The Windows Phone Thread

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The Windows Phone Thread

Post by Stuart »

I realise that Windows Phone is probably the least used of the smart phone options, but I got myself a Nokia Lumia 920 so I thought it might be worthwhile having a thread here.

First off, if you've been reading about Windows Phone 8, you have probably read a lot about the freezing/rebooting issue. It seems most common on the Nokia Lumia 920, but that's probably because that's the most popular WP8 phone at the moment. HTC 8X users are also reporting the issue, so it appears to be a software issue.

According to this article, MS has identified a possible cause of the freezing issue and have rolled out an update in the US, but international users need to wait till February to get the update. :( Nokia has also identified a possible issue from its side, so hopefully once the updates are rolled out it will take care of that issue. It really is very irritating. I've had to soft reset my phone twice now in four days.

The FB app for Windows Phone is useless.

This guy makes some good points about the need for a notification centre like both iOS and Android use.

On the whole, however, I have enjoyed the experience so far. It's certainly been more pleasant for me than my foray into Android. I'm not horribly missing iOS yet, but it has only been four days.
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Re: The Windows Phone Thread

Post by GreyWolf »

If you don't mind, please keep us updated on your experience.
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Re: The Windows Phone Thread

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No freezes yesterday, but two reboots this morning within the space of an hour. I've been lucky so far in that both reboots happened while I was actually looking at the phone. It could be more problematic if a reboot happens while the phone is in the pocket, because then you have to re-enter your pin, so you won't receive any calls till you have noticed and re-entered said pin.

The other irritating thing is that when it freezes and you have to do a soft reset, it resets the time and date to 6:48 AM on 1 September 2012, so you have to reset the clock every time it freezes.

I love the OS so far, but until MS sorts out this rebooting problem, I wouldn't really recommend that anyone get a Windows Phone 8 device just yet.

On the app front, I have found a third party FB app that is far better than the official one. Support for Google services is scant, so those invested heavily in such services probably want to stick with Android for now.

Battery life on the Lumia is horrendous. I easily get a day-and-a-half to two days out of my iPhone, this device has not yet lasted me a day. To be fair, I have been playing with it a lot more than I will once the novelty has worn off, but on the other hand, being on leave, I've barely received a phone call so far.
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Re: The Windows Phone Thread

Post by GreyWolf »

Can you turn data and wifi on and off at will?
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Re: The Windows Phone Thread

Post by Stuart »

You can. It's a bit of a schlep by default (somewhat like it is in iOS), but you can download an app to put the live tiles on your home screen, which is what I've done.
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Re: The Windows Phone Thread

Post by GreyWolf »

Cool. Thanks for the info man.
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Re: The Windows Phone Thread

Post by Stuart »

Windows Phone 8 still rebooting & freezing after update

The new Windows Phone 8 operating system has only been with us for a couple of months now and early adopters to the platform have largely given it the thumbs up. At the moment there are only a handful of handsets available especially when compared to rival Android, but there have been some issues with the software and we now have reports that the Windows Phone 8 OS is still rebooting and freezing after the recent update.

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Re: The Windows Phone Thread

Post by Anakha56 »

The lack of a notification center really irks me about Windows 8 in all its versions...

http://wmpoweruser.com/interesting-micr ... t-of-time/
Interesting: Microsoft did intend a notification centre for WP8, but ran out of time
November 1, 2012 | By Surur
The Verge is reporting from the BUILD conference that Microsoft has indeed been considering the rumoured Notification Centre for Windows Phone 8, but was not able to implement it in time for Windows Phone 8 RTM.

Microsoft’s Thomas Fennel, a program manager, responded to a question from the audience about its absence by saying:

"Because we ran out of time. It’s very very important to me… we get tons of feedback from developers that they want something like that as well. I promise we’re thinking very very hard on that one."

Live Tiles, which normally show missed notifications for apps considered important enough to pin, is usually cited as a good substitute for a notification centre. Does knowing Microsoft is considering a full-blown notification centre change our readers views on that? Let us know below.
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Re: The Windows Phone Thread

Post by Stuart »

Live Tiles notifications are not as great as they are made out to be.
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Re: The Windows Phone Thread

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Anakha56 wrote:The lack of a notification center really irks me about Windows 8 in all its versions...
But that's what live tiles are for...
Stuart wrote:Live Tiles notifications are not as great as they are made out to be.
Dammit!

Ok, give us the 411, why are the live tiles not as great as they sound?
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Re: The Windows Phone Thread

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GreyWolf wrote:Ok, give us the 411, why are the live tiles not as great as they sound?
It depends which app it's for. I guess it works okay most of the time. But like with the FB live tile, for example, it notifies you if there is something you asked to be notified for, but it doesn't always recognise when you've viewed that notification, so when the next one comes through it shows you have two notifications even though you've already viewed the previous one. Then it just builds and builds, so that before you know it, you have twenty notifications, of which you have actually already viewed 19.

As I said, FB is the biggest culprit there, but it has happened to me with email too. It says that there are new emails waiting and then when I look there is actually nothing.

It's not the concept that's faulty, just the current implementation. I'm sure they'll sort it out with some updates.
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Re: The Windows Phone Thread

Post by GreyWolf »

Cool. To be fair, I found this same problem with FB in general. The notifications don't always synchronize accurately over mobile and web.
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Re: The Windows Phone Thread

Post by Anakha56 »

GreyWolf wrote:
But that's what live tiles are for...
Yeah it all sounds great but when lots of notifications start coming in and you have no way to tell what app is calling your attention you start getting frustrated. This is based on the Win8 OS but I can see it being a problem on the phone when you have multiple apps over multiple pages...
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Re: The Windows Phone Thread

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Anakha56 wrote:multiple apps over multiple pages...
You don't really get multiple pages in Windows Phone 8. You get your start screen with the live tiles, and then swipe left for a list of your applications.
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Re: The Windows Phone Thread

Post by Anakha56 »

Stuart wrote:
Anakha56 wrote:multiple apps over multiple pages...
You don't really get multiple pages in Windows Phone 8. You get your start screen with the live tiles, and then swipe left for a list of your applications.
What happens if you have multiple live tiles enough to go over the screen size?
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Re: The Windows Phone Thread

Post by ryanrich »

Surprised you moved off iOS Stu! I found WP interesting but hard to live with every day.
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Re: The Windows Phone Thread

Post by Stuart »

Anakha56 wrote:
Stuart wrote:
Anakha56 wrote:multiple apps over multiple pages...
You don't really get multiple pages in Windows Phone 8. You get your start screen with the live tiles, and then swipe left for a list of your applications.
What happens if you have multiple live tiles enough to go over the screen size?
Scroll up and down.
ryanrich wrote:Surprised you moved off iOS Stu! I found WP interesting but hard to live with every day.
Still have my iPhone, and I'm not getting rid of it yet. This is still very much experimental phase, but by this time with Android I was already pulling my hair out, and so far I'm still enjoying WP8.

I just wish they would improve some of the apps. FB and G+ apps are woeful. Even the third-party FB app that I've been using is pretty awful.
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Re: The Windows Phone Thread

Post by Anakha56 »

Stu what about YouTube?

http://www.siliconrepublic.com/digital- ... google-of/

Microsoft accuses Google of blocking a quality YouTube app for Windows Phone

One of Microsoft’s senior legal guns has alleged that Google is preventing the software giant from creating a fully-featured YouTube app for Windows Phone devices.

Microsoft deputy general counsel David Heiner said that despite Google being in the spotlight over its business practices on two continents via two investigations by the European Commission and the Federal Trade Commission, the search giant is still abusing its dominant position.

He cited a situation whereby Google is impeding competition in the smartphone market by blocking Microsoft’s new Windows Phone operating system from operating properly with YouTube, effectively the second largest search engine on the planet after Google.

Heiner said Google has done so by preventing Microsoft from accessing YouTube metadata in the same way that Android and iPhone devices do.

Instead of allowing Microsoft to create a high quality YouTube app for devices running Windows Phone, users of these devices can only access a browser version.

Microsoft has a high quality YouTube app ready to go
In an official Microsoft blog, Heiner wrote: “Google has enabled its own Android phones to access YouTube so that users can search for video categories, find favourites, see ratings, and so forth in the rich user interfaces offered by those phones. It’s done the same thing for the iPhones offered by Apple, which doesn’t offer a competing search service.

“Unfortunately, Google has refused to allow Microsoft’s new Windows Phones to access this YouTube metadata in the same way that Android phones and iPhones do. As a result, Microsoft’s YouTube ‘app’ on Windows Phones is basically just a browser displaying YouTube’s mobile website, without the rich functionality offered on competing phones.

“Microsoft is ready to release a high quality YouTube app for Windows Phone. We just need permission to access YouTube in the way that other phones already do, permission Google has refused to provide.”

Heiner said he believes this is a critical differentiator in the smartphone market, citing news reports that reveal YouTube apps to be the most downloaded mobile apps in 2012 on competing platforms.

He said Microsoft staff discovered that despite talking consistently with YouTube staff over the past two years, orders to prevent the creation of a high quality YouTube app on Windows Phone devices came from senior management at Google.

He said it was a case of the pot calling the kettle black when you consider Google’s lament that Facebook won’t let it index its pages in Google searches.

Perhaps Google has the same suspicions we have, that Windows Phone could be the dark horse operating system of 2013. Some 4m Windows Phone 8 devices have been activated since the new OS’ launch in October. Just saying.
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Re: The Windows Phone Thread

Post by KillerByte »

The Nokia Lumia 920 that I am using has not frozen or restarted in the month that I have had it in my possession. My Lumia 800 had a restart issue which was solved with the 7.5 update.

The only issue that I am having with the Lumia 920 is that doesn't like sharing the internet connection. I had to use my Lumia 800 in order to use the internet away from home.

I am a big fan of Windows Phone and I prefer it over Android simply because I am tired of the resource heavy nature of Android.
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Re: The Windows Phone Thread

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I"ve not tried any YouTube apps yet precisely because there is nothing official yet. In my experience with the smart phone market, unofficial apps never quite match expectations.

i paid R8 for a G+ app, which looked in the app store screenies almost exactly like the iOS app, but when you actually open it, all it is is a browser based rendering of G+, which is pretty awful in comparison.

Mike, what network did you get your phone through, and what firmware is it running?
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Re: The Windows Phone Thread

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Phones are direct from Nokia...

The details for the Lumia 800:
OS: WP 7.5 (7.10.8773.98)
Firmware version: 1750.0805.8773.12220

Lumia 920:
OS:WP8 (8.0.9903.10)
Firmware version: 1232.2109.1242.1001

I use the Youtube app that is available on the Marketplace. I know its not official and its a browser render but it allows me to show the odd person a video or two.
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Re: The Windows Phone Thread

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KillerByte wrote: OS:WP8 (8.0.9903.10)
Firmware version: 1232.2109.1242.1001
Exactly the same here. Interesting.
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Re: The Windows Phone Thread

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Google says Maps redirect on Windows Phone was a product decision, and will be removed

Today, a Google spokesperson provided The Next Web with a statement indicating that the company intends to remove the redirect that it has in place for Windows Phone users who attempt to access the Google Maps product, ending its practice of sending them to its search homepage.

As indicated below, the reason for this is performance: Google checks compatibility of its Maps product across platforms on the occasion, and following review, has found that Windows Phone 8′s new Internet Explorer version is satisfactory in its handling of the web app.

Read more
Edit: I thought someone posted in this thread about the lack of Google Maps. For those who weren't aware of the issue, read here.
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Re: The Windows Phone Thread

Post by Stuart »

This rebooting thing is getting irritating now. Time to try flashing some firmware. Let's see if it makes any difference.
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Re: The Windows Phone Thread

Post by Tribble »

Good luck.
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