Is Microsoft getting complacent or just lazy?

[Fade_z]

Microsoft is really careful with implementing features like this. Often I think it is not about being capable of doing it or not having the time to do it, but more about not destroying the design language of the OS, not to alter how the OS is handled by the user and keeping it all real simple.

adding basic features is making it more simple..
I now have a battle every night trying to keep the screen from rotating...
And dont tell me not to use it in bed, I bought a phone and I expect it to handle these basic's just fine.
Also how can they possibly ruin their OS by adding noti center or orientation lock?
Or any of the top requested features?
The whole idea of an phone is to suit your customers not some idealistic idea, and look at iOS its simple and easy to use but has all of the basic features i could possibly ever want

 

[Chregu]

The new Android version "4.3" has very little noticeable changes. Not every update is going to be earth shattering, just saying.

Well, I am sure that it has nothing as great as FM radio like our GDR2, or SMS response and WiFI always on like the legendary GDR1 ;-)

Is Android 4.3 something to get excited about? Probably not. The bulk of the improvements appear to be under the hood, and the biggest front-end addition that Google demoed -- Restricted Profiles -- was geared to parents and businesses.

Google Android 4.3 Jelly Bean - Operating systems - CNET Reviews

My phone runs much less smooth since GDR2 is installed. I have multiple lags even in the native mail application for example, and Spotify lags terribly.

The whole idea of an phone is to suit your customers not some idealistic idea, and look at iOS its simple and easy to use but has all of the basic features i could possibly ever want

I'm entirely on your side! They should implement such a feature as many people seem to want it.

Personally I'd like to have VPN support, real IMAP support, and a automatic silence function with filters like on the iPhone first.

 

[Rich White]

The answer is they are a huge company with many irons in the fire concerning Windows Phone and the move towards "One OS to rule them all".

I expect the Fall phones will be competitive and 8.1 will be significant.

When I see Win 8.1 running on an Atom LTE by Lenovo modeled after the k900 below I'll see the future. And that will be at CES

Lenovo K900 - Full phone specifications

note the screen resolution and screen size and overall size and camera resolution and Microsd slot. Intel announced the new LTE chip is shipping this Fall. This thing begs for 8.1 and the US market.

 

[fatclue_98]

My suspicion is that the devs and project managers are doing their best, but they're bing held back by a lack of commitment upstairs.

Upstairs? Is that where the accounting department is? In case you're not aware about the realities of the corporate world, managers don't manage. Risk assessment and ROI rules the day. If the shareholders don't make money, you don't see updates. Here endeth the lesson.

 

[haikallp]

adding basic features is making it more simple..
I now have a battle every night trying to keep the screen from rotating...
And dont tell me not to use it in bed, I bought a phone and I expect it to handle these basic's just fine.
Also how can they possibly ruin their OS by adding noti center or orientation lock?
Or any of the top requested features?
The whole idea of an phone is to suit your customers not some idealistic idea, and look at iOS its simple and easy to use but has all of the basic features i could possibly ever want

Exactly, these are all basic things. Not something extraordinary nor new. As locked down as iOS is, it covers more basic features than WP. Why must adding more features make the OS less 'metro'.

 

[tissotti]

The new Android version "4.3" has very little noticeable changes. Not every update is going to be earth shattering, just saying.

True, but the thing is that Android is way a head and seems to be moving just as fast as MS, if not even faster. How are you going to catch them?

 

[drbanks]

Managing risk is one thing. Avoiding risk at the expense of missing a major market is another. No customers means no shareholders to keep happy.

MS was willing to take considerable short to medium term loss to get a foothold in the set top box space. If they really understand where the post-PC world is headed, they'd better step up their game.

Otherwise, this playing it safe for the short term benefit of the shareholders will mean fewer shareholders in the long run.

 

[haikallp]

Seems to me like MS wants new people to come on board the WP bandwagon but does not really care bout their current users. How can an OS grow if the users aren't recommending it to their friend and frankly, at the moment, I can't recommend WP to my peers. MS needs to take a moment to set their priorities straight. HTC and Samsung aren't doing anything much to promote WP. The only OEM trying to push WP is Nokia but how far can they go.

 

[DrewT3]

MS is probably busy porting Windows RT to the phone. They don't want to invest any more in WP8 since it will be a dead end. This is why GDR2 and GDR3 are so lame.
Hopefully WP Blue will be the new RT version, otherwise we'll have to wait until WP9 to get any significant updates.

 

[pankaj981]

^^ i guess that's what it going to be, a modified RT version

 

[tissotti]

MS is probably busy porting Windows RT to the phone. They don't want to invest any more in WP8 since it will be a dead end. This is why GDR2 and GDR3 are so lame.
Hopefully WP Blue will be the new RT version, otherwise we'll have to wait until WP9 to get any significant updates.

Scary thing with that is that I have seen this so many times with Symbian and Maemo back when Nokia was still making billions of euros profit every quarter. Wait for the next version with incremental small updates, then a big wait for huge update that would change the mid layer (AVKON to Qt) to unify Maemo and Symbian. Then the UI rebuild with Qt in couple of years that again changed things, while it left millions of Symbian users being left with some features that had been there for 4-7 years.

We have already seen this with WP8 that on the front end didn't bring much, but on the OS level there were huge changes to bring more developers and unify MS platforms. Are we now waiting again for something similar that MS is hard in work while we users are still not seeing UI changes and features added. Something that have been asked since WP7 launched in 2011.

 

[Jupast]

The new Android version "4.3" has very little noticeable changes. Not every update is going to be earth shattering, just saying.

Maybe because Android has most of the basic features WP users have been asking for covered.

 

[jmshub]

Sometimes this forum just makes me want to scream. I am a big fan of Windows Phone. I read from people who actually can talk to people in Microsoft. GDR2 was supposed to be a small incremental update. Microsoft completed the software months ago. The carriers are (as always) the block. Getting GDR3 or a major 8.1 update out the door soon won't help if they can't deliver.

If the grass is greener in Android land, then go for it. I fail to see how it will be dramatically better for you.

 

[qudahamohammad]

Sometimes this forum just makes me want to scream. I am a big fan of Windows Phone. I read from people who actually can talk to people in Microsoft. GDR2 was supposed to be a small incremental update. Microsoft completed the software months ago. The carriers are (as always) the block. Getting GDR3 or a major 8.1 update out the door soon won't help if they can't deliver.

If the grass is greener in Android land, then go for it. I fail to see how it will be dramatically better for you.

Maybe you lost the point. The point of this thread is that Microsoft is slow to put minor updates such as a screen-lock and better menus in the settings, not to mention the much-wanted notification center (that I do not want to be in WP8)

 

[iloveamystery]

I agree that a lot of the problem is communication. If they would just announce WP8.1 sooner than later, then they would at least shed some light on what's to come. WP8 will hit its first year anniversary in just a few more months, and I think WP8.1 needs to be out by then or very close to it. The problem is it doesn't look like MS is anywhere near that becoming a reality.

It'll be funny if WP8.1 doesn't come before MS' promised 18 month support window for updates.

 

[DrewT3]

Sometimes communication isn't the problem, reality is. Imagine if they had communicated better after WP7.5 Mango came out in Summer of 2011. What if they said "that's it for the platform until WP8 in 14 months, and then you can expect higher resolution screens and kids corner. And then another 14 months before we add anything else".
That would have been very transparent and it would have halved phone sales for two years.

 

[tgp]

Speaking of orientation lock specifically, it's already been done. When I had an unlocked Lumia 710, I had a (student) developer account which meant I could sideload apps. There's an orientation lock app for WP7 that works very well, but it's not in the Store. This leads me to believe that either something changed with WP8 that makes it more difficult to implement, or Microsoft just simply isn't adding the feature for whatever reason.

 

[haikallp]

Sometimes this forum just makes me want to scream. I am a big fan of Windows Phone. I read from people who actually can talk to people in Microsoft. GDR2 was supposed to be a small incremental update. Microsoft completed the software months ago. The carriers are (as always) the block. Getting GDR3 or a major 8.1 update out the door soon won't help if they can't deliver.

If the grass is greener in Android land, then go for it. I fail to see how it will be dramatically better for you.

I'm a fan of Windows Phone too but you can't overlook the minor things that WP is lacking compared to the competition. In fact, I'm certain Windows Phone will be a solid number 3 but at the rate they're going, ita probably gonna be in 2015 instead of 2014.

 

[psudotechzealot]

I think MS should release a beta with all the supposed 'missing features'. When it lags and judders like a *****, they can say, "See, told you so. Let us get on with it. We know what we're doing".

This doesn't make any sense. So they should put out a lagging & juddering beta to prove a terrible point and loose customers?

Personally I've never had a problem with WP8 or WP7 for that matter.

Sure you haven't, but doesn't mean problems aren't an issue for some users.

A lot of people just don't get that, hence the calls for that stupid Notification Centre idea. For the lsst time.... The phone IS the Notification Centre. Only badly written live tile apps stop that being so....

Uh, to a degree, but if the competition has it, some WP8/7 users and potential users are begging for it and threatening to leave WP if they don't add the feature. Why should Microsoft lose potential & loyal users by not add it? Why, because the tiles are the "Notification Centre"?

 

[envio]

It does feel like we're banging our heads against a brick wall. I honestly believe that Microsoft believe that the way the OS looks, the way it works, the way it interacts with the user and the way it inter-operates with third-party apps, it will shine above the other major players so much so that you won't miss all the granularity that the masses enjoy, you will somehow enjoy it for what it is.

That only works up to a point and then you start to wonder, how much better things could be if only you could do X or Y, how much longer are we supposed to wait for seemingly little things? It's exactly those things that make using a good OS, a great OS. e.g. Why am I still forced to have a single volume level for an alarm, why can't I choose a snooze time.. and so on.

It might only be 8 months since WP8's launch but for me, it's been 2 years and 9 months of waiting for the same little improvements. Let's not forget that some of us got burned when we couldn't couldn't upgrade to WP8 and worse, some are STILL waiting/hoping that our WP7.5 devices might get WP7.8. So even on the big things, we've been very forgiving.

How are we supposed to "sell" WP to our friends, colleagues and families when we have so much of our own reservations and mini disappointments to contend with. We have to talk like politicians - if someone asks "can you sync WP directly to Outlook?" We have to reply, "erm, we've got the best camera in any smartphone, it's called the Lumia 1020."

I dread to think where we'd be without Nokia right now - they are truly innovating where Microsoft fears to tread. And I don't get what the hold-up is. Either there's a lack of direction and focus, or the priorities are all wrong or there's not enough devs and perhaps too many managers and managerial layers, I don't know but something for the size of Microsoft, is not right. I'm hoping that now that the OS divisions have merged, things will move more quickly, we need more spirit like the Windows team. They're pushing out new updates for Windows 8.1 Preview almost every week, how is that possible??!

The official Windows Phone UserVoice website is crammed-to-bits with suggestions, feedback, anxious pleadings, but the communication that comes back is infrequent, unrepresentative and cringe-worthy sometimes and totally obscures the obvious need to catch-up with the competition. MS: hurry-up.