My trip from iOS (iPhone 6s) to Windows 10 (Lumia 950 XL).

[grazy1982]

Dear, go to insider fast and get the preview release. There will be a few issues, but you will enjoy the new features such as double tap the task bar to turn off screen, new messaging from Win10 PC etc.

double tap to turn screen off has been there since release!

 

[Athanville]

Lets look at this critically, in a given day, how many of all the apps you have on your phone do you use? Fine, i have gripes with W10M, most irritating is apps just not running from the splash screen but before going Lumia i had tried them all, had 4 Symbian devices (2 S40 and 2 S60) then had 5 Blackberries(2 9000, 2 9700 and a 9900) then had an iphone 3G and a 4S, then a 2 Androids before going Lumia, (620, 925, 640XL, 930, 950 and 950XL) well must say in as much as lumias can sometimes be silly, its silliness i can live with. i am waiting for the next updates to see what next.

I'd love to see the return of square contact photos and proper fixing of the messaging sync issue and more social media integration of apps in the people hub, otherwise, i am not underwhelmed, but im definately not the happiest camper here.

 

[O_T16]

So far my transition from the iphone 6s to lumia 950xl has been going well. Several things I miss about iphone is Apple music but I have a bunch of music on my micro sd card.

One issue I can't seem to figure out is when I open the photo app it doesn't read the albums or photos I have stored on my sd card? But, when I open the file explorer app my albums and photos are there and I can even open them and view them?

I don't know if it's a bug or something wrong with the sd card? Idk? Any recommendations?

Sd card I have is the 128gb sandisk

 

[real0395]

So far my transition from the iphone 6s to lumia 950xl has been going well. Several things I miss about iphone is Apple music but I have a bunch of music on my micro sd card.

One issue I can't seem to figure out is when I open the photo app it doesn't read the albums or photos I have stored on my sd card? But, when I open the file explorer app my albums and photos are there and I can even open them and view them?

I don't know if it's a bug or something wrong with the sd card? Idk? Any recommendations?

Sd card I have is the 128gb sandisk

If you open the photo app, go to settings, you should see "Sources" and under there it should show "This Device" and "SD Card (D" or whatever else the SD card might be called. Check to make sure that SD card shows up there first..if it doesn't there could be something wrong with the SD card (or the phone).
The other thing is to make sure you have formatted the SD card when you first put it in the phone as it will create the correct folders (i.e. music, pictures, etc.). I would back up whatever you have on it first and then transfer it back once the card is formatted.
Also, there could be bugs/issues if you are an insider on the test builds (I'm not an insider on my 950xl, so I don't know if there is a known bug specifically related to the photos app).

 

[mdefran65]

I have purchased 2 950 XL, one for me and one for my wife. My experience with both phones have been flawless.
None of things described here have happened to me. This seems very misleading

 

[Ruben Tavares Teixeira]

so it seems the problem is not on windows but on apple

 

[Ruben Tavares Teixeira]

indeed, I have a 950 XL and went insider fast. But if I didn't, as this user reported, it's typical from someone who just moved from apple to another phone... and knows nothing about it. As on any phone, you should check if there are updates coming. It can't be and it's not that bad regarding my experience and others. The problems you refer have months... months. They have been fixed you know?

 

[real0395]

Another thing, I've been seeing a lot of posts/comments about how it's bad not to put in the sim before activating/setting up the phone. I didn't transition from an iphone (upgraded from a lumia 830 to the lumia 950xl 9 (dual sim) via the buy 1 get 1 free deal), but I DID set up the phone without having inserted the SIM. I signed into my microsoft account and did all the OS updates to 10856.218 and inserted my sim afterwards. I then inserted my SD card, formatted it, and went ahead to do all my app installations. I have not had any issues with texts, calls, etc. The other thing is, and I don't know if this was included as a fix with .218, but my visual voicemail works fine too which was a pleasant surprise because I heard of that issue with previous builds and was just going to tolerate it until a fix came.

 

[hasasimo]

Another thing, I've been seeing a lot of posts/comments about how it's bad not to put in the sim before activating/setting up the phone. I didn't transition from an iphone (upgraded from a lumia 830 to the lumia 950xl 9 (dual sim) via the buy 1 get 1 free deal), but I DID set up the phone without having inserted the SIM. I signed into my microsoft account and did all the OS updates to 10856.218 and inserted my sim afterwards. I then inserted my SD card, formatted it, and went ahead to do all my app installations. I have not had any issues with texts, calls, etc. The other thing is, and I don't know if this was included as a fix with .218, but my visual voicemail works fine too which was a pleasant surprise because I heard of that issue with previous builds and was just going to tolerate it until a fix came.

Thanks for this info. I may not have to reset the phones afterall once I get the SIMs. That would be great.

 

[rambo47]

i have to agree with those saying the iOS user experience is smoother and more polished. And Microsoft has had a mobile OS for over 20 years!! This demonstrates the benefits of having "the whole widget" vs. providing software for other people's hardware.

I love the way WM deals with contacts - social feeds integrated into those contacts. It's a smart way of doing the whole social thing. Also, bluetooth integration with a car is superior to anything by Apple and Google.

On the downside, there are some missing apps for me that are critical. Banking is a big fault. And while it's coming "any day now," lack of a Starbucks app is a killer. It's one of those silly unnecessary things that you get used to having, and it makes for a superior end-user experience. I also miss a good calendar app. Microsoft's offerings are not nearly customizable enough or me. WM runs smooth as silk, live tiles are great, but there is too much that's still missing vs. the big two.

 

[regi7]

I had the same messaging problem switching from ios. Even if you turn of imessage it keeps your number. I ended up having to change numbers. Thats apples fault tho.

Since Microsoft is offering the Lumia 950/950 XL with a "Buy 1 Get 1 Free" I decided to take the plunge and give it a try. I got my 950 XL and 950 today and decided to make the XL the primary device and list the 950 on eBay. If it sells then I got an XL for ~$150-20, not too bad. Was going to take a weekend challenge and see if this could become my daily driver.

Turned on the phone, logged into my account(s) and upgraded to the latest version. I then started to install and update the apps.
- 6snap
- Facebook update
- NBC Sports (BPL fan)
- Yelp
- Waze
- Fandango
- The list goes on.

I know that there is a rather large app gap (especially with banking apps and games) but the essentials were there: Hulu, Netflix, Uber and even some of my vacation apps like Delta, Hilton, Marriott. But that's where things started to become a problem. I went to the Store and every time I would try and type an app in search, the keyboard would appear then disappear. This happened over and over and I couldn't search for anything. Then the store crashed.

This started to happen a lot...A LOT, but I got the apps installed and customized my home screen to make it my own.

I can deal with a few crashes and thought nothing of it. I finally popped my SIM card in and then things start to go bad...fast. I restart the phone and send myself a test text, nothing. But then I get the "Test" message. Cool, everything is up and running. Then I get another "Test" text to myself, then another, then another, then another and I get the message that there has been a change in my SIM card and I must restart.

I restart the phone and try sending myself another message of "The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog." Nothing. I message my friend over Hangouts to text me and nothing comes in. Doing what any normal person would do, I went to Google to see if this is a known issue and I see that I should check the SIM card settings. I go into the Settings, then Phone and the Settings app crashes. I try to go back in and Settings crashes. I go back in and finally get to go to the SIM card area and the phone locks up and surprise Settings crashes.

I cannot make calls, I cannot text, and I have no data and I cannot access the Settings app to ensure everything is correctly using SIM 1 as my primary SIM card or that the settings are correct. (And yes, I turned off iMessage and had a friend with Android text me to ensure it wasn't an iMessage/iPhone issue).

I put the SIM card back into my iPhone and got the "Test" texts twice and the "The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog" text as well as the texts from my friend.

I read the reviews that there were so issues with the Lumia 950 XL at launch, but this is unacceptable. This is a consumer device that has been on the market for many months and yet it is still unusable. I will give it another try tomorrow when I'm not nearly as frustrated but I cannot make this my daily driver if it can't even do the most basic of what phones do.

 

[hasasimo]

iOS is not dominant since a long looooooooooooong time. The iPhone was so successful because it was just so ahead of everyone else at the beginning. And when you have an iPhone that works great, why would you change for something else. I can afford an iPhone to my wife every 2 years. So why she would change ? So yes, loyalty is strong.

Not even that is true of the iPhone. The year the first iPhone came out, my Nokia N95 had a 5-megapixel camera (2-and-a-half times better than the iPhone's) was infinitely more customizable (ringtones, themes, etc.), microSD expansion, LED flash, a front-facing camera, integrated GPS, TV output, FM radio, infrared sensor, and was even 3G capable.

So, it was actually eons ahead of the iPhone. In fact, the iPhone has always been playing catch-up. The reason for its success is the obvious... marketing and pop culture saturation. Things that influence the psyche of the common Joe and Jane. In this regard and only this regard, Apple has been ahead of the game, and kudos to them for it.

 

[slickxsparkie]

I'm at a complete loss when people say this. Banking apps, travel apps, mobile payments, social networking...

most, if not all major apps are missing, or are a 3rd party knockoff. Even 1st party apps work better on competing platforms. My girl goes to SPU, just purchased the SE (moving from her 640) and was literally ecstatic when she found her school had an app. BofA, Chase, US Bank...missing, and that's just to name a few. I don't drink coffee, but there isn't even a Starbucks app and MS and Starbucks are literally neighbors. Paypal for instance...haha very different experiences on iOS and Android vs WP. The WP app wont even sign me in, nor will the icon display on the start screen, even though it's "pinned".

the app gap is real, and is more vital at this point in the mobile industry, than actually phoning or emailing. No apps, you have no platform. Ask BB.

Yeah, in Korea and Japan, they had tourist exhibits that allowed users to download their apps to listen to the tour in English, only for iPhone and android. Also, this was the first time I felt the pain of not having google maps. I relied on Maps (Bing) to get around but Microsoft DOESN'T have support in Japan and barely in Korea, 2 technologically advanced countries. It would've been nice to copy the address from Airbnb and paste into Bing maps, but no. I had to use browser for google maps and that was painstaking. The subway system in Japan has an app too that tells you when trains arrive. The picture translating app worked for my friend iPhone, but my windows phone didn't support those languages. The phone was helpful compared to nothing at all, but it wasn't as user friendly as an iPhone in this aspect. Great pictures though! But selfie sticks don't work well with our phones either. Along with my friend's, "why did your phone shut down? Why did the app crash? Your phone takes multiple pictures too slow! Your battery is already dead? Why is your phone so slow?" Much heartbreak for my phone overseas.
** After I typed this, my phone went into a random restart, CRY **

 

[anon(9632633)]

Not even that is true of the iPhone. The year the first iPhone came out, my Nokia N95 had a 5-megapixel camera (2-and-a-half times better than the iPhone's) was infinitely more customizable (ringtones, themes, etc.), microSD expansion, LED flash, a front-facing camera, integrated GPS, TV output, FM radio, infrared sensor, and was even 3G capable.

So, it was actually eons ahead of the iPhone. In fact, the iPhone has always been playing catch-up. The reason for its success is the obvious... marketing and pop culture saturation. Things that influence the psyche of the common Joe and Jane. In this regard and only this regard, Apple has been ahead of the game, and kudos to them for it.

Not entirely true. The iPhone had one very important thing the N95 didn't -- an easy-to-use capacitive touchscreen and a very fun and snappy/smooth user interface. The reason iPhone became such a success has in part to do with marketing and pop culture, but it's very significantly also a result of the UI advancements. No phone makers had smooth animations or visual effects before that. There are a lot of false "innovations" that Apple credits itself with, but showing the entire industry how UX is done is not one of those.

Microsoft's own Windows Phone, though extremely different in terms of superficial elements like the lack of skeuomorphism, title-casing etc., shared some core principles like responsive, fast, and fluid design with iOS. iOS is what had the original Android team dump their project and work on the new UI, and Microsoft dump their Windows Mobile 6 and work on the visually much better Windows Phone 7.

 

[badMojo69]

Run now. I love WP, but they failed hard with W10 on mobile...it sucks and I don't care what anyone says.
Sold my 950XL a couple of months ago to pay for my S7e. I'm thinking about picking up a IP6sP. I had the IP6s, but didn't like it as I was too much into my windows phone and IP was too blah. Now that I'm more mature I think I could live with it...well it's more since I discovered SmartWatches. The only question is the Apple Watch as good as what Android has to offer.

 

[gwinegarden]

Lets look at this critically, in a given day, how many of all the apps you have on your phone do you use? ......

According to Comscore "50% of All App Time is Concentrated Within Our #1 App, and 88% is Within the Top 5"

 

[gwinegarden]

Not even that is true of the iPhone. The year the first iPhone came out, my Nokia N95 had a 5-megapixel camera (2-and-a-half times better than the iPhone's) was infinitely more customizable (ringtones, themes, etc.), microSD expansion, LED flash, a front-facing camera, integrated GPS, TV output, FM radio, infrared sensor, and was even 3G capable.

So, it was actually eons ahead of the iPhone. In fact, the iPhone has always been playing catch-up. The reason for its success is the obvious... marketing and pop culture saturation. Things that influence the psyche of the common Joe and Jane. In this regard and only this regard, Apple has been ahead of the game, and kudos to them for it.

Remember the old "there's an app for that". Well there had to be because iPhone had virtually nothing, natively.

 

[midnightfrolic]

To quote another poster, whose name I can't recall "if Apple products 'just work' why do they even have a Genius Bar and why is it always so busy?"

I don't mean to knock on Apple/Microsoft stuff, but I've always wondered this myself. I see this at several malls. I walk past the Microsoft Store. It looks pretty slow, almost no traffic. I walk past the Apple Store and it's like a mad house. Lots of peeps lining up for the Genius Bar and lots of peeps browsing products.

Not sure if Windows products just work or just dis-interested customers. On the Apple side, not sure if they're just selling like hotcakes and peeps lining up to get their devices going, or their stuff just breaks and needs service very often, or difficult to use. But from market share numbers, OSX % is much lower compared to Windows. IOS obviously the bread and butter of Apple, so possible the customers are replacing/servicing IOS devices.

But anyway you look at it, that's a good point. I have all Windows products myself including a 950XL.

 

[wgs84]

Also, this was the first time I felt the pain of not having google maps. I relied on Maps (Bing) to get around but Microsoft DOESN'T have support in Japan and barely in Korea, 2 technologically advanced countries. It would've been nice to copy the address from Airbnb and paste into Bing maps, but no. I had to use browser for google maps and that was painstaking.

I'm planning for a trip to Japan, and I just recently learned how poorly Microsoft maps work there. For example, take these two addresses for a hotel in Tokyo. Note that they're all for the same hotel.

• 111-0032 Tokyo Prefecture, Taito-ku, Asakusa 6-35-8, Japan
• 6 Chome-35-8 Asakusa, Taito, Tokyo 111-0032, Japan

Google Maps puts the pin on the map exactly where the hotel is, and it doesn't matter which of the addresses you use. Just paste and search and done. HERE maps, which only shows a few major roads for Tokyo, puts the pin in some other location. The new W10m Maps app shows all the streets, but it can't locate either of those addresses and returns "No results found. Try a different spelling or search term."

I know it's not too big of an issue. I mean, it's just one trip to Japan, but it's yet another thing that Windows phone stumbles at. I'm really trying hard to make W10m work for me because I do like the OS, but man, it's tiring to see my phone fail doing things I expect it to do. It's constantly one little issue after another after another. The Cortana crashes, the janky HDR bug, the compass not functioning in the Maps app, Outlook's six-month limitation for Google calendars. I'm sorry, but Windows phone still needs a lot of work. I love the OS, but I am not blind to its shortcomings. Hopefully Microsoft improves it a ton with the upcoming Anniversary update.

 

[hasasimo]

I'm planning for a trip to Japan, and I just recently learned how poorly Microsoft maps work there. For example, take these two addresses for a hotel in Tokyo. Note that they're all for the same hotel.

• 111-0032 Tokyo Prefecture, Taito-ku, Asakusa 6-35-8, Japan
• 6 Chome-35-8 Asakusa, Taito, Tokyo 111-0032, Japan

Google Maps puts the pin on the map exactly where the hotel is, and it doesn't matter which of the addresses you use. Just paste and search and done. HERE maps, which only shows a few major roads for Tokyo, puts the pin in some other location. The new W10m Maps app shows all the streets, but it can't locate either of those addresses and returns "No results found. Try a different spelling or search term."

I know it's not too big of an issue. I mean, it's just one trip to Japan, but it's yet another thing that Windows phone stumbles at. I'm really trying hard to make W10m work for me because I do like the OS, but man, it's tiring to see my phone fail doing things I expect it to do. It's constantly one little issue after another after another. The Cortana crashes, the janky HDR bug, the compass not functioning in the Maps app, Outlook's six-month limitation for Google calendars. I'm sorry, but Windows phone still needs a lot of work. I love the OS, but I am not blind to its shortcomings. Hopefully Microsoft improves it a ton with the upcoming Anniversary update.

I wouldn't say Windows Phone "stumbles" at this considering there are a bunch of other mapping options. You're not restricted to just Windows Maps, just like you wouldn't be restricted to Apple's awful mapping on an iPhone.