My talk with the windows phone 7 employee

[MarcMaiden]

Hey guys,


So today at work, I got a surprise visit from a WP7 employee. He wasnt one of those "reps" that know nothing, he was a real microsoft employee, and we chatted for hours about the new phones and software. He said he was going to a few stores and retailers to see what kind of response we were getting. He said he was looking for feedback to send to the developers to know what exactly they should work on.

I asked him a lot of the general questions and this is what he said:

(note: all this stuff seems preliminary so do not take this as 100%)

q: Why isn't there an option to add custom ringtones?

a: Microsoft is working on an application that will be included in an update in january which will allow the consumer to edit, customize, and add ringtones of their choice. This app will also include a user "library" to search and download ringtones.

q: copy and paste. What are you guys doing about that?

a: they are working on a smart and simple way to add copy and paste functionality which should be included with the january update.

q: why cant you use zune pass on your phone?

a: I honestly do not know. that should have been a feature at launch (or so i was told) and am not sure the status on that.

EDIT: Looks like zune pass is there, and I think the rep had misunderstood my question since I worded it weirdly.

q: what about turn by turn navi?

a: we are beta testing it right now. again, ETA january.

thats really it. not really new information, but i thought some of you would like to know. we also talked a lot about what makes a smartphone successful, and stuff I'd like to see in the future such as being able to use your WP7 device as a remote for your computer/xbox 360 and others which i forgot about.

 

[mittortz]

definitely cool to know turn-by-turn is coming! and this just in from the zune pass thread... tap and hold on the music in the marketplace to get the "download" option. it works!!

 

[MarcMaiden]

oh wow cool...guess its time to finally grab me a zune pass

 

[siradude]

How about adding an "APPS" area under "Collections" in the ZUNE application so we can keep track and re-install apps into the phone a LOT easier!

 

[siradude]

oh wow cool...guess its time to finally grab me a zune pass

On another thread here it was found that the ZUNE PASS does work... YOU just have to TAP & HOLD until you get the prompt to download.

 

[electricbopeep]

Thanks for sharing that encounter! It's very encouraging to hear that Microsoft is leveraging their resources by sending employees out to Att stores. Communication and attentiveness is key in a new product launch. Hopefully these visits will also make att employees more enthusiastic about WP7 and engender some amount of investment in the product's success as a worthy competitor to iPhone and Android.

Definitely glad to know that those items are being addressed. Looking forward to ringtones.

 

[pikacz]

good thread. did you ask about searching the marketplace? now the search is global e.g. when you're trying to find an app, the search also looks in music, games etc.

 

[MarcMaiden]

oo that is a good question. He gave me his card so I can send him some emails with questions. Ill ask/suggest that. I know exactly what you mean.

I was looking for a good internet radio app. when i searched for it, it gave me a bunch of bands and music instead of apps.

good thread. did you ask about searching the marketplace? now the search is global e.g. when you're trying to find an app, the search also looks in music, games etc.

 

[jkimrey]

Don't suppose you asked anything about native podcast support on the phone?

It would be really nice to be able to subscribe to a podcast and download latest updates directly on the phone without having to be at a computer running the Zune software!

oo that is a good question. He gave me his card so I can send him some emails with questions. Ill ask/suggest that. I know exactly what you mean.

I was looking for a good internet radio app. when i searched for it, it gave me a bunch of bands and music instead of apps.

 

[MarcMaiden]

Don't suppose you asked anything about native podcast support on the phone?

It would be really nice to be able to subscribe to a podcast and download latest updates directly on the phone without having to be at a computer running the Zune software!

ill send him an email with that question as well...ill let you know what he says

 

[nrfitchett4]

Don't suppose you asked anything about native podcast support on the phone?

It would be really nice to be able to subscribe to a podcast and download latest updates directly on the phone without having to be at a computer running the Zune software!

I really like being able to have zune to manage my podcasts instead of my rss reader. I find it very handy (and less phone data intensive)

 

[GP07]

Makes me wonder what else they're going to be adding in this January update. It sounds big if that info is spot on, are we talking a 7.1 type update here?

 

[MarcMaiden]

Makes me wonder what else they're going to be adding in this January update. It sounds big if that info is spot on, are we talking a 7.1 type update here?

by the looks of it maybe.

if this is a 7.0.1, then i am too curious to see what a 7.1 will look like hahah

 

[GP07]

by the looks of it maybe.

if this is a 7.0.1, then i am too curious to see what a 7.1 will look like hahah

Ya, normally for a 7.0.1 update it'd be something like bug fixes or a performance update, new features have to fall into the 7.x update numbers.

 

[zuner@heart]

Ya, normally for a 7.0.1 update it'd be something like bug fixes or a performance update, new features have to fall into the 7.x update numbers.

Not necessarily true. New small features can be added in in a 7.0.x release. This isn't the case here, but for future reference.

 

[zuner@heart]

by the looks of it maybe.

if this is a 7.0.1, then i am too curious to see what a 7.1 will look like hahah

So did you ask him about multitasking? a BIG feature if u want to steal Android, iPhone, WebOS and Windows Phone legacy users.

 

[MarcMaiden]

personally, I never thought "true" multi-tasking was a good idea for cell phones. Not yet at least (so I really didnt ask him).

on an off topic note,

I personally believe that somethings should be allowed to run in the background such as:

Loading internet pages
Text messaging/Email/Word etc writing
Games (when you pause and go to another application, you should be able to go back to the game unless you close it in purpose)
Music apps

thats all that comes to the top of my head.

I like the idea of letting programs finish what they are loading or doing, then pause them similar to iOS4.
all for the sake of battery, memory, and performance although i am not 100% sure what these little processors can do

and this is coming from someone who has had android for more than a year now.

 

[rijc99]

How is it the Microsoft rep didn't know click and hold will allow you to download songs and albums?

Unfortunately, because of this exchange, other blogs will assume Zune pass does not work on WP7. Mal, you need to get the word out.

 

[MarcMaiden]

some of the forum members (including myself) couldnt figure out how to get the zune pass to work before i asked him about it. It wasnt really obvious how to do so. It wasnt that he didnt know how to do it, it was that he thought it was on there, and the way i asked him seemed like it wasnt.

How is it the Microsoft rep didn't know click and hold will allow you to download songs and albums?

Unfortunately, because of this exchange, other blogs will assume Zune pass does not work on WP7. Mal, you need to get the word out.

 

[chaos#WP]

ok i'm not so sure that multitasking is the best idea. i think that wp7 is still in development. something strange happened yesterday. my girlfriend was playing flowerz on my optimus 7 before going to bed. she turned off the app and i found the phone with an empty battery in the morning. smells like something is intensively draining the battery during the night cause before we went to bed it was almost full. so i think the true priority for these wp7 models is a TASK KILLER APP. and anyway if i play nfs: underground i don't want it open in the background for the rest of the day. i prefer it closed just like on a windows 7 pc. next question that bothers me is why does microsoft disable the bluetooth phone-phone and phone-pc transfer? it's silly to expect that we don't need it... i allready spent around 400 euros on the phone i don't need additional burdens on my tariff plan. i took a picture of my colleague and she wanted it straight away. she said: send it to me, via bluetooth... erm impossible - i said... after that i was the laughing stock of the whole office. some people couldn't understand why i paid so much for a NO bluetooth phone. i couldn't either.
another thing that messes up my world is the Zune software dependance. why not apply a larger autonomy to the software in the phone. make a FILE MANAGER maybe?! the biggest paradox is that with these devices microsoft puts in your hand a device which is almost a pc but totally dependent of a pc. i don't think this is the best strategy. anyway maybe this wasn't the subject of the forum. maybe the admin will erase it. but this are things which were really on my chest and i just had to share it with some of you guys out there...