List here what you DO NOT like on 8.1.

[inteller]

Yeah when WPCentral has to run articles explaining it, you know they dun screwed up!

It's a "search" thing. NOT a "camera" thing. I use a Lens when I want a filter or something (well, honestly, I never use Lenses because I just use Nokia Camera and want the best pic I can get, but I digress from my regularly scheduled rant). Not only that, but how hard would it be to put the little eye up there next to the music note on Cortana's screen?!?

I would even settle for 'Cortana, look at this' and have it do the same thing as pressing the eyeball. Camera to Lens is STUPID.

 

[jmr60]

In spite of the comments here, I went ahead and put it on my Lumia 1520 (US / AT&T). First impressions: Install went smoothly. Performance is very good, some times it even feels a bit snappier than before, but that's subjective, not measured. Music app does seem a bit slower. Regarding other's comments:

• Battery life seems OK so far, but it's only been about 6 hours.
• People hubs still show twitter and facebook content, and I like the organization. I never posted directly from there, so if that ability is gone I didn't notice because I wasn't using it before.
• XBOX Music: Well, first let me say that I agree with everyone that it basically sucks, especially compared with a real Zune and the WP7 Zune app. But a couple of things are better than the previous version. I no longer see duplicate songs from cloud streamed and local copies, now I see two distinct albums from those. That means I can play the album without listening to repeats. A much needed fix. Of course they broke some album art in the process! I wish they'd get some real software engineers working on this...and make them use the Zune ecosystem first.
• XBOX Music loading: I let it sit and finish loading all content the first time. Now it launches without repeating that process. It's a bit slow before it shows artists/albums, but that means seconds or 10 seconds, not a full reload. Live tile is broken/gone for me too.
• Still tinkering with notification settings, but so far I like it.
• I really like the way the photo hub now groups by dates.
• I haven't done much with Cortana so far. Seems useful, I get about the same accuracy as the 'build' keynote demo.

I'm definitely happy with it so far.

 

[psiu_glen]

Because it sucks. The music player in WP8 was the last remaining bit of the old Zune, and now it's gone. It's as if MS has worked hard to make Xbox Music suck just as much on the phone as it does on the desktop.

They even took away the little hearts, just so they could break ours.

(and wireless effin sync, I mean wtf)

(BenthePCGuy could be smoking WP8.1 with WP8.0 at this point for some of this stuff)

(or hell with with WP7.5)

 

[Jack Janik]

On the whole, the update is quite good. One MAJOR qualm (other than a worsened facebook integration) is the music app.

You know, I could get over the fact that it sometimes takes twenty years to load. I could get over the fact that to a boil. Honestly, THIS WAS SUPPOSED TO BE A BASIC MEDIA PLAYER. How Microsoft managed to screw up such a simple (yet central aspect in my WP experience) is nothing short of astounding. I sincerely hope they get their act together and make use of the 'separate apps for more timely updates' like, now, because I can't find certain music due to completely wrong, automatic labeling.

Is Microsoft even aware of this?? Do they care?? Almost everyone pointed out that Xbox music was a waste of app space in its implementation yet they pushed it through.

Yes. Music is a central part of my phone, and this update makes listening to music more unpleasant than it ever has been! I dunno why they greenlit it like this..

 

[psiu_glen]

Hmm maybe it is then, which phone do you have?

L520 here with only 5 minutes

L710 had the 30 minutes

My AT&T Lumia 520 here has 15/30/Never available.

 

[Moe_yousef]

I am having the same problem with lumia 820, drain man draaaain.

 

[Stephen Pedersen]

Yes. Music is a central part of my phone, and this update makes listening to music more unpleasant than it ever has been! I dunno why they greenlit it like this..

It's been said that it will make it easier to update. However, they never updated the wp8 version. My classic iPod that's a century old can kick this app's ****. Whoop di doo, I can make a playlist on Xbox Music app. I better be able to, since Im paying good money. iPhone definitely wins this round (the music round)

 

[Brian Callen]

I am having the same problem, I have the Lumia icon, you?

 

[Kram Sacul]

The wrong notification sound/chime is played when you plug in/lay down your phone to charge. Not sure if it's a bug or a dumb change.

System tray icons don't auto-hide while on the Start screen. The icons are also now transparent most of the time which makes them harder to read against certain backgrounds.

You can no longer pinch out on a picture in the gallery and quickly scroll through your pictures like a carousel.

Photo hub is a visual downgrade.

Some of the animations seem wonky and not as smooth/elegant as in 8.0. Quicker isn't always better.

Games in the app list... Seriously?

Action Center shade sometimes gets stuck and you're unable to pull it up.

 

[Jazmac]

I must be able to chose my news source. I will determine what headlines are news and not the crap showing up there now.

 

[Iki Taba]

Is it me only or did anyone else noticed that the avatar in the Xbox games app has a lower resolution than on wp8.

 

[tehPeng]

don't have the time to read through every page and reply, but from what i did read, you guys and i all share pretty much the same complaints.

i have two main problems though.
1. the de- integration of Facebook.
I use the message hub to facebook IM all of my contacts, besides my facebook group chats, which for some reason don't work (yet group sms works, but no thanks)
earlier today i was on a time constraint and desperately needed to contact someone. i don't have that persons phone number, but i do message them on facebook all the time.
I open the message hub, go to their name, and to my surprise, " Read-Only Message" appeared above my text box. i couldnt reply right from there. mind you, this is someone i contacted through the message hub just a few days ago using facebook chat. this left me standing confused for a good 2 minutes, before i had to open the facebook app, which takes FOREVER to load up, switch to the message tab wait for THAT to refresh for some reason, then start up my message. by then i didnt even need to talk to said person any more. in that time i couldd have messaged this person how i normally do, and would have gotten my reply back. that was horrible.

on top of that, everyone whose numbers i DO have, i talk to through facebook chat anyway, because most of the time they are on their computers, while im on my phone. i have no interest in my news feed most times, just messaging. my closest friends, i cant facebook message them through the message hub anymore. i have their numbers, but windows phone 8.1 sends an sms in reply, not an IM. huge deal breaker for me. but hey, im stuck with it now, right? Sure, i can use Facebook's Messenger app but the point of integration, is so i dont have to. that app had issues i wasnt too happy with, that i uninstalled it. now i HAVE to use it, because the main app is just so dang slow.

2. Xbox Music
someone pointed out that the tile is no longer live, which i didnt notice, but not it hurts that i know. i put so much work into organizing my music files just to see the band on the live tile, and thats gone. besides that, when im listening to music, i can no longer swipe to skip the song. that is the most aggrivating thing ever. and the currently playing track isnt in its own tab anymore, but rather its on page on the main music screen. which, actually in retrospect, is great. but when im walking, phone in hand, with the screen and music app purposely on and open, i like to skip songs by swiping my fingers, without having to watch my screen and be distracted. now i have to press the tiny skip button. I'll get over that. but i still wont get over how they managed to turn a pretty mediocre music app into a worse one. the only thing stopping my from using 3rd party is because somehow those are even worse.

and please Microsoft, PLEASE, for the love of everything good and sacred in this world, give us Gapless Playback. I havent had an iPod since '10, but from then on, i had other devices with gapless playback, and ever since switching to my lumia, its the only thing i miss. i listen to TOO much music that needs it.

 

[tehPeng]

oh, and the photo hub is trash now.

 

[noknok79]

direct integration of Facebook, photo hub was better w/o update...

VPN is not complete and not compatible/apps available as of now. L2TP and OpenVPN are necessary!

 

[isi mcf]

I must be able to chose my news source. I will determine what headlines are news and not the crap showing up there now.

This is a nice catch! I really want to be in control of where I want to read my news from.

 

[Dadstar0410]

I noticed that attaching photos to SMS is a little different. I believe in WP8, clicking on the camera button after pressing the attach button will allow you to use any lense you want through the camera app. Now when I do the same process, the lenses are inaccessible, and I am unable to directly attach a lenses photo unless I go into the lense separate of the messaging app.

 

[madthoughts]

Looks like they removed the One Drive share option under photos. Now I have to go to one drive and upload photos from there only?

​Yeah, this change really bummed me out.

 

[Adretheon]

I must be able to chose my news source. I will determine what headlines are news and not the crap showing up there now.

I assume this will be more available later on down the road since you can do this with Bing news on the PC. I guess to an extent cause you kinda have to have the handful of sponsors.

 

[Jazmac]

I assume this will be more available later on down the road since you can do this with Bing news on the PC. I guess to an extent cause you kinda have to have the handful of sponsors.

I am assuming the same. This is early and there is much to do with this before its released to the public which is probably why "Cortana" lives on my battery like a family of termites. The amount of debug code installed with this facility has to be huge.

 

[DaT Franchise]

Yea the new gallery is horrible