Quirks in Tech

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Focus.

I thought that this was a joke. Someone exaggerating Microsoft’s actual product offerings.

I was wrong.

So, the Microsoft 64GB Surface Pro will only have 23GB of usable storage at launch. This is, to be blunt, absurd. Consumers are entirely used to variations between the storage that manufacturers say will be available versus what actually is available for use, but in this case we’re talking about less than 50% of the advertised storage actually being available. Microsoft is saying that removing the recovery partition will alleviate some of this storage use, but that’s immaterial: few consumers will do this, or feel comfortable doing so. As a result, they’re going to generally have devices that have less than half of the market storage.

While Apple - and, to an extent, Google - comes under fire for announcing hardware specs and then not meeting them because of OS storage consumption, neither company has ever had such deceptive claims as Microsoft’s regarding the Surface Pro. I can entirely appreciate that the newest Microsoft OS plus applications consumes a huge amount of space. I’m OK with that. But, given this consumption, the 64GB surface shouldn’t ever be marketed (or even suggested as being) as a 64GB device; the device should be presented as being closer to the actual storage available. Don’t get me wrong, all OSes take room. But, as far as I know, no OS plus application suite has ever consumed this amount of space in competing product offerings.

Tumblr user nugnug provides an excellent list of the core “what’s missing” in Windows Phone right now and that will continue being absent after the 7.8 update:

• rotation lock - I surf the net when I’m lying down. Everyone does. This is such an important feature and yet, where the hell is it?
• screen capture - I can’t take screenshots on my phone! What is this!? How can I blackmail people and post the stupid things they say on Facebook?
• customized sounds for messaging, etc. - We can customize our ringtones, so why not the rest?
• notification center - This ain’t happening. I already know this cause they didn’t have time to make it. Lame.
• separate volume controls for phone sounds and media - I want to listen to music at a really low volume but that means I won’t be able to hear my phone ring. A dilemma that can be easily rectified.
• the forward button and “find on page” function in IE - there’s a java fix someone else kindly made, but there shouldn’t be a need. It’s a basic function that should be included in all internet browsers.
• Wifi turns off when in sleep mode - the biggest reason why my whatsapp messages arrive hours later is because my phone, which relies on only Wifi when I’m at home, turns off Wifi when it goes to sleep. Ugh.
• Blutooth file transfers - I WANNA GIVE MY FRIENDS STUFF WITHOUT USING MY NET DATA BUT I CAN’T.
• multi selection - let me delete multiple photos on my phone at a time. PLZZ. 
• editing the dictionary - there are some words I made up, I would like to delete please.
• improvements in the calendar - by far the most used section of my phone, it holds all my schedules and Facebook events and works seamlessly. So why not build on it? Include a weekly view, allow me to change colours on some of my personal entries.
• automatic sleep mode - not too fussy, but this would be really cool. If I set a time e.g. from 11pm to 8am, my phone will sleep between those hours and I won’t get any notifications between those times.
• closing apps from the multitasking view - not too important

I have to admit that some of the items aren’t top of mind for me: I don’t really care about the sleep mode, don’t see the point of closing apps from the multitasking view, and am not interested in bluetooth sharing. That said, every other suggestion is much, much needed.

I would also add to the list that scrolling in the 7.8 update needs to change; in the older version 1 Windows Phones scrolling would accelerate the more your scrolled up or down, whereas the current generation of 7.5 phones feature a static scrolling rate. This speed simply feels slower than earlier - and less capable - hardware and software iterations of Windows Phone.