5 Things Microsoft Needs To Do with Windows Phone
1. Get more well-known apps on the platform. I’ve said before that getting official applications like Pinterest, SnapChat, Instagram and Path are MUSTS if Windows Phone is to become a compelling platform for everyone. At this point, it’s almost there. It’s REALLY close, it only really needs one last final push. Can you survive without the missing apps? Absolutely. But that shouldn’t have to be the case.
2. Get Windows Phone, Xbox ONE, and Windows 8 to be more cohesive. Xbox 360 and Windows Phone 7.x/8 integration wasn’t awesome. Xbox LIVE titles did come to WP with achievements and all, but I didn’t see much of an ecosystem there. It would have been neat if a game purchased on the Windows 8 appstore worked on Xbox LIVE Arcade and Windows Phone as well. There are SO many ways in which these platforms could become more cohesive. With Xbox ONE, each will actually share a kernel. The possibilities are endless.
3. Get a notification center. Whether it will be included in the Windows Blue (or 8.1) update is unknown, but we can only hope. Live tiles and lock screen status icons are helpful, but limited. If Microsoft intends to continue to bolster Windows Phone’s integration with social media, it has to find a way to include more social networks in its notification system (picture above is a concept by Peter L.).
4. Improve Xbox Music and Windows Phone apps. This may be beating a dead horse, but seriously, why couldn’t they have just rebranded Zune? It worked, and it worked well. At least they can begin making Xbox Music and Video more Zune-like. And as far as the Windows Phone app goes, allow it to be functional. Managing my music is a nightmare, and I’ve resorted to continuing to use my Zune HD for all of my music (which is, luckily, what I prefer). But that won’t work for everyone.
5. Add a bit more customizability like VPN support, orientation lock, more landscape support (in general), possible alternative keyboards, and being able to make custom text tones. These features are just lacking in Windows Phone right now and I think with a few minor tweaks it could easily become a reality (for example, adding the ability to take screenshots in WP8 from WP7 was possible via relatively simple code).