Live Tiles aren't what you think it is.

[Nabkawe5]

This article is meant to explain the Live Tiles concept to new WP8 comers or people outside of the platform who think you can get Live Tiles via a launcher !

Live Tiles are not widgets; they don't serve the same purpose, nor are they the same.
Live Tiles are not meant for interactions with apps, they're instead highly sophisticated links that provide custom made data at a glance (visual/text/numerical).
Some People would argue that Widgets do that too with the added benefit of interacting with them, however Live Tiles have many advantages that Widgets just can't match at its current form.

For starters Live Tiles do not break the UI in any way unless the developer wants to do so and even then the breakage will be minimal; they adopt to our color of choice and fit well within our homescreen.

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Widgets however break the UI constantly not helped by the gazillions of custom firmware, themes, launchers and developers who want their branding to bleed your eyes (looking at you Twitter widget).

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Widgets also aren't defined by shapes or sizes all of which creates a cluttered feeling in any homescreen, some people will luck out with widgets that match their UI, but those will mostly be superficial ones (clocks or toggles mostly).

Live Tiles bring to life old ideas! (no pun intended)
Remember when you used to modify Half Life's shortcut to get to Counter Strike directly instead of loading it in Half Life? Legacy Windows apps always had some sort of options you can activate by using preset commands (Generals.exe -quickstart = no long story lines you can't skip)

Live Tiles are meant to replicate this effect but in an easy and strict manner, not only can they take you to specific sections in their respective apps buy they can also load a small part of the apps in question, the part that is relevant to you! (faster launch times of the apps and less RAM usage, more time spent on context rather than UI navigation)

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Widgets ARE apps, they interact with their apps but they're separate entities, you can see that in any task manager, they take RAM and separate processing consumption and depending on the developer sometimes lots of both.

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Live Tiles are fool proof for developers, you won't see a buggy Live Tile in WP8, bare in mind It may not function properly or at all but it would not create a problem on your home screen or hog memory/CPU it won't even drain bandwidth, in fact the whole Modern UI/ Metro approach makes making Live Tiles/ or apps a breeze for any developer that gives it some time, the same can't be said about widgets which are hard to program and even harder to design, which explains the sea of ugly widgets and even apps that inhabits the Android Play Store.

Live Tiles are your own notification center that is infinitely more customizable than any other platform, but comes at the price of scheduled update instead of the instantly updated notification.
You can get the latest Instagram pics from your favorite Instagrammer or get the latest tweets on a hot subject you're following, you can follow your Xbox games, you wordaments highscore or your AlphaJax current score and next move.

Live Tiles are not perfect they're still a work in progress but you can bet they're here to stay and I wouldn't trade them off for any visual effect or gimmicky looking widgets.

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Share your thoughts down in the comments and be sure to hit me up on Twitter too @nabkawe5
Thanks for reading.

 

[sahib lopez]

whoa things like this reminds me why I hated android ......way to cluttered and confusing

 

[Wilguens Joachin]

And that is why i will be switching to windows phone 8 next week, with the L1520

 

[svenhassel]

Good points in general, but I still hate the uniform color approach. I should choose the color of the tile I prefer for each case.

 

[Nabkawe5]

Another great thing about live tiles developers can let you choose the color of the live tile sevenhassel

 

[N_LaRUE]

Good points in general, but I still hate the uniform color approach. I should choose the color of the tile I prefer for each case.

It's funny. I hear people wanting this and I hear people wanting to have a uniformed colour scheme across all their Windows devices. Personal preference.

Some people embrace the Metro idea more than others.

 

[N_LaRUE]

Thanks for the post. I think there is a huge lack of comprehension of how WP works. This is but one part. There are other things that need clarifying as well.

 

[Nishant Parmar]

Misleading article. In most of the cases live tiles does nothing but serve as shortcut. small tiles are not live and it is difficult to arrange if all tiles are big. and uniform color makes it non customizable.

 

[N_LaRUE]

Misleading article. In most of the cases live tiles does nothing but serve as shortcut. small tiles are not live and it is difficult to arrange if all tiles are big. and uniform color makes it non customizable.

This is your personal opinion. Not everyone feels the way you do. Also Live Tiles are more than simply shortcuts. If tiles are small do you really expect them to have active tiles? As for arranging, maybe put the tiles you use the most on the Start screen and keep the rest in the app selection? That's what customizing means. You don't need everything on the Start screen. It's not necessary.

I sometimes wonder what people do with their phones and their Start screens. There seems to be lots of complaints about little things.

 

[manicottiK]

Misleading article. In most of the cases live tiles does nothing but serve as shortcut. small tiles are not live and it is difficult to arrange if all tiles are big. and uniform color makes it non customizable.

There's a difference between a tile and a live tile. One is static and the other is "live" in that it can be dynamically updated at any time by a server push or periodically by a client task. In addition to the ability to have "live" tiles, the tile metaphor has an advantage over iOS and Android app launchers in that tiles (both static and live) can point to any point within the app, if the developer enabled it. (Virtually every page of our app is pinnable, giving users quick access to functions without going through the nav of the app.)

Small tiles absolutely can be live. If you take a look at the last preview picture for our app (http://www.windowsphone.com/en-us/store/app/drexelone-preview/10d30986-7b57-435d-b49e-77c4766109b0) you'll see that the "All courses" tile is small and is showing a count of 2 to show the student that two of his or her courses have updated content in Blackboard Learn. Small tiles can't show the app name, can't show several lines of text, and can't flip, but they can be updated and thus are "live."

And while WP does not offer a UI for changing the background color of tiles, nothing prevents an app developer from providing such a feature.

 

[abel920]

My only gripe with the tiles is that, even though they serve great purposes, they look dull and look monotonic most of the time, which makes my Windows Phone experience rather boring and unexciting. They could at least give me the option to add more personality to my tiles.

 

[JerseySal]

Misleading article. In most of the cases live tiles does nothing but serve as shortcut. small tiles are not live and it is difficult to arrange if all tiles are big. and uniform color makes it non customizable.

FALSE. try again.

 

[dkediger]

Misleading article. In most of the cases live tiles does nothing but serve as shortcut. small tiles are not live and it is difficult to arrange if all tiles are big. and uniform color makes it non customizable.

You should spend some time perusing this thread. (Post your Home Screen and Color Theme)

 

[Nabkawe5]

Misleading article. In most of the cases live tiles does nothing but serve as shortcut. small tiles are not live and it is difficult to arrange if all tiles are big. and uniform color makes it non customizable.

I think you're confusing what customization is, Windows Phone does not care about graphic customization beyond a certain point, Android learned this the hard way and went flat, iOS went completely flat (and colorful) too.

Its about customizing DATA from the app you like, this article didn't claim that every app utilize the full potentials of Live Tiles, it explains said potential and almost every main stream app on the WP store has an amazing set of live tiles.

 

[ntice_521]

I don't like the size choices. I use the 'normal' size because I like to have text, but only 6 tiles fit on the start screen without scrolling (800x480 4" screen).

 

[vakama94]

What is the widget you used to show the tasks that were consuming RAM?

Enviado desde mi GT-I9100 mediante Tapatalk

 

[Nabkawe5]

I don't like the size choices. I use the 'normal' size because I like to have text, but only 6 tiles fit on the start screen without scrolling (800x480 4" screen).

Scrolling in the Lumia 92X series doesn't seem as horrendous as low end phones (or even the LG G2 great screen but a very blurry scrolling experience !!!),
PureMotion HD really shines when you try low FPS phones, blur everywhere and scrolling becomes a chore.
However I don't see a better competitor in terms of utilizing space or even UI ease of use.

 

[cckgz4]

I love that my tiles gives me updates on my groups of contacts I make without having to open them, even if they aren't "up to date". Whenever I open up any social media app, I find it damn near impossible to catch up on everyone's day, so my selected few that I put in groups make it that much easier to filter from those that I don't particularly care to be constantly updated about. I have my family members, my co-workers, and my close friends. Some might not like it because it doesn't give you an up to the second notification, but I think it gets the job done. Moreso than anything, I think Live Tiles does the job of a widget without having to sacrifice battery life

 

[svenhassel]

Another great thing about live tiles developers can let you choose the color of the live tile sevenhassel

Yes, but that is not the case for the standard Microsoft WP apps (mail, calendar, phone, messages) and many developers dont allow you to choose. Who understands that? It's so easy to solve!

 

[Optimus82]

I dont know why these things are called live tiles. nothing "live" about these tiles except the stock phone, sms, and email tiles.

battery live tile? useless.

I usually have my weather refreshed every 15 min on my android smartphone.. some other widgets are less than that during the day. on my note i have a dialer, calculator, calendar, sms, google keep, music player, notes.. all widgets, all interactive. most of the time I dont even need to go into separate apps.

i really wish devs had more control and flexibility. and please dont tell me about how shorter refresh times for live tiles will kill my battery. of course it will. so will using your phone. i also have an optimus l9. 2150 mah battery. i average 3 1/2-4 hours of screen-on time. Im pretty sure wp8 can manage with its limited multitasking.