(Official) What WP needs to succeed

[aubreyq]

Is this Xbox Music on a PC or what?

 

[shinygerbil]

WP8 does not have gapless playback.

Biggest disappointment of the OS so far.

 

[lippidp]

You guys are digging deep now, which is good. WP7.5 was lacking so many basic features it wasn't funny. Anyway, you can still go to uservoice and log the missing features there.

My #1 missing feature: KEYBOARD!

I will not tolerate a soft keyboard. Yes, I've used it and the one on the iPhone and yes I still hate them. Swype is even lamer.

 

[Hannes Wurst]

EDIT: One all! I wasn't fooled with the Dragonforce album! It seems to be crossfade-gapless playback... not the same Xbox Music...

I am confused. Are you saying that crossfade-gapless playack is available for locally stored music only, while xbox music pass titles play gaplessly? On my windows 8 machine, there is sometimes a rather small gap when playing music from the cloud, no gap when playing music from the harddrive. What is "crossfade-gapless"? If I cannot listen to my albums without the stupid gap, then I will buy a galaxy sIII right away.

 

[Hannes Wurst]

WP8 does not have gapless playback.

Biggest disappointment of the OS so far.

More confusion... did you actually try it and there was a gap when playing locally stored music? How long is that gap ... on my HTC Mozart it is 2-3 seconds which sucks big time.

 

[Daniel Ratcliffe]

I am confused. Are you saying that crossfade-gapless playack is available for locally stored music only, while xbox music pass titles play gaplessly? On my windows 8 machine, there is sometimes a rather small gap when playing music from the cloud, no gap when playing music from the harddrive. What is "crossfade-gapless"? If I cannot listen to my albums without the stupid gap, then I will buy a galaxy sIII right away.

My Dragonforce and Girls Aloud albums are ripped cd copies from the genuine copies I own, however I might have misinterpreted the Dragonforce album. I will listen again to both songs on my HTC wp to check I'm not missing anything.

Also, regarding crossfade gapless, I'm not entirely sure. I think it was because the album seemed to fade into the next track.

 

[runam0k]

Some really basic fixes needed IMO (if I am wrong and these things are in WP8, let me know!):

- the ability to copy text from a text message! I know, I can forward it to edit and then copy, but why not just enable straight copy from a message?

- undo email delete

- different volume for ringer vs apps! Nothing worse than listening to a low volume podcast or track and BOOM, a deafening text message alert.

- think this was mentioned earlier, but a simple way to go to silent (no vibrate) using the volume keys! Why is it all or nothing with ring and vibrate? It only takes one extra step down to silent.

- last, but not least, native podcast support outside the US! WTF are they thinking leaving this out and breaking the only workaround. There's no excuse.

 

[aessing]

Hi,

I can confirm that there is no gapless playback.
Tried it yesterday on my new Lumia 920 with a gapless live Album.

Greetings,
Andre

 

[petteriusa]

Hi,

I can confirm that there is no gapless playback.
Tried it yesterday on my new Lumia 920 with a gapless live Album.

Greetings,
Andre

Thanks for confirming this for everyone! This certainly is a disappointing discovery. It's the small details like this that I'm afraid push people away from a platform. Hopefully this is something that will be addressed in an update sooner rather than later.

 

[Daniel Ratcliffe]

Call Control
As far a call blocking goes on Verizon you can block any number you want on their website portal, not sure if this is the same for every carrier, but it has always worked well for me.

Just want to say here, I rung my carrier (Three UK), and they said they can't block numbers. And combined with my phone not having any app/functionality to deal with this, if my number gets posted on the internet publicly and everyone sees it, who knows what could happen to me? I can't simply stop them dialling me.

 

[lordofthereef]

WP8 wasn't meant to be like the other OS's(if that were the case they would've just created another glorified app launcher) so you don't really know if you need them or they may be implemented in a different way.

It's tough argue that we "don't really need" simple things like customizable alerts for different persons on your contacts list, do not disturb mode for while I am sleeping, etc. I guarantee you I will miss those features still, as I do with WP7.5. But, if it pleases you, I will revisit this page once I have my L920 tomorrow, and after I have had a few days using it to confirm, I do indeed miss these simple features.

 

[lordofthereef]

Just want to say here, I rung my carrier (Three UK), and they said they can't block numbers. And combined with my phone not having any app/functionality to deal with this, if my number gets posted on the internet publicly and everyone sees it, who knows what could happen to me? I can't simply stop them dialling me.

If this ends up happening to you, the easiest thing to do, regardless of carrier or whether or not WP8 has a call block feature, would likely be to have your carrier change your number. I am not saying the feature isn't wanted (I was the one who initially mentioned it), however your scenario I don't feel is a very good reason to implement the feature.

 

[Daniel Ratcliffe]

If this ends up happening to you, the easiest thing to do, regardless of carrier or whether or not WP8 has a call block feature, would likely be to have your carrier change your number. I am not saying the feature isn't wanted (I was the one who initially mentioned it), however your scenario I don't feel is a very good reason to implement the feature.

I understand that, but I don't think Three can change my number either unless I cancel, and then sign a new contract... And apparently trying to leave Three is a painful exercise as they just don't do it even if you say outright "I want my contract cancelling" even when you've been past your minimum term for like a year.

Of course, it's a low priority thing but having to text all my friends my new number will be a PITA. I'm still struggling to get them from my Hotmail.com to my outlook.com email...

 

[Dethzilla]

Come on, just get over it and delete the whole damn thread. This should only be a problem if you have something to hide from someone. Removing single messages so the gf doesn't see? Deleting the whole thread might look suspicious if she uses your phone once in a while eh?

No... you don't get it. I am on call for my job 24 hours a day. Whenever there is an issue with the environment i support (the 2nd largest private network in the United States), I get a message... each message is sent with a unique ID. I get lots and lots of messages... lots and lots of new threads. I can't delete them immediately... but when I can... it's usually about 2-300 messages... sometimes from a single problem. So... no. I will not get over it. It's a simple feature... they need to add it.

And for the record... my wife knows my passcode to my phone and we both have each others emails as live tiles on our lumias. I've been married for 12 years.

 

[spiff_p239]

Apart from features already mentioned in this thread I miss

1) Smart Dialing
2) Music Sharing on Bluetooth
3) Using whole MP3 file as a ringtone
4) Profiles and making custom profiles
5) Separate Volume controls for each application (calling, music etc)

This is one of my biggest complaints as well. I like having my ringer as loud as it can be but I hate when I go to watch a YouTube video and it's just insanely loud.

 

[red grenadine]

This is so annoying. Just so so annoying

 

[electricbopeep]

- universal search (calendar included, of course)
- separate volume control
- automatically send text messages when signal is available (I don't even think of this as a feature, really. For as long as I can remember, most of the phones that I had would keep attempting to send a message until it went through rather than requiring the user to manually initiate re-send. This might seem like a quibble but it's a nuisance in daily life, when you might not realize that a message hasn't gone through and is sitting there waiting for you to resend. Worse, in emergency/disaster situations where service is spotty and texting is an energy-efficient way to communicate, auto resend is vital)
- text message drafts (is wp 8 has this, please ignore)
- separate volume control
- customized text message tones by contacts
- customized tones/toggles for different email accounts (this might be a stretch, not even sure if android natively has it but it would be so very helpful)
- the elephant in the room: notification center
-Xbox videos (if wp 8 has this, please ignore. It would be great to if I could stream/download content ota w/o a PC)

Eta:
-toggle for settings/connections. The smaller tile size certainly helps with this situation but IMO I shouldn't have to devote any start screen space to this
- I also agree with profiles. This is such an ancient, but useful concept and should be implemented in a modern way based on location or other relevant variables. Microsoft doesn't necessarily have to bake this into the os, I'd be happy if they made the APIs available for devs to provide 3rd party solutions (if this is already the case in wp8, please correct me)

 

[lordofthereef]

Adding another:

Streaming audio/video/controlability via micro usb.

 

[bscott1204]

-Internet explorer needs to cache websites better, so when you hit the back button you don't have to wait for the previous page to reload from scratch.
-Separate volume control is a huge missing piece, same with silent all.
-A more intuitive way to close background apps. The swipe down to close feature in the full Windows 8 comes to mind here.
-The option to always display the clock would be nice. I hate how Internet Explorer hides the clock and prevents accessing it by swiping down from the top.
-Ability to change icon color independently. This would be slick for making the home screen look better as well as categorizing certain tiles by function (communication, games, utilities, music, etc).
-Voice command to have a text message read aloud. Ie, say to the phone "read text message" and have it do so.

That's my short list for now. Beautiful interface and awesome to use, but man it has a lot of gaps in basic functionality when compared to iOS and Android from even a couple years ago.

 

[eurovisionacts]

Let you get rid of rooms if you dont need it. (Single guy here...)