year to release 6.1 and I didn't even bother buying a phone, I tested it in a shop, seen that many of the problems still existed and then left the shop... I was shocked a horrified that the biggest software company in the world couldn't bring out a decent mobile OS (or even fix one for that matter) and henceforth, 6.5 didn't fix any issues either, I was still experiencing lock ups, problems with apps and general software failures.
I decided I didn't want another Windows mobile.
Sometime probably in Early 2009 (not too sure) I became and Xbox Live member, paying my monthly subscription for the Xbox Live Gold service.
The reason I hadn't brought an Xbox 360 before then was because I didn't like the look of the dashboard software (and because I was a general Sony fanboy) but I seen my friends Xbox running the new NXE dashboard and I was very impressed and my best friend brought me an Xbox for my birthday.
I loved everything about it, the colours of the dashboard, how visually stunning everything was and how everything just somehow fit in to place. The sounds were superb and the Xbox is a great experience, especially when playing with friends.
Over the years with Xbox Live, I had a few niggles with my Xbox, usually with accounts because sometimes my card would magically disappear from their database and they wouldn't charge me for the Xbox Live service and I would have to give them my details again and again. I had other small issues such as once I had a few red lights on my Xbox and thought it was the RROD, I called up Xbox support, who were not helpful at all, I asked to speak to technical services and they said I was talking to the tech team and they didn't know what was wrong with my Xbox and how it could be fixed. I later found out, through the magic of Google that it was a RROD, but it was an issue with the HDD not sitting correctly, all I had to do was remove it and plug it back in. Awesome.
Over the years, Xbox support has gotten a lot better, they now have more options when you call them up and are always very polite and helpful.
Here's where the major rants start occurring...
Some time during mid 2010, I heard of a new Windows mobile coming soon and immediately though "oh no, not again".
This however was not named Windows Mobile, but rather, Windows Phone 7.
I had searched around the internet for information of this WP7 and seen some screenshots that looked very nice.
I was still feeling that I wasn't going to get one, based on the failures of WM6.X,
But over time, more information came out, more screenshots flooded on to the internet, and I became more and more interested when features such as Office, Live Tiles and Xbox Live were confirmed.
What really sold me with the WP7 was the Xbox Live integration, I really wanted to be part of that community and play games whilst mobile and earning Xbox Live enabled achievement.
Eventually WP7 was released and instead of going and buying one without testing it first, I went to the phone shops in Birmingham and not a single employee in the shops knew about WP7 or even had one to use on display, they kept trying to sell me iOS phones (eyuckk).
I was not happy.
I had also noticed that there was also no advertisements for WP7 anywhere.
Eventually I bit the bullet in November and ordered myself a HTC HD7 (being that HTC make superb phones)
2 days later my phone came, straight out of the box, it was beautiful, the colourful tiles, pinning stuff to my home screen, my people hub, office 2010... even Zune was beautiful...
After setting up my phone and setting up my Windows Live account I began using the phone, it was perfect.
Then I opened the marketplace... Xbox Live games - £4.99. WHAT. THE. FUCK!?
From using Android and iOS phones before, I knew games were fairly cheap on those mobiles, a lot of games costing around 79p - £1.99 - but this was unbelievable.
I then realised that actually, this is fairly cheap compared to say, Xbox Live Arcade games (usually around 800MSP or 1200MSP = around £8) so that kind of made me feel a little better and I purchased a few games, but was VERY careful with my purchases (and I still am)
I also received an e-mail from Microsoft saying that because I purchased a WP7 I was eligible to receive a free game; either Kinect Adventures, Fable 3 or Halo: Reach, I decided to go for Fable 3 and was very happy that Microsoft had rewarded me for being an early adopter of WP7.
I then went to type in my address and noticed it only accepted US addresses. I re-read through the e-mail to find this offer was a US-only promotion... oh dear Microsoft.
2 weeks later, i'm on the train heading to work, listening to music on my WP7 then suddenly, my music stops, I noticed that Zune had crashed and restarted my phone. I was curious why that had happened, but not bothered, until it happened a few later again.
So I went on the internet to try find a Windows Phone support number for the UK.
I couldn't find one anywhere, I found one for the US, but not the UK. So I called HTC instead, well they were as useful as a brick trying to swim and I crawled over to XDA-Developers to find out other people had this issue too and were sending phones back for replacements. I didn't want to be without my WP7 so I chose not to return it and since then, my phone has only ever spontaneously restarted once.
Yay, news of an update coming to WP7 codenamed "NoDo" promised fixes, stability, copy and paste and marketplace search.
I couldn't wait for NoDo and when it came my phone refused to update, Zune kept throwing out different errors every time I tried to update and I got fed up and resorted to Chris Walsh's program to update my phone, which done it first time successfully. A company that deploys updates to probably, billions of PC's can't even get the update procedure right for their mobile OS? Shame on you Microsoft... I also received a HTC Update for my phone which I had many, many troubles with. Over the whole period when updates started rolling out, I found myself constantly messaging WindowsPhoneSupport on Twitter. Don't get me wrong, they are great guys, always polite and always willing to help, but if they designed the update process correctly then it would have saved me a lot of time.
Over time I noticed another problem with WP7 which really annoyed me and branches in to another set of issues.
If you remove and app from your phone, then all the saved data for that app is also removed, so if I buy a game from Microsoft (which was overly expensive) and then have to hard reset my phone (because that's the only way to fix some issues to do with updating) I lose my games progress... I thought they could have done something smart like cloud storage or even give us a way to back up our Xbox Live saved games, I asked WindowsPhoneSupport and they confirmed that there is no way to back up the game saves on my phone. So what happens when it's upgrade time and I want to get the latest Nokia WP7? If I have accumulated a stack of games that I want to continue on my new phone, I can't, I have to start those games again... One of the main selling points for WP7 was Xbox Live integration and they don't even give us an option to back up our saved games, which makes me not want to upgrade to a new WP7 when Mango devices are released.
Microsoft also made another few US-only promotions such as the Xbox Live Windows Phone Avatar Item which was US-only and a recent one where Microsoft released 2 free games for Windows Phone - Sudoku and Minesweeper, they are also US-only. RAGE.
Where is the International support Microsoft?
Do you not love anyone outside the US? Pathetic.
Microsoft also removed Crackdown: Project Sunburst from the marketplace, then took the servers offline. Crackdown can only be played by being connected to the server, so basically I paid £2.49 for a game which is no longer playable. Microsoft released a statement saying they will refund anyone who has purchased the game within the past 60 days. I purchased the game in December and was basically being punished for adopting WP7 early. I wasn't happy with this and kept calling the Xbox Live support line until they eventually gave me a number for a UK based number for Windows Phone help.
I called up and they told me I could only get a refund if I purchased the game in the past 60 days, to which I argued about being punished for being an early adopter and that the game is unplayable. After 45 minutes of battling with someone who could barely speak English, I got passed on to the manager at that site and he granted me a refund.
Basically, I am very disappointed with Microsoft support outside of the US and their US-only promotions.
I'm also very disappointed with their lack publicity for a potentially great product.
Apple are taking over now Microsoft, make room, because when a phone upgrade opportunity comes, I will be asking for the iPhone 5.
Got any experiences with Microsoft or WP7 that you want to share? Let me know in the comments.
