(Official) What WP needs to succeed

CellularMan

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Re: What WP8 Is Still Missing

I write this coming from a Lumia 710, and an LG Quantum before that, and several WM 6.x devices before that.

Only minor issue that I have discovered so far with the HTC 8X is that the maps app is not very smooth when compared to the maps app on WP 7.5. i.e. swiping around the map seems laggy, where as it is much more fluid on the older phones.
 

theeboredone

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Re: (Official) Why I don't like WP8 Part 2 (What WP needs to succeed)

One thing I liked in Android was that you could see in your settings what was using up your battery. Given how buggy and paranoid some users tend to be about what's causing their battery to drain (including me), seeing it in the settings would help.
 

WanderingTraveler

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Changes I'd Like To See in the Windows Phone UI

Well, I like the WP8 UI, so I may as well add my input.

So, here's a list of changes:

-Change the number of "screens". Well, there are only two of them, the Start Screen and the App List. I'd like to have five of them: In order from left to right- Lock Screen, Notifications Center, Start Screen, App List, Multitasking Screen
-For the so-called Lock Screen, I'd like to see the actual Lock Screen, and to lock the phone, you swipe up or down. This would technically be a novelty, but I'd like to stare at the Lock Screen, and see it in all its glory.
-For the Notifications Center, I'd like it to be a simple left swipe from the Start Screen. And, I'd like it to log changes in Live Tiles. So, for notifications to work, Devs MUST enable Live Tiles for their apps.
-Start Screen: Let it stay as it is. If people don't like Live Tiles, let them be. Or, better yet, make then unpin everything :)
-App List: Let it stay as it is as well. Though, I'd like a slightly smaller font and icons.
-Multitasking Screen: Um, I'd like it, Live Tiles Style. Of course, you could just recycle the current interface for multitasking, but with scrolling up or down. Or, better yet, an actual Task Manager. Either way, you should be able to close apps from there.

Anyway, here are my inputs.
Take note that I only played around for around an hour with demo units at a phone exhibit center. So, you might be able to call that "experience".

What do you think?
BTW, first thread started.
 

peachy001

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Re: Changes I'd Like To See in the Windows Phone UI

The multi tasing screen that you arrive at via the long press of the back button needs the ability to close apps from there (in the same way that you can looked at open internet tabs and hit the X in the top right to close)

I want to see them do more with the volume button. It may sound odd, but it already calls up volume information. I want it to do more. I want the volume, obviously, but also want more toggles. Currently it just gives you the option to go either up or down the volume and also go on or off silent. Real wasted opportunity in my eyes. I want to see:

Volume - (Media/ringtone/notification)
List of apps running

- on/off toggles for all of the following
Silent
VibrateWifi
mobile internet
Bluetooth
GPS
Battery level

The volume buttons even work on the lockscreen, so is pretty useful in terms of quickly altering the sound profile withou having to trawl through numerous menus. Also using the volume buttons mean that you avoid some of the issues when on webpages/other areas. It would avoid conflicts with items on a webpage etc.

I even think that you could have it bring up a shaded area at the bottom, with other options on. Much like the "charms" listed in another thread on here.
 

peachy001

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Re: Changes I'd Like To See in the Windows Phone UI

Cheers, I will do that once I get home. Got so many other things to post too.
 

eruptflail

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Re: (Official) Why I don't like WP8 Part 2 (What WP needs to succeed)

After having my WP8 device for about a month I'll start by saying that I love it. However, there are a few things that I find a bit... annoying?

The biggest issue for me, and something that WP needs to address is their music player. For... the.... love... of... God..... Fix it. I came to my WP8 from an iTouch, and I really liked my iTouch. It was the best music player I've ever had (still is) and I enjoyed the layout of the music player a lot. It was simple, easy, and fast. WP8 does not take any clues from this. Instead the music player is cumbersome and obnoxious. Here's why:

1. When I click music it doesn't go right into my music, or my last song played. It brings me to this screen "Music+" which gives me a list of things I can do in the app. That's all well and dandy, but I don't care much for the extra click to get to my music. I think music and video should be separated and when I click the music link it should bring me to the last "section," i.e. songs, albums, playlists, genres and let me pick up from there, if not the last song I listened to.

2. syncing music is a hassle. I decided to use WMP (windows media player) and didn't have too much of an issue there. However, it should work like itunes. I should be able to click on my device within WMP, see the media on my device and edit such media. I like dragging and dropping selected songs. Also WMP needs better ways to list music, like listing the songs alphabetically. However, this is mostly a WMP rant, but I'm going to assume WMP is the iTunes of Windows Phone, and if not, I need to know what is, and Microsoft should make that clear. For the record, I hated iTunes, but geeze, I hate WMP more.

3. Playlists. Who at microsoft forgot the most integral feature of a music player: Playlists. Making one on the phone is more painful that giving your 90 year old grandmother a spongebath while she complains about her various medical conditions, and your grandfather whom you love dearly. The only way to make one on the phone is to add all the songs you want to "now playing" and then select "save as playlist" however, you can't remove songs on a playlist from the phone, you have to delete the whole playlist. You also have to remember what songs are already in your "now playing list" lest you make a repeat. There is also no way to order the songs easily, unless you write them down, and then find each song in that order. You can also add playlists from WMP or iTunes, but that means you have to be at a computer, so no playlists while you're on a plane or train, unless you want to spend a solid 30 minutes making a playlist only to find out that you forgot that one song, so you have to add your new playlist to the "now playing" and then add that one song to "now playing" and then save it as ANOTHER playlist, or you accidentally added the whole album to your playlist, in which case you have to start all over.

4. Switching from Songs to Playlists takes too long, swipe swipe, and they added a, in my opinon, pointless "genre" option for music. I don't know many people, if any, who listen to their music by genre or use the genre menu to find music.

5. When I'm playing music, I'd like to see my album art on my lockscreen, but that is the least important thing in the world.

An orientation lock is also something that needs to find it's way to WP8. I find it horribly annoying to pick up my phone, when it rings, while I'm laying down to have the screen play games with me. Round and round it goes, when it will stop, nobody knows!

I'd like to see different volume controls as well. I have to currently go into settings to throw my phone on silent. If I put in my headphones it should change volume settings, like in IOS.

Night-time mode: If I don't want woken up there should be an option for this.

Internet explorer also needs a "forward" button. Sure you can save it in your favourites as javascript, but why is it so hard to just stick it in. It's in the actual BROWSER for goodness sake.


Finally, better microsoft apps:

The microsoft youtube app is terrible, but I realize that this may be attributed to google itself, however that makes no excuses on the Facebook app, which lacks many basic features, and the native twitter app, which I can't even understand.

Support different NFC tags. Android tags don't work for WP8. NFC was supposed to be a standard, but microsoft has muddled it. Read all types or no types. Also allow NFC to interact with core settings, like tapping an NFC tag should be able to turn wifi on and off, not take me to the wifi menu.


The Good:

Everything else.


But all these things seem to be software issues, so hopefully they'll be fixed.
 

peachy001

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Re: (Official) Why I don't like WP8 Part 2 (What WP needs to succeed)

This is the one I postedon the other thread... sorry for the purple, my son insistedI alterthe theme.

3rd go.PNG
 

AlexRodriguezNY

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After having my WP8 device for about a month I'll start by saying that I love it. However, there are a few things that I find a bit... annoying?

The biggest issue for me, and something that WP needs to address is their music player. For... the.... love... of... God..... Fix it. I came to my WP8 from an iTouch, and I really liked my iTouch. It was the best music player I've ever had (still is) and I enjoyed the layout of the music player a lot. It was simple, easy, and fast. WP8 does not take any clues from this. Instead the music player is cumbersome and obnoxious. Here's why:

1. When I click music it doesn't go right into my music, or my last song played. It brings me to this screen "Music+" which gives me a list of things I can do in the app. That's all well and dandy, but I don't care much for the extra click to get to my music. I think music and video should be separated and when I click the music link it should bring me to the last "section," i.e. songs, albums, playlists, genres and let me pick up from there, if not the last song I listened to.

2. syncing music is a hassle. I decided to use WMP (windows media player) and didn't have too much of an issue there. However, it should work like itunes. I should be able to click on my device within WMP, see the media on my device and edit such media. I like dragging and dropping selected songs. Also WMP needs better ways to list music, like listing the songs alphabetically. However, this is mostly a WMP rant, but I'm going to assume WMP is the iTunes of Windows Phone, and if not, I need to know what is, and Microsoft should make that clear. For the record, I hated iTunes, but geeze, I hate WMP more.

3. Playlists. Who at microsoft forgot the most integral feature of a music player: Playlists. Making one on the phone is more painful that giving your 90 year old grandmother a spongebath while she complains about her various medical conditions, and your grandfather whom you love dearly. The only way to make one on the phone is to add all the songs you want to "now playing" and then select "save as playlist" however, you can't remove songs on a playlist from the phone, you have to delete the whole playlist. You also have to remember what songs are already in your "now playing list" lest you make a repeat. There is also no way to order the songs easily, unless you write them down, and then find each song in that order. You can also add playlists from WMP or iTunes, but that means you have to be at a computer, so 30 minutes making a playlist only to find out that you forgot that one song, so you have to add your new playlist to the "now playing" and then add that one song to "now playing" and then save it as ANOTHER playlist, or you accidentally added the whole album to your playlist, in which case you have to start all over.

4. Switching from Songs to Playlists takes too long, swipe swipe, and they added a, in my opinon, pointless "genre" option for music. I don't know many people, if any, who listen to their music by genre or use the genre menu to find music.

5. When I'm playing music, I'd like to see my album art on my lockscreen, but that is the least important thing in the world.

An orientation lock is also something that needs to find it's way to WP8. I find it horribly annoying to pick up my phone, when it rings, while I'm laying down to have the screen play games with me. Round and round it goes, when it will stop, nobody knows!

I'd like to see different volume controls as well. I have to currently go into settings to throw my phone on silent. If I put in my headphones it should change volume settings, like in IOS.

Night-time mode: If I don't want woken up there should be an option for this.

Internet explorer also needs a "forward" button. Sure you can save it in your favourites as javascript, but why is it so hard to just stick it in. It's in the actual BROWSER for goodness sake.


Finally, better microsoft apps:

The microsoft youtube app is terrible, but I realize that this may be attributed to google itself, however that makes no excuses on the Facebook app, which lacks many basic features, and the native twitter app, which I can't even understand.

Support different NFC tags. Android tags don't work for WP8. NFC was supposed to be a standard, but microsoft has muddled it. Read all types or no types. Also allow NFC to interact with core settings, like tapping an NFC tag should be able to turn wifi on and off, not take me to the wifi menu.


The Good:

Everything else.


But all these things seem to be software issues, so hopefully they'll be fixed.

To add covers to your music artists and backgrounds too. If there is an image that is not in the data base you can download it an attach it manually
http://www.windowsphone.com/en-us/store/app/mpatool/a6056e5e-34bd-4098-9cd8-4ed5df611d97
 
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pmhgeneral

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Could not have said any better!!!!
You ever feel like a cemetery superintendent? You have a lot of people under you, but no one listens.....
 

firedancer1189

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Keyboard Input just not that great

Is anyone else just not real happy with the keyboard input on WP8?

I am a long time Windows Mobile user. I switched from the original Focus over to the 920 when it became available to me. I thought if anything, that the keyboard and predictive text would go from good to better between WP7 to WP8.

To me it almost seems worse. The predictive text is flat out awful and rarely comes up with the word I am typing. It also seems like no matter how careful I am while typing that whenever I am going for the space bar I always hit the "n" button.

I have an iPhone 5 for my work line and while I really prefer my 920 for just about every other aspect, the i5's keyboard and predictive text is so much better it's not even funny.

Anyone else feel the same way?
 

Dano 32

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Things I'd like to be able to do with WP8 that I can't.

1. Customize SMS and Email alert notification sounds.
2. I would like to be able to edit emails before I forward them. Not all previous information in some email is pertinent to the people I forward to... ie. bad jokes, people's contact info.
3. Flash. I know, Flash is on it's way out, it's buggy, yada yada yada. I'm a huge motoGP race fan, and I cannot watch racing on motoGP.com from my phone. I could on my iPhone and Android phone.
4. And this is a big one. I want a Quit option in my apps. Using the back button does NOT exit all apps. I use Tunein radio every morning to get my BBC fix on my drive to work and despite "backing out of the app" it does not quit. Even though it does not show up when you hold the back button. This happens with metro radio too. If I get back in my truck, once bluetooth connects, those apps will start right up again.
5.I have not been able to see the mobile version of Craigslist. I'm a craigslist junkie, and haven't found a great app that compares to the mobile site. I know this is probably a craigslist thing... just something I'd like to see.

Aside from those things, I am very happy with my Lumia 920, and the WP8 experience as a whole.

Anything you'd like to see? Please chime in.
 

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