Design awards for WP7: http://mynokiablog.com/2011/07/03/three-international-design-excellence-awardsidea-for-windows-phone-7/

App usage varies depending on who does the research.
http://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/pew-29-percent-of-cell-phone-owners-have-downloaded-apps/
http://news.cnet.com/most-iphone-applications-gathering-dust/

Want to backup your WP7? Zune software can do that, or it can sync.

Microsoft also understands quality control. That's why they had strict minimum requirements. Microsoft is not in the hardware business and had no desire to build their own phones. Apple is very much a closed eco-system. IMO, the upcoming wave of WP7 Mango devices will show the manufacturers begin to differentiate themselves.

And while not yet available, Nokia is doing some really cool stuff for the future. http://www.geek.com/articles/mobile/nokia-gives-a-sneak-preview-of-bendable-phones-20111026/

>Too bad I don't have it. My associate is using it... or trying :-)
>
>It would be no sweat to find a more expensive app.
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>>More apps, IMO, is meaningless. How many "fart apps" do we need? Reseach shows that most people only use about 20% of the apps they download. That tells me 80% of the apps out there are duplicates, used once then never again, or are just junk.
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>Research made by Microsoft?
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>>Every app I have on my WP7 is gorgeous. Just because an app vendor creates a bad looking app doesn't mean the entire platform is bad.
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>I guess I'm more demanding than you then. At this point it's matter of taste. Crapy to some is gorgeous to others.
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>>You can easily backup you contacts and calendar on WP7.
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>How do I do that?
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>Please don't tell me to go on Google because I did and didn't find a solution to that problem.
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>>Your problems with Telus are a result of Telus and/or HTC and have nothing to do with WP7.
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>At this level we call this quality control. Apple understood that. If you control everything then you can offer the best phone to your users. Perhaps MS should have done the same instead of offering on a bunch of, in certain cases, what appears to be cheap phones. So the end result is that because of my cell phone adventure I also blame Windows phone OS for that.