What is next in the WP world?

[el-Capitan]

Hi,

I have been very happy with the Nokia 920 (stolen) and 925 (shattered). I have been running a Nexus 4 for four weeks and now an iPhone 5c for the past three.

The latter is very nice, but the email is so shoddy, that I really miss the WP.

My contract is due for renewal in October - can we expect anything new and awesome in the WP arena, something to compete with the iPhone 6? Or will iOS 8 maybe improve on the email?

 

[bearxor]

Well, the hardware platform is pretty set at this point.

Since you said 920/925, I presume you're on AT&T. The Lumia 1520 is the "best" WP phone you can get right now.

I presume there will be a Lumia 1020 successor soon. The Lumia 930 should also be making it's way to AT&T at some point this summer.

What don't you like about iOS mail compared to WP?

 

[vi edit]

WP is in a major transition period. HTC and Samsung have all but given up on the OS. Nokia was really the only hardware manf doing anything new with it. But MS bought them.

I would not be totally shocked if MS ended up dissolving Nokia as we know it today and moved to a branded line of "Surface" phones to pair up with the Surface line of tablets.

 

[Ravynmagi]

Hard to guess what's going to happen with the Nokia brand. Nokia's CEO is in charge of Microsoft Devices (which Surface and Nokia are under). Surface and Nokia/Lumia are both good brands.

As for Windows phone hardware. What a contrast things are with Android, which has new flagship phones every other month it seems like. Nobody seems to want to make Windows Phones and the Nokia phones seem to be a mess of carrier exclusivities. The 930 is only available as the Icon on Verizon (and Verizon made it ugly too), what a shame.

I kinda want a good Windows Phone (I have the Lumia 521, but really hard can't use this as a daily driver), but other than the Lumia 930/Icon, nothing really excites me, and I'm probably going to wait for Windows Phone 8.1 and hope some new phones arrive with that.

 

[Commodus]

Hi,

I have been very happy with the Nokia 920 (stolen) and 925 (shattered). I have been running a Nexus 4 for four weeks and now an iPhone 5c for the past three.

The latter is very nice, but the email is so shoddy, that I really miss the WP.

My contract is due for renewal in October - can we expect anything new and awesome in the WP arena, something to compete with the iPhone 6? Or will iOS 8 maybe improve on the email?

Which email client are you using on iOS? That could make a big difference. The stock email client is alright, but you may like Mailbox, Gmail or others depending on what services you use.

As for Windows Phone, the only big highlight phone on the horizion right now is McLaren, which is believed to be a Lumia 1020 successor with "3D Touch" (i.e. you could do above-the-glass gestures, and even touch the sides of the phone). It'll still be Windows Phone 8.1, though, so the email interface you see in the 8.1 Preview will likely reflect what you get in McLaren.

 

[el-Capitan]

Thanks the feedback, guys. Not too encouraging, which is disappointing really. I thought they had made good progress and were starting to catch on - in EU at least. I'll keep a look out for the McLaren, then. Hopefully this comes to ATT. Frankly I think MS/ Nokia are shooting themselves into the foot with all this exclusivity BS...

In iOS it bugs me that I cannot open more than one email at a time. Often in need to c&p from several emails, or compare their wording. Open, search, copy, open, search, paste, open draft, gets tedious.

Also, i use folders and rules to manage my emails. In iOS i do not get any alert if a subfolder gets a new mail. Even more annoying: these folders are not synced, so I always have to play a few days catch-up when i do manually navigate into these folders (one folder gets 1000+ msges/day)

Less annoying, but still inconvenient : the red unread count stays even though i have been in the inbox and mentally registered that they are there( but determined that they are irrelevant or will be dealt with later). It gets confusing to identify at a glance if it is worth to look into the inbox "27 unread messages - that is unchanged from half an hour ago, or was it 24 mails then?"

I already use the Gmail app. But the above applies for work emails (Exchange).

 

[bearxor]

In iOS it bugs me that I cannot open more than one email at a time. Often in need to c&p from several emails, or compare their wording. Open, search, copy, open, search, paste, open draft, gets tedious.

First, how do you do that in Windows Phone? I'm not aware of this feature.

In iOS 8, you can't open more than one email at a time to read. You can, however, open more than one at a time to compose or reply to. You can switch between them at the bottom of the mail app.

Here is what they look like collapsed.

Here is what it looks like when you tap one of the emails on the bottom to switch between them.

Also, i use folders and rules to manage my emails. In iOS i do not get any alert if a subfolder gets a new mail. Even more annoying: these folders are not synced, so I always have to play a few days catch-up when i do manually navigate into these folders (one folder gets 1000+ msges/day)

In iOS 7, go to your main mailbox list. This is where you see all your folders. Click Edit. Select 'Add mailbox' at the bottom of the list.

Then, choose the account that has the folder and then the folder(s) you want synced. Then hit done, done, done. That should put them in the main list. You should get push, count and notifications if they are selected here.

Less annoying, but still inconvenient : the red unread count stays even though i have been in the inbox and mentally registered that they are there( but determined that they are irrelevant or will be dealt with later). It gets confusing to identify at a glance if it is worth to look into the inbox "27 unread messages - that is unchanged from half an hour ago, or was it 24 mails then?"

I turn the badge off. Here is how I have my notification set up.
Show in NC is off
Badge App is off
Show on lock screen is on
Banner is selected as alert style

So that means that if my phone is off, I will get a notification of the email when I pick my phone up. It will be on the lock screen. Once I unlock my phone I do not then have to go and clear it out of the notification center nor will the badge show up.

If I am using my phone, I will get the banner alert at the top that an email has come in while I'm using whatever app.

I hope that helps.

 

[el-Capitan]

...

Wow! The second will be making such a difference. Awesome. Thanks a lot!

I've also set up the notifications correctly now, will see how that works the next days.

Now I am genuinely curious about iOS 8

 

[bearxor]

Now I am genuinely curious about iOS 8

Well, if you're fairly happy with iOS now, then i would just hold off until the fall. That should give time for iOS 8, Galaxy Note 4, iPhone 6 and whatever hardware Nokia is doing to update the aging high-end US device lineup to all release. And you'll be able to get iOS 8 up and running in the 5C.

 

[sequoia464]

This site (Windows Phone Central) is decent as far as keeping up on most things WP. http://www.wpcentral.com/

Most news these days seems to be on apps though, I haven't seen much hardware related that hasn't been mentioned in the previous posts. I think there is a new low cost 520/521 replacement out soon; 635. http://www.nokia.com/us-en/phones/phone/lumia635/?dcmpid=bmc-src-bing. Looks interesting except for the 512 MB of ram. Might make a decent backup for my 920.

Cortana is kind of interesting in case you haven't used an 8.1 phone yet. I'm not familiar with Siri so I can't make any comparisons. Actually just starting to use Cortana.

My work situation has changed recently, my next device will have a 6" screen. I had a 1520 for a while but returned it thinking at the time that it was too big. The 1520 has an amazing screen, especially for outdoors.

 

[desura]

well, here's to hoping that the Nokia Lumia line survives intact...I quite liked their phones. And nokia music is the only music sub I've ever considered subscribing to.

Interestingly, my Nokia 820 crashes far less than my ipod touch 5g. Same RAM, similar processors.

 

[MarkizSchnitzel]

About the folders and notifications.. If you are using outlook.com, you can not get notifications at all, even in WP. It's because it's not IMAP, like gmail. Apparently, there are some advantages in MSs view that make up for that, but I would not know what are they. It's basically the most annoying thing about WP (along with the absolutely terrible xbox music app).