Microsoft has released an app that allows you to figure out if the apps you are currently running on your Android device are available on Windows Phone 8. As one could imagine, the reviews for the app on Google Play are mixed. But I actually think that the app is a great idea, because it is a way for Microsoft to market Windows Phone. Even if you have no intention of actually using Windows Phone, it is a great research tool.
The app also allows Android users to save the photos to OneDrive, and save the list of apps to OneDrive. If a user purchases a Windows Phone 8 device, they can download the app, sign into the app with their Microsoft credentials, and then have Windows Phone 8 assist them in installing apps that are similar in nature to the apps they use on their Android phone.
Windows Phone 8 has an image problem. Windows Phone 7 ran on hardware that was not up to the job on inferior hardware with low specs. The Windows Phone store has a reputation for having less than one sixth of the available apps that Android has. But the bottom line, for most users, should be whether or not those apps that are available for Windows Phone 8 are available to them. Do you actually use more than 100 apps on your Android smartphonesor tablets? Do you even know what the one million apps that are available for Android actually are?
The majority of the apps that are available for Android do not serve any purpose for most users. The more powerful your phone is, the most apps that will appear in a search performed within Google Play. A cheap smartphone that sells for $50 or less is rather limited in the amount of apps it can run. Those phones may only be compatible with a number of apps that is equivalent to the total number of apps that is made available to Windows Phone users. If your phone is only capable of running any number of 200,000 apps without running into performance or security issues, then it does not matter if there are over a million apps available on Android.
I only use 44 apps on my smartphone; I have tried other apps, but then I always go back to the same tried and true apps that always work for me. Some apps have won me over throughout an extended period of several months of use and trial and error. The average Android app requires more out of my phone than what it can realistically give.
When Microsoft can exert a greater level of control over the entire Windows Phone experience, because they own the company that makes the phone, and operating system upgrades are consistently rolled out to those phones, those 44 apps provide a more consistent user experience over time. Google does this with their Nexus phones, but Nexus phones are not cheap. The Nexus 5, their smallest phone, is still $349. The cheapest Microsoft phone made by Nokia, a company that is now part of Microsoft, sells for well under $100, is capable of shooting high-definition video and has a dual processor and 1 GB of RAM. You won’t need a phone with 2 GB of RAM on Windows Phone as you do with Android.
I love Android, I always have and I always will. But the truth of the matter is that user experiences are very mixed on the platform, as the majority of devices still run with limited resources, forcing individuals to pay hundreds of dollars for a decent smartphone. Google offers a solution to the problem, but the price for that solution is still out of reach for most consumers, particularly consumers using a device on a prepaid plan. If you’re interested in Android, please do yourself a favor and purchase a $300 phone so you can experience it the way that it was intended to be experienced. I truly wished that I took heed to my own advice and done so. Between manufacturers refusing to allow me to upgrade to the latest version of Android and experiment to see what works for me and what does not, and the fact that my the performance of my device is intermittent, at best, I am beginning to think that I would better off on a different platform.
