Smoked a dozen iPhones, and they didn't even know it

Posted by gwydionjhr on August 1, 2012 01:57 pm 99

Just had to share this.

I recently attended a 20 year reunion at a resort in Tucson AZ with 20 or so folks from all over the world. Of all the people in our group I was the only one there with a Windows Phone. I recently upgraded to a Lumia 710 from a WM6.5 device that was on it's last legs. I chose the 710 to tide me over until WP8 comes out.

As there was no official "group leader", I ended up doing the job, and mostly because of the built in functionality of my Windows Phone.

The first was Local Scout. We'd be sitting around the pool, and someone would ask where we're going for dinner, and the consensus would be, say, "let's do Italian food". I'd pull out my phone, hit the mic icon and say "Italian Restaurant", and BAM, a neat list with approximate cost and distance would come up. On the first couple of days, the iPhones would also come out with a few people searching, but by the end, whether they realized they'd been "Smoked" or not, they didn't even bother to pull them out, all heads would just turn to me.

The second amazing functionality was the "Group Lists". (Now, don't forget I'm still relatively new to WP) After sending the first few texts by choosing each person individually, I said to myself... there has got to be a better way. A little digging, and Hey! right in front of me is Create a Group, which I did. I put all 20 people into one group, called it "Reunion" and when it was time to meet in the lobby, or at the pool, or whatever, I could send one text that went to all 20 at the same time. Now, I'm sure the other platforms have the same kind of functionality, the point here, is that it was easy to find, and easy to use. And the result was the same as with Local Scout; by the end of the week if someone had a message they wanted to get out to everyone, instead of using their own phone, they would ask me to send the message.

I will admit, a few of the iPhone users did ask to see what I was using. I did, possibly, perhaps, do the "take a picture and post to Facebook" challenge with them. Even with my totally newb to WP status, and their years of experience using their iPhones, I was able to handily beat them getting pictures up to FB. Here's my bud still working on getting an app open on his iPhone. Smoked!

via a8.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net

Don't forget, I'm not a hard core programmer who constantly digs into things. I'm more of an above average tech consumer in terms of interest, but not necessarily ability. I'm tired of screwing around with things, trying to decipher long complicated instructions from web pages written by people who assume a level of understanding most people don't have. I just want something that works, and it's why I'm very happy with my Windows Phone.

Who knows, maybe it was enough to get some of them to switch come their next upgrade. :-)