Windows Phone 8 : What we want! - Part I

Past few months have been very active in the Tech world. With new technologies and gadgets being announced everyday, it has become very tough for a company to fend off competition. With the launch of iPhone 5, LG's latest android phone series,Samsung Galaxy Note II and the new Nokia Lumia devices, the consumers are flooded with options to choose from this year.One company that has been most active these days is Microsoft. With the introduction of Metro UI (or Modern UI or Windows 8 UI), Microsoft is changing all its products to match the latest look. Microsoft Office 2013, Microsoft Surface tablet,Windows Phone 8,Outlook.com, all these were introduced in a very short span of time so that when Windows 8 is launched, a perfect ecosystem of Metro UI already exists.They even changed their logo to match the new Metro UI. And the product that started this revolution was Windows Phone 7. Windows Phone 7 was the first product that introduced the Metro UI and everything after it! The UI was completely different, based on square boxes called Live Tiles that displayed real time information, it had a clean and simple look which was easy to use and beautiful! Even though it didn't sell in iPhone-ish numbers, but those few who used it, simply loved it! Being a young OS , it had it's faults. Recently Microsoft announced Windows Phone 8 but didn't disclose all the changes that WP8 will bring. So I have prepared my own list of features that WP7 lacks and WP8 should definitely have in order to appeal to a larger audience:

1. Multiple Select Option : This is a very common feature being offered by almost any mobile Operating System available in the market like Android,iOS,Symbian,etc. Even my Java based LG phone has it. This feature allows you to select multiple items at once. I don't know why Microsoft even skipped it in the first place.Currently this feature is only available while using the email app, but if you want to delete 10 pictures from your gallery, you'll have to do it one-by-one.I hope Microsoft includes this feature with top-most priority.
   
2. Individual Volume Control : You are listening to music on your Windows Phone device and you lower the volume to 20 or 15(30 is too loud!) using the volume down button on the side.After a while, you pause your music and go away. Wait! You can't go away because if you go away too far ,and someone calls, you won't be able to hear your phone ring , as your phone's volume is set at 15! What? But that was only for music? Well, that's not the case with Windows Phone. There is only one master volume control, and that controls everything from  ringtone to messages to notifications. Everything. Android on the other hand, offers individual volume control for music,apps,ringtone,etc. Suppose your running an app in Android that has background music in it, and you increase/decrease the volume , then this volume setting will only affect the current app an not the phone's other settings like the ringtone.
3. Shortcuts : Okay now you must be thinking that Windows Phone already has shortcuts in the form of Tiles. If you are, then you are not fully right.While you can pin any app or any in-app features (for eg. nokia maps allows you to pin destinations ,point-of-interest) on your home screen, you still can't pin any system shortcuts like Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, etc. So, if you want to turn on wi-fi, you'll have to :
   1. Swipe to the right
   2. Find settings and click it
   3. Go to wifi
   4. Move the slider to turn-on wifi
   
   Well you can save one step by pinning "Settings" on your home screen but that's still not enough. 3-4 steps just to turn on Wi-Fi? Similarly, you'll have to follow these steps to change the brightness,turn-on bluetooth,etc. But, what if you could pin these system shortcuts? your homescreen will be filled with shortcuts,app tiles,etc. That's not good as well. So what Microsoft can do is go the Android(ish) way. WP7 already has notifications for Sms's or open Wi-Fi hotspots but nothing else. That space can be used to add system shortcuts. So you can simply swipe your finger from top-right to the left side and all your important system shortcuts are there. Using WP7 will become so much easier.
4. True Multitasking : Windows Phone 7 supports multitasking but not in the true sense. Whenever you want to run two or more apps at the same time, you can simply press the Windows button and open a different app. To go back to your previous app, you have to long press the back button and a list of screenshots of your "background" running apps is displayed. But is the app really running in the background?No. A snapshot of the current state of the app is stored, so that when you come back to the app, it resumes from where you left. According to Microsoft, it increases battery life, and it does, but it kills the real meaning of Multitasking. This Microsoft link can explain it better. I want WP8 to multitask in the real sense so that a user can interact with an app even when he is not looking at it!
5. Bluetooth File Sharing : All WP7 handsets have bluetooth in them but they are of no use as you can't send any file or image using bluetooth to any other device. You can use bluetooth to connect to wireless headsets but can't share data. Nokia lumia devices have a Transfer app that can import contacts from other smartphones to a lumia phone but that also doesn't work in every case (Didnt work in my case!).I read somewhere that Nokia will introduce Bluetooth file sharing for existing Lumia handsets but that's not I want. I want this to be a standard WP feature.And to use bluetooth file sharing efficiently , you need one more thing , which is my next point!
6. File manager :  Unlike Android, WP7 is a very "closed" operating system. You don't know where your files are being stored, in which folder they are or what files your apps have created or are using. If you want to check the pdf files you have on your phone, you have to use the Adobe Reader app and that app can read and display the pdf files you have on your device. It would be much better if there is a file manager so that we can simply view our files and then open it with any app we want.
7. Tile Customisations : Recently Microsoft announced that with Windows Phone 7.8 and Windows Phone 8 , we would be able to change the size of the Tiles on our Homescreen and also new Tile colours would be introduced. Even though these are great features, its still not enough. It would be great if we are able customise each tile individually like changing each tiles colour,etc. Right now if we change the Tile colour to say , Blue , all the Tiles (except those tiles which belong to apps that have there own custom tiles) change their colour to Blue. What if I want to change some of them to Green? I can't.
   

Well, there are some feature that Microsoft confirmed recently like Screenshot capability,Multiple-core processors(even though it was not needed!) and High Definition displays.
I have some more features which, if included ,would make WP8 a much better OS than it currently is. I'll talk about those features in Part-II of this post, so keep checking out my blog!
I like WP OS, its one of the smoooothest OS available right now and Android still can't match that smoothness (even with Jellybeen!), but considering it's the latest one as well, it has it's deficiencies.It lacks some basic features which scares away consumers and therefore its market share is not rising as it should.I hope Microsoft takes extensive consumer feedback and designs an OS which is perfect from all or at least some angles!
Feel free to comment or add any new feature to my list.