Windows vs. Apple Mobile UX
To say I’m a Microsoft fanboy is probably an understatement. In 2012, I was an early adopter of the new Windows Mobile experience. There are a lot of great things about the Windows UI that no other mobile operating system has, but there are also some great aspects to Apple iOS. How do they compare?
I bought myself a Samsung Focus Windows Phone 7. At that time, it was a really refreshing experience, it was a really trimmed down UI, and just really functional. It was buttery smooth and did what you expected. It had a lot of competition with Apple iPhone, Blackberry, and Android. Only two of those exist now for the most part.
iPhone 5 and the new Windows Phone 7
In 2012, Windows Phone 7 looked a lot different than anything else. It was simple, elegant and a different take on the start screen over the competition with a static grid of icons that didn’t do much than be able to be clicked on. To this day, the iOS start screen experience is largely unchanged, for better or worse.
Fast Forward to 2017
Now we have the new iPhone 7 and the current offering of Windows for Phones. Microsoft went through a few name changes over the years, which caused some turbulence in the whys and lead to some brand confusion. Now it’s just simple called Windows 10 Mobile, which apparently was always their strategy. (Suuuure Microsoft!)
iPhone or Windows?
How do they compare at there current iterations, iOS 11 vs. Windows 10? I’m going to compare the home screen, notification center, quick actions, keyboards, lock screens, and finally mobile to desktop experience.
Home Screen
The mainstay of any mobile operating system is the home screen. It’s where all of your apps live and your ability to personalize it to your liking is crucial to the efficiency of how you use it.
Windows Phone features a vibrant display of colorful, animated, customizable live tiles. The iPhone features a 4x6 grid of static, but colorful icons with a favorites bar holding 4 to 5 app icons depending on your screen size.
The Live tiles are the most defining piece of Windows Phone, if you don’t count the flat metro UI design. They allow you, the consumer, so much extra customization and personalization to your phone that you simply do not have in the iPhone, or even Android or Blackberry.
Hands down the winner is Windows Phone here for the sheer functionality. Apple has attempted to add some functionality with the long hard press in the iOS 10, but it is hidden and probably doesn’t have a great amount of usage from the typical user.
Notification & Control Center
What happens to the toast notifications or alerts when you miss them? Well, back in the early days of Windows Phone 7, you just lost them forever. It took Microsoft an entire version to introduce theirs, in Windows Phone 8, which was 2 years! Better late than never I suppose.
iPhone features a swipe down and swipe up. Swipe down for notifications, swipe up for the control center. The notification centers in both Windows Phone and iOS look pretty similar, but organizationally, Windows Phone allows you to see all notifications by individual app, and then if one is particularly chatty, you can remove them all with a single swipe. In iPhone, the only option you have to mass delete is clear all by the day. Both platforms offer long pressing to interact with the notification as well — whether that be replying to a chat, giving a thumbs up, or simply going into the app itself.
The control centers are similar with iOS allowing you to add whatever controls you’d like to make your life easier. Windows Phone has a predetermined set of icons you can choose to toggle on or off, or go to the app setting.
This is definitely split. iPhone takes it on the control center and customization, but Windows Phone has a better notification center.
Keyboards
The iOS has a very nice, smooth, keyboard that makes it pretty easy to type on with decent precision. Out of the box it comes with the voice-to-text using Siri as well as one-handed mode. On the Windows Phone side, you get these same features, but a little more robust. Since switching to iPhone, this is one of the larger features I miss. The keyboard in Windows Phone is just amazing. Out of the box is has word flow, which is the marketing term Microsoft came up for shape typing. It works seamlessly. The special keyboards for numbers and emails is also a bit setup better on WP allowing easier TLDs to be selected right off the bat. Now, one cool thing I’ve noticed on iOS is that it notices and remembers emails you commonly use, so if you start entering it on an email input, you can select it from the list.
One other drawback on iOS is that it only gives you 3 word suggestions with no way to view more. On Windows Phones, it gives you around 5 depending on the word size, and then you can swipe over to see more. Incredibly useful.
On iOS, customization of keyboards is really popular, so you can install keyboard alternatives, and other crazy things like Bitmoji and Emoji and gif keyboards too, which is awesome. Unfortunately they are a bit gimmicky and doesn’t fully make up for the lackluster default keyboard.
Winner here goes to Windows Phone with a nod to iOS and the ability to use additional keyboards pretty easily.
Final Thoughts
I made the switch to the iPhone ecosystem a few months back, and so far, it has been really welcoming and not too many downsides. I’ve been able to be a Microsoft guy in an Apple world with very little drawbacks. Siri works just as well as Cortana, even though I still prefer the voice of Cortana. The app selection on iOS is clearly amazing, but I also now waste much more of my day poking around in random apps more than I would on my Windows Phone. The animations are also buttery smooth and great on iOS. Overall, it’s the little things I miss, and hopefully, some day, Apple will integrate them in, or, one can hope, we ditch our smart phones altogether for something better, more awesome, like an augmented reality device.
Till next time, I hope you enjoyed this article and the differences between both platforms, and hopefully I wasn’t too biased.
