Just played with the Icon, have some questions for you old WP users...

[reidbp]

So I drove to the store to demo, fully prepared to pre-order, and walked out without one. I have some concerns/questions I was hoping you could answer as I didn't want to sit there playing with it all day and it was a demo phone not fully set up anyway...

- No notification light
This is something I love about my GS3, especially with different colors for different types of notifications. I have been frustrated in the past not having this, how bad is it for you? I feel like I check my phone often enough these days it may not be a problem, but I liked being able to leave my phone on silent/vibrate sitting somewhere and notice the light when I had something.

- Can't do a function straight from a tile
On my android I can turn off sync, data, gps, bluetooth, wifi, turn on/off a flaslight, and adjust screen brightness all from single buttons on my home screen. The guy at the Microsoft store showed me his phone and it appears you could put a tile for these things on the home screen, but it would take you into setting or into another app to actually make any adjustments. Is this true?

- Calendar/Email
I heard the outlook/exchange integration is very good on WP8 which is why I was considering switching as my phone is mostly used for work and will continue to get worse. I went and looked at the calendar and it didn't have a work-week or weekly view. What the **** is that? The daily view also didn't seem to span far enough for me to see my entire day's worth of meetings. I didn't get to play around with the email app but I'm concerned that wasn't great either...

- App stability
I've been reading about WP a while since I heard of the Icon and have read plenty about app stability. I don't use games or anything but I do use spotify/pandora and a few other select apps. I heard some of these crash a lot, is that very accurate?

I think there were a few more but I forget.. It's possible this phone just isn't for me but wanted to hear some of your experiences over these issues, or what bonuses I missed over android.

 

[CypherZ]

Everything You need Will be in the upcoming WP8.1 update. There is alot of info about this on the site. I also came from Android and i am so happy i switched. Never those droids again.

 

[reidbp]

Everything You need Will be in the upcoming WP8.1 update. There is alot of info about this on the site. I also came from Android and i am so happy i switched. Never those droids again.

I've been burned by the "feature coming soon" statement before but will look into 8.1 more. Thanks. Really hate no notification light though.

 

[Tat3rs10]

To answer some of your questions...

Notification light - There isn't a single Windows Phone that has this feature that I know of. Unfortunately the glance feature by nokia is lacking on the icon but this is the closest thing to a notification light.

Quick settings - It is true that there are no quick settings as of right now. There are apps that I use that let me do that for now. This should make you happy though, in Windows Phone 8.1 there is a slide down notification menu that will let you access all of the things you are talking about with the ability to change them to the settings you use most.

Calender - The weekly view you speak of is not available right now but this is also something confirmed for Windows Phone 8.1 coming in April.

App Stability - Apps like Spotify that have never had an update are definitely more likely to crash but I rarely see crashes on the Windows Phone platform to be truthful.

 

[reidbp]

I've been burned hearing that the feature is coming soon before but will look into 8.1 more, thanks. Really hate no notification light though.

 

[tgp]

Your conclusions on the first 3 are pretty accurate. I use the calendar on my phone very little, but my boss uses it heavily. He's a developer and a Microsoft MVP, and he actually switched from WP to Android awhile ago. The calendar on WP was one of the things he complained about.

Your 4th point on app stability isn't valid in my opinion. I've not had trouble with apps crashing. However, depending on which apps you use the quality and/or function of the apps may not be as good as you're used to. Then again, some may be better. Overall Windows Phone is stable enough.

 

[gapost]

Notification light, no, not one. But, most Windows phones have been updated with a Glance screen that will display icons on the black screen and show you email or text or FB notifications without even turn the phone one. (But, there seems to be an issue with the Icon and the glance screen, so we hope it gets it soon.) Really cool. Windows 8.1 in about a month, will have a real customizable notification center that you can pull down from the top.

There are a number of apps that you can put on your home screen (until the above notification center comes out) that allow you direct access. Like a screen rotation tile that you tap on and opens the screen rotation setting.

The calendar is fairly basic, but there are some very good calendar apps that should give you the options you want.

I have rarely seen or heard many problems with app stability. I have heard that it is much better than android apps. For me, the only one that give me a little trouble is USA Today. It wants to close itself occasionally.

If you get the Icon, you are getting a great phone and with Windows 8.1 coming real soon, it should rival most any android phone. Remember, there are trade-offs for all OS's.

 

[reidbp]

Unfortunately it seems Glance is not available for the Icon.

 

[reidbp]

Suppose I had another question, does the texting app have the ability for a pop-ups? Does the pup-up have an ability to be above the lock screen for quick reply?

 

[borasar]

full feature list for the upcoming update, not sure how you can get burned by it:
Windows Phone 8.1 Features | Windows Phone Central
- calendar weekly view is coming - native app sucks right now, but there are a number of very good alternatives in the app store.
- no notification light (and that's unlikely to change), and it's stupid that the Icon doesn't have glance

Looks like you'll get everything you need in the next update and have enough to hold you over until then, but doesn't look like icon is the phone for you.

Come over to the dark side!

 

[reidbp]

I was just reading that 8.1 list and made me even more surprised some of those features don't already exist. Thanks for the answers, I was really excited but think I'm holding off for now.

 

[borasar]

I was just reading that 8.1 list and made me even more surprised some of those features don't already exist.

Yeup, that's pretty much the biggest question mark about the whole OS, some of these features could have and should have been there from the beginning. MS has their own way of doing things haha

 

[gapost]

Suppose I had another question, does the texting app have the ability for a pop-ups? Does the pup-up have an ability to be above the lock screen for quick reply?

Yes, if you are looking at the phone when it comes in. It pops up at the top of the lock screen and you can tap it and go to it. But it doesn't stay long. 8.1 should improve this.

 

[ret18057]

Great observations...I am going to get one anyway, I want out of the Google ecosystem (who would have ever thought that MS would be the lesser evil?!?). There's a whole thread on Glance support, and plenty of fanboys who phoo-phoo the lack of notification light, but that's going to be a tough one for me. I use the light OFTEN to see if there is anything pending, and now, it seems, there will be NOTHING to let you know there is a missed call/message. So dumb...We'll see if I can stand it through the return period. I want to like it, but it's pushing me away. It's like college all over again...

 

[DennisvdG]

Spotify is a rare exception (it has been updated like one time in over a year), I don't have issues with any other apps

 

[JudgeHolden]

Yeah, these are mostly all holes.

There's been a lot of talk about the notification light of late. I hated that my Storm didn't let me change the color of the RGB notification light, and the main reason I waited for WP was because the original Galaxy on Verizon didn't have a notification light. I couldn't imagine life without one.
Now that I don't have one, and haven't had one for 3 years, I'm pretty much ok with it. Honestly, I was ALWAYS looking at my phone when I had a notification light. Always. Maybe it flashed right before I looked, so I'd watch for an entire cycle to make sure it wasn't flashing.

Now I just squeeze the phone and light it up to see if I have a message. I feel it keeps me a bit more sane. Your mileage may vary, but if you want a notification light very badly WP isn't for you. Glance is not a good substitute for it as you still need to be fairly close to discern what you're looking at.

 

[reidbp]

Yeah, these are mostly all holes.

There's been a lot of talk about the notification light of late. I hated that my Storm didn't let me change the color of the RGB notification light, and the main reason I waited for WP was because the original Galaxy on Verizon didn't have a notification light. I couldn't imagine life without one.
Now that I don't have one, and haven't had one for 3 years, I'm pretty much ok with it. Honestly, I was ALWAYS looking at my phone when I had a notification light. Always. Maybe it flashed right before I looked, so I'd watch for an entire cycle to make sure it wasn't flashing.

Now I just squeeze the phone and light it up to see if I have a message. I feel it keeps me a bit more sane. Your mileage may vary, but if you want a notification light very badly WP isn't for you. Glance is not a good substitute for it as you still need to be fairly close to discern what you're looking at.

I totally get what you are saying about looking at the light a lot, but I think I may rather look at the light from across the room occasionally, than need to walk over and check it. It may sound weird but I don't even like having the GS3 in my pocket and the Icon is even bigger, so setting it somewhere and glancing over now and then has become very normal for me. I may still give it a shot... just couldn't pull the trigger today with the other issues I found.

 

[microhaxo#WP]

Once the icon gets the glance screen there will be no need for a notification light.

Im sure it will be available before april.

 

[reidbp]

Sorry for bumping this again but I remembered another concern. The keyboard seemed okay but the suggested words above it seemed laggy, and there was no quick way to add a word to the dictionary without having to select the word itself after typing it and add it which was pretty annoying. Are there other keyboards you can get that are better?

 

[shaskell724]

Cool that you are interested in WP. I am interested, too but the one thing that worries me every time that I think of making the switch to WP are the Apps..

You said that you are into Spotify? I wish the options were better on WP but I am sorry to say that the Spotify App has not been updated in months and doesn't work well at all.

Spotify | Windows Phone Apps+Games Store (United States) - July 12, 2013 last update

The quality of apps really needs to be better on Windows Phone. It makes me upset that most things in the app store are mediocre. The official apps might "be" in the app store but that does not mean they are good and have the features people want.

Good luck on your decision. I'm hoping the app situation gets much better and companies will actually care about the apps they make for WP. Also, a lot of the stuff you want are coming up in the WP 8.1 update... I'm hoping it all works well and flows. We will see how it all goes in the next few months. I have high hopes though!