Is there anything unique left in windows phone ?

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chmun77

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Re: Is there something unique left in windows phone ?

Hard to get a nice Start screen? I beg to differ. E.g. I personally think this looks nicer than most Android or iOS home screens I've seen. Took me a grand 2 minutes or so.

View attachment 119059

Sorry to say, but to me this design is much worse than just static icons on Android and iOS. If you love live tiles because of such designs, good for you, but definitely is not for everyone. Icons are still more easy to the eyes for most people.
 

Guytronic

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Again...
Face up to the new user the OS is unique.
Sadly Microsoft isn't staying with unique.

I guess pressure to drive the OS into the ground with "what sells" has done so much damage now that Windows on the phone might be unrecoverable in the market.
The Microsoft bigshots are holding the axe overhead.

I have grown up thinking smart companies always made smart decisions and that's why they stayed on top.
This is a case of scramble to find the right path.
So far nope...
 

Dave Pari1

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Re: Is there something unique left in windows phone ?

Lately, microsoft for better or worse has been giving away all the wp-only apps to other platforms. This is not neccesarely a bad thing, but it makes me wonder if there's anything unique left apart continuum which while being a neat feature in reality is not that special and needed. Also while exploring w10m preview I noticed some kind of androidishnes (compared what I saw to my friends one plus two running cyanogen) which led me to question if ms is giving away or simply removing (look at the photos app in 8.0, 8.1 and 10) wp uniqueness. Maybe I'm a bit pessimistic but and simply wrong (I would like to be proved wrong) but now only real day to day differences are menu + few core apps + some limitations (non existing functions) + missing apps, which makes wp look inferior to android in every way. What do you guys(and girls) think ? :)

You just want too much of Windows Phone and Microsoft service which is bad and you can't either say nothing better has come from windows phone or Microsoft service for the past 7yrs, you should rather be thankful for the past 7yrs Microsoft has make changes on OS and yet still making it better for consumers, you just don't appreciate what Microsoft has done but hey, you can join the SLUGGISH ANDROID Squad.
 
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Re: Is there something unique left in windows phone ?

Sorry to say, but to me this design is much worse than just static icons on Android and iOS. If you love live tiles because of such designs, good for you, but definitely is not for everyone. Icons are still more easy to the eyes for most people.

And yet millions are embracing windows 10. It has nothing to do with easy on the eyes
 

Ten Four

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A bit OT, but what would be unique would be a homescreen/launcher that was typographic and beautifully designed. I could see a list of apps using various beautiful fonts, chosen by the user, on a background or color of their choosing. You could get a lot more information on the screen and be able to absorb it quickly. You could edit the titles to be exactly what you want so you could find things quickly. You could put the most used ones at the top. Etc. Personally, I can skim a table of contents pretty quickly to find what I need in a book--not many books I read use silly icons to obscure what you are looking for.
 

captaincalamity

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No other UI uses a black with white font, or live tiles...If Android were to introduce live tiles over widgets, Windows phone would start to have a problem in my eyes, although even though android has improved so much recently with 5.1.1 especially, its still not as smooth as WP8.1, iOS I cant even mention as is simply dull as dishwater, even if apps take slightly longer to open the swiping and swishing about on WP is a joy to use, everyone goes on about apps, but most of them now are a pain in the posterior with masses of adverts splashed everywhere anyway, that's where WP is so much better, you browse, you pin, you go...simple as, most apps are a stripped down section of the respected website anyway...unless of course your a teenager with the annoying requirement for snapping and chatting or posting dinner pics they had last night.
 

odin09

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Discounting the app gap is not going to bring more users. I am not a teenager and would love to have Target cartwheel, not only to get discounts but to see live in stock at Target stores. I would like to use the ir blaster on my m8 but cannot due to lack of an app. How about Amazon prime, I can't access many of the features. These are only a few apps that cannot be replicated through the web. As for snapchat, I can live without it but there are many that cannot.
 

damonator98

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Re: Is there something unique left in windows phone ?

You just want too much of Windows Phone and Microsoft service which is bad and you can't either say nothing better has come from windows phone or Microsoft service for the past 7yrs, you should rather be thankful for the past 7yrs Microsoft has make changes on OS and yet still making it better for consumers, you just don't appreciate what Microsoft has done but hey, you can join the SLUGGISH ANDROID Squad.

Well, I have some doubts about windows phone. I quite like it (as you can see from me being on this forum), but I see places where Ms could improve a lot, so I try to talk about it, and I don't think that any company can move forward without people who demand more and motivate it to provide better services. If there was no criticism, many of things we use today wouldn't be there. And that statement about Android being sluggish... It is sluggish if you're using samsung you bought for 20$, but if you spend normal amount of money for normal phone it's far from sluggish, sometimes even less sluggish than windows phone (yes, I have to admit it, after having used lumia 520, 820 and 920 compared to simmilar age android phones without touchwiz(sometimes even with it!) or other bloatware). Therefore, yes, I am thankful and I like wp, and that's the reason why I'm here, criticising things, hoping for improvement and not blindly stating that "WP IS THE BEST EVERYTHING ELSE IS SLUGGISH, LIMITED CRAPP, ISHEEP LAGDROID BLAH BLAH". :)
 

Geodude074

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No other UI uses a black with white font, or live tiles...If Android were to introduce live tiles over widgets, Windows phone would start to have a problem in my eyes, although even though android has improved so much recently with 5.1.1 especially, its still not as smooth as WP8.1, iOS I cant even mention as is simply dull as dishwater, even if apps take slightly longer to open the swiping and swishing about on WP is a joy to use, everyone goes on about apps, but most of them now are a pain in the posterior with masses of adverts splashed everywhere anyway, that's where WP is so much better, you browse, you pin, you go...simple as, most apps are a stripped down section of the respected website anyway...unless of course your a teenager with the annoying requirement for snapping and chatting or posting dinner pics they had last night.

A Google search for "Android black theme" will turn up many results for Android launchers with black themes.

Widgets are much more powerful and capable than live tiles.

Android 5.1.1 was last year's OS, they're on Android 6.0 now. The last time I reset my Nokia on WP8.1 it caused my phone to get stuck in demo mode, I would hardly call that smooth.
 

RumoredNow

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The last time I reset my Nokia on WP8.1 it caused my phone to get stuck in demo mode, I would hardly call that smooth.

Then you have a demo unit that was not meant to be sold and likely was stolen or mistakenly put into stock. Demo units do not have the same ROM as retail. A retail unit has no way to get to Demo mode. This is not a main-line use comparison.


Widgets are much more powerful and capable than live tiles.

I've always enjoyed my Live Tiles much more and get more from them than Widgets. Different strokes for different folks.
 

cracgor

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Re: Is there something unique left in windows phone ?

Even as a proponent of Windows 10, I primarily use static icons on my start menu. I have no icons on my desktop and a seven pinned icons on my task bar for quick launch. I really only ever turn on 3 live tiles (photos, news, and mail). With that said, the utility of the mail icon was usurped by the notifications screen. If people didn't like static icons...have you ever seen most people's desktops?
 

anon(5383410)

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No tech company possesses anything secret conceptually so you're probably not going to see anything drastically different from Windows. Once its matured and the kinks are worked out it'll become a third option with it's own shtick but I'd be surprised if you see anything substantially different from Microsoft. The irony in it is that if they really wanted to go out of their way to do something really different, people might shy away from the learning curve when considering Windows.
 

sonus

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captaincalamity

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I've always enjoyed my Live Tiles much more and get more from them than Widgets. Different strokes for different folks.

I fully agree, on my Android Tab s 8.4 the widgets are pretty handy and suit the tablet quiet well, but on a phone I always think widgets are clumsy and clunky, where as live tiles suit perfectly, being able to simply pin stuff from anywhere to your home screen suits my usage so well. Its quick, simple and so much more effective than widgets.
 

Zeem Frostmaw

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Re: Is there something unique left in windows phone ?

Live Tiles and Widgets do have a lot in common, though I think Live Tiles blend far more naturally into the interface. Looking at my start screen most of it is live tiles; Calendar, News, Weather, two Mail inboxes, Podcast Lounge, Skype, Messages, Calls, Telegram, Alarms... and if I wanted to I could make my Core Player, Photos, Twitter and Windows Central tiles live too. They've definitely done something right.

Certain apps do need to do a lot better with live tiles though. Cortana's live tile is particularly shameful, delivering very little information in the plainest of formats. As a feature integrated into the OS that can access so much of interest, its weird that it's live tile is so bare bones.

However neither are as good as Glance

How so? Having just looked AcDisplay up, it seems to match up to Glance pretty well.
 
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Laura Knotek

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Re: Is there something unique left in windows phone ?

Active Display is an app, it can be run on any Android phone - https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.scheffsblend.activedisplay

Also there is acDisplay - https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.achep.acdisplay which is better aesthetically

However neither are as good as Glance
The closest thing that I've seen to Glance is Moto Display. Motorola's Moto Display vs. Google's Ambient Display: Which one are you using? - Android Forums at AndroidCentral.com
 

colinkiama

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The thing about live tiles are that they are really advanced shortcuts that can save you a lot of time navigating through an app. You could pin almost anything. That's something iOS can't do, Android does have widgets but widgets can't be used for (almost) every section of the app. That's pretty much it really, we pretty much share a similar UI with everyone which actually isn't that bad when you think about it since it makes it easier for people to get used the to the platform.
 
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