I went almost three months carrying an iPhone 5 and Lumia 920. I never felt like I could leave my iPhone at home and be comfortable throughout the day. I simply decided that I would keep the iPhone as a standby while I got used to Windows Phone. Then, one day, I decided that I needed to leave my iPhone at home and give WP8 the true run it deserved. My AT&T SIM went back in the iPhone that night.
Why? I'm curious as to what you missed that badly.
I am so conflicted about Windows Phone. I love the minimalist interface. I think it does a lot of things right. It's very uniform and app developers that care definitely make better apps for WP than the ones they have available for Android or iOS. Flixster, Rdio, Amazon and IMDb were all really great on Windows Phone. Baconit is an AMAZING Reddit app.
I completely agree here. Apps have so much more aesthetic potential on Windows Phone. I think that the Newegg app is a great example of a nice-looking app on the platform. It's very clean and easy to use.
But there was simply so much missing. HBO Go. Amazon Instant Video. Youmail. A decent sleep cycle app. We're not even going to talk about games.
I don't use any of that (no idea what Youmail is, nor what you mean by "sleep cycle app"). Still, if it's stuff that you miss, it's stuff that you miss. I don't ever hold that kind of stuff against a person, because your smartphone SHOULD fit your habits. You should never have to fit your habits to your entertainment devices, in my opinion.
And so many little things about the OS that are just so irritating. The Settings screen is a mess. It seems like things were thrown in there with absolutely no consideration of how they were to be accessed.
This is another thing I really agree with. The menu's a mess on a good day. The only setting I really ever touch is the audio one though (when I have my earphones in). It's placed awkwardly near the bottom, but it's easily-accessed through one flick, and I have its location memorized now, so it's not an issue of sifting through the settings for it. Still, an alphabetized list would have been nice. That, or have something like a folder-style list. Have a "connections" option, where you go into is and just have ALL of the stuff (WiFi, cellular, location, Airplane, NFC) listed with the switches right there.
Live tiles are, quite frankly, almost useless because of the update period. I could never get Baconit to do /r/gonewild lock screen photos like I wanted! No rotation lock. No status bar that is accessible in everywhere. Internet Explorer is, quite frankly, nowhere near a great browser, UI-wise. Touch response was slow and inaccurate, especially while using IE. The text messaging app is... just bad, visually.
I don't agree with the tiles. They ARE limiting, but not to a problematic degree, at least for me. The only tiles I really use (in terms of live functions) are for Battery, Store, and my school e-mail account. With the first, it updates every 30 minutes, which isn't terrible, but I can also just tap the tile (it's in the upper-left for me), and the tile forces an update then. For the second, I have it to sync hourly, so the 30-minute minimum isn't a problem. For the Store, that really only needs updated once daily, so no harm done.
I admit that the touch seems a bit overly-picky on the keyboard at times, but maybe that's just my generally-sloppy typing style on touch devices, which I am terrible at. I don't mind the messaging app, though. I can understand where only slightly varying the hues for each person in the conversation can be a bit annoying (especially if you're slightly colorblind or something), but I don't see the iOS or Android offerings as superior.
And for all the talk that came out of Microsoft's mouth during the WP8 launch, they slacked off very quickly. WP needs to iterate very quickly in order to get it up to par with iOS and Android, feature-wise and UI-wise. They need to, quite frankly, throw millions of dollars to developers in order to entice development to the platform so that people will buy Windows Phones so that the ecosystem can be sustainable.
I'll again disagree here. With my HTC Droid Incredible (which I used from 2010-2012), the only real update I got was from Froyo to Gingerbread, I think (that's 2.3-2.4, right?). On Windows Phone, I got GDR1 after one month. I'll be getting GDR2 soon (I hope), putting it at just shy of a year. GDR3 is expected in November. 8.1 is supposed to come in early-2014 (which I read as Q1, but I might be overly-optimistic). that means I WILL get 3 meaningful updates within about a year, and a fourth MAJOR one after about 15-18 months. That, and Microsoft guaranteed 36 months of WP8 support, while Android OEMs (particularly HTC) seem to drop support after 12-18 months.
The slowness of Windows Phone is from the other players. Carriers hold up the updates (AT&T and GDR2 is a BIG example). OEMs aren't fast enough with hardware releases (Samsung and HTC are also phoning it in HARD). The release cycle of the platform is also awkward, which I suppose is on the lap of Microsoft. Having this fall cycle puts them in an awkward position with Android. With Apple, it doesn't matter much, as they have the custom/exclusive SoCs. When we compare Android and Windows Phone, both are almost solely living off of the Qualcomm stuff (save the versions of Samsung stuff with the Eynos chips). Since the One and S4 launched in a spring-ish time frame (don't recall the exact months), this fall release for Windows Phone means they are releasing stuff about halfway into a Qualcomm SoC life cycle. That means something of a permanent case of catch-up, and I don't like it.
The MSM8960 SoC in everything from the 810 to the 1020 (which also sat in the U.S. Galaxy S III) was about 6 months old when it got into Windows Phone devices. Within another 6 months, the Snapdragon 600 stuff MAJORLY outclassed it. Now, due to a 2-year contract, I'm going to be with the 920 until fall 2014, and I was starting with 6-month old hardware to start (it doesn't majorly bother me, but it's a spec thing that can be a nuisance). That no WP devices launched with a 600 SoC plain sucks for consumers. That we're not hearing anything about a legitimate 920/925/928 successor when we're 11 months into its life cycle is only made worse by the fact that they released on a SoC that was 6-12 months old (depending on the 92x device you talk about).
That's not to say no one should Windows Phone. If you can look at one and it does the basic functions you need, it's actually mostly a joy to use. It took me so long to sell my Lumia 920 because every time I pick it up I actually enjoyed messing with it.
But if you're even a LITTLE afraid of the app selection on the WP Marketplace, then you should give it another year to incubate and see if MS puts their money where their mouth is in 2014 (which, I presume they're going to do).
I agree, there are still meaningful app gaps that need to be addressed, but it DOES sound like most of them are being worked on. The only exception here is Google, but that's 1005 on Google, who outwardly refuses to offer any support (despite Microsoft's willingness to bring SmartGlass, Xbox Music, and Office to iOS and Android). Heck, even when Microsoft offered to make a YouTube app themselves, Google refused. When Microsoft did it anyway, they sent a cease and desist. They then said Microsoft HAD to make it an HTML5 app (which the Android and iOS apps aren't ,and which is much tougher to build, from what I heard).
Third-party developers do a GREAT job of filling in the holes with Windows Phone, I think. Pinterest has good third-party solutions. YouTube has SEVERAL of them (MetroTube is often cited as better than anything Google ever put out on the other platforms). Swapchat covers Snapchat, I guess. Microsoft self-made Twitter and Facebook apps when their owners wouldn't. Over the past few months, several god Instagram options have launched.
Things still remain, but it's getting better, and I still think that the pros (UI, music player, Xbox integration, Office integration, etc.) greatly outweigh the cons for me.