Exactly what are the live tiles supposed to do?

[Greek1963]

I am thinking about this phone and have spent some time playingbonnone at my local AT&T store. Can someone tell me which tiles are updating all the time, which do not and exactly what info is supposed to be seen on the tile ? Is the text message tile supposed to show the text or just thatnyou have a text? I guess I'm confused as to what exact information is seen when a love tile updates vs what has to be opened to see the content. Is it app specific?

Any info is appreciated.

Also how is exchange and office any better than with the iPhone?

 

[Dormage]

Each app can have a tile, what information is displayed on the tile depends on the app.
Example wether apps show wether on the tile. Most apps have dynamic tiles but some don't.
The built in apps like message usualy show simple and minimalistic info.
The message shows the number of messages and well...an emotion like a smiley that changes its face expression depending on the amount of unread sms. I think it gets pritty ugly if you have 50 unread

So the idea of the tiles is to show few but most important information.
This way you sometimes don't need to run the app it self, instead you just look at what the tile says.

Note: tiles are updated periodically and sometimes the information displayd might be a few minutes old (max 15). Built in apps like message or email tiles don't share this issue. They are updated on-the-fly.

The iPhone comparison woulden't be fair for me to answare since i never used an iPhone.

P.S.
Exscuse my English, im drunk.

 

[Adiliyo]

office is much better on here since it's an official app, it syncs with skydrive as well and word and excel editing is fairly powerful.

exchange in the most basic sense should work the same as the iphone, any more advanced features i can't comment on since i don't use it.

and to help explain live tiles, they are a lot like the widgets in android, they can display information (what is displayed depends on what the developer chooses to display) but can alleviate the need to actually open an app to get information.

weather tiles are a great example of not needing to open an app, also there are some airline apps that can show flight status on the live tile, and i believe the best buy app can show when an item you're looking at is in stock nearby on the tile.

those are just a couple examples.

 

[oldpueblo]

I haven't used an iPhone but my friend that switched said the e-mail app is way better on the 900. He heavily uses exchange like I do though so he might only mean that aspect. I switched from Android (four different devices) and I can honestly say the exchange/e-mail experience is FARRR better on WP7. That's primarily what brought me over since I do a ton of work on my phone.

As for live tiles, I echo what's above but also add if you have a person pinned then any facebook update/text they send you will show you the first part of the message as the tile flips over. The CNN tile tells you when there's a breaking story and it flips over to show you a picture of what it is (You'll see the President or something). Your picture tile can cycle through pictures on your phone to add a little flavor to the start screen. I have a stock tile that shows the current stock price of my company. And the financial app I use called Pageonce will show a flag when something has changed in any of my accounts (new deposit, bill due, etc). I have to go in to see what it is though. So many apps are different. I like how you can pin a bookmark to a website, and the tile image is whatever part of the website you were zoomed in at. It's not live, but it's nice.

 

[oldpueblo]

Another example of something that I think is kind of cool, the pictures of people on your people hub tile, your individual pins, and your groups will constantly update as people update their social networks. So if I have my wife pinned to the start screen, her picture changes regularly as she messes with her facebook profile. It's stuff like that that keeps your start screen fresh and new.

 

[Greek1963]

Another example of something that I think is kind of cool, the pictures of people on your people hub tile, your individual pins, and your groups will constantly update as people update their social networks. So if I have my wife pinned to the start screen, her picture changes regularly as she messes with her facebook profile. It's stuff like that that keeps your start screen fresh and new.

Thanks. What impact do these live tile updates have on battery life?

 

[Greek1963]

If any iphone4 converts can share how the live tiles are bettbthan themnotificationndrop down screen I would appreciate it?

 

[jimski]

Thanks. What impact do these live tile updates have on battery life?

I have done a bunch of testing and have not seen any significant drain from the tiles. The information being pulled or pushed is really minimal, a small thumbnail, a count indicator, not all that much. You phone is constantly connected to Microsoft's servers (at a very low level) regardless of your files. When something need to be pushed or pulled the signal is boosted for a few seconds and things get updated in the background. Its all pretty efficient.

Still testing, but with 5 email accounts syncing (2 push, 3 timed), about a dozen third party Live Tiles (push and background) and WiFi/Data always on, I am seeing about a 3% drop per hour while screen is off. Not much for a really active Start screen.

Sent from my Lumia 900 using Board Express

 

[nokia4life]

okay SNL here (Really! I mean Really?) :straight:

 

[vizagdude]

The live tiles are the best and the unique part of the Windows Phone. They display information on the tile itself with out actually launching the app.

For example, in the People Tile, if you have a friend post a message, or a picture, you would have the message and the picture show up on the live tile in the home screen.

There a few apps like 'My Stocks', that display list of stock values as they change through out the date on the Tile itself with out launching the app. Once you launch the app, you can view more info on the same.

Ant he Toast notifications are also very cool.

Regarding the Exchange, it's basically the same functionality as in the iOS, except it's integrated much more. For example, you can have separate signatures for each of your email accounts. With the metro view, you can pan to the right and view only unread messages and one more pan to the right would give you all your flagged and one more for Urgent messages. Of course you always have your conversation view like iOS.

Hope this helps.

 

[cckgz4]

It lets you glance at new information and hurry up to return to what you were doing before, just like they advertised. Love that

Sent from my Le Lumia using Board Express

 

[Greek1963]

The live tiles are the best and the unique part of the Windows Phone. They display information on the tile itself with out actually launching the app.

For example, in the People Tile, if you have a friend post a message, or a picture, you would have the message and the picture show up on the live tile in the home screen.

There a few apps like 'My Stocks', that display list of stock values as they change through out the date on the Tile itself with out launching the app. Once you launch the app, you can view more info on the same.

Ant he Toast notifications are also very cool.

Regarding the Exchange, it's basically the same functionality as in the iOS, except it's integrated much more. For example, you can have separate signatures for each of your email accounts. With the metro view, you can pan to the right and view only unread messages and one more pan to the right would give you all your flagged and one more for Urgent messages. Of course you always have your conversation view like iOS.

Hope this helps.

Thanks. Exactly what I wanted to know about exchange. Anything better about office functionality vs a third party app like quick office for ios? In Quickoffice I can create a new PP not just edit. How functional is office on the lumia?

 

[Sridhar V]

Thanks. Exactly what I wanted to know about exchange. Anything better about office functionality vs a third party app like quick office for ios? In Quickoffice I can create a new PP not just edit. How functional is office on the lumia?

You can't create new ones but only edit existing ones....func wise its awesome.