home screen

[joeynox]

why dont the tiles use the full width of the screen? i dont understand why they wouldnt make the tile use the whole screen.the screen looks very narrow compaired to many large screened android phones. it almost looks iphone wide

 

[sinime]

Design reasons.... However WP8 uses the entire screen, and so will the 7.8 update when its released for WP7.

Sent from my Lumia 900 using Board Express

 

[mparker]

why dont the tiles use the full width of the screen?

I've never understood the reasoning behind this question. Why don't Android and iOS use the full screen - there's so much unused space between the rows and columns of icons. WP7 and WP8 use much more of the screen than its competitors.

Let's say for the sake of argument that WP8 tiles used the full width of the screen. What would it get you? You won't get more tiles - you'll get fewer tiles, because they're square, so as you increase their width you increase their height. You'll notice that WP8 gets fewer full height tiles on the screen than WP7 does because WP8 eliminated the large gutter on the right side of the screen, making the tiles taller. WP8 still wins the tile count because you can use half-height tiles, but eliminating the smaller gutters on each side of the screen will still reduce the tile count compared to the current system.

 

[sha77]

I can't wait for the update. I hate having to scroll down to different tiles. It will sooo much better to have smaller tiles grouped together by category. The phone will be near perfection then. Give me a compatible Surface and I'm good.

 

[joeynox]

i wasnt asking about the space between the tiles but the space on the left and right of the tiles. it looks like theres an 1/8 of an inch or more on each side. it just seems like a waste of the screen.

 

[mparker]

i wasnt asking about the space between the tiles but the space on the left and right of the tiles. it looks like theres an 1/8 of an inch or more on each side. it just seems like a waste of the screen.

But why does the tiny gutter at the side of WP8 bother you, but the huge gutters between the icons on Android or iOS not bother you?

Would you rather WP8 widen the tiles so you get even *fewer* tiles on the screen? Or would you widen the center gutter between the tiles to eliminate the side gutter? Or just put a pretty background there like Android (and Win8) does? What do you think would be a good use of this sliver of space? Not being snarky, I'm actually curious. I've never been able to think of a good use for it, which is one reason I'm unable to understand why people complain about it on WP7, much less why they complain about the much smaller side gutter on WP8.

Edit: WP7 and WP8 use much more of the start screen than iOS or Android; yet WP is the one that gets the complaints about unused space. It's just bizarre.

 

[Heron_Kusanagi]

i wasnt asking about the space between the tiles but the space on the left and right of the tiles. it looks like theres an 1/8 of an inch or more on each side. it just seems like a waste of the screen.

Icons leave quite a bit of gap. But the wallpaper gives you the illusion of the OS not wasting space.

I will say that the Windows UI is fine the way it is. Yes, there's wasted space, but it gives the UI some organization. Spaceless design will just appear cluttered

 

[aubreyq]

Icons leave quite a bit of gap. But the wallpaper gives you the illusion of the OS not wasting space.

I will say that the Windows UI is fine the way it is. Yes, there's wasted space, but it gives the UI some organization. Spaceless design will just appear cluttered

Technically, it's not "wasted" space since the space serves a purpose in the look of the home screen.

 

[Heron_Kusanagi]

Technically, it's not "wasted" space since the space serves a purpose in the look of the home screen.

I stand corrected.

I will note that space serves a purpose in design and functionality. Like how newspaper don't fit their columns side by side without space in between, how the buttons on the Android soft keys aren't placed all jammed together, and certainly how language isntallmashedtogether.

Wikipedia even has an article on it. White space (visual arts) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia