Live Tiles Really Need to be Rethought

[ShaneRay]

Love my Surface 2 and everything it does, but the current implementation of Live Tiles is really starting to annoy me (same would go for WP8 as well, I guess).

The two big ones for me are:

(1) Frequency of updates. They just don't update properly. Some do, some don't. What's the point of a Live Tile If I need to open up the app to update it?

(2) This is probably the biggest annoyance for me: They need to be "actionable". That is, if I see a news headline from Bing News, Flipboard, NextGen, or whatever, that I'm interested in I should be able to click on the headline and just read. Instead, I need to open up the app and go on a hunt for the article. Sometimes I find it, sometimes I don't.

As it stands now, I'm find Live Tiles to be much more form than function.

Excuse the rant as I'm sure it's been beaten to death already, but I just spent 10 minutes searching for an article because of (2)....sigh........

 

[greedypnguin]

Recent implementation? Correct me if I'm wrong, haven't surface devices always ran Windows 8 therefore always had live tiles

 

[smoledman]

I agree about actionability. Imagine having music playback controls on a Music app tile, sort of like an Android widget? Wouldn't that be cool?

 

[WillysJeepMan]

Love my Surface 2 and everything it does, but the current implementation of Live Tiles is really starting to annoy me (same would go for WP8 as well, I guess).

The two big ones for me are:

(1) Frequency of updates. They just don't update properly. Some do, some don't. What's the point of a Live Tile If I need to open up the app to update it?

(2) This is probably the biggest annoyance for me: They need to be "actionable". That is, if I see a news headline from Bing News, Flipboard, NextGen, or whatever, that I'm interested in I should be able to click on the headline and just read. Instead, I need to open up the app and go on a hunt for the article. Sometimes I find it, sometimes I don't.

As it stands now, I'm find Live Tiles to be much more form than function.

Excuse the rant as I'm sure it's been beaten to death already, but I just spent 10 minutes searching for an article because of (2)....sigh........

Excellent points.
Re: #1, the frequency of updates should be a general settings with an option to override on a per-tile basis. eg. News live tile can be updated once an hour, weather every 15 minutes.

I find that the limited usefulness of live tiles as they currently are not to be worth the hit to battery life.

 

[Jake52]

(2) This is probably the biggest annoyance for me: They need to be "actionable".

I absolutely agree with this point. I really like seeing headlines on the Live Tile of the Flipboard app but it's super annoying trying to search around to find it. I wonder how they could fix this, because how would the app know if you just want to open it or jump to a specific "thing" that the Live Tile showed you?

 

[unstoppablekem]

i agree about actionability. Imagine having music playback controls on a music app tile, sort of like an android widget? Wouldn't that be cool?

Uservoice it someone!

 

[Laura Knotek]

I absolutely agree with this point. I really like seeing headlines on the Live Tile of the Flipboard app but it's super annoying trying to search around to find it. I wonder how they could fix this, because how would the app know if you just want to open it or jump to a specific "thing" that the Live Tile showed you?

I agree. I'm running Windows 8.1, and I'll frequently see a headline on one of the Live Tiles, but then I can't find the article to read it.

 

[cbreze]

Wow, when I saw this thread I was hoping someone would say its because your doing it wrong. I'll see an article on a news tile flash by and its gone, hey I wanted to read that, come back. Be nice to be able to click on it instead of clicking then searching. Agreed.

 

[Indistinguishable]

Wow, when I saw this thread I was hoping someone would say its because your doing it wrong. I'll see an article on a news tile flash by and its gone, hey I wanted to read that, come back. Be nice to be able to click on it instead of clicking then searching. Agreed.

I was so ready to enjoy a fight. Instead I got reason.

I even had this ready to go:

 

[unstoppablekem]

i was so ready to enjoy a fight. Instead i got reason.

I even had this ready to go: View attachment 52164

lol!

 

[gedzum]

Yeah I agree as well. Flipboard is probably the worst for this in my experience.

 

[5150 Joker]

Agreed on all points.

Sent from my RM-937_apac_hong_kong_222 using Tapatalk

 

[JaiMento]

Yeah I agree as well. Flipboard is probably the worst for this in my experience.

Oh My God!!! I hate hunting down articles in Flipboard that I saw mentioned on the live tile.

 

[gedzum]

Oh My God!!! I hate hunting down articles in Flipboard that I saw mentioned on the live tile.

Yup a lot of the time I can't find them and end up rage quitting