So last Monday, I replaced my Motorola Q9h with a very sexy replacement – the Samsung Focus. I had been reading about it online and drooling over it for awhile, so to get the last one at one of our local stores that morning… so very happy!
As expected, playing with my Windows Phone is leading to at least one SUX post. Let me start by saying the Samsung Focus, even a week later, has not lost its sexiness. It’s still an amazing piece of hardware. However, even the sexiest things have their quirks.
For me, the only unhappy experience I’ve had so far is in searching for apps. I have friends who’ve written apps, and I have other apps that I know are there but haven’t been easy to find. The problem I have is that the Search button doesn’t seem to offer any context-specific searching from within the marketplace – so I get albums, songs, and artists in my results when I’m only concerned about apps.
For example, let’s say I’m wondering if there was a Cachemate app for Windows Phone. When I go into the Marketplace and go into apps, I would hope that the Search button would search just the apps. Widening my search, if I do a search for “cache”, I see artists and albums in my results, and not just apps as I had hoped. And the Zune software – which seems to have series star status here in the SUX column – doesn’t offer me any hope either.
So Marketplace team – whoever you may actually be – could you guys please add a feature so that we can narrow our searches down to just what we want (apps or albums or artists or … you get it…)? It would add a pleasant user experience and could get a “does not SUX” post in the future.
But for now, searching for apps in the Marketplace is clunky at best and truly SUX.