A Week With Windows Phone 8.1 - an Android User's Experience

planoman

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Good thread. I use three platforms, android, iOS and WP. I would consider me an android user since that is what I use the most.

I bought a lumia 925 for the camera and it really trounces my moto x and nexus 5. Although I love the pictures I did not really use my lumia much except for the weekends when I take most pictures.

After I downloaded the Dev preview 8.1, I committed to 2 weeks using my Lumia 925 and came away impressed. The only apps I really missed were Southwest airlines and Marriott since I travel for work. The radios on the lumia are excellent. The battery life is better than my Nexus 5. In fact, I put my Nexus 5 up for sale since I do not anticipate it getting much screen time going forward. While I use several Google apps, I can get by without most except gmail. Google now is cool but I can do without it. I use Google play but use cloudmuzik and have been able to find decent alternatives.

One area of disappointment was no new devices to buy after build and my 925 having 16gb of storage and no SD card.

I like the live tiles, notification center, cortana and I use one drive for my WP and android.

Of course my moto x is still my favorite because of the touchless controls. Rumor is that the moto x+1 is coming so I will wait to check that out later this summer. But I have to say WP has grown on me and I think it has a bright future I'd msft does not totally screw up Nokia devices.

Sent from my Moto X!
 

robnhl

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So I am a couple of days in to using WP full time I thought I'd give an update on how things are going. So far results are a little mixed, but mostly positive. I've found fantastic apps in some cases and I'm still searching for solutions in others.


  • NewsBlur - using NewsSpot. This is an awesome app that flies.
  • Google Hangouts - a miss so far. Still testing a few G Talk apps.
  • Bible (YouVersion) - this appears to be a dead app. Missing lots of features and no updates in 14 months. Will need to explore other options.
  • Pocket Casts - A big win. I've setup Podcast Lounge and it's been meeting my needs so far (minus variable playback speed).
  • Google Play Music - CloudMuzik *seems* to fill this gap. Will know after more usage. Nokia Music would help here, I think, but isn't available on my 8X.
  • White Noise - Sleep seems every bit as good as White Noise.
  • My Disney Experience - downloaded Disney Expedition as recommended. Will try to run over to Disney this weekend to try it out.
  • Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest - the Facebook app is horrible. Found no alternative. Using 6tag and pin.it and both are excellent. Easily as good or better than official apps.


So, all that said, I am enjoying this experiment so far. I've spent less than $15 on apps and have already met many of my needs.


I also went to the VZW store and played around with a Lumia Icon last night. I tested how quickly it launches apps and the quality of the display. Was pretty impressed.


Thanks for all (most - Draganta???) of the feedback. I definitely didn't expect so many responses.
 

Laura Knotek

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So I am a couple of days in to using WP full time I thought I'd give an update on how things are going. So far results are a little mixed, but mostly positive. I've found fantastic apps in some cases and I'm still searching for solutions in others.


  • NewsBlur - using NewsSpot. This is an awesome app that flies.
  • Google Hangouts - a miss so far. Still testing a few G Talk apps.
  • Bible (YouVersion) - this appears to be a dead app. Missing lots of features and no updates in 14 months. Will need to explore other options.
  • Pocket Casts - A big win. I've setup Podcast Lounge and it's been meeting my needs so far (minus variable playback speed).
  • Google Play Music - CloudMuzik *seems* to fill this gap. Will know after more usage. Nokia Music would help here, I think, but isn't available on my 8X.
  • White Noise - Sleep seems every bit as good as White Noise.
  • My Disney Experience - downloaded Disney Expedition as recommended. Will try to run over to Disney this weekend to try it out.
  • Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest - the Facebook app is horrible. Found no alternative. Using 6tag and pin.it and both are excellent. Easily as good or better than official apps.


So, all that said, I am enjoying this experiment so far. I've spent less than $15 on apps and have already met many of my needs.


I also went to the VZW store and played around with a Lumia Icon last night. I tested how quickly it launches apps and the quality of the display. Was pretty impressed.


Thanks for all (most - Draganta???) of the feedback. I definitely didn't expect so many responses.

Check out "PocketBible Bible ..." for Windows Phone http://www.windowsphone.com/s?appid=81053a83-c404-430c-a718-30cabd5bdea9
 

robnhl

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In my family, wife uses iphone, kids android and I WP and Blackberry. It is hard to find location app to work on all 4. Finally we settled on Google + Locations. It works ok between android and iPhone, and for WP and Blackberry, I set up browsers to open desktop version of Google + and I can see their locations.

Is there a way to background update your location on G+ from WP?
 

anon(7901790)

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No it's not... you just have to put some effort into getting it out of iTunes.

That's true. If you download and install the Windows Phone App for Desktop you can sync your WP with your iTunes library via a USB connection to your computer. When you run the app, if will automatically open iTunes and sync selected playlists and songs. Apple stopped encrypting the songs a few years ago. So any mp4 song you download from iTunes will play on your Windows Phone or even Android. You can also just copy the mp4s straight to your phone using Windows Explorer when connected to a computer via USB. Of course, you have to know where iTunes put them first...
 

Will6371

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That's true. If you download and install the Windows Phone App for Desktop you can sync your WP with your iTunes library via a USB connection to your computer. When you run the app, if will automatically open iTunes and sync selected playlists and songs. Apple stopped encrypting the songs a few years ago. So any mp4 song you download from iTunes will play on your Windows Phone or even Android. You can also just copy the mp4s straight to your phone using Windows Explorer when connected to a computer via USB. Of course, you have to know where iTunes put them first...

I haven't used iTunes in a long time but you can even move your iTunes library to an sd card or external hard drive.

Great video on how to move your iTunes library to sd card or new computer.

how to move itunes library to new computer - Bing Videos
 

Reebs Reebs

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Its an amazing thing. My wife and I have a "room" just for ourselves, we have a shared calendar, notes, pictures etc. Wish I could get more family members involved in it, it would be even more powerful.



The only way I know is to text the location through the message hub. There may be an app in the store kind of like google latitude. I have not needed this feature so I have not looked that close into it.

Everything you said applies to me as well :)

WhatsApp also has the feature of sharing location if the one person you want to share your location with and you don't have a chat room with them.
 

anon(7901790)

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I haven't used iTunes in a long time but you can even move your iTunes library to an sd card or external hard drive.

Great video on how to move your iTunes library to sd card or new computer.

how to move itunes library to new computer - Bing Videos

Yep. I have all of my music and movies on a 3TB NAS. My iTunes connects to that. I still have an iPod Classic (160GB) and a 4GB iPod Touch, so that is why I still use iTunes. Anybody here old enough to remember Music Match? It was a serious iTunes contender until Yahoo bought it and screwed it up, like they did everything else. *sigh*
 

captaincalamity

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I have used my Nokia 920 a good few weeks now, but I'm sorry to say I have gone back to a nexus 5. Main reason I missed my gaming with friends apps. Scramble, chess, matching, phrases, dice the list goes on. I came to realise I was battling to find alternatives to google, all my favourite locations are on gmaps my mail my calendars my drive storage. I even tried the windows 8.1 and really liked it. Loved the people area. But with windows 8.1 they ruined the interaction with Facebook. Having to load and wait watching little white dots while the Facebook app loaded. With 8.0 you could like and comment without using the awful app. Overall a fantastic phone but I'm afraid let down by app developers and the fact I realised I was so reliant on the google infrastructure for my documents, photos, organisation. Will be watching the app store for windows and if it starts to get the programme's I need I may well be back.

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk
 

TrueMetalGeek

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So far the only app that is lacking for my recent android to wp8 switch is Facebook.
It works but doesn't have the features to edit comments and post photos that the Android app recently got.

As for YouTube I'm using mytube which blows away any YouTube app I tried on android store.
It handles my subscriptions well and allows me to either play video or audio only which I can play in the background.

As for bibles,I installed and uninstalled dozens to find a good one just like I did with Android.
The app must be KJV (I won't use that modern watered down corrupt paraphrase versions) and it must allow copy n paste of one or more verses while maintaining the left indented verse numbers like a real kjv.
I found one made by myBibl
It works good.
 

anon(8730639)

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So far the only app that is lacking for my recent android to wp8 switch is Facebook.
It works but doesn't have the features to edit comments and post photos that the Android app recently got.

As for YouTube I'm using mytube which blows away any YouTube app I tried on android store.
It handles my subscriptions well and allows me to either play video or audio only which I can play in the background.

As for bibles,I installed and uninstalled dozens to find a good one just like I did with Android.
The app must be KJV (I won't use that modern watered down corrupt paraphrase versions) and it must allow copy n paste of one or more verses while maintaining the left indented verse numbers like a real kjv.
I found one made by myBibl
It works good.

1. The Bible YouVersion app is good.
2. What do you mean watered down corrupt paraphrase versions? Sure they remove some stuff from the original text, but there are so many English Bible versions that I'm sure they're not all bad. I'm perfectly happy with current modern translations because good ones are still accurate and don't require a dictionary and a Bible expert to read.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Mobile Nations mobile app
 

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