Migrating from iPhone to Windows Phone 7 and Back

03 November 2010

UPDATE: Paul Foster has been in touch, posted a response and kindly offered to come and help me!!

I picked up my new HTC Trophy Windows Phone 7 on Monday, hooked up my SIM card and got it onto the wireless network. Before long I was picking up email from our Exchange server. Good.

I wanted to try to buy some applications. The London Underground application is quite useful on the iPhone so I decided to start with that. I selected Marketplace then Applications, then searched for "London Underground". It appears that the search isn't context sensitive, so no applications were listed:

I don't understand this thing about fonts being too big for the screen and text getting cropped, but I hear that's just me, fair enough I can learn to live with that.

After some browsing through the marketplace menus, I found the application under travel.

It was $0.99. I expected the price to be localised to GB pounds for me, but never mind.

I selected buy. Then from confirm purchase, I needed to add a credit card. Rather surprisingly it shelled me out into the browser and asked me to sign in with my Live Id, before asking me to enter my credit card details. After entering the details, I got an error:

"We can't authorise the payment method. Please make sure the information is correct, or use another payment method. If you continue to get this message, please contact your financial institution."

It helpfully deleted all the card details I had already entered. I tried again. No luck. I tried another card, still no luck. I've tried this on several occasions and even had somebody look over my shoulder to make sure that I'm not doing something stupid, but still no luck. Re entering credit cards is a pain without cut and paste.

I managed to install some free applications, but was surprised that Twitter didn't integrate with the People Hub / Social Networking feature. Maybe I missed something?

Before the journey home, I switched on Bluetooth and paired the device with the audio system in my Volvo V70 car. Now whenever I start the engine, the phone reboots.

UPDATE: We tried Richard's new phone too. Every time that it connects via Bluetooth to the car it reboots; "Boom Baby" indeed.

Later, at home, I thought I'd install Zune and add some music. The Zune installer wanted a restart. Okay. Windows crashed on shutdown. I powered off and back on and started Zune.

I'm not familiar with Zune but I expected it to be similar to iTunes, so I had a click around and found a get started wizard:

It seemed that I needed to log in, but that failed (See below).

I logged onto Windows Live from my laptop browser and checked the settings. My profile suggests that I am in the UK. There doesn't appear to be an option for GB? My laptop regional settings are all UK too.

I went through and reset all the options that seemed to involve a country, but still no luck. I don't really want an entirely new Live ID when all my other Microsoft assets including Azure, use this one.

Back in Zune, I decided to try the Get Started wizard again.

Somebody suggested that the error message might well have been "check your musical tastes and try a more recent decade."

UPDATE: Somebody else suggested that the Mark Knopfler and Volvo V70 references in this article really do betray my middle-agedness. Thank you.

Sorry Microsoft, I really tried. I've been a Windows MVP twice and I really like working with Windows Azure. I know that some of my colleagues really like Windows Phone 7, but I'm afraid you've lost me on this one.

Perhaps I'll come back when you're a few versions in, but in the meantime, my iPhone 3 with its cracked screen seems like a preferable option.