getting tired of developers leaving

[ZiCoN_dk]

Re: getting tired

The apps I can wait for... But the thing I personally miss the most is a messaging center. I thought the tiles and games (eg wordfeud) were more informative somehow. Push messages are REALLY bad. You'll get the notification, but entering the app (eg JiTalk) the whole thing needs to update, and sometimes it fails.
I'm at the point where I'm seriously considering exchanging the phone back to Android... Which sucks, since I really wanted to like this thing...

 

[Padmasali]

The real truth about apps is, Developers spend years to make a app to ios and they love to update it... in matter of android, you don't need redesign app. just port all ready made ios apps to android and you done... but on WP, you have to redesign the app from scratch, so normally it takes time... so give it WP8 a reasonable time for growth and wait 6-8 months... if after the wait you still miss your kind of apps than nobody stop you to make a thread like this...

 

[Ferrarifan123]

http://www.change.org/petitions/goo...pular-apps-google-talk-drive-on-windows-phone

Petition for Google apps! This may help remedy our app problem!

 

[mpelti]

*sigh* Why did you buy a Windows Phone if you were going to be this impatient?

Why would Windows Phone ever get better if you have to consider it perfect to buy one? The "love it or GTFO" attitude is unproductive. WP8 missing these apps is hurting the platform.

Tell your developer how strongly you want a windows phone app. Each voice counts.

And the only thing that will convice these Devs to support it is solid numbers on WP8 use. We're at less than 5% now, and until that hits double digits, the only way to get brand name apps is for MS to throw money at them.

 

[gravage]

OP is right. It's disheartening to see the stories about developers leaving the platform. How often do we see stories about major developers getting on the WP8 train? It's a lot of doom and gloom and it does affect the popularity of the platform. Microsoft needs to do something to head this off. WP8 is a great OS, but it won't survive without developers behind it.

Look at the WP8 launch. Microsoft promised that Pandora (which I could care less about) is coming, along with other major apps. Where is it? Has anyone heard any more? They had to do a kickstarter for a VLC app. How many kickstarter projects have you seen for iPhone and Android apps?

It's a chicken before the egg problem. Developers don't want to take a chance on WP8 until it becomes more popular and it can't really take off as a platform until developers give it some love. I love my Lumia 920 to death, but I swap back to my Note II every so often just to have more options with regards to software. If my Lumia had as many options as my Note II on apps, I doubt I'd ever put it down.

Companies hire developers to make mobile apps. They almost always make an iPhone app first, followed closely by the Android app, and if they have an Intern with some extra time on their hands, they'll have them work on a WP8 app as an afterthought. The same treatment applies to updates for those apps.

 

[Brent920]

I am a developer and unless you make a smash hit app, then it's barely worth the time and the effort.

I know a man who spent 6 month writing a game for the iPad, made $153 in the next 4 months.

For my apps, for each paid version, 100+ people pirated it.

 

[tekhna]

Re: getting tired

Please don't take this post as Another "You are wrong because you're not a true WP-lover stupid fandroid-dude"-post which unfortunately is overwhelming these forums as of late. But here's my 5 cents.

1. Get rid of your Google-services. I know it's hard, but after a year of hard work, the only Google-service I still use in private is Youtube.

That would make your list:

Dropbox - Skydrive is better in 99% of the cases.
Sonos - Sorry, I don't use Sonos so I have no alternative for you here.
Spotify - Is incoming according to Spotify, in the meanwhile you have MetroRadio, Nokia Music and Xbox Music.
Facebook - What are you missing in the built-in Facebook?
Instapaper - Never Heard of.
Slingplayer - Are slingboxes still around?
Tapatalk - What's wrong with Board Express?

You have it backwards. I use the services I use, and my OS better support, not "Let me change all the services I use because my OS can't or won't support it."
I've used dropbox since the beta. I've used gmail since 2004. I have absolutely NO interest in changing the services I use. They work. They work well. I've used them for years. I know how they work, I know they're reliable. It's a fundamentally conservative position, but I don't care. It works really well for me. My school and job both use gmail, in addition to my personal account. How SOL am I in a month? Pretty much screwed. Tons of universities and corporations have switched to gmail. This stuff is not optional for WP8 to be a viable ecosystem and "just switch your whole life to another provider" is not a real answer.

 

[pdskep]

Re: getting tired

You have it backwards. I use the services I use, and my OS better support, not "Let me change all the services I use because my OS can't or won't support it." Tons of universities and corporations have switched to gmail. This stuff is not optional for WP8 to be a viable ecosystem and "just switch your whole life to another provider" is not a real answer.

Google is dropping support for WP. It's not MS's choice. I suggest buying an Android phone.

http://winsupersite.com/mobile-devices/google-throws-down-gauntlet-kills-eas-support

 

[gravage]

Re: getting tired

You have it backwards. I use the services I use, and my OS better support, not "Let me change all the services I use because my OS can't or won't support it."
I've used dropbox since the beta. I've used gmail since 2004. I have absolutely NO interest in changing the services I use. They work. They work well. I've used them for years. I know how they work, I know they're reliable. It's a fundamentally conservative position, but I don't care. It works really well for me. My school and job both use gmail, in addition to my personal account. How SOL am I in a month? Pretty much screwed. Tons of universities and corporations have switched to gmail. This stuff is not optional for WP8 to be a viable ecosystem and "just switch your whole life to another provider" is not a real answer.

I fully agree with you. I am a 11-year veteran of Gmail and pretty invested in Google services. Let me tell you something, though. With Google's announcement of dropping Activesync, I decided to switch to Outlook.com. It's a bigger deal to me than most, as I set up new Mobile devices every month and Google's IMAP4 and CalDAV and CarDAV simply aren't the same.

Switching to Outlook mail is actually pretty seemless. You set gmail to forward to your hotmail address, then there's an import tool called Trueswitch (free) that imports all of your mail. Literally everything from my 11-year-old account imported, all 7 gigs of it. You could already import contacts and calendar from Google, so that was covered.

Using Outlook.com for the last few weeks, find that I like it better. It's cleaner, less cluttered, and has options (select ALL mail items when you check the box in the upper left, not just what's on the screen) that Gmail seems to have dropped. It also has a reading pane view, like Outlook 2010 that really works well. And some automatic smart folders for shipping notices, pictures, etc. You can even set your Gmail account as a "send as" address and most of your contacts would never know the difference.

I'm not trying to sell you on switching. I just want you to be educated. It was really that easy and Outlook mail is a different beast from Hotmail. It's VERY good. I didn't think I could switch after using Gmail for over a decade and I couldn't be happier. Activesync was just THAT important to me. It's not just mobile devices: Windows 8, Mac Mail, etc. won't work with your Gmail account as well now that they have dropped Activesync. I can't live in that world.

 

[spaulagain]

Google is dropping support for WP. It's not MS's choice. I suggest buying an Android phone.

http://winsupersite.com/mobile-devices/google-throws-down-gauntlet-kills-eas-support

However, Microsoft can update the OS to use Google's email sync technology once they drop EAS.

 

[gravage]

They can, and probably will. But I doubt it will happen soon (or soon enough), as it would definitely require a software update for the phone and we all saw how slow Portico rolled out.

 

[xsonwong]

They can, and probably will. But I doubt it will happen soon (or soon enough), as it would definitely require a software update for the phone and we all saw how slow Portico rolled out.

It seems MS can do many things on Server side...

 

[gravage]

It seems MS can do many things on Server side...

Not really. The WP8 Mail client itself has extremely limited options for IMAP and how fast the mail can be received. This is not something that can be changed from the server side, nor is CalDAV or CarDAV support.

 

[FinsUpDNC]

Microsoft can add carddav/caldav, but it does not work as well as EAS so you know how the story goes. They add in the support, contacts don't sync right and the world blames Microsoft. carddav support on my MacBook air stinks too.....the standard is not great, and the google support of it is even worse.

 

[tekhna]

Re: getting tired

I fully agree with you. I am a 11-year veteran of Gmail and pretty invested in Google services. Let me tell you something, though. With Google's announcement of dropping Activesync, I decided to switch to Outlook.com. It's a bigger deal to me than most, as I set up new Mobile devices every month and Google's IMAP4 and CalDAV and CarDAV simply aren't the same.

Switching to Outlook mail is actually pretty seemless. You set gmail to forward to your hotmail address, then there's an import tool called Trueswitch (free) that imports all of your mail. Literally everything from my 11-year-old account imported, all 7 gigs of it. You could already import contacts and calendar from Google, so that was covered.

Using Outlook.com for the last few weeks, find that I like it better. It's cleaner, less cluttered, and has options (select ALL mail items when you check the box in the upper left, not just what's on the screen) that Gmail seems to have dropped. It also has a reading pane view, like Outlook 2010 that really works well. And some automatic smart folders for shipping notices, pictures, etc. You can even set your Gmail account as a "send as" address and most of your contacts would never know the difference.

I'm not trying to sell you on switching. I just want you to be educated. It was really that easy and Outlook mail is a different beast from Hotmail. It's VERY good. I didn't think I could switch after using Gmail for over a decade and I couldn't be happier. Activesync was just THAT important to me. It's not just mobile devices: Windows 8, Mac Mail, etc. won't work with your Gmail account as well now that they have dropped Activesync. I can't live in that world.

I guess you missed the part where I said I was happy with what I had, and had no interest whatsoever in changing my workflow? No to mention the fact that everybody I talk to is signed into gtalk all the time.

 

[thekonger]

WP is still way better than iOS or Android. I can do more faster and quicker on my 920 versus the Android and iPhone I had. They weren't bad platforms, but with WP I can check my email and calendar quicker, see updates from family with the group feature, and it is just so much more refined.

 

[pdskep]

Re: getting tired

I guess you missed the part where I said I was happy with what I had, and had no interest whatsoever in changing my workflow? No to mention the fact that everybody I talk to is signed into gtalk all the time.

You sound like an Android user complaining about not having Office support. It ain't gonna happen. I'd suggest not switching to WP or moving to Android. Google will not support any apps on WP.

 

[ZiCoN_dk]

WP is still way better than iOS or Android. I can do more faster and quicker on my 920 versus the Android and iPhone I had. They weren't bad platforms, but with WP I can check my email and calendar quicker, see updates from family with the group feature, and it is just so much more refined.

I would agree with you, IF the darn thing had a notification center.... I hate the fact that if I feel the phone vibrate in my pocket and don't see the notification, and it's not a mail or JiTalk... I have to check all other things that it could have been... That's just... stupid....

 

[JMBasquiat]

Re: getting tired

You have it backwards. I use the services I use, and my OS better support, not "Let me change all the services I use because my OS can't or won't support it."
I've used dropbox since the beta. I've used gmail since 2004. I have absolutely NO interest in changing the services I use. They work. They work well. I've used them for years. I know how they work, I know they're reliable. It's a fundamentally conservative position, but I don't care. It works really well for me. My school and job both use gmail, in addition to my personal account. How SOL am I in a month? Pretty much screwed. Tons of universities and corporations have switched to gmail. This stuff is not optional for WP8 to be a viable ecosystem and "just switch your whole life to another provider" is not a real answer.

I think you have it backwards. If you need those apps, and are unwilling to look into alternative apps, then you need to stick with the OS that provides those apps, and at the moment WP8 doesn't have all those apps.

It's not the fault of the WP8 that you bought a phone with an OS that doesn't support your usage scenario as well as you'd like.

 

[tekhna]

Re: getting tired

I think you have it backwards. If you need those apps, and are unwilling to look into alternative apps, then you need to stick with the OS that provides those apps, and at the moment WP8 doesn't have all those apps.

It's not the fault of the WP8 that you bought a phone with an OS that doesn't support your usage scenario as well as you'd like.

Windows Phone CAN'T succeed without things like gmail syncing. Period. End of story. Just as an example, the University of California is moving towards a gmail system for every campus. That's hundreds of thousands of students, faculty, and staff who can't sync their school/work email to their phone. Corporations are moving to gmail, schools are moving to gmail, 425 million people use gmail. Not optional.
It's not just gmail though. 100 million people use dropbox. If you can't support dropbox, you need to get serious.