Is Windows Phone becoming android?

Pierre Blackwell

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Love tiles for Android? We currently have widgets which are more Functional than Live Tiles.

For example I have a calendar/tasks widget which I just hit a little symbol to directly make a Google Tasks list all without entering any app. The widget also displays a scrollable list of upcoming events. Live Tiles can't do that.

Sent from my XT907 using Mobile Nations mobile app

I can post the calendar ro my start screen and the live tile shows my tasks, appts. events and other things without touching anything.
My point is some live update to prevent you from touching anything. Even a widget. 😉
 

Chregu

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I can post the calendar ro my start screen and the live tile shows my tasks, appts. events and other things without touching anything.
My point is some live update to prevent you from touching anything. Even a widget. 

Widgets update automatically too. And you can have them on the start screen without touching them. They even show much more information than the standard calendar live tile which is amazingly useless to me.

Maybe I just don't understand the point you want to make though :)
 

metalchick719

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My only experience with Android is still very new as I got an HTC One in the earlier part of April out of curiosity and a sudden huge interest in that particular phone. I don't think Windows Phone 8.1 is anything like Android. There's only one thing I find similar, and that's the Word Flow keyboard, although I still find that much more efficient and easier to use than Swype on Android. I occasionally swap the SIM card out of my Lumia 925 or 810 (that one's currently running 8.1) and into my HTC One, but I tend to grow bored rather quickly in comparison to using Windows Phone (although I DO like the One). Also, more and more, I've been using my 810 again ever since getting 8.1 on it. In fact, I've been itching to update my 925 to 8.1 lately so I can get all that goodness on a phone with a superior screen and camera (I've been wanting to wait until 8.1 is officially released, though). But again, I really don't see 8.1 as being similar to Android.
 

Pierre Blackwell

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Widgets update automatically too. And you can have them on the start screen without touching them. They even show much more information than the standard calendar live tile which is amazingly useless to me.

Maybe I just don't understand the point you want to make though :)

You understood my point quite well, and I would agree with you about the native calendar at least before WP8.1 which was a great improvement, however there are better apps that utilize the live tile experience. I would take the best live tile calendar app over the best widget calendar app. You don't have to touch anything.
 

A895

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I can post the calendar ro my start screen and the live tile shows my tasks, appts. events and other things without touching anything.
My point is some live update to prevent you from touching anything. Even a widget. 😉

I'm not understanding. Like spoken updates or something?


Sent from my XT907 using Mobile Nations mobile app
 

A895

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You understood my point quite well, and I would agree with you about the native calendar at least before WP8.1 which was a great improvement, however there are better apps that utilize the live tile experience. I would take the best live tile calendar app over the best widget calendar app. You don't have to touch anything.

How would you take something that would be less intuitive? I think you just like the presentation of live tiles. That's all you have to say.

Sent from my XT907 using Mobile Nations mobile app
 

a5cent

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There are apparently many different ways to judge how similar WP is to Android, and if it is becoming more similar. :smile:

Some equate the phrase "becoming like Android" with "gaining more features". I don't see how that can be a bad thing. However, I'm pretty sure that isn't the OP's concern. I'd also argue that WP could have the exact same features as Android while still being completely different from it. The point the OP is making is more subtle than that. It's not about the features an OS has, i.e. "what it can do", but rather "how it does it"!

The OP mentioned how Android and iOS are both very app focused and how MS' earlier WP efforts were not. While the app angle is a common way of expressing the OP's issue, I don't think it really captures what lies at the heart of the matter.

Paul Thurott refers to this issue as "the death of integrative experiences". His is the best explanation attempt I've seen so far, but it's still all very abstract. It's nuanced. It's still not easy to understand.

This is how I'd explain the issue:

Android and iOS both emphasize "the operation" over "the subject". That means you'd generally first choose the app that you want to work with, and then what you want to work on. Examples:

  • first you launch Skype (sending someone a message over the Skype network is the operation) and then you'd choose the contact (the subject)
  • first you choose the photo editing app (the operation) and then the photo you want to modify (the subject)

This is how most people expect a smartphone to function, because it's what we are used to. Even for WP this is the default modus operandi. However, particularly for many early WP7 adopters, it seemed clear that WP was poised to take the exact opposite approach. Many expected that WP would instead emphasize "the subject" over the "the operation". Examples:

  • first you choose your contact in the people hub (the subject), and then the means by which that person should be contacted e.g. Facebook, Skype, Text, or (eventually) any other communications channel based on the apps you've installed (the operation).
  • first you choose the photo you want to modify in the picture hub (the subject), and then the photo filter you want to run on it (the operation)

Instead of switching between three apps to get your photo edited exactly the way you want it, you'd instead have all the features at your disposal from a single UI that is fast, polished, and provided by the OS. The features themselves may be provided by the apps you installed (Flickr, Instagram, whatever), but they would generally plug into the OS UI to make themselves accessible. If you needed the full app experience, you could always launch the app itself, but the hope was that 80% of the time you wouldn't have to.

For your contacts you'd have your entire communications history, including mail, texts, skype, calls, google hangouts, WhatApp (or anything else) available to you from a single spot, the people hub, instead of being scattered across dozens of isolated apps.

If the subject is outside the domain of the OS (for example when taking a picture, the subject is whatever you're taking a picture of), users have no choice but to select the operation first. However, even then WP gravitated towards a more integrated approach. That is what lenses are about. Instead of searching through the app list for a specific camera app, you'd instead have every feature integrated into the default camera app itself.

The above are examples of what some call "less app focused". This seemed to be where WP7 was headed. This is what many felt was a superior and more natural approach to using smartphones.

Unfortunately, instead of allowing every app to integrate with the people hub, MS replicated the notification centre. Instead of making hubs more flexible, they're now being deemphasize or dismantled. The default camera app, which can be thought of as the hub for lenses, can now be replaced with a specific app that is most likely to be just another functionally isolated island. The picture hub never really integrated with anything, and the music hub was never more than a list of the music apps you had installed, but many had a grander vision of what they were to become. It appears the early WP7 adopters were wrong, or rather more likely, MS changed their mind somewhere along the way.

In terms of becoming more app focused, WP is definitely becoming more like Android (and iOS), so I would agree with the OP. In other ways, WP retains its individuality. Ultimately, it depends on how each of us determines what "like Android" means.
 
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TechFreak1

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Windows Phone is not becoming android but a more app centric o/s there are a lot of ways they could have gone about implementing this method. My hunch is they took the easy way - simply put WP was a perfectly formed and fitted albeit semi incomplete jigsaw of a serene landscape. But now they have taken several key pieces, threw them away and jammed in a-crummy-made-on-the-fly pieces in their places i.e music hub, games hub, message hub, photo hub.

MS could have simply extracted the previous hubs where it made sense to do so, sandboxed them into apps with o/s linking but MS being MS they take the most baffling of routes (the WP8 sync app is heart wrenchingly atrocious when compared to the WP7 sync app ). However I am in with WP for the long haul (I don't see myself using an Iphone or Android any time soon) for this is a perpetual marathon not a sprint with the finish line looming over the horizon.
 

Jazmac

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I believe at present "jazmac" the FCC is looking into the acquisition by Apple. Don't get me started on government regs now - LOL ��.

But yeah ... It should go through. ��
Ok cool. I hope it happens. No problem with regulations aka "rules" for me. Without them, we have chaos. It would be interesting to see how Apple implements Beats into their phones or if they still do Ipods, what they would do with it there. They still command the music industry and with this acquisition, they don't plan giving it up anytime soon.
 

fatclue_98

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Ok cool. I hope it happens. No problem with regulations aka "rules" for me. Without them, we have chaos. It would be interesting to see how Apple implements Beats into their phones or if they still do Ipods, what they would do with it there. They still command the music industry and with this acquisition, they don't plan giving it up anytime soon.

If this M&A goes through, what will happen with devices that shipped with Beats Audio such as the now-defunct HP TouchPad and the HTC 8X?
 

Jazmac

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If this M&A goes through, what will happen with devices that shipped with Beats Audio such as the now-defunct HP TouchPad and the HTC 8X?

I expect those devices will continue to function as they are currently. If there is a development agreement along side this acquisition to continue support for some period of time, that would be good for them. But, if Apple halts further development like is what will probably happen post google's purchase of WAZE for WP, it'll work until it doesn't. For instance we'll probably never see landscape mode from WAZE on WP.Google's plan is to starve WP out of the market.
 

tapehead

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In short, yes.

Windows Phone 8.1 is just a knock-off Android clone without the robust apps. Mango was just too ahead of its time... Microsoft needs to take a few steps back. I mean, if you're going to erase all uniqueness and creativity to your OS, why would I tolerate all of the MYRIAD of shortcomings of the platform? Why would I choose to stay WP if they're just going to give me Diet Android? Thanks, but no thanks.

They took all the fun out of owning a Windows Phone. Kind of sad, but if that's they want, I'm not going to try and stop them. Guess I'll see which wall the train crashes into.
 

MDMcAtee

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No it's not becoming Android...but it's lost it's soul of what it is.

It can become fragmented like Android,and more closed off like IOS but it will never be like Android on the surface.

Mac
 

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