Anyone having doubts about the WP8?

[rockstarzzz]

I know this is strange to many on this forum, but I returned my WP7 LG Quantum the day I got it and picked up a Blackberry instead. This Quantum was the first phone I'd had in several years that could not sync locally with Outlook on my computer. This was the single biggest customer complaint when the phone came out.<snippet> Can we get a new version of ActiveSync?

Imagine this: Your phone has all your data you've sync locally with. Your phone is now lost or stolen, how will you make sure the person doesn't get anything more than what is on your phone? Microsoft MyPhone? Wipe it? - cloud.

If you've sync'd everything, in your Microsoft/WP account online, you have an option to 'unpair' your devices in a single click. What it does is alienates your device from the cloud. That way, even if the person has your phone, he cannot pull anything off the cloud. You could even get your photos, contacts, docs off the cloud, on a hard drive and then delete everything off the cloud. If you let the device remain paired, next time it syncs, it is gone! - all safe. Now you don't get that with local sync!

Why are you so fixated on hardware specs? It's functionality that matters and if your phone is fast and efficient with a single core processor, why do you feel the need to drain your battery just so you can brag about a multicore processor? It's what WP8 phones can do as a whole including its ecosystem that really matters, not over-kill on hardware specs.

Phone UI is fast and efficient NOT functions with single core. I was on the same boat as yours but having played more with dual cores, I've realized using the apps, internet, games is MUCH better experience than overloading our single cores. Also, multicores DO NOT kill battery. It is now as close as a myth. Only when all cores are 'switched on' they use battery else it only uses second core for fraction of a power hungry task and then switches off, making the phone essentially a single core when not needed.

Just one question to all those who are Pro-Multi cores. If they were to not tell you how many cores it has, and you were to compare with other platforms and find out your device is much much faster, would you still care for how many cores it has?? Just think about it. Sent from my RaZr Nexus.

Yes I would! Because the single core is good enough for the OS and UI. Not the power hungry third party apps and games. Some of our current apps are painfully slow at what they do! Our phones heat up as if they have a burning ball of fire inside when you do some intensive 'multi tasking'. I notice it all the time! UI transition being smooth does not help.

Of course. <snippet>
Except that WP7 isn't "faster". It is more responsive to touch and feels smooth in the native experience, but third party apps load slower and are often more sluggish than on Android / iOS. None of the "triple A mobile titles" would be able to run at anywhere close to the quality we can experience on competing flagships.

That!

I have major doubts...<snippet>

It really doesn't matter what Microsoft thinks about these features. People want them and like them on their iOS or Android devices. If you can deliver, you will sell and if you can't then you won't. Its a very simple market dynamic. Supply adjusts to demand.

While I agree with the idea of that big post, I have to say some facts don't work hand in hand. You cannot compare Mango update to WP8. Mango did not need a whole new core. It felt bigger update because its previous version was nothing but a lame phone. Same as what iPhone4 to iPhone4S felt like. Nothing but Siri.
But what I agree with in your post is - features. They aren't invisible to MSFT like they aren't to us. Everyone knows the pitfalls of WP. However much we use our drums and defend the OS because "it just works", "it smokes other phones" and "it has integration", lets be honest here:
Whatsapp - does it really just work?
PDF file sharing - does it really just work?
Email editing before forward - does it really just work?
Update of app issues - does that really just work?
Marketplace issues - does that really just work?
We can go on, but then someone will want to post a counter statement showing how things dont work on Android.

But I would say, yes they don't work on Android, they freeze and lag on Android, but having 70% of marketshare even after all that crap only means that people don't always care if it takes extra 4 seconds to complete a task if that task makes you not cringe and not want to use your PC to edit an email! Every time I want want to forward some email, I have to go to PC to edit it and send it. Same with PDF files that came to me in an email! In summary, features is the key! Are we really going to smoke phones based on uploading picture to facebook and twitter? Is that why we buy 'smartphones'?

I can imagine a scenario when Android guy could have said, I can post my Temple run game scores on Facebook and Ben the PC guy would be like "What?! Temple who? Well we have XBOX live" - but that doesn't let you smoke phones!

Having a smooth, sexy, beautiful, fast UI of an OS, does not imply it can do stuff. MSFT at one point used "It's how it does it" - but integration isn't always top notch either! Facebook for example and LinkedIn. Yes they have baked them, half baked. It's like giving me a slice of carrot cake but only with carrots, no cake.

Agree. Wp8 has all the future stuff. The cloud integration tightly. I can see why that wp will become a perfect alternative to other OS's. And the third OS. So It gonna have
Freaking killer games
cloud with skydrive. Basically your storage for everything now
Integration
You can see why gamers and gaming companies are attracted to wp8
Now it's only three OS's left here standing. Nothing else can get in

It will have killer games. Cloud with Skydrive. Integration. It already has cloud, it already has integration. Killer games might attract 15 year olds, but what MSFT is targetting isn't just teen agers. If they want that group, let background agents run much efficiently on chat clients! Get Viber, Whatsapp working as they should! Android and iPhones don't just have killer games, they have better features!
WP8 must cover most of the features we see now in the competitors. More features - more satisfied customers - better sales - better development - better apps - better games - more satisfied customers and the cycle will keep going on as more INNOVATIVE features keep coming in future release.

But yes as I've wrote before in this thread, I have my own reservations and doubts about WP8. I am not buying it based on MSFTs promise to be able to let me fly to the moon and check in on Facebook just by unlocking my phone and saying "Moon" when WP20 will be out.

 

[XB_Mod]

Yea. I agree. But saying wp8 is a joke. Is very idiotic and not cool. When he doesn't even know all the features yet. Very idiotic indeed. He really needs to keep his mouth shut until MS has all the features revealed.

dude, the first sentence that I said is that I don't think the SDK is final and everything is released because that sounds like its not enough. Did you even read my post or just felt like attacking other people?

What I'm saying is what we have seen sofar has been unimpressive and it takes more to lure people away from other platforms. If you disagree thats fine. But please stop with the fanboyish attitude and try to be realistic.

You are 15, you say you are not a techie either. So don't you think you should be a little more careful with throwing insults at people who actually do this for a living? thats not rocket science. Open up your mind, accept criticism and try to weigh your options and go for what is important to you. But to say WP8 is awesome and perfect and everybody else is a hater...thats kind of actually funny.

 

[XB_Mod]

rockstarzzz

I can actually agree with your assessment. I don't disagree with anything.

At the end of the day it doesn't matter if your phone is faster or has more features or whatever. It matters what people will buy in stores. Android with all its issues is selling like hot cakes, WP with all its smooth and fast and innovative UI is not. Does that mean we have to copy Android? no. But it means maybe we should move in that platform philosophy direction...open the platform a little bit, add features at a faster rate even if it sometimes might not make sense to Microsoft and see what people love about Android and implement this in "the Microsoft way"...

at the end of the day if it takes a second longer but you can do it, it is better than it doesn't take any time because you can't do it anyway.

 

[hwangeruk]

No one would be on this thread if we didn't like the OS. So for those that continue to blast these subjects for people wanting "bigger and better", relax. We do not want another Android. We want to be competitive with Android, Apple and RIM (I still count them until they are below 10% worldwide which isn't happening yet) so that WP is set for the future. 3% - 7% sales is not good enough. The OS needs to offer some things to get it to 15% - 20% within the next couple years, and that is a hard road to travel.

I am not a huge tech driven consumer. I am an operation driven consumer. I use One Note, bill minders, calander, and other tools to make my life easier. Throw in games, music, entertainment, and of course communication and you now have the entire spectrum of uses for Smartphones.

WP already has driven up the game on communication with the seamless way they incorporate social media. Improve the notifications and maybe the keyboard (or just include a couple of different keyboard options in the marketplace), and the single strongest aspect of WP becomes untouchable so long as manufacturers have good call quality and reception.

The Zune player is EOL, so we now need to hope WP 8's music player and media options are easier and more seamless. While I am fine with Zune, I certainly see tons of room for improvement. I say this is not a strength of WP 7. Certainly needs improvement to compete with the iPhone as I think this is Apple's biggest strength.

Gaming is a very good experience, especially if you are already an XBOX owner. But I also think this is an area that has to improve if MS wants to take some sales from Android. The gamers are heavy on Android as graphics and game options are so much more available on Google's offerings. Throw in the Tablet market which MS wants so bad and you see that enterainment is the main tablet consumer. I love the potential of what WP 7 launched, but it needs to be a stand alone selling point. It just isn't there yet. It has to be on WP 8.

As for me, the kernal sharing with Windows 8 tells me I am set. I want better tools, and I already love the "live" intergration with calander, One Note, and to do lists. The marketplace has some decent financial tools which are set to explode with Office intergration and the Barnes and Noble partnership. So WP 8 doesn't need to sell to me, I am sold. I think business users will love having the cross platform ecosystem and MS can get into some serious competition against RIM and Apple for professionals so long as WP 8 is truly Office compatible. (Some physical keyboard options would help.)

I am worried for WP 8 in general, not for my business. We HAVE to see WP 8 turning some great profits by the end of 2013 or mid 2014, or we may see WP get throttled. Good is not good enough. It needs to offer great options. It's put up or shut down over the next 24 months.

Agreed. Don't need bleeding edge CPU, that just eats battery. Even WP7 is fast enough.
Needs features: and none of these are hard to code:

Screenshot
Profiles
Custom sounds for everything!
Do not disturb / ICE
Better weekly calendar view
LED notification
SD card support
Music player that make playlists on the go
Deal with ICS attachments -> calendar (like google)

Hardware wise we need:
More formats. My GF won't get WP cos you can't buy a small one!
Better cameras. All current WP phones stink
Nicer materials, more flare
LED notifications
7 inch device

There isn't a whole lot missing which is why WP ownership is frustrating. So so close.
Fingers crossed WP8 delivers. I too won't wait, I'll go back to iPhone this time. Unless BB10 rocks.

 

[hwangeruk]

I know this is strange to many on this forum, but I returned my WP7 LG Quantum the day I got it and picked up a Blackberry instead. This Quantum was the first phone I'd had in several years that could not sync locally with Outlook on my computer. This was the single biggest customer complaint when the phone came out.

There are a number of reasons that many of us are not willing to use the cloud for all syncing. I am very worried that this basic functionality (local sync) will still not come with WP8, in which case I and many others will not be migrating. Check the threads on Microsoft Answers about this - people continue to be incredulous that WP7 can't do what Apple, Blackberry, and WM 6.x can do. Why can't the phone on my desk talk directly to Outlook on my desktop?

I've always liked Microsoft products, and still love my Zune HD. As for the phone, I see vague references to better integration, but still nothing that gives me confidence. Can we get a new version of ActiveSync?

No no no.
You are not one of many. Stop trying to convince us you are or that this was a top complaint.
Email is not living on your desktop.
Email lives on a server.
Why have 2 steps, Email->desktop->sync. That's not what 99.99999% of the world does.
We go. Email->phone.
Blackberry goes Bes to phone.
Active syncing on desktop was always a support nightmare. Anyway moot point, as what you want will NEVER be coming back. You need to stop being weird, seriously.

 

[XB_Mod]

There isn't a whole lot missing which is why WP ownership is frustrating.

actually I'm not frustrated with WP 7.5 AT ALL. I don't miss anything. My worries are not that WP users will not like it or be frustrated.

The problem is there aren't enough WP users out there. You need to offer something to entice OTHER users. And thats coming up slightly short in WP8 so far IMO...

imagine tom, 17, walks into a store to buy a phone. All his friends have an Android or an iPhone...now what does WP8 offer for him to say...you know what, I will ignore all recommendations and buy a WP...thats the bottom line thats tough to crack. Thats what you need a game changer for.

 

[eric12341]

Why is this ****** here? They're not all the features you dumb**** you are clearly the dumbest person I have ever herad from here. You shouldn't even deserve to be here at wpcentral. Now go away. Still can't believe I see people like you here. Forum moderator can you please close this thread please. And ban this troll as well. I swear to god I want to punch his trolling face and tell him he's wrong

Wowowowow! While I agree that what he said was indeed outlandish and far fetched. The way you reacted was a little bit too far and you could get an infraction for it. And in some cases it's worth it. I get the urge myself to do what you just did but I don't.

Owning very sensitive/confidential data is a good reason not to use cloud services. However, if that's what you're dealing with, you most definitely shouldn't be carrying that data around on a smartphone. Otherwise you are just kidding yourself! Loss or theft of portable devices are the single most common way data is lost or confidentiality compromised!

If you have semi-sensitive data that is safe to carry around on portable devices, but think your IT department is more trustworthy than Microsoft's, getting your company to set up an Exchange Server shouldn't be a big deal. This takes Microsoft out of the picture completely.

In all other scenarios (for 99% of us) Microsoft's cloud based synching solution is perfect. First you must configure Outlook (Desktop) to store it's data in the cloud. After doing so you can basically forget about manual synching as it is all done automatically for you in the background. My Outook (Desktop) installation and my WP devices are always perfectly synched, although I haven't done a single manual sync in years. As an added bonus, you also don't need to worry about backups, the lack of which is the most common cause of data loss in home environments.

Until I understood how this really works I too was skeptical. Are you possibly making the same mistake?

I agree, can't remote delete or write "Give me back my phone you *******! I'm going to hunt you down" from local storage. Local storage also isn't more or less safe than the cloud is but at least with the cloud you get those options.

Imagine this: Your phone has all your data you've sync locally with. Your phone is now lost or stolen, how will you make sure the person doesn't get anything more than what is on your phone? Microsoft MyPhone? Wipe it? - cloud.

If you've sync'd everything, in your Microsoft/WP account online, you have an option to 'unpair' your devices in a single click. What it does is alienates your device from the cloud. That way, even if the person has your phone, he cannot pull anything off the cloud. You could even get your photos, contacts, docs off the cloud, on a hard drive and then delete everything off the cloud. If you let the device remain paired, next time it syncs, it is gone! - all safe. Now you don't get that with local sync!



Phone UI is fast and efficient NOT functions with single core. I was on the same boat as yours but having played more with dual cores, I've realized using the apps, internet, games is MUCH better experience than overloading our single cores. Also, multicores DO NOT kill battery. It is now as close as a myth. Only when all cores are 'switched on' they use battery else it only uses second core for fraction of a power hungry task and then switches off, making the phone essentially a single core when not needed.


Yes I would! Because the single core is good enough for the OS and UI. Not the power hungry third party apps and games. Some of our current apps are painfully slow at what they do! Our phones heat up as if they have a burning ball of fire inside when you do some intensive 'multi tasking'. I notice it all the time! UI transition being smooth does not help.


That!



While I agree with the idea of that big post, I have to say some facts don't work hand in hand. You cannot compare Mango update to WP8. Mango did not need a whole new core. It felt bigger update because its previous version was nothing but a lame phone. Same as what iPhone4 to iPhone4S felt like. Nothing but Siri.
But what I agree with in your post is - features. They aren't invisible to MSFT like they aren't to us. Everyone knows the pitfalls of WP. However much we use our drums and defend the OS because "it just works", "it smokes other phones" and "it has integration", lets be honest here:
Whatsapp - does it really just work?
PDF file sharing - does it really just work?
Email editing before forward - does it really just work?
Update of app issues - does that really just work?
Marketplace issues - does that really just work?
We can go on, but then someone will want to post a counter statement showing how things dont work on Android.

But I would say, yes they don't work on Android, they freeze and lag on Android, but having 70% of marketshare even after all that crap only means that people don't always care if it takes extra 4 seconds to complete a task if that task makes you not cringe and not want to use your PC to edit an email! Every time I want want to forward some email, I have to go to PC to edit it and send it. Same with PDF files that came to me in an email! In summary, features is the key! Are we really going to smoke phones based on uploading picture to facebook and twitter? Is that why we buy 'smartphones'?

I can imagine a scenario when Android guy could have said, I can post my Temple run game scores on Facebook and Ben the PC guy would be like "What?! Temple who? Well we have XBOX live" - but that doesn't let you smoke phones!

Having a smooth, sexy, beautiful, fast UI of an OS, does not imply it can do stuff. MSFT at one point used "It's how it does it" - but integration isn't always top notch either! Facebook for example and LinkedIn. Yes they have baked them, half baked. It's like giving me a slice of carrot cake but only with carrots, no cake.



It will have killer games. Cloud with Skydrive. Integration. It already has cloud, it already has integration. Killer games might attract 15 year olds, but what MSFT is targetting isn't just teen agers. If they want that group, let background agents run much efficiently on chat clients! Get Viber, Whatsapp working as they should! Android and iPhones don't just have killer games, they have better features!
WP8 must cover most of the features we see now in the competitors. More features - more satisfied customers - better sales - better development - better apps - better games - more satisfied customers and the cycle will keep going on as more INNOVATIVE features keep coming in future release.

But yes as I've wrote before in this thread, I have my own reservations and doubts about WP8. I am not buying it based on MSFTs promise to be able to let me fly to the moon and check in on Facebook just by unlocking my phone and saying "Moon" when WP20 will be out.

I've never ever had my phone heat up in between switching apps, I know my arrive used to heat up but that wasn't because it had a single core processor and trying to multitask, it was because of sprint's slow 3G speeds.

 

[rockstarzzz]

actually I'm not frustrated with WP 7.5 AT ALL. I don't miss anything. My worries are not that WP users will not like it or be frustrated.

The problem is there aren't enough WP users out there. You need to offer something to entice OTHER users. And thats coming up slightly short in WP8 so far IMO...

imagine tom, 17, walks into a store to buy a phone. All his friends have an Android or an iPhone...now what does WP8 offer for him to say...you know what, I will ignore all recommendations and buy a WP...thats the bottom line thats tough to crack. Thats what you need a game changer for.

That game changer isn't coming with WP8 then.
May be (if) by WP9 we stop catching up with other platforms and be equal spec and feature wise, then MSFT can breathe a little more and innovate those game changing features.