Switching platforms? | Thinking of leaving?...comment here!

[fatclue_98]

LOL, this is true! The things we do.


Define help. (no don't do it, I'm just saying)
My excuse is that I want to have the "perfect" phone and I am indecisive together.

I already know that I'm an oddball. I actually got Spotify premium just because I care for this platform so much even though there are free alternatives on the other two.

Groove lacks a lot so that was not an option for me. Not sure how many people will be willing to do the same. The life of a chronic switcher...

Ah as for the other comments, I can't relate but I understand.

If there was such a thing as a perfect phone these forums wouldn't exist. As far as I know, Apple apps on BlackBerry hardware with Lumia imaging, webOS UI, Motorola radios, Windows tiles and Office software does NOT exist. Therefore, we bounce. No shame in it.

 

[libra89]

If there was such a thing as a perfect phone these forums wouldn't exist. As far as I know, Apple apps on BlackBerry hardware with Lumia imaging, webOS UI, Motorola radios, Windows tiles and Office software does NOT exist. Therefore, we bounce. No shame in it.

Well said!

 

[Joe920]

Disappointed to find that there is no Windows Insider app in the iOS App Store!

 

[libra89]

Disappointed to find that there is no Windows Insider app in the iOS App Store!

Haha!

So for that update I was waiting on for my Honor 8, I got it and I was excited to install it and all. It looks great but for some reason, my calendar isn't appearing at all on any apps aside from the Outlook app. I'm disappointed so I slipped my sim back into my SE for now. I don't want to give up yet but I really don't want to fight with this. It's kind of weird because it used to work!

 

[Mihai N]

Yesterday I was looking for a small and cheap Android phone for my mom and I was tempted for a moment myself. There was midrange with 2GB of ram and 5.5 screen discounted below 100$ and for a moment I considered buying it. I still won't let go of the W10M UI though, and the folder system on Android is still annoying. You have to search fo ages the right folders where files get saved. So for now I'll wait for any further discounts on the 950XL or Idol 4s coming to Europe

 

[digitaldd]

Haha!

So for that update I was waiting on for my Honor 8, I got it and I was excited to install it and all. It looks great but for some reason, my calendar isn't appearing at all on any apps aside from the Outlook app. I'm disappointed so I slipped my sim back into my SE for now. I don't want to give up yet but I really don't want to fight with this. It's kind of weird because it used to work!

I had the same problem with my Outlook calendar on the Honor 5x after it got the marshmallow update. I assumed it was just Google not playing nice with Microsoft. I tried a bunch of things including changing the permissions to allow the other calendar apps to access my outlook calendar nothing worked so I just used the Outlook calendar widget and Outlook for it.

 

[libra89]

I had the same problem with my Outlook calendar on the Honor 5x after it got the marshmallow update. I assumed it was just Google not playing nice with Microsoft. I tried a bunch of things including changing the permissions to allow the other calendar apps to access my outlook calendar nothing worked so I just used the Outlook calendar widget and Outlook for it.

Thank you for letting me know about this. It always feels better to not be alone on having issues. I think it's dumb that this happens, but I will try the widget idea.

Like you, I tried a lot of things.

 

[fatclue_98]

Thank you for letting me know about this. It always feels better to not be alone on having issues. I think it's dumb that this happens, but I will try the widget idea.

Like you, I tried a lot of things.

And here I was thinking workarounds were exclusive to Windows.

 

[libra89]

And here I was thinking workarounds were exclusive to Windows.

Haha right?! At least on Windows, you can make your workarounds look decent though.

In this case, I tried the widget idea and its just ugly to me. The whole aesthetic is ruined for me. I care too much about aesthetics to deal with this.

Anyone want an Honor 8? Haha (I'm joking)

Edit: In order for it to work, a third party launcher is required. Welp.

 

[digitaldd]

Haha right?! At least on Windows, you can make your workarounds look decent though.

In this case, I tried the widget idea and its just ugly to me. The whole aesthetic is ruined for me. I care too much about aesthetics to deal with this.

Anyone want an Honor 8? Haha (I'm joking)

Edit: In order for it to work, a third party launcher is required. Welp.

Huawei's EMUI is terrible. When i got my Honor 5x I didn't even wait one day to install Nova Launcher mostly due to EMUI creating a new icon for everything that got installed a la Lenovo and a 3rd party launcher being required to have a normal app drawer. I did hear that with the nougat update on the Honor 8 you could at least enable an app drawer. Keeping things on topic Microsoft wise you could try their Arrow launcher.

 

[libra89]

Huawei's EMUI is terrible. When i got my Honor 5x I didn't even wait one day to install Nova Launcher mostly due to EMUI creating a new icon for everything that got installed a la Lenovo and a 3rd party launcher being required to have a normal app drawer. I did hear that with the nougat update on the Honor 8 you could at least enable an app drawer. Keeping things on topic Microsoft wise you could try their Arrow launcher.

To me, it isn't as bad. EMUI 5 is nice.

It's funny that you mention that launcher considering that I'm trying it for now. I signed into my MS account on it and I see nothing interesting or fascinating here. I'll probably poke around some more though but I am impressed with that launcher.

Edit: I tried and ended up going back to the default launcher without it. I tried different icons and all but nothing is hitting the spot for me.

Edit 2: It's a first world problem when you put a book on hold, you finally get it and download it to one device but you wish you had it on the other one instead. :grincry:

 

[Joe920]

OK, as promised, some impressions after switching to iOS last week. I have a couple more observations, but this is probably enough for now!

For reference, I have used iOS on an iPhone 3G, iPhone 4, iPad 1, iPad Air, iPad Pro 12.9. On the WP side I have used a 920, 1020, 1520, 950XL. For more thoughts on OS differences, see my OS comparison thread.

__

Switching from WP to iOS: first impressions

Restore from backup is better: iOS offers different backups to choose from. I restored from an iPad backup, which put all phone compatible apps on my phone. Took a while..

Spotlight search searches the whole phone including contacts as well as content in a lot of participating apps. This seems like something WP should be doing as well.

iOS gives beginner tips at smart times. For example, it explains how to organize the home screen after the user has been up and running for a while.

Hurray! iOS offers a landscape home screen, unlike WP

Wait what?!! No landscape view in the music player. Incredible. The music app is really horrid, I used to like it a lot more on my ancient iPhone 4. Instead I bought the Cesium music app, nice alternative. Groove also exists on iOS but oddly it doesn’t seem to play local music, unless I’m doing it wrong.

IMO the iOS camera app is horrible. I can’t believe there’s no option for changing the aspect ratio from 4:3 to 16:9. Result: if you want your pics to fill the phone screen, you need to crop all pictures afterward! Even more amazing: most iOS users offer this as a logical solution. Talk about RDF.. Also, the camera UI is opaque, it all feels pretty claustrophobic to me.

Obviously no dedicated camera button, I do miss this.

On my iPhone 6S plus, the camera is WAY worse at low light pics than the camera on the 950XL. I can’t believe how grainy the evening sky looks. And the colors in low light are tons better on the 950XL. That’s very disappointing to me. The biggest disappointment in fact.

Less than a day in, already very annoyed with home button. But.. on iPhone 6s and later, can force press left side of screen and swipe right to show switcher. Nice!

I initially missed the quick jump into settings from the WP Action Center (long-press on wifi button), but it turns out you can force-touch the settings icon to jump straight to battery/cell data/wifi/Bluetooth.

I miss some live tiles, but for most functions you can find notification center widgets. Not as good, but decent replacement.

I was surprised that many apps that show near the top of ‘most popular’ lists do not support the 6S plus resolution, so you end up with this dumb stretched UI. Not all is well in iOS land..

When sending a photo you’re actually offered options to choose the desired file size. Incredibly this is still not possible in WP. Bad MS, bad!!

Force touch is a pretty nice addition. For example, it allows you to jump straight into specific forums in Tapatalk, jump straight to specific chats in WhatsApp, open recent docs in OneDrive, and jump straight to ‘navigate home’ in Waze. Not critical, but nice to have.

I find that pausing audio is laborious, but maybe I’m doing it wrong. When phone is locked it's fast: hit power, tap pause. When the phone is unlocked, you have to swipe up from button (sometimes twice in apps), and then swipe over to the second control center panel if it was not the default.

Similar: changing tracks is laborious. In WP you hit the volume up button and hit ‘next’. In iOS: swipe up from the bottom (doesn’t always work in apps, sometimes need to swipe again to ‘unhide’ the control center), then swipe over to the volume/track control pane, then hit ‘next’.

I don’t know who thought it was a good idea to make “quick access panels” a two-screen deal. This is annoying in the control center (quick settings) and in the notification shade. Widgets on screen one, notifications on screen two. Pretty bad. WP is smarter because thanks to Live Tiles you don’t need widgets in the action center.

Settings app. I know people like WPs settings app, and yes, it’s nicely organized, but in iOS you can also search for settings and it’s pretty quick. Benefit: searching in settings also returns results from app settings. E.g. looking for swipe also shows info on swipe actions in the Feedly app etc.

Minor, but when you toggle wifi in control center you only see when it’s connected, but you don’t see the name of the network. WP shows the ssid in the button so you know who you’re connected to. Better.

 

[fatclue_98]

Groove also exists on iOS but oddly it doesn’t seem to play local music, unless I’m doing it wrong.

There's no file management in iOS so no place for Groove to look. That's why there's no external storage available or USB-OTG. Each individual app controls its content which is why iOS is really just an app launcher. I know it sounds cruel because it works so well but it is very limited in scope.

 

[Joe920]

There's no file management in iOS so no place for Groove to look. That's why there's no external storage available or USB-OTG. Each individual app controls its content which is why iOS is really just an app launcher. I know it sounds cruel because it works so well but it is very limited in scope.

Partly true, but the Cesium music player can play local music just fine. The app requests access to the music library, and iOS prompts the user to allow it. After that the app is good to go. I see no reason why Groove couldn't do that. And in fact maybe it can, but if so I haven't found a way of making that happen.

 

[libra89]

Partly true, but the Cesium music player can play local music just fine. The app requests access to the music library, and iOS prompts the user to allow it. After that the app is good to go. I see no reason why Groove couldn't do that. And in fact maybe it can, but if so I haven't found a way of making that happen.

Thank you for sharing your impressions, I have been waiting on them. Will be looking forward to hearing more.

 

[Joe920]

Thank you for sharing your impressions, I have been waiting on them. Will be looking forward to hearing more.

Well in that case, here goes!

More assorted observations:

- I forgot that iOS is super strict about icon arrangement. You can't even have gaps between icons on the home screen, all icons must be in a row.

- Fingerprint reader is great. Super fast, super reliable.

- Screen rotation is unreliable. Some apps stay stuck in the wrong orientation when launched, until you move the phone

- Wish the 6S+ was more grippy, had to put a case on it for piece of mind. C'mon Ive, pocket tech isn't jewelry

- Still appreciate the 'long press on reload' to access desktop view in Safari. WP needs to copy that asap

- The mail app seems to allow only 'push all' mail accounts can't set work to push and private mail to fetch.

- On the plus side, push email actually works. Broke on WP for me during one of the insider builds, never came back.

- Seems like when an app calls the mail app to compose feedback, you can't go back to the app until the mail is done. In WP you usually can go back and forth. It used to even allow you to have multiple views of the mail app open, which I used a LOT. Kind of like having multiple instances of Outlook running. Not sure why they got rid of that, that was amazing.

- I miss the blazing fast USB3 file transfers on the 950XL

- Really miss the trick from WP to select a word and tap shift to cycle through capitalization options. It's the little things

- I can't believe how fast the 6S+ connects to the cell network after a flight. Maybe I was lucky, but I was connected one second after disabling airplane mode. I wonder if they do 'listening' to the cell network while in airplane mode, or use some other trick to get them set up quickly. On WP this would sometimes take half a minute, at least on a 950XL DS

- I miss the nice clipboard implementation from WP. It's nice to see there's something on the clipboard, on iOS this is not visible

- Word suggestions are much better on WP. On iOS you get three, no swiping to other suggestions. Three, that's it. I also liked how in WP you can add or delete a suggested word these days.

- You can't selectively set networks to auto-connect. In WP I could set up my phone to auto-connect to my home network, and not auto-connect to my work network. That way I wouldn't unknowingly use the work wifi for watching a dumb youtube video. On iOS it's all or nothing, so now I need to actively disable wifi before I head into work.

- The iOS app store is SO MUCH FASTER in checking for updates. Love that.

- I hate iTunes with a passion

- Boy do I miss the file system of WP. I used that a ton. Drag and drop some TV episodes, easy.


Some observations on apps

- yay, apps!

- as others have said, iOS apps are way more polished than their neglected WP counterparts. It all works very smoothly.

- many apps are huge! Downloaded four apps, noticed I had blasted through 500MB of mobile data. Oops.

- apps are no longer cheap. I thought some WP apps were pricey costing $5, but iOS apps regularly cost as much

- nice that Waze actually talks again..

- Groove on WP is amazing at digging up music and artist artwork. The iOS player does a terrible job at locating artwork

- the myAT&T app also sucks on iOS

- Looks like location based Cortana reminders don't work on iOS.


Even with all this, I can't help missing the camera of my 950XL. Darn it Microsoft, why give up, you were so close!

 

[Joe920]

In other news, this thread hit two major milestones this week. 600,000 views, and 6000 likes. Not bad!

 

[fatclue_98]

Well in that case, here goes!

More assorted observations:

- I forgot that iOS is super strict about icon arrangement. You can't even have gaps between icons on the home screen, all icons must be in a row.

- Fingerprint reader is great. Super fast, super reliable.

- Screen rotation is unreliable. Some apps stay stuck in the wrong orientation when launched, until you move the phone

- Wish the 6S+ was more grippy, had to put a case on it for piece of mind. C'mon Ive, pocket tech isn't jewelry

- Still appreciate the 'long press on reload' to access desktop view in Safari. WP needs to copy that asap

- The mail app seems to allow only 'push all' mail accounts can't set work to push and private mail to fetch.

- On the plus side, push email actually works. Broke on WP for me during one of the insider builds, never came back.

- Seems like when an app calls the mail app to compose feedback, you can't go back to the app until the mail is done. In WP you usually can go back and forth. It used to even allow you to have multiple views of the mail app open, which I used a LOT. Kind of like having multiple instances of Outlook running. Not sure why they got rid of that, that was amazing.

- I miss the blazing fast USB3 file transfers on the 950XL

- Really miss the trick from WP to select a word and tap shift to cycle through capitalization options. It's the little things

- I can't believe how fast the 6S+ connects to the cell network after a flight. Maybe I was lucky, but I was connected one second after disabling airplane mode. I wonder if they do 'listening' to the cell network while in airplane mode, or use some other trick to get them set up quickly. On WP this would sometimes take half a minute, at least on a 950XL DS

- I miss the nice clipboard implementation from WP. It's nice to see there's something on the clipboard, on iOS this is not visible

- Word suggestions are much better on WP. On iOS you get three, no swiping to other suggestions. Three, that's it. I also liked how in WP you can add or delete a suggested word these days.

- You can't selectively set networks to auto-connect. In WP I could set up my phone to auto-connect to my home network, and not auto-connect to my work network. That way I wouldn't unknowingly use the work wifi for watching a dumb youtube video. On iOS it's all or nothing, so now I need to actively disable wifi before I head into work.

- The iOS app store is SO MUCH FASTER in checking for updates. Love that.

- I hate iTunes with a passion

- Boy do I miss the file system of WP. I used that a ton. Drag and drop some TV episodes, easy.


Some observations on apps

- yay, apps!

- as others have said, iOS apps are way more polished than their neglected WP counterparts. It all works very smoothly.

- many apps are huge! Downloaded four apps, noticed I had blasted through 500MB of mobile data. Oops.

- apps are no longer cheap. I thought some WP apps were pricey costing $5, but iOS apps regularly cost as much

- nice that Waze actually talks again..

- Groove on WP is amazing at digging up music and artist artwork. The iOS player does a terrible job at locating artwork

- the myAT&T app also sucks on iOS

- Looks like location based Cortana reminders don't work on iOS.


Even with all this, I can't help missing the camera of my 950XL. Darn it Microsoft, why give up, you were so close!

I get 100-150 emails per day from my work account alone. I love pinning each account to the start screen as if I had 3 different email clients. Remote Desktop is laser quick on iOS but it feels like an Etch-A-Sketch compared to RDP on Continuum. I'm with you on word prediction and copy&paste being vastly superior on WM.

 

[Kunal Dudwadkar]

After too much of waiting and a hell lot of patience like any other fan, even I am ready to switch from Windows. It pains me to do so but I have no other option left. I work for a production house and there are a few apps that are of utmost importance to us. And as expected none are available for my beloved device leaving my brand new 650 almost useless. On shoots I have to depend on the camera guy's phone which is very embarrassing.

here are the apps that make me want to switch primarily-

1. DJI GO - We have a brand new OSMO device for shoots and sadly the app is only available for android and iOS. I use the camera for almost every shoot and every time I have to ask for someone's android or iOS device to use it.

2. RODE REC -This is another app we use to record voiceovers, again not available for Windows.

3. Sennheiser recorder- This one is also not available to use. This is a fantastic recorder app with a clean interface, better than Rode Rec as this one records audio in stereo unlike Rode Rec

There are many such apps which do not even have any alternative for Windows. it makes my phone completely useless for work. I am looking at some good android options, maybe the new Nokia's. Will be keeping my Lumia 650 active though. Lets hope Windows 10 Mobile catches on some day. Also I don't think that MS intends to release the so called surface device in India, so again, waiting for it is like a totally luck's game.

 

[horseybob]

I'm having to tap out. First Android phone

Dropped my Lumia on the icy concrete. Case and display are toast. As a US Verizon user, I can select Android or Apple. So picked up a Samsung Galaxy s7 Edge.

Love it (mostly)! Gear VR is most excellent! Fluid UI, even with many apps open. SD card support. Gorgeous display that competes with the 950XL (which won't run on Verizon anyhow).

Cons. I <really > miss swipe in Edge. I am very grumpy about having to wait a year for OS and security updates

Yes, there are more apps. Haven't yet found one. Single. One. That is useful that's not available to a W10M user (As an Enterprise user, Snapchat and games are NOT "useful ").

Overall, I'm favorably impressed with the s7 Edge. Not impressed with the pathetic absence of security updates. I'm not seeing the "app gap" personally, as that's a niche.

Will stay on with Insider on pc, tablet and server