[sc:mobile-category ]As an early adopter of Windows Phone I knew the various organizations that would be supporting the device would take a while to get everything in order to give the best user experience.
When I purchased my HD7 (on the first day it was available from Bell) Bell had done a reasonable job at providing the tools and software you would expect on the phone. The one I used most often was the Self Service portal which they provided a link to in the web browser.
This worked fine for determining the about of data I had consumed and checking other basic information about my rate plan and other items from the phone instead of logging in to the main Bell website.
Around the time of the Mango update (though I can not confirmed it was at the exact time) I noticed that the bell web portal stopped working. With a cryptic “Your profile does not support this feature” message.
The first time I saw it I just assumed it was a problem on Bell’s side and ignored it. A few weeks later when I tried it again I received the same message.
So last week while on a support call with Bell about the tethering update I decided to ask about the error I was receiving.
The conversation kind of went like this:
Me: I’m getting an error message on the self service option, something about my profile not supporting this feature.
Bell: Ok, have you tried uninstalling the app and re-installing it.
Me: I can’t, it’s a web page.
Bell: Ok, let’s try the following, go to the application list then press and hold the self service application.
Me: I don’t have the application in the list, on Windows Phone it’s just a link to the website.
Bell: Oh, ok, well you have to install the app then, go to the Marketplace and install it.
Me: [Quick search on Bell in the Marketplace and install the app] So I guess it would have been nice if they told the early adopters a new app was available eh?
Bell: I guess so.
So its nice that Bell has made an app (though it’s not much more than a wrapper for the website) but I guess not telling anyone about it is just another bump in the road of an early adopter .