Windows Phone 8

I'll say it up front: I like Windows Phone 8. I like it so much I've considered letting it replace my iPhone 4s after I drowned it demonstrating a favorite watersport. That's unlikely just because so much of my personal media, not to mention my favorite phone wallet, are invested in iPhone. However, WP8 does everything I need it to and most of what I want it to do.

Some things are odd. I'd testing driving a Nokia Lumia 925, and Nokia pus plenty of their own apps on there. So, there's AT&T's Navigator app, Nokia's Here apps, Bing Maps, and now I've added Google Maps. Nokia has their own camera app, and their own 'photobeaming', which is really just uploading a file to an anonymous share and sending the link.

The Here transit app is cute. Driving maps are great, but while waiting a the Princeton Junction NJTransit station, I decided to see what Here would advise. I suggested that rather than take the express train directly in to New York City, a train that was no more than ten minutes away, that I take that train to Newark, get off, and find the PATH train (a different system) instead. So that was weird. And cute, and in a way, very Microsoft.

I found an app to put my Mac's itunes playlists and photos on the phone. It works well, though someimes WP8 will tell me it can't play a song even as it starts to play.

So, perhaps I'm no making the best case for WP8, but it is pretty slick. It's responsive, customizable, as or more consistent than iOS, and simpler than any Windows OS has a right to be. I'll hold on to it and use it to replace my Galaxy S4. My iPhone and I, however, will make up and go out to the bar. WP8 and I will just be friends.