I’ve been using Windows Phone for many years, and am familiar with a number of its behaviours. Here are some of its niceties that I’ll miss:
- If I’m not sure where I put an app, I can swipe the home screen right and get a complete list. Nothing is ever really misplaced. I wish the same were true of the iPhone.
- If I switch Wifi off, I can tell the phone to automatically turn it back on after a period of time. This is useful. It could be a lot better, given the only options are a specific set of hours (1, 4, 12, 24, never), and no specific time, but it’s still way better than the complete absence of choice on the iPhone.
- as I’ve already said, the iPhone home screen is a dreadful mess. Not only is the Windows phone home screen good looking, it’s also extremely flexible. I can put what I want there, how I want it. If I have the habit of picking up the phone edge on, and putting my thumb in a particular place on the screen, I don’t find myself starting some random app because I’d laid the apps out to make sure there’s nothing there. The iPhone allows no such choice.
- In both browsers, when I switch to another page, the previous page remains open in the background. If I examine many pages, they all remain open but hidden. Go to tabs to see them all. On the iPhone, one can only tidy up the mess by closing each page individually. The Windows Phone has a button to close the lot at once.
I suspect I’ll add more things here as time goes by.
This section isn’t anti–iOS: I’ve simply not had time to find its niceties. I’m sure it has a few.