As I’ve noted many times—Apps, Apps, and More Apps being probably the most recent instance—Windows phone puts up with an “app gap” problem compared with the leading smart phone platforms, Android and iOS. And that seems like a big problem. Truth is, it’s a bit nuanced.
On the one hand, Windows phone is completely well served by all the basics, and you’ll find perfectely adequate, even excellent at times, apps for email, calendaring, music, social networking, cameras and photos, games and more.
The real issue, but is that Windows phone falls apart speaking of so-called “speciality apps”—a banking or mobile payments app,probably, a parking or shopping app, or whatever app it is that you may need regularly. And looking at this objectively, I suspect my ability to use Windows phone is somewhat tied to my life-/work- style. That is, I don’t commute. My wife handles the family’s finances. And so on.
I love Windows phone for the user experience, which is richer and more useful than that of Android or iOS, despite recent UI overhauls that aimed to shrink the usability gap. And while I do feel that many Windows phone apps fall short of their Android/iOS equivalents, most of them are full-featured and easy to use.
