Thinking of jumping from android to windows phone.

reelon

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With the Nokia 900 on CES I went to the att store and played with some of the windows phones (they were almost at the corner, but I found them). The guy from the att store didn't know a lot about windows phone, so need your help with some questions. I currently have a Samsung galaxy s2.

1 Do the windows phone have visual voice mail or something like Google voice?
2 I hear about Apollo and tango, is the Nokia going to be able to run these updates? (You know how updates in android go, so I had to ask)
3 how is the notification system on windows phones 7? This is something that I enjoy from android, pull down the screen and everything is there.

Well that about it for now. Thanks.
 

the_fly68

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1. The only phone on at&t that does visual voicemail is the iPhone.

2. Nokia should be good on updates through Apollo. I don't anticipate you having problems there.

3. The notifications on WP7 aren't like android and iPhone. You'll see a lot of threads in here complaining about that. The lockscreen on WP7 gives you a count of texts, emails, missed calls etc. Your live tiles on home screen show you the counts as well. No central place for a breakdown of notifications.

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mhans311

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Well I'm not sure about your first question as I don't use those things.

The lumia 900 will definitely get tango and I am all but sure it will get Apollo as well. Updates are handled so much better on WP.

Notifications are not quite as good as on android, but I don't miss the android notification system as much as I thought I would. When you turn on the phone you will see notification icons on the lock screen. Then when you unlock, each responding tile will show how many missed messages you have. So if you have a missed call and an email, you will have to look at two different tiles to see the notifications. When a new text comes in it will show the message along the top of the screen. There is no central notification system like you have on android with the pull down notification drawer.

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ItnStln

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I'm thinking about ditching my company issued D2G for WP7, provided VZW gets some decent choices. My sister has an LG Quantum and has had no problems with it at all. And I'm constantly having issues with my D2G.
 

Winterfang

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1- I don't know what exactly is Visual Mail, but that's up to the carrier I think.
2- Absolutely. All Windows Phone will be getting the Apollo update.
3- There's no notification system on Windows Phone, we have tiles.

For example if you pin a contact on the screen or have him on a group. When you get a message you will get.

1- the notification on top, like Android.
2- the message tile will change to 1 and will have a winky face.
3- the group/contact will say New Message and will flip on that person.

Clicking on any of those will get you to your message and the latter two won't dissapear until you go check the message.

The same works with emails, facebook, weather etc... You will see any alerts on the tiles themselves so they (theoretically) won't be a need to check your notifications.
 

Duvi

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With the Nokia 900 on CES I went to the att store and played with some of the windows phones (they were almost at the corner, but I found them). The guy from the att store didn't know a lot about windows phone, so need your help with some questions. I currently have a Samsung galaxy s2.

1 Do the windows phone have visual voice mail or something like Google voice?
2 I hear about Apollo and tango, is the Nokia going to be able to run these updates? (You know how updates in android go, so I had to ask)
3 how is the notification system on windows phones 7? This is something that I enjoy from android, pull down the screen and everything is there.

Well that about it for now. Thanks.
1 - I use YouMail, so this isn't an issue. It's online and I can have an email and/or sms sent to me to let me know. The best part of YouMail is that it is FREE!

2 - Tango, yes, but Apollo? I'm not sure. Not sure why it would, if it's bringing dual-core and better resolution screens.

3 - Definitely not android-like and if you don't mind having the lock-screen have the important things (sms, missed calls, email and voicemails), then it's not that bad.
 

Reflexx

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I don't think that the Tango update will apply to any of the current phones. I think it's a special version of the OS to enable it to run on cheaper devices.
 

jdevenberg

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Not a lot is know about Tango or Apollo yet, but the odds are that if your phone needs the update it will get it. I say it that way because it is rumored that tango will just enable chassis 2 (all current phones are chassis 1). Chassis 2 is lower spec'd, blackberry form factor phones. If that is all tango is, then it would not really apply to current phones. However Apolllo (likely called windows phone 8) is a sure bet. Obviously it won't make your phone dual core or higher res, but new features (potentially Skype integration, alOng with who knows what else) would be included.
 

CHIP72

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Regarding notifications, if you place the tiles for which you receive frequent notifications on the "home" screen (i.e. the 8 tile areas visible on the screen in the tile view), you'll have immediate access to them once you unlock the phone. As others have noted, you do see how many notifications you have for Hotmail, other e-mail (each account shown separately), text messaging, and missed phone calls on the log-in screen (icon + number of messages). Like Android, different icons are used for the notifications.

One of the drawbacks of the HTC Trophy (though not all Windows Phones) relative to the Motorola Droid 2 is the lack of a notification light for e-mails. Somewhat strangely there is a notification for missed phone calls but not for e-mails on the Trophy.

Though this isn't strictly notifications-related, one of the real strengths of Windows Phone over Android is the ability to integrate/link your e-mail, phone, and social networking contact information together for the same person. I personally really like that feature.

There isn't any Google Voice-like audio input e-mail or text messaging on the Trophy (or possibly all Windows Phones), at least to my knowledge. There IS some voice recognition/assistance capabilities built into Windows Phones (via the built-in TellMe application and the new, 3rd party Ask Ziggy application), such as turn-by-turn direction capability.

If you were to buy a new, high-end phone like the Nokia 900, I think it is very likely it would receive the Tango and/or (more important) Apollo updates, though Microsoft's OS upgrade plans are unknown at this point.

Incidentally, as I hinted above, I have both a Droid 2 (since December 2010) and a Trophy (for a little more than a month). I prefer the Trophy/WP OS over Android, largely because it operates a lot smoother. WP is also more intuitive than Android IMO (though I've finally learned many of the ins and outs of Android OS after owning the Droid 2 for a year LOL).
 
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cedarlog

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there is no official statement about apollo from microsoft so no one can give you an answer
my assumption we might get tango but i don't know about apollo since its a major update

and congratulations if you are going to get windows phone :happy:
 

reelon

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Well thanks for all your answers, it did clarified the questions that I had. I'm looking forward to the nokia 900 and try it out.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I777 using Tapatalk
 

freestaterocker

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1 - I use YouMail, so this isn't an issue. It's online and I can have an email and/or sms sent to me to let me know. The best part of YouMail is that it is FREE!

2 - Tango, yes, but Apollo? I'm not sure. Not sure why it would, if it's bringing dual-core and better resolution screens.

3 - Definitely not android-like and if you don't mind having the lock-screen have the important things (sms, missed calls, email and voicemails), then it's not that bad.

Apollo is bringing *support* for dual core (ie optimization) not requirement for dual core. If it's anything like the mango update earlier model phones should run better. After mango it was like somebody dropped a new CPU in my HD7! It boots up 3x as fast and virtually every function is smoother and quicker, which is an impressive feat, considering how smooth WP7 was to begin with.
 

freestaterocker

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Regarding notifications, if you place the tiles for which you receive frequent notifications on the "home" screen (i.e. the 8 tile areas visible on the screen in the tile view), you'll have immediate access to them once you unlock the phone. As others have noted, you do see how many notifications you have for Hotmail, other e-mail (each account shown separately), text messaging, and missed phone calls on the log-in screen (icon + number of messages). Like Android, different icons are used for the notifications.

One of the drawbacks of the HTC Trophy (though not all Windows Phones) relative to the Motorola Droid 2 is the lack of a notification light for e-mails. Somewhat strangely there is a notification for missed phone calls but not for e-mails on the Trophy.

Though this isn't strictly notifications-related, one of the real strengths of Windows Phone over Android is the ability to integrate/link your e-mail, phone, and social networking contact information together for the same person. I personally really like that feature.

There isn't any Google Voice-like audio input e-mail or text messaging on the Trophy (or possibly all Windows Phones), at least to my knowledge. There IS some voice recognition/assistance capabilities built into Windows Phones (via the built-in TellMe application and the new, 3rd party Ask Ziggy application), such as turn-by-turn direction capability.

If you were to buy a new, high-end phone like the Nokia 900, I think it is very likely it would receive the Tango and/or (more important) Apollo updates, though Microsoft's OS upgrade plans are unknown at this point.

Incidentally, as I hinted above, I have both a Droid 2 (since December 2010) and a Trophy (for a little more than a month). I prefer the Trophy/WP OS over Android, largely because it operates a lot smoother. WP is also more intuitive than Android IMO (though I've finally learned many of the ins and outs of Android OS after owning the Droid 2 for a year LOL).

TellMe supports voice texting, and even voice fb updates, as well as reading your texts to you. You can set it to automatically read your texts when you're using handsfree. I use these features regularly and they work great! You can even have it read your voice texts back to you to make sure it got it right before sending.
 

SolunaKitty

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1) Mango does have visual voicemail available, but ATT has not enabled it; only T-Mobile has done so. I use GoVoice to handle my texts (I don't have a texting plan) and my voicemail.

2) From what I gather, all 2nd-gen devices will be able to get Apollo, and many say that 1st-gen devices will also; time will tell, I guess

3) Like many others have said, there is no central notifications place. There are toast notifications (a bar that appears at the top), tile information for missed calls, voicemail, emails, etc... , and depending on the phone LED notification for a short period of time as well.
 

reelon

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Another question how about music on the cloud? Currently I have all my music on Google music and amazon. Can I use any of those services or another one out there?
 

Chris Coyle

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Another question how about music on the cloud? Currently I have all my music on Google music and amazon. Can I use any of those services or another one out there?

Right now, there is no Windows Phone 7 app for either Google Music or Amazon Music Cloud. I suspect because they're Google and Android based, we won't see them. We might see a 3rd party app at some point. Right now, you can stream music for $10 from either Zune, Spotify, and other type of those subcription services. Nokia is working on getting their Nokia Music service here in the US. If you go to their Nokia Music site, you will get that message. I'm assuming the Lumia 900 could see that feature in the future. I wouldn't doubt that Microsoft has a cloud service for music in the works right now, much like Google and Amazon.

There is a 3rd party WP7 app, EasyRing & Music that downloads and streams music from SkyDrive, where you could have up to 25GB of music stored for free. :)
 

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