Windows Phone 8.1 updates......

[notposting]

Few little "delight" moments I've found with WP 8.1 now (from others who have it or are using the emulator):

The status bar icons stay, all the time. In previous versions they would disappear after a few seconds, in fact, this was something they specifically called out and did intentionally. Cosmetic, but ugh...soon it will look like Android up there, which already looks like the old Windows XP taskbars with quick launch icons and resident programs all running garble garble lawn.

The Photos hub is now a Pivot instead of a Panorama. No background picture, just a list of albums on a black background, no new pics from linked accounts, no easy access to favorites, all the various photo type apps listed in one spot also. Double-ugh.

The new calendar! Week view! Finally! We have day view, week, month, year...that's it! Whooo hooo!

Wait, where the hell is Agenda view I've been using for 3 years? The hell!?

 

[Belegost]

Few little "delight" moments I've found with WP 8.1 now (from others who have it or are using the emulator):

The status bar icons stay, all the time. In previous versions they would disappear after a few seconds, in fact, this was something they specifically called out and did intentionally. Cosmetic, but ugh...soon it will look like Android up there, which already looks like the old Windows XP taskbars with quick launch icons and resident programs all running garble garble lawn.

The Photos hub is now a Pivot instead of a Panorama. No background picture, just a list of albums on a black background, no new pics from linked accounts, no easy access to favorites, all the various photo type apps listed in one spot also. Double-ugh.

The new calendar! Week view! Finally! We have day view, week, month, year...that's it! Whooo hooo!

Wait, where the hell is Agenda view I've been using for 3 years? The hell!?

The Action Center should not have been a slide down from the top, primarily because it doesn't fit the flow, but the secondary fact that it collides with the existing tap-for-status function means we have to see that junk constantly now. Swipe from the left fit the flow, but oh well...

I'll wait to see the photos hub, the existing one could be better, so without seeing it I'll not worry yet.

I think the Action Center is supposed to take the place of Agenda View.

 

[notposting]

Basically the Photos Hub is now about what you would get if you tapped on "albums" in the current one.

Notification Center still sounds like a cheap imitation. Not sure about color coding (can tell at a glance who an appointment is for), within the app you can quickly toggle on or off superfluous calendars like birthdays or anniversaries or all but one person, or combinations...

It just seems like one of the tone deaf and rather odd things that companies do -- the more complaining they hear the more obstinate they get. Really want to see what is happening with hubs in general -- some of this stuff was the linchpin they were designing upon. Now it's sounding more like iDroid with Tiles! They went backwards with W8.1 and have been ignoring complaints...grr.

 

[Belegost]

So it's available for anyone who signed up for Preview for Developers, I updated this morning.

One thing that's either new or I never knew before - pinning IE sites to the start screen will put an updating RSS tile (Article titles and Image) if the site supports it.

 

[dlock13]

I'll be activating my 1520 today and updating it to the preview. I'm extremely excited to try WP8.1. I've tried WP8, but I was left with a mediocre feeling. After hearing and reading all about 8.1, I'm so excited to give WP another try.

 

[tsupersonic]

I want to see this platform succeed, but Microsoft makes it so difficult. This is a nice update, but it still is missing features that I can get in Android/iOS. Too little too late, and with the lack of quality/popular apps in the marketplace, WP just isn't appealing.

 

[notposting]

Updated my 520 this morning. Decent thus far...but...

WHY THE HELL

games are listed in the app list now...and in the super pointless and redundant Games hub/app.

 

[Belegost]

Updated my 520 this morning. Decent thus far...but...

WHY THE HELL

games are listed in the app list now...and in the super pointless and redundant Games hub/app.

Yes, I am less than happy about this. I liked them hidden in the games hub because I only have the games on the phone for the times my kids need a distraction. I loaded all the tiles into Kid's Zone, and they can play whatever they like, but it didn't clutter up my stuff.

Sometimes I want to slap MS and yell "Don't break the things that work @$#$#%##$"

 

[notposting]

Actually held back on my 928. Change. It should just be in my pockets and couch cushions.

 

[IamDavid]

installed on my 1020. love it so far. definitely more personal feeling now.

 

[sequoia464]

So it's available for anyone who signed up for Preview for Developers, I updated this morning.

Just updated, I really like the notification area. Haven't had much time with it yet. Nice article at Windows Phone Central on some of the changes (http://www.wpcentral.com/windows-phone-81-review). Looking forward to figuring out Cortana.

Have to agree with the comments on the games showing up on the app list. Don't really care for it even though the only game I have is solitaire.

 

[Ravynmagi]

I put the update on my Nokia 521. So far so good. Performance still seems the same.

I like the Notification Center. Not as good as Android, but far better than Apple's (Apple's really sucks, so that wasn't hard to beat). I particularly like that I can configure which 4 settings buttons I have at the top.

I like that IE now has reader mode. It's a big help with using a phone with a low resolution screen. And so far Reader mode seems to be working as expected.

I have Siri and Google Now and I use neither. And I suspect the same will be true with Cortana. I don't want to talk to my phone in public, so I'll type in my searches, and that just becomes a habit, so I'll type in my searches at home too. Perhaps I might use voice search if I had an always listening phone that could do things without me having to unlock and touch the phone (can the Moto X do that with the phone locked?). But for now, don't care much about voice search.

I'm curious though how much Cortana will learn from my text searches though. Google Now is cool because it does learn even if I'm not talking to it, and provides me with information cards that are often useful. If Cortana can do that as well, that'll impress me more than the voice search part.

I can enable the more tiles view on my low resolution Nokia 521. And it was cool, but everything way too small, so turned it off. Nice they gave us the option to use it on all the phones though.

I wish the apps list would let me turn off the letters between the apps.

There is a setting called "Advertising ID". It asked me if I wanted to turn this on, but didn't really tell me much about what it does. I said "OH HELL NO" to this. Sounds like ad cookies. Seems like an odd thing to ask me, maybe it's not what it sounds like, I dunno. (I'm too lazy to ask Cortana apparently).

For some reason Double Tap to wake was disabled on the Nokia 521. However with the developer preview installed the feature is available. I gave it a try and it works great on the 521. No idea why this feature was removed from our phone.

 

[notposting]

Separate Xbox Music app is even worse than the old Music+Videos app was. And now you can't disable auto linking to the Xbox Music (or Games) apparently. A lot of pissed off people in the WPCentral forum (I haven't even bothered to load music on this 520, because of how painful it was on my 928).

And they have now killed off the heart...their complete killing of the old Zune legacy (dumb name, low adoption, awesome software and usability) is complete. Just has shuffle and repeat next to the current music now.

I'm seriously considering iPhone at this point. MS does this crap to me all the time.

Media Center
Windows Home Server
Zune (program, service, all dying)
WP, every step forward has to result in 2 steps back

 

[crashtestdummy]

I'm liking it so far, in what little time I've had to play with it. The notification center is a lot nicer than I was expecting. It's completely non-intrusive, and they didn't bork any currently-existing features to make it.

The background image thing is a cute gimmick. You have to be careful about what kind of image you use, though, as anything with a lot of white will make the text and symbols unreadable. I'm currently using a Sol LeWitt drawing.

 

[Duraz0rz]

Separate Xbox Music app is even worse than the old Music+Videos app was. And now you can't disable auto linking to the Xbox Music (or Games) apparently. A lot of pissed off people in the WPCentral forum (I haven't even bothered to load music on this 520, because of how painful it was on my 928).

And they have now killed off the heart...their complete killing of the old Zune legacy (dumb name, low adoption, awesome software and usability) is complete. Just has shuffle and repeat next to the current music now.

I'm seriously considering iPhone at this point. MS does this crap to me all the time.

Media Center
Windows Home Server
Zune (program, service, all dying)
WP, every step forward has to result in 2 steps back

The Music app is pretty shitty (didn't think it could get worse from WP8, but it did), but now that's it's a separate part of the OS and uses the public-facing APIs, hopefully we'll see some really good alternatives. Rudy Huyn is apparently working on a music app.

Being separate from the OS also means it can receive separate updates, and Joe Belfiore tweeted that the Music app is going to get a update soon.

 

[PingviN]

Apart from the music player (which has always been bad, now it's worse), the update is great. Liking the new store and calendar. The parallax effect on the wallpaper looks really nice if paired with a darker photo.

 

[zerogear]

I think this update really brings it in-line with the other platforms, and cements it as a viable alternative to them.

 

[VashHT]

It's kind of sad how much they messed up the music player considering windows phone seemed to loosely come from the zune hd interface, and that was a great music player. All they had to do was update it and put it on windows phone and they would have had one of the better music players imo.