i've had all the iphone's since 3g and am fully onboard with the apple eco system, apple tv, iPad, macbook etc but am going for the 920 when it comes out (unless it gets poor reviews), as its the phone that excites me the most (almost got the Lumia 800 last year but bottled it)
Don't put too much weight on the review scores when the time comes. I can already guarantee you that it won't do as well as the iPhone in the the verge review. Across reviews there will be a lot of complaining that there still aren't all the apps you can find on iOS. Even if development for WP8 picks up, that will take a bit of time. However, I do think we'll see more WP8 apps, as Windows 8 is bound to be quite big and the apps will be easy to port to the phone.
I stick with Android for versatility and freedom. iOS has great content and is super easy to use. WP... I'm sorry, Microsoft will screw you and screw devs. It may not be today but eventually. Same old Microsoft, deep in their history. It's a pretty OS, though.
I suspect you are referring to the 'reset' to Windows Phone 8 from Windows Phone 7. Typically, Microsoft is not a company that tends to screw the devs. Windows Phone 7 apps will run on Windows Phone 8 (and will reach a wider audience).
I am certain there won't be another big reset in two years. Now Windows Phone 8 is on the Windows 8 kernel. That 'reset' was necessary and will bring lots of benefits. No reason to change that any time soon.
I bet the new Windows Phone 8 devices released this year will get more updates than any of this year's Android devices.
I think Windows Phone is beautiful, and if it wasn't for the fact that it's deeply integrated with Microsoft products/features, I would be all over the 920.
I really like iOS, but after 3 years, it is quite stale and boring to use.
Don't pretend Apple and google aren't guilty of this.
Android, which google is giving away for free, is all about locking people into the google ecosystem and getting them to use google apps. google+ is a good example of that. When you create a new google account you automatically have a google+ account and when you set up a new Android device, it asks you to get on google+. They also exert a lot of pressure on the OEMs to include all those google services.
Apple is probably the guiltiest of all. They have the strictest conditions for apps such as not duplicating OS functionality (not completely sure if that's still in place. at least they now allow other browsers) and use proprietary stuff wherever they can such as Facetime, Airplay, cables.
Windows Phone is actually not bad at all when it comes to integrating other Microsoft products and features. Sure, it has Internet explorer in exactly the same way that iOS has Safari. It also uses bing as the main search, but it's not like you'd get the same experience if you'd just go to the google homepage. It's more deeply integrated into the OS. There's still the google search app.
Apple and google are free to offer some WP apps if they want to make their services (such as maps) accessible on the platform. They just don't.
I think Microsoft doesn't try as hard to lock people in. They offer a lot of their services on other platforms. SkyDrive is available on Android and iOS, Skype is available everywhere, Office is allegedly on its way to iOS. Things like Photosynth hit other platforms first. They even have some games like Kinectimals on iOS.
I must say, the Lumia 920 is an alluring device, but something about the Windows panes still seems too simple and basic to me. I also feel like more of the front should be occupied by actual screen real estate
Here I just want to point out that some of the Lumia images we've seen are slightly misleading. In the pictures that show the start screen it's not always clear where the screen starts, as the start screen has some margins around the tiles. At time it looks as if the screen were smaller than it really is. The photo above shows the screen size well:
photo
I'm starting to consider the Lumia 920, but I do need to find out more about the Windows Phone OS. What does it offer in terms of customizability and integration with 3rd party apps? For example, if I don't want to use Internet Explorer, can I set my links to default to another browser? What about integration with 3rd party turn by turn navigation apps, map apps, email clients, search engines? Also, does Windows Phone 8 offer anything similar to Google Now?
It doesn't let you set a different browser as the default. In that regard it's identical to iOS. But Internet Explorer and especially IE10 are pretty great on the phone.
Navigation apps in general aren't really integrated all that much. There's really no obstacle to using 3rd party navigation and map apps. The Nokia apps are especially great here, but there are also some other options.
I don't think there's a way to use different mail clients. The built-in one is really good and works well with gmail, though.
As for search engines, the search button on the phone always leads to bing. But it's not the regular web search and they couldn't just put in google.com instead. It has some other functionalities when it comes to local searches, and it highlights apps in the market place for some search terms. There's a google search app that you start from a tile on the start screen.
Windows Phone does not have a google now equivalent. It doesn't automaticallyy learn all that stuff about you and then bring up cards. However, live tiles fulfill a lot of the same purposes. E.g. google now has that card for commuting that helps with getting to work on time. Here Nokia has its location apps, that also have a commuting functionality can display similar information to the card on a live tile. At some point Microsoft has also shown off an app of an airline that had live tiles to help people catch their planes.
