Live tiles vs iOS/Android Notification center

[KingCrimson]

Pros:

- they're beautiful and big, cool animations

Cons:

- only 6-8 tiles on the screen at one time and not all tiles are "live"
- no pop up alerts or alert-tones

The way I see it the Android/iOS notification center provides a more useful condensed view sorted by most-recent-first rather then random spread out like the WP7 start screen. I use the iOS notification center on my iPod Touch and one feature I really love is that fact that every time a Gmail calendar notifies I get a popup and alert tone. That is probably the single most useful way to notify the user that they need to pay attention to the phone and it's right there on the popup telling me the thing I have to do and at what time. I think if Microsoft wants to be competitive they have to add a full notification view and popup alerts.

 

[Joelist]

A full notification view and pop up alerts kind of goes against the purpose behind Live Tiles - which are in my opinion a superior notification method. All they really need to add is some type of audio-visual cue that you can set to alert you that a Live Tile has received new information.

 

[KingCrimson]

A full notification view and pop up alerts kind of goes against the purpose behind Live Tiles - which are in my opinion a superior notification method. All they really need to add is some type of audio-visual cue that you can set to alert you that a Live Tile has received new information.

Live Tiles as notification view is inferior and I'll explain why. The reason why the iOS notification view is better is that it presets your most recent alerts in a condensed view. So you get to see about 6 of your most recent alerts which are probably of most importance to you. How do you find the 6 most recent things on your Live Tiles if you have 50 of them pinned to the start screen all randomly? Also there is no audio cue. I don't think having an A/V cue to a live tile is what you'd want. You'd want a link in the notification entry directly to the app the live tile was pointing at whether it be the Me hub or Weather app.

 

[N8ter]

Topic has already been discussed ad infinitum and there will always be defenders who think Live Tiles are perfect the way they are; and that a Notification Center-type mechanism in the OS goes against the "vision" of the OS.

Making yet another thread won't change their mind. It will only start another argument on the subject.

Not sure how anyone thinks Live Tiles are superior to a Notification Cache especially when every OS with a Notification Cache already supports Badges in addition to the PUSH Notifications/Pop-Ups and Cache.

It just makes WP7 look like it's missing a huge - and very important - part of a Smartphone OS (which, IMO, it is). Live Tiles are borderline useless. They don't give you any decent information that a Badge or Widget doesn't in most (almost all) cases and they certainly don't give any context, which is why Notification Caches are necessary - so people can triage their notifications and use their devices in a less impulse-driven way (i.e. more organized).

 

[jimski]

I get an audible notification when a Live Tile gets updated (1st and 3rd party apps). And also get a toast notification for texts and most 3rd party apps, along with the count on the tile. What more do you need.

Sent from my Lumia 900 using Board Express

 

[KingCrimson]

Topic has already been discussed ad infinitum and there will always be defenders who think Live Tiles are perfect the way they are; and that a Notification Center-type mechanism in the OS goes against the "vision" of the OS.

Making yet another thread won't change their mind. It will only start another argument on the subject.

Not sure how anyone thinks Live Tiles are superior to a Notification Cache especially when every OS with a Notification Cache already supports Badges in addition to the PUSH Notifications/Pop-Ups and Cache.

It just makes WP7 look like it's missing a huge - and very important - part of a Smartphone OS (which, IMO, it is). Live Tiles are borderline useless. They don't give you any decent information that a Badge or Widget doesn't in most (almost all) cases and they certainly don't give any context, which is why Notification Caches are necessary - so people can triage their notifications and use their devices in a less impulse-driven way (i.e. more organized).

What's the point of not using the left swipe to something? Microsoft already implemented the toast notification, so why not get a history of toasts by swiping left?

 

[KingCrimson]

I get an audible notification when a Live Tile gets updated (1st and 3rd party apps). And also get a toast notification for texts and most 3rd party apps, along with the count on the tile. What more do you need.

Sent from my Lumia 900 using Board Express

So you turn off your phone for a while, come back after 4 hours all your toasts are gone how do you find out what happened? I really can't stand you Windows Phone purists - you'r helping to kill a stillborn platform.

 

[canesfan625]

So you turn off your phone for a while, come back after 4 hours all your toasts are gone how do you find out what happened? I really can't stand you Windows Phone purists - you'r helping to kill a stillborn platform.

Windows Phone is stillborn? Care to cite a credible source stating that?

 

[Welve]

So you turn off your phone for a while, come back after 4 hours all your toasts are gone how do you find out what happened? I really can't stand you Windows Phone purists - you'r helping to kill a stillborn platform.

you can turn off your phone?

 

[Seketh]

So you turn off your phone for a while, come back after 4 hours all your toasts are gone how do you find out what happened? I really can't stand you Windows Phone purists - you'r helping to kill a stillborn platform.

Just to make it clear, the problems is not Notifications, Live Tiles handle that well, but Toast Notifications. If you miss them, there's no way to see them.

Could be easily fixed by having a Toast Notifications center with a Live Tile. For example, if you received multiple toast notifications, the Live Tile would display how many you missed, and entering the Toast Notifications center would show you the ones you missed.

I think I just had a good ideia for an application, I wonder if it's possible.

 

[Welve]

Just to make it clear, the problems is not Notifications, Live Tiles handle that well, but Toast Notifications. If you miss them, there's no way to see them.

Could be easily fixed by having a Toast Notifications center with a Live Tile. For example, if you received multiple toast notifications, the Live Tile would display how many you missed, and entering the Toast Notifications center would show you the ones you missed.

I think I just had a good ideia for an application, I wonder if it's possible.

Or a notification like you get for emails, text, etc. at the bottom of the lock screen. Like IM+ could give me a little 1 IM+ on the lock screen, simple.

 

[Seketh]

Or a notification like you get for emails, text, etc. at the bottom of the lock screen. Like IM+ could give me a little 1 IM+ on the lock screen, simple.

That would also work, but it's impossible for devs to do that right now. Microsoft would have to give devs acess to edit the lock screen.

 

[sconrad308]

you can turn off your phone?

He has to turn off his phone because of the inferior os and hardware it locks up. Mine has only restarted when I updated it. It has been up now for over 3 months except for that one time.
Personally after having an iFail, Android, and a BB, I have never been happier than I am with this phone. I disliked MS for years and even went to Linux and Mac a few years ago. But I have changed my mind and couldn't be happier with the latest in MS products.

 

[ninjaap]

Just to make it clear, the problems is not Notifications, Live Tiles handle that well, but Toast Notifications. If you miss them, there's no way to see them.

Could be easily fixed by having a Toast Notifications center with a Live Tile. For example, if you received multiple toast notifications, the Live Tile would display how many you missed, and entering the Toast Notifications center would show you the ones you missed.

I think I just had a good ideia for an application, I wonder if it's possible.

Isn't that redundant?
Right now if you receive a toast and miss it, your live tile will show a count. So all you have to do is:
1. scroll down with a flick or two
2. then tap on the live tile.

I don't see how a notification center would save you time?
1. You scroll to your notification center (be it a tile or another screen to the left)
2. you tap on the notification center (if its a tile)
3. then you scroll through all the notifications
4. then tap on the one you want.

Sounds like more work to me.

 

[KingCrimson]

Isn't that redundant?
Right now if you receive a toast and miss it, your live tile will show a count. So all you have to do is:
1. scroll down with a flick or two
2. then tap on the live tile.

I don't see how a notification center would save you time?
1. You scroll to your notification center (be it a tile or another screen to the left)
2. you tap on the notification center (if its a tile)
3. then you scroll through all the notifications
4. then tap on the one you want.

Sounds like more work to me.

A toast history view != random live tiles. Why don't you get it?

 

[jimski]

So you turn off your phone for a while, come back after 4 hours all your toasts are gone how do you find out what happened? I really can't stand you Windows Phone purists - you'r helping to kill a stillborn platform.

If I am away from my phone for four hours I turn it on and scroll through the Start screen. Just as fast as reading a list of toasts. No? Anything with a number on it I open.

Btw, I do actually like the idea of a notification screen with a swipe right. But I want it to refresh everytime I open a tile. So if I don't want to look at it, I don't have to do any maintenance. Just saying what we currently have works pretty well. Maybe not perfect, but what is.

Sent from my Lumia 900 using Board Express

 

[ninjaap]

A toast history view != random live tiles. Why don't you get it?

A toast history view would show a list of notifications and where that notification came from.

Live tiles would tell you exactly where that notification came from.

 

[KingCrimson]

A toast history view would show a list of notifications and where that notification came from.

Live tiles would tell you exactly where that notification came from.

You don't get it, people want a historical view as well as the random live tiles view.

 

[ninjaap]

You don't get it, people want a historical view as well as the random live tiles view.

Okay.

 

[freestaterocker]

Just to make it clear, the problems is not Notifications, Live Tiles handle that well, but Toast Notifications. If you miss them, there's no way to see them.

Could be easily fixed by having a Toast Notifications center with a Live Tile. For example, if you received multiple toast notifications, the Live Tile would display how many you missed, and entering the Toast Notifications center would show you the ones you missed.

I think I just had a good ideia for an application, I wonder if it's possible.

Good idea. What I would like to see is swipe left from start screen for notification centre. Then all the isheep and fandroids will finally stop b?tching.