OPEN TABLE

Guest post from: Natalie Walter

I booked our dinner reservations last night using our kansas city clear internet connection. Our kids came to visit and suggested that we go out to dinner. I know how difficult it is to find a reservation on Friday night at a good place if you don’t book it at least a week before. I told them that I would just cook, but they insisted that we get on this website called, opentable.com and check to see if anywhere had any availability. It turns out that one of our favorite places had an open table at eight o’clock. We quickly booked it straight from our computer. We were able to print out a paper confirmation to take with us to the restaurant. I just couldn’t believe that it was that easy! My daughter told me that a lot of places keep their open table up to date. If they have a cancellation, they make the information available on-line, so that someone else can come and they don’t loose the business. It really is a great idea!

There's something holding windows phone back...

Written by Doug Puccetti(Me) on www.techhog.com:

I’ve had my fair share of devices over the past couple of years but for some reason Windows Phone is probably the only mobile OS that is hard to commit to for over a month or so. In my honest opinion the Windows Phone 7.5 UI is my favorite (took some time using it but after a while I grew to like it). It’s not crammed with widgets and pages like Android and not too basic like iOS. The live tiles work perfectly when I want to be kept in the ‘Really, did that just happen?’ rather than the ‘Wait, when did that happen?’.

I also love how multiple OEM’s (original equipment manufacturer’s) have picked up the Windows Phone OS providing variety in screen size, shape, color, feel and most importantly, price. I also love how everything is integrated all together, in what’s called the ’People’ App. Its literally a preloaded app that links all my contacts and their news feed, twitter, pictures, etc, in one location without fetching through 3 different applications. So what’s holding me and many others from purchasing a new Windows Phone for our daily driver? One word really, Apps.

As sad, pathetic and selfish as it sounds, its the truth. Don’t get me wrong, Windows Phone 7 has some great apps and its really starting to grow. You can find applications that do the job on Windows Phone (And do them well may I add) but the sad part is, not many of the larger game developers are making their games for Windows Phone. One of the major ‘non-contributors’ is probably Zynga. Everyone has either played or has heard of Words with Friends, Hanging with Friends and even Scramble with Friends. I happen to enjoy Words with Friends very much but I am not able to play it on my Windows Phone. The best replacement I found is probably Words by Post (read my review of the app here). It’s clean design and Lifetime Score keeping makes it a great replacement, however I have only gotten a few of my friends to convert over. Scramble with Friends Can be replaced with Wordament, but again, everyone would rather play Scramble.

Another game that has become very popular over the past few weeks has been Draw Something by OMGPOP. This is another game that I love to play and have paid for but if I cant play it on the go than what’s the point? The good news is that many people have requested OMGPOP to develop this game for Windows Phone and the developers are considering it.

Those are just a few quick examples of application I would like to see. What holds most people back from buying Windows Phone, other than being a fanboy or not wanting to jump into something so new, is its low processing speeds. Android devices are starting to move towards quad-core processors where windows phones only have 1.4GHz single-core. Kinda seems like Windows Phone is behind the 8 ball. But to be honest, if you aren’t playing 3D, graphic intense games, you don’t need a dual-core or higher processer in your phone.

The newer Windows Phones are starting to be released with 4G LTE connectivity (Nokia Lumia 900), so that’s a plus. However, until I see some of the major application developers design apps for Windows Phone, it will be hard for me to switch from my Galaxy Nexus…

What’s holding you back from using a Windows Phone? Have you tried one yet?