Yes, Nokia is the only company that gives me hardware envy. I've been wanting to run Android on one of those gorgeous Lumias for a long time. I've never felt like running Android on an iPhone.
Maybe if they reach 10%+ someone will take the trouble of hacking Android into one of their phones.
It's already been done. Get yourself an N9 (same hardware as the lumia 800) or an N950 (most beautiful phone hardware I've ever had the chance to use but hard to come by as only a few thousand units were produced) and install nitdroid.
The problem is that the OS and hardware really go hand in hand. Installing a completely different OS than the one the hardware was designed for often results in a disappointing device. The N950 running Meego for example is still to this day what I would consider the pinnacle of hardware and software engineering when it comes to smartphones. It looks gorgeous, it feels amazing - no other smartphone I've ever used (and I've used many) comes close.
But install Android on it and it suddenly looks and feels like an unsightly brick. The way android looks like, the UI gestures, the way Android is meant to be used in general is different than Meego and it doesn't fit the hardware at all. It's loads of subtle and seemingly small details but the end result is a very unpleasant device.
I just mentioned this in another thread, but you could install Sailfish on the device, which is basically a fork of Meego, and use their Dalvik implementation to run Android Apps. At least, you will be able to do that when Sailfish is released.
Nothing wrong with it, but MS decided to go the Apple route by providing a locked-down system. That works well for 90%+ of the population, but I need to be able to use my device as I use my PC, installing and configuring anything I want. Android and its custom ROMs are the best offering I could find. Ubuntu and Firefox OS could be good alternatives too.
Iirc, they backed off on that. WinPhone isn't as open as Android, but it's not iOS either. There's still a heavy bias towards the 1st-party store just like there is on Android and I doubt the phones are as easy to root/flash/whatever, but they do let you download and install applications outside of the store.
Maybe we'll see a Humble Windows Phone Bundle some day.
googles. Apparently I had Win8RT confused with WinPhone. WIn8RT allows you to sideload freely. WinPhone requires you get a (free) developer's a account, but still has tight restrictions.
> Apparently I had Win8RT confused with WinPhone. WIn8RT allows you to sideload freely. WinPhone requires you get a (free) developer's a account, but still has tight restrictions.
Windows RT does not allow you to sideload freely. Nor does WinRT, which is not an operating system, but a runtime environment.
You can sideload apps that you compile with a developer certificate, which is provided with a free copy of Visual Studio Express, but expires periodically. Corporations can sideload apps permanently if they have purchased sideloading licenses.
But there is no general ability to sideload, as a regular user who knows nothing about compilers.
Of course, this is just the RT environment. Windows 8 on x86 still has a desktop environment that is not locked down at all.
Most of the thoughts expressed there are philosophical. e.g. a good UI should work for al skill levels, It should satisfy Gestalt rule, absence of dock, etc. Of these the last is not even correct. You can pin whatever tiles you want on the start screen including many deep links into apps that other OSes don't even offer (afaik)
As for the other two, again they are philosophical. If the user had said that it doesn't work for me because I am novice or expert user then I'd understand. What does it have to do with it following certain design principles? does it work for you as an individual or not? Isn't that the most important question. The comment does not answer that at all.
Maybe if they reach 10%+ someone will take the trouble of hacking Android into one of their phones.