Mango No-Go On Text Reflow

SADLY, MICROSOFT JOINS THE RANKS OF THE TEXT REFLOW CHALLENGED

I've got a fresh new TEXT REFLOW rant for you... this week I am testing the amazing Nokia Lumia 900 4G smartphone from AT&T. This is one of the best all-around smartphones that I have ever laid eyes upon, and I could write paragraphs of information about how great this phone is.

But today, I'm not going to write a glowing post about the new breakthrough Windows Phone Mango smartphone that has come as a result of Microsoft and Nokia's strategic partnership. Instead, I'm going to nag and rag Microsoft about the one thing they left out of this phone's browser... Text Reflow.

Like the iPhone devices on the market, the Nokia Lumia 900 4G (and possibly other Windows Phone Mango devices) does not have the ability to reflow text when zooming in on articles. If you want the words big enough for your eyes to read them, you'll have to pan side to side to read sentences

Knowing that consuming content is a huge function of a smartphone for busy executives on the go like me (haha), I don't get why Microsoft would not have made this a priority on the first release of their new operating system... much less the second version, Mango.

The only thing that I can say in Microsoft's defense is that they are not nearly as trifling as Apple and their 5th edition of iOS. Apple has had 5 years to get this right, yet their hard-headedness prevents them from even recognizing it as an issue worth acknowledging. Conversely, Microsoft is in the early stages of its new operating system

Something else that I will say on behalf of Microsoft is that the earlier disaster I mean operating system Windows Mobile 6.5 did include text reflow capability with the browser. This at least lets us know that someone in Redmond has a clue, whereas our genius friends in Cupertino still have their heads planted in a warm, moist place when it comes to this issue.

If Microsoft wants to perfect the Windows Phone Mango experience, they can vault the Nokia Lumia 900 4G smartphone into perfection by simply adding text reflow capability to the stock browser, or at least encouraging the folks at Opera to create a build that has this feature for Mango.

I really hope that the officials at Microsoft read this blog post. Fat chance, but you never know. I have been writing about AT&T products for a few years, and I did get "discovered". So I do have hope. Microsoft, please "discover" me, and I will help you to connect with your real end users and bolster your chances of overtaking the market from the evil empire... rather, Apple.

Text Reflow, Microsoft folks. Get it in your head, now. Then get it in the Nokia Lumia 900 4G.

I'm done

Carlton Flowers
Text Reflow Activist