FulltimeCasual

Windows Phone 7 | One Year Later

Selling Out

About a year ago, I sold out as part of the Windows Phone 7 Telstra Review Team. I was really curious about the WP7, which was getting a lot of buzz and certainly looked very different from most smart phones on the market. The deal I made myself at the time was to use the Windows Phone ((For those curious, it was a HTC Mozart)) exclusively for a week, so I could write a fair and honest review. I broke that deal on the second day. The Windows Phone, though very pretty, was just too frustrating and unfinished to use. So instead I carried two phones for a week. I tried as much as possible to use the Windows Phone, but for most things - listening to music and podcasts, posting to Twitter, checking the bus timetable - the iPhone was just so much easier an experience.

At the time, all the Windows Phone blogs and rumour sites were saying "Just wait til January" and "Mango will save us all!". Mango, or Windows Phone 7.5, was supposed to be bringing cut and paste, multitasking, and a slew of other features to that would bring Windows Phone up to date with iPhone. It didn't actually drop til September, and by then my lil Mozart was long gone. But I was still really curious, did Mango really fix all the issues I had with the WP7? Was good ol' Microsoft back in the game?

Mango Cometh

So when a lovely friend offered to lend me a review unit ((this time a HTC Trophy)) running Mango I jumped at the chance. The hardware looked identical to the phone I played with last year, but that's not what I was interested in, and that's not what this review is about. It's all about the software. So, looking back on my review last year, lets see what they've improved.

Everything

First, to do this properly, I set myself the same challenge of a week using the Windows Phone and nothing else. This time it was easy. The only thing I really missed was over the air podcast downloading with Instacast or Pocketcasts. Everything else was at least doable this time round.

 The OS

The greatest improvement to Windows Phone 7 was the operating system itself. The pretty was back, but this time it was a hell of a lot more stable. The phone didn't crash once in the week I used it. Cut and Paste is there, and its actually a little faster than in iPhone. Or at least it feels that way. Mail has a unified inbox, which helps with Tile management (more on that later) and the Mail app itself it gorgeous, and I think superior to iOS' Mail. The Font Heavy Metro UI just makes email look pretty, and i guess its understandable. Microsoft made its empire on the back of Exchange and Office, and with WP7 it feels like the rest of the UI was designed to make email look good. The Calendar App now supports multiple calendars and sub or delegate calendars,which is handy, but will still only show the next upcoming appointment on the lockscreen. In a way, I kind of like that though. WP7 seems all about cutting down the options and distractions. Sometimes that gets annoying, but here it really works. IE for WP7 was a solid browsing experience. Websites loaded quickly, bookmarks (sorry, favourites) we're easy to access and pages could be pinned to the homescreen. There were a few annoying little glitches though. WP7 still doesn't save drafts in SMS, so if you're half way through an SMS and get distracted, you'll lose the SMS when you reopen the app. Bing Maps is still quite ugly compared to Google Maps, and I stand by the description of it looking like "varicose veins on a pale, chubby leg."  There's also no way of using the WP7 as a 3G modem, or at least I couldn't find it. There's also no real multitasking to speak of. Sure, there's no real multitasking on iOS either, but the facsimile of it is good enough. With WP7, you're thankful the homescreen is just so pretty, because you see it all the time. EDIT: Thanks to the Nick's comment below, there is a way of fast-app switching between the last few open apps, by pressing and holding the back button, you get a sexy little app switcher screen: Most annoying, there is still no goddamn way of taking a goddamn screenshot on the goddamn phone. I can understand Android leaving this feature out, them phones is ugly, but WP7? How do they expect people to review the phone, or post screen shots on twitter, or whatever? I realise this is a very small market or use case to cater to, but its the most important market, the social media douchebag. Get on it Microsoft. What is cool is that Microsoft have a full screen demo you can play with right now on your iPhone or Android. I found it looking for screenshots for this post.

The Tiles

The most well know feature of WP7 is its tiled homescreen, possibly because its so different to iPhone and Android. I still really like the idea, and how some tiles can be "live" (showing moving images of friends for instance on the "People" Tile) but it's still just not that great in practice. I still had the issue of trying to find the one tile I needed amongst a sea of similar coloured tiles.  The size of the tiles means the default home screen (before scrolling down) can only hold 8 applications to iPhone's 20 ((more if you use folders)). And the 8 applications become 6 or 7 if you include Calendar or Photos, which for some reason are the size of two tiles each. Making app finding harder is the fact there is only one homescreen available. To use WP7 effectively I'd suggest having only 16 apps on the home screen, 8 at the top, then 8 if you scroll down. Any more than that and the homescreen will  scroll with no clear snapping point in either direction, making finding apps in the middle of your list a chore. Of course, there is still the back up homescreen, the long list of apps you havent "pinned" to the start, but thats not much better. Its still just one long list of apps, only smaller. I'm sure WP8 will bring multiple homescreens, so you can organise into Daily Apps, Camera apps, Social apps, etc, but until then, i found myself booting one app off the homescreen before adding anything new. Perhaps this is the WP7 "forced simplicity" idea at work again, and for many users it won't be a big deal, but for the app obsessed, its a bit of a drag. My biggest complaint, one I bothered to photograph, is the colours of the tiles. I know I just finished complaining about similar coloured tiles making finding things harder, but it does make the homescreen prettier. And until we, the end user, can change the colour of an individual tile, I don't see why developers are allowed to. It's such an odd complaint, I know, but in an interface so obviously governed by a strict HIG, to allow any old app to be any old colour is really bizarre. Some apps seem kind, and will change colour to match the theme you're using, but most simply ignore your colour theme completely.  And Microsoft makes this decision acceptable by making their Xbox app lime green, and pinned to the start of the homescreen by default, regardless of the theme you choose. I know it sounds small, but in an interface where 7 out of 8 apps are blue but one stays green, mocking you, just to spite you,  it really drives you insane, as the following re-enactment shows. Here we have a beautiful homescreen of calm azure tiles, with 6 built in WP7 apps and the official Twitter app. [caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="295" caption="All is good with the world"] [/caption] In the next shot, I replace the Twitter App with the Seesmic App. Note how the built in apps stay blue, but Seesmic stares back, mocking me, in defiant cherry red. The devil's red. [caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="264" caption="Commence OCD Meltdown"] [/caption] Of course, the only rational reaction at this point is to reject the app and all it's works, or to give in to temptation and force the app to rule your theme. [caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="315" caption="The App had won, but soon would be deleted"] [/caption] Umberto Eco wrote a famous essay that the Mac experience was quite a catholic experience of "we know whats best for you, so stick to our rules and you'll make it to heaven", where as the Windows PC world was far more protestant, it allowed for "free interpretation" of the rules. The point is, WP7 is trying to be the Catholic experience, but to stretch the analogy too far, its only a Catholic experience for the end users, but its letting the clergy do whatever it wants, and that's not the Catholic church I'm familiar with.. Ok, i'll stop now.

3rd Party Apps

Despite all the above complaints, Mango is a damn fine OS. It's beautiful, intuitive and fast, and in many ways a joy to use. What lets WP7 down the most, especially as an iPhone user, is the quality of the 3rd Party Apps. In my original review, I complained about how many third party apps I used daily did not yet exist for WP7. Most of those apps exist now, (Tripview for example) or have equivalent apps (the store is now full of Google Reader Apps). But there are still some notable exceptions. Dropbox is missing,  Instapaper will probably never be ported.  Stranger still, there's still no official Skype app, despite Microsoft buying them back in May. And while the Apple App Store remains the biggest game in town, developers will always go there first. Every week a new iOS app like Discovr comes along that has been assembled with such thought, care and style, I'm constantly amazed. I can't see Android or WP7 closing that gap any time soon. But what was really surprising was how awful the official Twitter app was ((all unofficial Twitter Apps were just as bad)). It still refreshed every time it was launched, meaning it never kept your spot in the timeline or a draft saved. It always threw you up to the top of your twitter stream, it would load each section (timeline, then replies, then messages) painfully slowly, and always from scratch. For a twitter app to work, it needs to be something you can open and close quickly, not giving it to much thought. It has to be disposable. WP7 made you work for twitter. I guess its a limitation of no multitasking, but I still think the experience could be improved. I just don't get it, because, like people who need to take screen shots, twitter people are the most vocal, annoying people on the web (face it, we are) so you really need to please us first. And there really is no need for the Twitter App to be crap, many others aren't. Facebook for WP7 is better than it's iPhone equivalent. It's still a native app, not just a border around a web page as the iOS App has become. Foursquare is brilliant, its functions have been moved around and re-emphasised to work best in the Metro UI, and  again, it may just be better than the iPhone version. But I spend most time on my phone bouncing between a Twitter app, a browser, and a Google Reader app. Nextgen Reader was fine, IE as mentioned above was fine, Twitter was awful.

Syncing to A Mac

The Windows Phone Connector for Mac hasn't really changed much in a year, although it is now downloaded from the Mac App Store, so there's that. It's still a big, dumb interface that just sits on top of iTunes, but at least now you can select a little more granularly- choosing only "the last 3 unplayed podcasts" for instance. A year ago, it was all or nothing. [caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="586" caption="A familiar, clunky, but workable interface"] [/caption] Buying from the Windows Phone Marketplace (via a browser) is pretty slick though. Apps are immediately downloaded to the phone, which Android did first, and iOS does now, but its still cool, ok? I didn't try the Zune Subscription Music Store, which sounds both incredibly cool and quite painful.

TL;DR

From a standing start, Windows Phone has become an polished, fully featured, beautiful platform in just one and a half releases. Mango really did bring the Windows Phone up to about iOS 3 in most areas, and in specific apps like Mail, I think they may have even leapfrogged iOS ((I have no idea how WP7 compares to Android, but if anyone wants to lend me one running Ice Cream Sandwich, I'll happily give it a go )). And they've got the time and money to keep building from there. What is really letting WP7 down now, apart from a few little OS niggles that I'm sure will be addressed, is the lack of interesting 3rd Party apps. I have no idea what Microsoft need to do to lure iOS and Android developers (developers, developers) to their platform, but then need to do it now.

Windows Phone 7 Review

A few days ago i recorded a one hour chat with fellow social reviewers @smperris and @TheMonkeyBoy - you can listen to it here. But i realise ((my girlfriend told me to write this)) a lot of people don't have the time to dedicate an hour listening to our thoughts, so here's my final thoughts on the latest phone from Redmond. All of this will be on the test.

Read the rest of this post »

Inception Review (Spoiler Free)

Star Wars Episode 2: Attack of the Clones Review

YouTube - (Part 1 of 9) Star Wars Episode 2: Attack of the Clones Review, from that dude that tore apart A Phantom Menace a few months ago. Worth the 90 minutes.

Our iPad Adventure Has Made the News (Review To Come!)

While I was away Anthony was updating Mactalk (almost) daily on our adventures, so if you want to read the full story go there, but if you’d like a summary of the trip, Renai Lemay has a general overview of the trip, and an excellent follow up article. We’re also in the Herald Sun! As for the review, i crashed out some time around 8pm and woke up at 2am, but i’ve been playing with the iPad ever since. I’ve tested about 100 apps and Mac utilities to get stuff on the iPad, so I’ll post as soon as i can form sentences. Spoiler: Fuck the iPad is Awesome.

Payneful

This was always going to be a difficult review. I’ve previously mentioned my reservations about this adaptation and watching the film was aware that I ran the risk of being too harsh if it didn’t meet my pre-conceived notion of what a Max Payne film should be. With that in mind I’ll try to separate the game-specific stuff from the film itself. Let's start with some background. Max Payne was a first person shooter on the PC back in 2001 made by the Finnish game studio Remedy. It’s sequel was released in 2003 and surprisingly was almost as good as the original. At the time of it’s release Max Payne was pretty ground breaking, most noticeably for its gameplay elements such as bullet time, but more important was the rich noir-inspired story and arresting graphic novel design elements displayed throughout cut scenes and story sequences. It was an adult game that looked at addiction, psychosis, lust, and revenge. The first game started with Max as a beat cop coming home to find his wife and infant daughter murdered by junkies. After burying his loved ones Max transfers to the DEA to focus on his new obsession - finding the people responsible for the murder of his family. 3 years later we come back to Max who’s now deep undercover with a local Mafia family who oversee the distribution of the drug Valkyr, the same drug the junkies were high on. The game progresses with Max being framed for the murder of a cop, and running from both the police and the Mafia as he seeks revenge before being captured or killed. The film starts with a similar opening: Max’s family is murdered as laid out in the game, but rather than following the story-line already defined 7 years ago, we cut to scenes inside a police station where random cops provide nothing but exposition and bad one-liners. We move to a very matrix scene in a train station where Max is jumped by junkies. Instead of the highly stylised bullet time effects we expect we’re treated to a by-the-numbers face off scene highlighting what a bad-arse Max is. There's also real push to highlight the supernatural, Norse mythology elements which begin effecting the addicts (which is more than a little out of place). Irritation swiftly arises: Max doesn’t smoke or drink, he doesn’t narrate, and he sure as hell isn’t bat-shit crazy. The hooks we have grown to know and love about the character have been removed, leaving little more than a standard rogue cop in a story sporting thoroughly uninteresting characters. You will know who the big bad is as soon as he’s introduced, you will get a metric fuck-tonne of exposition as the movie plods along, and you will be left with the impression that nobody involved in shooting, writing, or acting in this film has played the fucking game. Visually and stylistically (excepting some of the VFX work) the film fails too; Director John Moore doesn’t reference the stunning film noir genre that the video game managed to capture - you won’t see any Vertigo, Blue Velvet, or Singing Detective here. If anything it often looks more like a tele movie than film, just because you don’t have a pile of cash to play with doesn’t mean you need to have small ideas. Sound design is often interesting but derivative, and it’s noticeable that the production borrows heavily but artlessly from better work. There’s quite a lot of Constantine in here, a bit of The Matrix, some of the previously mentioned Seven, a fleeting attempt at some Sin City, and even a little bit of Gladiator. The screenplay is terrible (Beau Thorne, I know this was your first screenplay but by fuck I hope it’s your last) with bad dialogue and inconsistencies throughout, and most of all it’s not Max Payne in anything but name. Still on the visual side I do need to mention SPIN, the VFX house who did the effects work on the film, and Visual Effects Supervisor Everett Burrell and VFX Producer Ken Wallace. Given the budget of the movie (around $35 Mil all up) they really did some stellar work.  The VFX sequences of the film are the only time I felt like somebody had paid attention to the game - well done guys. We’re left with a terrible film which should never have been made, It’s tedious to watch and fails not only as an action film but also as a game adaptation. 1.5 stars.

Bangkok Dangerous: Review

Two directors remaking their own film for a foreign audience? Yeah winner. Nic Cage is the next Steven Seagal; an aging action star with a fetish for Asian culture and eastern philosophy making terrible films, starring himself. So Nic is Joe - a hitman who flies to Bangkok with 4 targets to assassinate for a local gangster. Upon arriving he hires a street urchin named Kong to run errands, the intention being to dispose of Kong when Joe is finished with the killing. In a stunning twist Kong discovers Joe’s real reason for being in Thailand, and rather than turning him in asks to be trained as an assassin. Joe takes Kong under his wing and meets a local deaf-mute woman who strangely enough becomes his love interest, melting his hardened heart. What you end up with is a really tedious and boring film: Cage simply can’t act his way out of a paper bag, and at 99 minutes the film feels like half could have been removed without effecting the story. There’s really not much that happens, far from being Bangkok Dangerous the movie is far more ... Bangkok Bland. The biggest issue with the film is that there’s nothing new here, it’s the same story we’ve seen hundreds of times before and as a result there’s simply no tension. We know how the film will play out: we know that Joe will be smitten by a local lady, we know that the wise-cracking street urchin will become Joe’s side kick (who despite being trained as an assassin doesn’t actually kill anyone), and we know that Joe will seek redemption in the final act. It's an exercise in cliche and painting-by-numbers, really not worth your time. Oh, and his hair is just terrible! 1.5 stars

Baby Nuggets.

You know sometimes I get it wrong. Every so often the movie I thought I’d thoroughly hate turns out to be something a little special; much like my experience of The Matrix - any film starring Nananu was bound to be bad and yet I left the cinema gushing excitedly to friends and lining up to watch it again. Occasionally a film comes along which despite your low expectations causes you to sit up and get swept away by its insight and cutting political acuity. Babylon A.D. proves that even in the post-apocalyptic, post-nuclear, European future a turd-burger still tastes like shit. To be fair the director of the film did lament that Fox had cut it to ribbons, and that the story had been reduced to "pure violence and stupidity". It’s more than obvious that this was in fact the case: there are large portions of the story which are simply missing, plot holes materialise before your eyes, and the pacing of the film jars and chatters as the locations jump and switch. The horrendous editing in itself was something of a travesty, yet shouldn’t stand alone to shoulder the blame. If anything it could almost be applauded for attempting to mask some of the oh-so-painful dialogue, poor direction, uninspired cinematography, dreadful screenplay, and below-average acting talent. That Kassovitz developed the film for 5 years and co-wrote the screenplay lands many of the problems with the film squarely at his feet. Yes, it was terribly edited but there’s a lingering suspicion that this bun may have been in the oven a little too long. The film opens in a future war ravaged Russian slum where Czech extras make their acting debuts with almost more onscreen presence than the stars. Riddick Toorop’s entrance is accompanied by an obnoxious gangsta rap score; a wonderful musical choice for a film full of white guys, snow, white guys, Russia, and white guys. Heavy Christian themes, random parkour, unexplained fighter drones which blow up when shot by a hand gun twice, arduous and ridiculous snowmobile sequences (everyone in full exposure gear so you can’t tell who’s who - then dubbing their voices over the top), and a Coke Zero branded aeroplane ... The list of aberrations is long and continues.  No Mr. Mathieu Kassovitz, stop interjecting. You made this, the fucktards at Fox who funded the project probably made it worse, but they didn’t reshoot sequences on your behalf. I’m actually glad the rumoured 2.5 hour European release never eventuated, it meant less time invested in a painful, rushed, nonsensical film. 1 star.

Eagle Eye

Shia LaBeouf is in absolutely everything at the moment, and his latest release is D.J. Caruso’s action/thriller/science fiction-esque Eagle Eye. LaBeouf plays Jerry Shaw, who along with Rachel Holloman (the delicious Michelle Monaghan) are contacted by a mysterious woman who begins to dictate their actions via mobile phone. Caruso has previously directed LaBeouf in the commercially successful Disturbia, and Michael Chiklis in several episodes of The Shield. The director has obviously paid a lot of attention to the action elements of the film, which Eagle Eye has in spades. Verbs like "relentless", "explosive", and "non-stop" might be appropriate to use in describing the pacing of the film with the characters leaping from precarious positions to dire situations as they’re manipulated by the woman on the phone. Caruso certainly didn't want even the most ADD afflicted members of his audience to get bored on this outing, and the screen lights up frequently with explosions, obviously over-cranked car chases, and plenty of gun play. Eagle Eye had the potential to be a paranoia-inducing look at the state of surveillance technology and fear following the September 11 incident, and its implications on self determination, privacy, and the FBI’s Magic Lantern and Omnibus initiatives. There were some indications early on the film was heading that way, but in reality these were just used to set up the main premise of the film which swiftly dropped all shreds of believability. By far the most annoying aspects of the film are the way patriotism and terrorism are rammed down our throats as the motivators of every action. That plot elements are telegraphed so far ahead, the Bourne-syndrome editing (where by the audience is given the impression of frantic activity by not being able to track what’s happening on screen), the obvious plot holes, and the terrible ending to the film only serve to make Caruso seem a little closer to Michael Bay 2.0. Billy Bob Thornton plays a respectable Agent Thomas Morgan and Rosario Dawson is lacklustre as Agent Zoe Perez. LaBeouf and Monaghan really only need to run around and yell at each other for most of their onscreen time, and feel a little wasted and disconnected as a result. The film generally looks good apart from some of the previously mentioned over-cranked sequences which looks like video, and a couple of suspect comps. It’s entertaining but was a missed opportunity. 2.5 stars

Yaks and Yetis and Dragons, oh my!

The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor brings the series back to the silver screen with a new mummy that isn't, 3 bouncing yetis, and an airsick vomiting Yak. Yeah it sounds great. Jet. Fucking. Li. At one time his name would have been enough for me to go watch anything and grin like fiend right the way through. That was before the Westernisation of Jet and his progression from Danny the Dog, to Fearless, then The Forbidden Kingdom, and now The Mummy. It turns out that Jet Li is actually a pretty god-damn average actor, but still better than Statham and not so wooden. My biggest bone of contention with The Mummy is that it felt like the film makers just didn’t give a  fuck about what they were putting on screen. A key actor has been replaced, Brendan Fraser’s Australian son looks more like his brother - (probably because there’s only 13 years between them), and there are seemingly random additions to the plot, probably because they couldn’t think of anything else to progress the story ("I know, suddenly Yetis!" "Yeah, on Springs!" "Oh and now he's a dragon!"). It's a B grade movie with far too much budget, if Brendan Fraser didn't take himself so seriously it could be passed off as parody. Instead it almost seemed like a self-promotion piece, lacking any of the charisma from the earlier films. Directed by Rob Cohen of The Fast and the Furious, the film is tedious and never gives the audience a reason to become anxious - something that should be pretty important in a monster film. Instead this is designed to be fluffy family-friendly comedy/action film and even on that level it fails: it's not funny, you don't care what happens to the characters, and really you're just waiting for it to all be over so you can go home and floss the popcorn out of your teeth. Not as bad as Hellboy but it certainly tries to come close. 2 stars.