5 improvements we want to see in the January Windows Phone 7 update

It’s certainly eye-catching to look at, but anyone who’s spent some time with Microsoft’s new mobile OS, Windows Phone 7, knows there’s still an awful lot of room for improvement.

In fact, the big M itself briefly talked about the first major update during the Windows Phone 7 launch announcement, suggesting that it knew the first release wasn’t up to snuff.

Some developers with early access to the update are saying that it's so big it’s almost like ‘Windows Phone 8’. However, with specific details of what’s in the update thin on the ground, there’s no telling exactly how this is being measured.

We already know that the aforementioned Copy and Paste is definitely on the cards, and there are strong hints that multi-tasking for third-party apps could also be on the way.

The problems with Windows Phone 7 run deeper than just a few missing functions, though. Here’s what we think needs to be changed if Microsoft wants to make WP7 a success.

Multi-tasking is the most contentious feature on all the mobile operating systems. For every person that swears by the function, revelling in the increased speed and ease-of-use, there’s another that complains of seriously depleted battery life and stealthily activated apps.

If Microsoft really is serious about expanding multi-tasking out further than Zune player and its related apps, it needs to ensure a task bar is always accessible, and that there are no more than two steps to close running apps.

WP7 shouldn’t look to iOS for its inspiration, either, as that system confusingly combines recently opened apps with currently running ones. A system more akin to Symbian’s would be far clearer, and prevent the mysterious death of many a battery in the process.

There’s also quite a few of us that are generally pretty happy with how everything works right now, so the option to not have multi-tasking enabled at all (and thereby run no risk of accidentally killing our batteries) would be welcome.

It’s been a month since WP7 launched, and already the indie portion of the Zune Marketplace is creaking at the seams.

Meanwhile the Live-enabled portion (otherwise known as the side everyone hyped up prior to launch) has been meandering along with barely any new titles added since the first splurge.

The app Marketplace needs some kind of highlight feature, like that seen on the App Store (and more recently, the Android, Samsung Apps, and Ovi Stores), because right now the categories in the indie side are too generic and poorly laid out for the number of games that are being uploaded to the service.

There also needs to be more of a separation between the two channels. While some may complain that this will lead to the ‘big’ games getting all the attention again, right now the entire Top Sellers list is made up of the ‘big’ games anyway, despite the two areas being blended.

Sorting out the Zune Marketplace’s usability would be helpful, but what about trying to ensure more people have access to the service in the first place?

Currently the service is a bit of a mess, offering applications to just 17 countries around the world. In comparison, Android covers 33 and the App Store holds dominion over 90 countries, kicking WP7’s coverage well into the long grass.

Naturally, you could say that those two have had two years to gather that kind of reach, but then that would mean ignoring the relatively new Samsung Apps service, which covered over 100 countries as of September.

Unifying services across regions may be a little bit of a push, given TV and music rights holders are likely to be the roadblock to those plans, but at the same time limiting services like music or podcasts to just six and one countries respectively does seem a little low for a service hoping to take off as an iTunes killer.

One of my biggest issues with almost all the current mobile operating systems as they stand is that access to the internal storage is protected and funnelled through the manufacturer’s own software.

Inevitably, like a shareware app from the mid-'90s this software ends up being bloated, slow, and buggy – Zune itself managed to crash twice during installation, which means it narrowly missed out of ‘buggiest piece of Microsoft software I’ve installed’ behind Windows Live Marketplace.

A way of just allowing us to drag and drop MP3 files, images, or video via Explorer (or Finder) would be so much easier and faster than faffing around with some nice-looking program that’s ultimately just a massive advert for a distribution service.

If that’s too much, just allow us the choice of using the software or installing straight to drive as with bada and Kies.

The Zune player on the HTC 7 Mozart that I use for day-to-day calls scares me. Not because it’s incredibly good, but because it lacks so many basic functions that I’m getting flashbacks of my rubbish Archos Jukebox.

Why is there no scan bar function? Why is Shuffle hidden so well that I had to look up its location on the web (tap the album cover when the song’s playing, then select the baffling icon on the right, fact fans)?

Even worse, why is it that I have to turn my screen on and off again to bring up the music controls if I start doing something else? If this is a sign of what multi-tasking will be like after the update, I’m not looking forward to it one bit.

Sure, it’s fancy how the phone downloads images of the bands and sticks them in the background, but these functional limitations need to be addressed quickly if Microsoft expects people to be using the phone as their primary media player.