Could Steve Ballmer be \u2014gulp\u2014 right?<\/p><\/div>\n
Ballmer seems to be promoting the idea that users need to have deep knowledge of every application your phone has, but that isn’t how most people use smart phones — or any technology, for that matter. So, is he just looking for a better way to sift through the clutter? I’ve always found the layout of my Android pretty straightforward and intuitive, and I’m not sure how I’d improve upon it. I’ve never seen a Windows Phone up close, so I ask genuinely: Does Microsoft do that better? Is it better able to individualize the interface, and more importantly, to update that interface when a user changes their habits?<\/p>\n
If it does, Ballmer might be onto something, even if he buried his meaning behind some silly mudslinging.<\/p>\n
Tom: <\/strong>It’s clearly exaggeration to pretend millions of Android users out there either can’t use their phones or they’re all computer scientists. But as someone currently using an Android phone myself, I see plenty of room for improvement. I haven’t spent much time with Windows phones, primarily because the lack of applications available for them right now makes them a non-contender, in my opinion. But the little bit I played around with them in the store so far shows me Microsoft did manage to present the whole user-interface in a different way. Even changes as basic as presenting options using larger buttons (or even entire screens you scroll through) could make a big difference in usability. The “Sense” UI bolted onto Android by HTC takes a stab at addressing these ideas, but unfortunately, it feels bolted-on. Its widgets duplicate existing functionality of other apps and it often stutters, lags or even freezes up the phone on occasion. Android needs an easier way to manage system resources too. Applications don’t ask me if I want to install them to my SD card storage or internal storage when I first download them. Removing one requires drilling down through several screens, as opposed to Apple’s iOS where you simply hold a finger down on an icon until it jiggles, and press the little X next to it. The list goes on. I’m not confident Microsoft can solve the problems Ballmer is mouthing off about, but I won’t deny they exist.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer’s claim at San Fransisco’s Web Summit 2.0 that people need to be “computer scientists” to figure out how to use Android phones spurs Techcitement contributors Matt Algren and Tom Wyrick to provide their own, sometimes conflicting, thoughts on the situation. First, the clip: [yframe url=’http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=MTX1e-pMN6E’] Matt: What a dumb thing to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[1537,9,1531,366],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/techcitement.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5213"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/techcitement.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/techcitement.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/techcitement.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/techcitement.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5213"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/techcitement.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5213\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5370,"href":"https:\/\/techcitement.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5213\/revisions\/5370"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/techcitement.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5213"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/techcitement.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5213"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/techcitement.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5213"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}