Over the last few months I have been living with a Nexus One device, and I must say it has been a positive experience.  It is not without its issues, however, so I thought I would make this list of all the things that infuriated me about Android (version 2.2.1), but in terms that relate to what I think WP7 can do to respond.  

Android Beef: Gallery Fails to Find New Pictures

Say you have just downloaded a bunch of pictures to a special folder on your SD card.  You load the "Gallery" application to display these pictures, but the newly created folder and the pictures it contains, are nowhere to be found.  Sometimes renaming the folder will help, but not consistently.  The only thing which will consistently make them appear, is to cold boot Android (powering down, then power up). 

WP7 Wish: Automatically Find Image Files Stored on the SD Card

Simply put, if an image appears on my SD Card from whatever source (download, application, camera, etc.) make it available for display immediately.  If not immediately, then at least let me know that it is being loaded and/or cached.

Android Beef: Email Synchronization Blocks Repeatedly

I don't have my Nexus One configured for automatic sychronization of email accounts.  I prefer to manually synchronize, since I generally read email from a desktop or laptop when mobile.  When I need to read email on a smartphone, however, I want it as fast as I know the 3G connection to the network can deliver it.  That means that I expect to see the list of unread email headers as they are collected from each email account, and when I select an unread email while the list is still being updated, I expect it to display this email message and its associated content immediately.

WP7 Wish: Make Email Responsive and Multithreaded

Simply put, I shouldn't have to wait for anything while reading email from a smartphone device.  If  I synchronize to an email server, the email headers should appear as fast as the server can provide them.  And when I click on the email, I want the message content to appear as fast as Captain Picard can say, "Make it so!"  Reading email is the most indispensible use-case for the use of a smart phone and I can't believe that anyone who is forced to live with their own sluggish email reader would tolerate anything but the most responsive user experience.

Android Beef: Built-in On Screen Keyboard Rarely Rotates

When I press the edit field in an application the on screen keyboard appears just beneath.  When I rotate the screen, expecting to use my nice wide display to enter text with both thumbs, most times the keyboard rotation fails. 

WP7 Wish: Synchronize the Device and On Screen Keyboard Rotation Without Exception

I know that there may be a good reason for not forcing an app to resize its content when the device is rotated during onscreen keyboard text entry, but I think there are many more good reasons for doing so.  Onscreen keyboards are hard enough to operate without being able to take advantage of the larger keys available when the device is rotated, not to mention the speed afforded by two well trained thumbs.

Android Beef: Calendar Entries are Microscopic

Say I have one or two calendar entries present, and the rest of the day is wide open. I still can’t read these entries because they are displayed in what appears to be a 6-point font, despite the fact that the rest of the screen contains unoccupied time slots. 

WP7 Wish: Make Effective Use of the Available Screen Space for Calendar Appointments

Smartphones have larger and larger displays, so please use them.  Size the calendar entries for maximum readability, so that if the day only contains one or two entries, make them large and readable, particularly when the rest of the day is unoccupied.

Android Beef: No Todo List

Android does not provide an application to make lists of things to do.  I don’t think it makes sense to require an end-user to find such a basic app from a 3rd party developer.

WP7 Wish:  Windows Mobile Had It, So WP7 Should Too

I am keeping my fingers crossed that WP7 has not gone the way of Android, and has left the venerable Task List application, or some variant, intact. 

Android Beef: No Way to Keep Contacts Out of the Cloud

In order to save the contacts that you have accumulated on your Android device, you must send them to the Google cloud.  There is no option to save them locally to your laptop, though you can export them manually. 

WP7 Wish: Don’t Make my Contacts Live in the Cloud

Windows Mobile always allowed me to synch my contacts to a local copy of Outlook.  This means that if my network connection is down, or confidentiality was paramount, I always had a way to keep my contacts off the grid and out of harm’s way.  I know that may sound a little paranoid, but I really miss this feature and I am hoping that WP7 will allow me the option to keep my contacts out of the cloud and in my own private data store.

Android Beef: No Way to Sort Apps Returned By a Search

If I use the Android Market to find an application it often returns many matches.  Unfortunately, I have no way to sort these matches by a specified criteria. 

WP7 Wish: Allow Sorting of Found Apps By Specified Criteria

If the information for a prospective application is displayed in a search, I should be able to sort all of the applications returned by any item of information, including: cost, developer name, user rating, number of downloads, number of uninstalls, etc.

 

I know my WP7 wishes may be too late for the upcoming release of WP7 next month, but I am hoping that somehow the WP7 Santa Clause heard me anyway.  If not, perhaps he may hear me for the next WP7 update.