Who here uses Windows Phone?

[Lil Frier]

1. WP interface is beautiful, this is what Zune started
2. I find that I can get almost all social networking stuff without apps (FB messaging with the awesome messaging app, notifications from the "Me" tile, browse others updates from the "people" tile... plus uploading pictures and statuses to FB/twitter is a breeze.
3. Keyboard is excellent. The word suggestions are excellent.
4. Baconit is great, except for displaying .gif's (and it constantly runs out of memory on my phone )
5. "Other" storage glitch SUCKS. My phone only has 4GB built in memory (with a 32GB microSD for music). "Other" currently takes up almost 1GB, and I don't even have more than 5 apps installed!
6. As you can tell from above, I really don't use many apps at all. Baconit, IMDB, ringtone app, Skype, Amazon, Gym app, Omegle. I find they all work fine, but I simply don't use my phone for most of that stuff. I use my laptop way more often
7. Battery life is amazing, I get 2 full days of battery with tons of reddit browsing during boring classes and listening to music almost all day long.
8. Email is quite good, I enjoy the simple interface.
9. Music app is frustrating, almost so good except for being annoyingly laggy sometimes and having that STUPID PAUSE BETWEEN SONGS. How can seamless playback be so hard to implement

1. Yeah, I still have my Zune HD 32 for the rare occasion I'm going to be gone all day and don't want to risk running my 920 dead listening to music for several hours.
2. Yeah, it's all there, it's something I have no care for though.
3. I like it more than SwiftKey, yeah, and I DEFINITELY like it a lot more than the Swype option on the Galaxy S III.
4. Not a Redditor, so never tried that out.
5. This is why you don't touch HTC devices. Nokia released an application called Lumia storage check several months ago, and its goal is to cut out a lot of the fat in the "other" section. I've got 22 apps and 20 games installed, and my "other" sits at 257 MB right now.
6. I play a lot of games on my phone, more than anything. I like using Unified Remote to control VLC on my computer at night, but I mostly play NBA Jam and Tetris Blitz right now.
7. The battery life is the only thing I don't like on the 920. I don't use it heavily, so it can probably last 36+ hours most of the time, but heavily gaming (something like Asphalt 7) can get the battery life under 5 hours.
8. Agreed, I like sending teachers e-mails on my phone.
9. I don't have an issue with that, I love the app. My only complaint is that it doesn't fully utilize the ability to show artist images on the lockscreen while playing. MPATool is great for fixing that, but the sheer dearth of artists images in the Xbox Music database for that feature blows. Oh, and I haven't figured out how the cloud-based collection extension works, because despite telling my phone and my PC to do that (upload to the Xbox Music server and read from it), I couldn't get music from my PC to my phone to listen to.

 

[blurredvision]

One Spartan Assault certainly doesn't make up for it. That game wasn't even really that good anyways.

Well now that's a lie.

EDIT: The problem with Spartan Assault was that I bought it on the W8 store for my Surface Pro and since Microsoft stupidly hasn't linked the W8 and WP8 stores yet, there's no way I was buying it again for my phone.

 

[bearxor]

I was honestly really excited for it. I even managed to grab it a few weeks ahead of release on AT&T because I had an unlocked L920. I couldn't get in to it at all. Think I played through three missions and just never felt the urge to pick it back up. It wasn't really that engrossing.

But I'm glad you liked it!

 

[Deeko]

Uh what? MS is ending support next year and they already killed Skype on it. And native apps for WP8 dont run on WP7, the platform is dead no matter how you want to spin it

This is an honest question - do you write mobile apps, or do you get your information on how they work from The Verge and Android Central? It would appear that you don't really understand how it works. For starters, your information is incorrect (unless you're again being intentionally inflammatory). The Skype app for WP7 has not been "killed". You can still download it and it still works the same way it did before. Now, they have halted further development, but that's a different story. The features Microsoft is adding to Skype are all things that only work on WP8 anyway (things like deep integration with the OS), so it's a moot point.

Regarding in development in general, you're correct that native apps won't work, but the vast majority of apps are not native anyway. Does that mean that high performance 3D games will likely be WP8 only? Yes - but the majority of apps written for the platform are written in Silverlight or XNA, and those still work on both platforms.

The issue is not wether or not you need to close apps. That has already been settled by Microsoft since they included a way to close apps. The issue is that its poor design and not very intuitive in how you do it. Hitting the back button is confusing. And since they obvously included a way to close an app, why not be able to do it from the task switcher screen. The leaked demos already show that MS is working on it, so your argument is moot. You are assuming all developers know/want to use correct APIs when in reality, lots of developers are crap and make crappy apps that might need to be closed. Tombstoning is not exclusive to MS, Apple uses/used it aswell and they still included a way to close apps

Again - you are incorrect, and do not understand the way the Windows Phone SDK works. Unless it is a GPS app, a crappy app developer cannot write an app that runs in the background and therefore needs to be killed. It just can't happen. Microsoft is including the feature in 8.1 for the same reason they're including the start button in Windows 8.1 - to placate the ignorant who think they need something that they don't.

I meant unless you bought an Android phone from the gingerbread days then it wont matter if you dont get Android 4.5. The current Android OS is pretty much feature complete (with the exception for crappy Bluetooth) and Google has found a way to bypass the carriers and OEMs with their Play Apps. But MS update plans are moot when carriers are still blocking the updates. They promised a "beta" program for people who wanted to bypass carriers but it seems to have gone up in smoke. The point is, they might find themselves in Androids position and need a solution to the carrier problem

I know what you meant and you were still grossly exaggerating with your "four years" comment. I'm not going to get into a discussion about Android fragmentation here, because it has nothing to do with this thread, and again, you are showing you do not understand app development by thinking Google has fixed that problem with Play Services.

At any rate, yes, it's unfortunate that the Lumia 900 can't get updates, but every other phone that is on pre-WP8 was released 2-3 years ago. I won't cry for Samsung Focus users any more than I'm sure not many people expect the Samsung Fascinate to get Kit Kat.

This isnt the WPCentral forum or wmpoweruser. If you only want praise and fawning over MS then perhaps this is the wrong thread. I pointed out obvious flaws that shouldnt have been there in the first place, and im dissapointed with how they are essentially ignoring an OS with great potential.

You missed the point. You can be as critical, negative, or derogatory as you want, but to try to play it off like you're just concerned with the mobile ecosystem is like Cersei Lannister saying she's just worried about the good of the realm, right before she decapitates a Stark. You don't have to read or watch Game of Thrones to understand the analogy.

Anyway, I'm not going to go around in circles with you on this. I've agreed with your that they should be moving faster, and that it's unfortunate WP7-era phones didn't get WP8. Leave it at that.

 

[blurredvision]

I was honestly really excited for it. I even managed to grab it a few weeks ahead of release on AT&T because I had an unlocked L920. I couldn't get in to it at all. Think I played through three missions and just never felt the urge to pick it back up. It wasn't really that engrossing.

But I'm glad you liked it!

Different strokes my friend. :thumbsup:

 

[Lil Frier]

No, I totally paid attention to what he's saying. It's just a common argument that is constantly used on WM fan sites and Reddit.

What some of you are failing to realize is that there is a genre of applications that exist outside of social media. Every time the app argument gets brought up its always MetroTube this and 6tagram that. Apps that I don't really give a shit about. I understand that for a lot of people they're important and can see that they might make or break a decision to choose a platform. But I constantly fail to see the WP faithful concede anything on that front. It's like they walk through life with blinders on focusing on only the things they care about while minimizing the significance of things they may not use.

And I don't even talk about games. Games are a just a known deficiency on WP. One Spartan Assault certainly doesn't make up for it. That game wasn't even really that good anyways.

Let's start with simple, basic enterprise level functionality. Come PM me when I can connect to my VPN at work to access things on my corporate network sometime in early 2014. Then we can take it from there.

There's the problem: You don't talk about ANYTHING. You say "I don't talk about social media. I don't care about games." You then say ONLY VPN, which is a valid complaint. However, to hold ONE point against the whole OS is silly.

 

[bearxor]

There's the problem: You don't talk about ANYTHING. You say "I don't talk about social media. I don't care about games." You then say ONLY VPN, which is a valid complaint. However, to hold ONE point against the whole OS is silly.

Then you really haven't read anything I've posted about WP. This is WP's problem. It's SOOO close, yet lacks some simple, basic functionality that seems like a no brainer.

But you know what, I've had this discussion so much over at /r/windowsphone that I just, quite frankly, don't feel like having again. So I'll leave and let you continue to pretend everything is perfect in the WP world.

 

[pantsaregood]

Windows Phone is far from perfect, but it is damn good for the average consumer.

 

[hans007]

I have one as a backup phone. Its not bad in a vacuum. Unfortunately there are other phones.... You can't even scrub audio tracks...

 

[pantsaregood]

I have one as a backup phone. Its not bad in a vacuum. Unfortunately there are other phones.... You can't even scrub audio tracks...

...this has been in the OS since the initial release of WP7. What are you talking about?

 

[notposting]

...this has been in the OS since the initial release of WP7. What are you talking about?

Not really. You can hold down FF/RW until you get to what you want. But you can't just go right there (drag along progress bar would be most intuitive).

No gapless playback either.

WP8 and W8 Music app handle metadata and cover art for shit, as well.

W8 app for WP reloads (reloads the entire listing) every time you add something and go back to the root directory for your music. Takes freaking forever to use that ugly, unintuitive POS.

WP8 and W8 are huge steps BACK in music handling. And I'm one of the biggest MS apologists you'll find, too. (use WP, Bing, Hotmail/Outlook.C, WHS, 7MC, Zune Pass, etc etc).

 

[Deeko]

Not really. You can hold down FF/RW until you get to what you want. But you can't just go right there (drag along progress bar would be most intuitive).

No gapless playback either.

WP8 and W8 Music app handle metadata and cover art for shit, as well.

W8 app for WP reloads (reloads the entire listing) every time you add something and go back to the root directory for your music. Takes freaking forever to use that ugly, unintuitive POS.

WP8 and W8 are huge steps BACK in music handling. And I'm one of the biggest MS apologists you'll find, too. (use WP, Bing, Hotmail/Outlook.C, WHS, 7MC, Zune Pass, etc etc).

Agreed: http://deekopower.wordpress.com/2013/09/28/everything-thats-wrong-with-xbox-music-on-windows-phone/

 

[notposting]

Agreed: http://deekopower.wordpress.com/2013/09/28/everything-thats-wrong-with-xbox-music-on-windows-phone/

The worst is the deafening silence from MS about this shit. I have no faith they will fix it, no faith they even recognize the problem, etc etc. Usually their products are decent enough you can overlook minor little annoyances, but these are basic functions.

Have any of those assholes even USED Windows Phone or the sync apps or any of it?!? (Or the W8 Music app, for that matter?)

I've ended up with Zune and WMP on our new laptop (running 8.1 preview, fwiw). Syncing music over again starting yesterday. Have had to go back in and tweak a few albums for it (cover art, mostly) but seems to be working okay. I agree with the Smart-DJ feature sucking lately though.

Thankfully I never did much with subscription music -- music on my phone used to get wifi synced to our server every night (LETS GO BACKWARD AND REQUIRE A USB HOOKUP) and the DRM errors could get annoying.

 

[hans007]

Not really. You can hold down FF/RW until you get to what you want. But you can't just go right there (drag along progress bar would be most intuitive).

No gapless playback either.

WP8 and W8 Music app handle metadata and cover art for shit, as well.

W8 app for WP reloads (reloads the entire listing) every time you add something and go back to the root directory for your music. Takes freaking forever to use that ugly, unintuitive POS.

WP8 and W8 are huge steps BACK in music handling. And I'm one of the biggest MS apologists you'll find, too. (use WP, Bing, Hotmail/Outlook.C, WHS, 7MC, Zune Pass, etc etc).

Yes what he said. Microsoft is so retarded that they don't realize people use their phones as music players for some idiotic reason. I'm guessing their windows 8 api doesn't support it. Let's just say its enough of an annoyance with 2-3 hour podcasts that it kills it . the other is the app ecosystem. Yes a lot of apps are there but you notice they are half ass or limited versions of the android version. For example I trade stock on ameritrade. The win8 app I basically an iframe when android has a real app.

They still have a lot to catch up on but for $75 a lumia 521 is worthwhile in my case. Nokia drive alone is worth it as an offline GPS

 

[jhansman]

My wife's best friend came over the day with her new Windows Phone. As a Windows user since Ver. 2.0 (1988), I was eager to try it out. After 10 min. I handed it back to her, very disappointed. I found it completely unintuitive and clunky. Neither of us could figure out how to send a text. I later looked that task up online, and the explanation sounded easy enough, but with the phone in hand, not so much. In contrast, the first time I used an Android phone, I could text, call or email with ease. My sense is that interface is really meant for tablet devices.

 

[maevinj]

My wife's best friend came over the day with her new Windows Phone. As a Windows user since Ver. 2.0 (1988), I was eager to try it out. After 10 min. I handed it back to her, very disappointed. I found it completely unintuitive and clunky. Neither of us could figure out how to send a text. I later looked that task up online, and the explanation sounded easy enough, but with the phone in hand, not so much. In contrast, the first time I used an Android phone, I could text, call or email with ease. My sense is that interface is really meant for tablet devices.

My experience is the opposite. The first time I picked up a WP it was very intuitive for me to complete simple tasks. However the first time somebody handed me an android, i was completely lost. Maybe I'm just a simpleton though...

 

[blurredvision]

My wife's best friend came over the day with her new Windows Phone. As a Windows user since Ver. 2.0 (1988), I was eager to try it out. After 10 min. I handed it back to her, very disappointed. I found it completely unintuitive and clunky. Neither of us could figure out how to send a text. I later looked that task up online, and the explanation sounded easy enough, but with the phone in hand, not so much. In contrast, the first time I used an Android phone, I could text, call or email with ease. My sense is that interface is really meant for tablet devices.

You couldn't figure out how to send a text? Seriously? Come on now. Did making a phone call also trip you up?

 

[Crono]

My wife's best friend came over the day with her new Windows Phone. As a Windows user since Ver. 2.0 (1988), I was eager to try it out. After 10 min. I handed it back to her, very disappointed. I found it completely unintuitive and clunky. Neither of us could figure out how to send a text. I later looked that task up online, and the explanation sounded easy enough, but with the phone in hand, not so much. In contrast, the first time I used an Android phone, I could text, call or email with ease. My sense is that interface is really meant for tablet devices.

What kind of phone do you have? I find messaging on Windows Phone to be ridiculously easy. Not sure how anyone could find iOS or Android any easier (maybe as easy, but sending texts isn't exactly hard on any mobile OS), unless they were preconditioned on something similar.

And I wouldn't associate Windows with Windows Phone, for anyone who hasn't yet looked at Windows Phone yet. Completely different, they might as well have called it Metro Phone or Modern Phone, even if the core is the Windows NT kernel. Unlike Windows Mobile/CE, Windows Phone was designed to be mobile focused and not a desktop OS scaled down into a smartphone. It's much easier to use than iOS or Android, in my opinion, though it does sacrifice a lot of flexibility and features compared to Android.

 

[Crono]

You couldn't figure out how to send a text? Seriously? Come on now. Did making a phone call also trip you up?

Maybe he missed the tile...

 

[hans007]

You couldn't figure out how to send a text? Seriously? Come on now. Did making a phone call also trip you up?

seriously if you cant figure out how to send a text on windows phone, its probably not the OSes fault.

 

[Belegost]

Ok, at first I was going to be a little snarky about this, but perhaps someone really did have issues finding the messaging app. (Though this really feels like a troll, WinPhone may have 99 problems, but ease of use ain't one) In any case, if anyone else is having difficulties sending a text message in WinPhone, a visual step-by-step follows

With a new WinPhone, the messaging tile is normally the 1/2 width size, it will have a chat bubble with a smiling face, and be cryptically labeled as "Messaging"


When the Messaging application is opened it will present a screen such as below.


Tapping the plus button will start a new message (actually a whole new thread, but at this point it's the same thing.)



From here, you can fill the To: line in several ways - 1) start typing the name of a person already in your People list, suggestions will come up. 2) Tap the numbers key on the keyboard and type in a mobile phone number, suggestions from your people list will appear. 3) Tap the small + button on the right edge of the To: line and select a name from the People list.

Once a recipient has been chose, simply type out a message, and hit the send button on the bottom left (it resembles a chat bubble with motion lines)

If you wish to attach an image, video, short voice recording, map showing the current location of your phone, or contact information from anyone in your People list, hitting the paperclip will allow you those options.

The right most button at the bottom will allow you to dictate your message.

P.S. I suppose it is possible the Messaging tile is not on the main start screen (Though it is by default, someone would need to have manually removed it, perhaps a prank happy kiosk employee) In that case, locate the messaging app in the alphabetical app list. This is found by swiping right from the main screen.

 

[Crono]

Ok, at first I was going to be a little snarky about this, but perhaps someone really did have issues finding the messaging app. (Though this really feels like a troll, WinPhone may have 99 problems, but ease of use ain't one) In any case, if anyone else is having difficulties sending a text message in WinPhone, a visual step-by-step follows

Hey, quit being helpful! You're making the rest of us look bad.

I have a recommendation though: there's a free and in-depth ebook for anyone who is new to Windows Phone or can't figure out how to do something in the OS. Paul Thurrott is the author, he also co-hosts the Windows Weekly podcast on TWiT.tv with Mary Jo Foley and Leo Laporte.

http://www.windowsphonebook.com/

 

[darkewaffle]

Hitting the back button is confusing.

lol, I think the back button is one of the more intuitive and lovely things about WP.

I do agree that people feel the need for a 'close' button, but I think they're just trained that way. Is it actually important in practice? I have a hard time saying yes to that aside from the fact it assuages user neuroses.

 

[Imaginer]

lol, I think the back button is one of the more intuitive and lovely things about WP.

I do agree that people feel the need for a 'close' button, but I think they're just trained that way. Is it actually important in practice? I have a hard time saying yes to that aside from the fact it assuages user neuroses.

The close button? What? I need one?

The back button can be at times confusing, especially now knowing (or coming off of a traditional tabbed browsing experience) where each tab has its own history.

But with Windows Phone Internet Explorer, each tab is just that. A tab. No associated history whatsoever with each tab. All history of previous pages tie in with your phone use history, right back to the Start screen.

A bit of some awkwardness I can see for some. But indeed, the back button is intuitive. A FORWARD button maybe nice, in the event I inadvertently hit back and need to quickly go forward to where I was before, without remembering what I did before...

I am also torn between the dedicated Search magnifying glass icon being glued to Bing and not "screen specific" like the Search icon on the Windows Charm bar is.

 

[Imaginer]

But with Internet Explorer for the Modern side of Windows 8/RT, if it is implemented on phones as each tab containing a history, it would probably bloat memory usage galore on the phone.

Also an understanding why tabs are limited to 6. (though the 10 limit in normal Windows begs the question of why...?)