Chronicles of a Windows Mobile User Gone iPhone: Day 3

In the last post of this series, I wrote about two things that the iPhone did better than Windows Mobile (WiFi management and startup time). Well here are two things that Windows Mobile does better than the iPhone.

1. Dialing a contact. In Windows Mobile, especially Smartphone OS, you can begin typing someone's name from the Today screen or Home screen, and have the most relevant matches come up. You can dial someone VERY fast.

On the iPhone, it's not so easy. For some silly reason, you can't use the keyboard to search for a contact. You have to use a little alphabet slider on the right side of the Contact screen, which is imprecise to use. It takes me about 7-9 seconds to dial someone on the iPhone, whereas I can do it in about 3 second in Windows Mobile. Five seconds makes a difference when you're driving or just want to get someone on the phone.

Although Apple thinks they may have solved the contact dial problem with the Favorites screen...which is indeed helpful by allowing you to put your most-dialed contacts in one place, I call a lot of different people, and I don't want to have to populate a huge Favorites list.

Also, my contacts didn't import very well from Outlook. I have about 700 contacts, and on the iPhone, there are many duplicates, some formatting errors, etc. It's a mess. In Windows Mobile, all my contacts transfer impeccably.

2. Customization. Sometimes I get the idea that Apple is trying to protect myself from myself - compared to Windows Mobile, the iPhone lacks the ability to customize. I can't change the animations if I find them annoying (I know I know, it's part of the experience), nor can I change the size of the clock on the main screen, or change the background of the icon list, or remove icons, or install third party apps (I can count on my iPhone looking and feeling the same way as every other iPhone out there, all 500,000 of them!).

Yes, I know that Apple will evolve the iPhone to be more customizable and open in terms of software development. But off the bat, Windows Mobile gives you MUCH more control over how your programs run and how your device looks and feels. Good for power users.

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