How about making their app store usable? It's just a mish-mosh of colored tiles that makes it practically impossible to find anything (at least on Windows 8).
Lately, I considered a Windows phone for a professional client of mine who's been having issues with her iPhone not correctly syncing meeting events on an Exchange server account. Apparently, this is a long time issue that Apple has never fixed and I had read that this issue does not plague Windows phone users. I took one look at the mail app on the Windows phone and immediately dismissed Windows Phone as an option. The OS is very UNprofessional looking, and looks geared towards the younger, social media-minded consumer. MS really needs to make the OS more corporate friendly if they want to sell these things. People don't keep a phone for work and a phone for play...they need a phone they can do both.
Whoa whoa whoa whoa. You immediately dismissed Windows 8 email app just by LOOKS alone?! This is exactly the problem with your Apple-centric 'standards'. First off, Microsoft's email clients are designed to be deep and customizable. If you look at Apple's native Mail, it is extremely limited and has no junk filter controls. NONE. Even worse, there is no 'Delete All' button on the inbox folder if you wanted to flush out the entire inbox. You can do it on the Trash folder, though on the other hand.
The problem with Apple's Mail is that you have to scroll, scroll, and scroll for long periods of time in order to delete each mail in the INBOX folder. When I had an Blackberry, I was able to get to the bottom of the mail folder or go straight to the top without scrolling.
And Apple claims to be design visionaries? REALLY? REALLY!?! Then why the hell didn't they bother creating a gesture to allow us to skip to the bottom or top of the inbox? In most email clients, one could do that. Definitely on the Blackberry mail you can do it very quickly without scrolling. I know because I've had past experience using it.
When I had Microsoft Outlook years ago on the Powerbook G4, it was the best one I've had because I was able to control which junk to block or automatically delete. You can't do that on the native Mail app on iphone, unless you use other 3rd party apps for this. Especially if you're a working professional, you're not going to have time to keep selecting mail to delete if you wanted to cut back on junk.
Apple's native Mail has no 'rules' to create an auto-responder if you're on vacation, or whatnot. So my advice to you is do NOT underestimate Windows 8 nor Microsoft. And lastly, you should know that one of Microsoft's markets has always been about corporate customers.
Apple's native Mail is crap and limited. In fact, I discovered that POP mail doesn't work very well with it except IMAP especially using Godaddy mail with it. You should've been able to set up Exchange on Mail, otherwise or use Sparrow or any other 3rd party app.
If Apple wants to be on top, they need to beef up their own Mail application and add more features to it to make it more robust. One problem with iOS is having too much of tapping and swiping.
Minimalist design is NOT always the best nor perfect route to take. It works for some of the time but not all the time. The problem with Apple is they focus too much on 'eye candy' and less on function.
