Thinking of returning my new 8X and going back to Iphone 5 - advice?

[x2lifezone128]

Hi guys,

I just got a HTC 8x and came across several stumbling blocks. Unfortunately, I'm a the point where I'm starting to regret my decision and planning on returning the phone. I know my lack of experience and actual usage of the phone has caused this anxiety, so before I returned the phone, I wanted to reach out to you guys and would loveeto hear the communities thoughts on what I can do to get around each of these issues (or maybe get some reassurance on some of these points):

1. I have 8 domain email addresses + 3 gmail addresses all managed through one centralized gmail login. I can use my iphone and see all emails in one place and when i respond, it will respond from the email that was sent to or allow me to choose which email I should reply from. When I draft a new email I can select from any of my 10+ email addresses. From what I've read, this can't be done in the native WP8 email client. I downloaded the WP gmail apps and they were pretty bad.

2. Two of the domain email addresses belong to two of my companies. Each of these domains has several users (for employees). My employees by default (for their personal stuff) use gmail, so for the sake of my employees, adding their company email address (also managed through gmail) is really easy. I'm not sure how challenging this would be for them if we ended up migrating all my domain emails to Outlook. I'm concerned they'd then be forced to also have an Outlook account which means they would now need to check both outlook (for company stuff) and also their gmail (for their personal), or would be forced to convert from outlook to gmail for their personal.

3. With so many email addresses - I am concerned how difficult it will be to migrate everything to Outlook.com.

4. I use Google docs heavily (spreadsheets, and their word processor). I share a lot of these docs. I am concerned about how difficult it would be to migrate everything and once migrated, how difficult it would be to share these Office docs with gmail users (or would these gmail users be forced to sign up with Outlook.com just to access these shared docs)

5. I rely on Iphone maps all the time for turn by turn. It pairs with my car stereo, and is so convenient. Since I didn't buy the Nokia and have the 8x, what can I do to get turn by turn?

6. I use Skype religiously. I have been told that unless Skype is running in the foreground, messages can't be received.

7. I drive a lot. My Iphone gets tons of use in the car. I listen to music and get turn by turn directions from it. I heard that with my 8x if I use maps, I can not listen to music so it's one or the other.

Thanks for listening to my concerns - looking forward to hearing your thoughts.

 

[Dratwister]

Well, with all of your requirements, I don't know why did you still choose WP in the beginning.
If you cannot use your phone without any of those factors, then yes, you should switch

 

[nessinhaw]

for e-mail i believe WP lets you set multiples accs? there's my master MS acc and then i can add secondary mail boxes, like i added my gmail one! but if you don't want to set each mail box separetely, then i don't know ):

you can share Office docs (word, excell, pp) thru email or upload them to skydrive...

for turn by turn i don't rly know, i have a Lumia...

 

[Ruined]

Summary points:
1. Google is anti windows phone and anti-Microsoft. Thus there is little first party support for google, and google sues third party apps doing their job for them. (so much for google not being evil)
2. The best turn by turn on any windows phone is navigon. You can play music with the directions on it.
3. Newest version of Skype receives messages in background.

 

[ersomo]

I have three email accounts linked in one inbox, I'm not sure though if you can link 10 account but you can try it

 

[poddie]

6 and 7 are completely untrue. No idea where you're getting your info from, but I wouldn't trust anything else they say.

For 5, you can download Here Drive for free. Only the "+" version is exclusive to Nokia phones at this point.

The rest are a major headache. Google is absolutely against your being able to transition to Windows Phone, so they have purposely made none of this easy for you. Microsoft is far more interested in providing cross platform services.

You should be able to use multiple IMAP accounts to handle email just fine and send from them as well. I believe you can also link the inboxes to give you a similar experience to what you had, but I have not personally tried this.

Google Calendar and contacts are a mess at the moment on WP. Google has stopped supporting ActiveSync, which was how these things worked on Wp. Ms is working on supporting the next set of "standards" that Google is insisting they use, and I believe that will come in an update shortly.

As for Google Docs, I have no experience there... not sure why anyone would want to use them instead of Office web apps frankly. But I know people do...

I think most people around here would agree... Google has become what MS was 15-20 years ago... Overly greedy and anti-competitive. Unfortunately, there appears to be no governing body interested in taking them to task over this as the DOJ did with MS.

 

[tooly26]

It sounds like u are not happy with the os...
So give the phone away and get a iPhone..all your problems will be gone

Sent from my GT-I8750 using Tapatalk

 

[daniel_sherlock]

You can download 'here drive' a full sat nav app.

 

[xyronaut]

I have 3 mail accounts: my office exchange account, gmail, & yahoo linked in single inbox without any issue. Not sure about 10+ mail accounts (man, you sure are one busy chap ).

For those who complain about google calendar not able to synch, I'm actually still can see my google calendar details on my standard wp8 calendar, even appears in live tile too. It may not push the calendar synch in real time, but I'm still able to see my gmail personal appointment on my calendar. So i dont really get what people keep fussing about.

Skype works really well in my Ativ S. I have it regularly used to call my wife & see my daughter's progress at home.

Maps, I use std bing map with jakarta map offline download. Although there is no turn by turn navigation, but it gets me the direction pretty well. With avg 30km/h Jakarta traffic will still allow me to check the directions in a glimpse, so turn by turn navigation would be overkill here . Oh, & I oftenly use the audiocloud for sreaming audio on the way to office, no issues running it with my maps opened.

Since the company I work for is like MS shop (exchange, sharepoint, etc), having full functional MS office app in my phone is quite an advantage. I can't comment on google doc sharing much.

 

[mase123987]

As others have said, 1, 2, and 3 are going to be a pain, especially if you are looking to migrate things over to outlook.com. Moving and managing 10 email addresses are going to be hard no matter what changes you make.

With 4, SkyDrive and the free apps are a way better option. 5,6,7 are non-issues.

 

[Jazmac]

Hi guys,

I just got a HTC 8x and came across several stumbling blocks. Unfortunately, I'm a the point where I'm starting to regret my decision and planning on returning the phone. I know my lack of experience and actual usage of the phone has caused this anxiety, so before I returned the phone, I wanted to reach out to you guys and would loveeto hear the communities thoughts on what I can do to get around each of these issues (or maybe get some reassurance on some of these points):

1. I have 8 domain email addresses + 3 gmail addresses all managed through one centralized gmail login. I can use my iphone and see all emails in one place and when i respond, it will respond from the email that was sent to or allow me to choose which email I should reply from. When I draft a new email I can select from any of my 10+ email addresses. From what I've read, this can't be done in the native WP8 email client. I downloaded the WP gmail apps and they were pretty bad.

I wouldn't begin to know how to advise you without bias on having 10 email address that you have to maintain. On this you might need to hire a secretary. I have about 5 myself. 1 is for work only. I have one Gmail for spam stuff and youtube. my main email is Outlook and Yahoo and Inbox just get a cursory login every so often. Those are older than gmail but they are not used much.

2. Two of the domain email addresses belong to two of my companies. Each of these domains has several users (for employees). My employees by default (for their personal stuff) use gmail, so for the sake of my employees, adding their company email address (also managed through gmail) is really easy. I'm not sure how challenging this would be for them if we ended up migrating all my domain emails to Outlook. I'm concerned they'd then be forced to also have an Outlook account which means they would now need to check both outlook (for company stuff) and also their gmail (for their personal), or would be forced to convert from outlook to gmail for their personal.

Outlook is a far better email resource that gmail. I would consolidate to Outlook.com and quit killing yourself trying to run business using google resources. They are too convoluted and designed around THEY'RE business practices to mine your personal business correspondence to sell to their clients and not facilitate management of your business. Proven by your part time job managing it.

3. With so many email addresses - I am concerned how difficult it will be to migrate everything to Outlook.com.

Easier and cleaner than you might imagine. My wife isn't technical at all and she migrated to Outlook without my help. She used to like gmail until she discovered the ease of use and user friendliness of Outlook.

4. I use Google docs heavily (spreadsheets, and their word processor). I share a lot of these docs. I am concerned about how difficult it would be to migrate everything and once migrated, how difficult it would be to share these Office docs with gmail users (or would these gmail users be forced to sign up with Outlook.com just to access these shared docs)

Google docs is a johnny come lately to the game. You can't even keep PDF edits and markups unless you maintain it with gdocs.What good is that if you need to pass those edits on to someone not using gdocs? Go with the undisputed leader of office management. Microsoft Office.

5. I rely on Iphone maps all the time for turn by turn. It pairs with my car stereo, and is so convenient. Since I didn't buy the Nokia and have the 8x, what can I do to get turn by turn?

6. I use Skype religiously. I have been told that unless Skype is running in the foreground, messages can't be received.

Someone correct me if I'm wrong but I think that was fixed in the last update.

7. I drive a lot. My Iphone gets tons of use in the car. I listen to music and get turn by turn directions from it. I heard that with my 8x if I use maps, I can not listen to music so it's one or the other.

Thanks for listening to my concerns - looking forward to hearing your thoughts.

Contrary to popular belief, Windows Phone does multitask. If you are playing blue tooth radio and want to use GPS navigation, do it. It works flawlessly. Here is a screen from my most recent trip in a rental car. One is my wife's L920, the other mine. Pandora for days. Worked great. Now you may still consider returning to iphone because there is an adjustment period coming from another platform to this one.

 

[wpn00b]

Hi guys,

1. I have 8 domain email addresses + 3 gmail addresses all managed through one centralized gmail login. I can use my iphone and see all emails in one place and when i respond, it will respond from the email that was sent to or allow me to choose which email I should reply from. When I draft a new email I can select from any of my 10+ email addresses. From what I've read, this can't be done in the native WP8 email client. I downloaded the WP gmail apps and they were pretty bad.

There is an option called Linked Inboxes. I have one email icon on my Start screen and access all of my accounts from it. I have a Gmail account I am moving away from, an Outlook account, and a Yahoo account. When I send emails it prompts me from which to send prior to creating the message.

2. Two of the domain email addresses belong to two of my companies. Each of these domains has several users (for employees). My employees by default (for their personal stuff) use gmail, so for the sake of my employees, adding their company email address (also managed through gmail) is really easy. I'm not sure how challenging this would be for them if we ended up migrating all my domain emails to Outlook. I'm concerned they'd then be forced to also have an Outlook account which means they would now need to check both outlook (for company stuff) and also their gmail (for their personal), or would be forced to convert from outlook to gmail for their personal.

What? I'm not understanding this so I'll let someone else address it. Adding their company email address to what?

3. With so many email addresses - I am concerned how difficult it will be to migrate everything to Outlook.com.

About as difficult as it is to change your physical address with the post office, which is to say, not at all. Set a forwarding rule, send an email alerting people to the coming change including a deadline as to when you will no longer receive their communications. Honestly you don't HAVE to change anything, just continue using Gmail as you already are, but for added functionality due to MSFT and Google's incompatibilities, yes, moving to Outlook may be easier (or stick with Gmail and move back to iPhone).

4. I use Google docs heavily (spreadsheets, and their word processor). I share a lot of these docs. I am concerned about how difficult it would be to migrate everything and once migrated, how difficult it would be to share these Office docs with gmail users (or would these gmail users be forced to sign up with Outlook.com just to access these shared docs)

I don't have any experience with Google Docs so I can't add anything to this portion of the conversation.

5. I rely on Iphone maps all the time for turn by turn. It pairs with my car stereo, and is so convenient. Since I didn't buy the Nokia and have the 8x, what can I do to get turn by turn?

I own an 8X from Verizon and I use Nokia HERE Drive and HERE Transit. I regularly take the Sacramento Light Rail around town travel in my car when necessary and I have not had any trouble using my Bluetooth headphones while on the train with the navigation running.

6. I use Skype religiously. I have been told that unless Skype is running in the foreground, messages can't be received.

I've not noticed this, but I just recently began using it. Have a look at this link http://community.skype.com/t5/News-and-announcements/Skype-for-Windows-Phone-8-Tips-for-Success/bc-p/1693292, check your settings, and see if what you are looking for is available.

7. I drive a lot. My IPhone gets tons of use in the car. I listen to music and get turn by turn directions from it. I heard that with my 8x if I use maps, I can not listen to music so it's one or the other.

I didn't notice this on a recent trip either, so I'm not sure why this doesn't work for you. You mention that you "heard" this so I'm wondering if you have tried it? Test it out. Mine interrupts my music to give the instructions and the returns to the music. I'm not sure why this would even be undesirable though...how else would you hear it if it didn't lower the music temporarily?

I sold my iPhone 5 and ditched my iPhone 4 in favor of the HTC 8X. I own an iPad so I get to still use iOS when I feel like it, but I'm pretty happy with the 8X with it's limitations. I've not had issue with adding calendar entries....I just installed an app that automatically opens when I get an invitation (.ics) in my calendar and it adds to my Outlook calendar. Music is added via the Windows Phone app on my computer or I just drag and drop it using the mass storage mode since the phone gives full access to media storage...no syncing required, though you can tell by my signature that I'd prefer to sync with the Zune desktop.

Give it a try, it isn't for everyone, but if you have about a week, come here for help and see how you feel at the end of the week. I can't imagine going back to iPhone or Android.

 

[OzRob]

For those who complain about google calendar not able to synch, I'm actually still can see my google calendar details on my standard wp8 calendar, even appears in live tile too. It may not push the calendar synch in real time, but I'm still able to see my gmail personal appointment on my calendar. So i dont really get what people keep fussing about.

What people are fussing about is that this doesn't work anymore without some hacks. If you had Google calendar synced before Feb this year (I think - not sure of the exact date) then it will continue to work. If you try to set up a new phone with Google calendar, it will only show you the primary calendar, not any secondary calendars. There are ways around this using Chrome UA spoofer on your PC to get to the appropriate settings pages, but it doesn't work out of the box anymore.

To the OP, working with Gmail accounts in the WP8 app is relatively painless. I have six Gmail accounts, but only one is relatively active. I'm pretty sure when you reply to an email it automatically replies from the same account. When you create a new email it asks which account you want to send it from. As others have mentioned, to see everything in a single inbox, just use the linked inbox feature. Contacts are also synced fine.

Like I mentioned above, though.

 

[eric12341]

You can link all your Gmail addresses together using the linked inbox feature. You can even separate each link and have one for personal and other for business or even name them by company. You can use HERE drive for navigation on the 8X and it works flawlessly while listening to music.

 

[xyronaut]

@ozrob: ah I see what you mean. Thanks for clearing that up. Btw, I just stumbled upon this link http://wmpoweruser.com/windows-phone-8-gdr-2-carddav-and-caldav-support-demoed-video/comment-page-1/
Saying google calendar & contact synch is now available in WP8. This demo is on Nokia though, not sure if it's already updated in 8x. My Ativ s has not showing these either.

 

[anon(6038817)]

What people are fussing about is that this doesn't work anymore without some hacks. If you had Google calendar synced before Feb this year (I think - not sure of the exact date) then it will continue to work. If you try to set up a new phone with Google calendar, it will only show you the primary calendar, not any secondary calendars. There are ways around this using Chrome UA spoofer on your PC to get to the appropriate settings pages, but it doesn't work out of the box anymore.

Actually, I just got my Lumia 521 a week ago and followed the instructions at this link to sync multiple Google calendars, including shared calendars:

Set Up Multiple Calendars with Windows Phone - Google Apps Help

I had no problems setting this up.

 

[jbjtkbw007]

Forgive me for saying this, but to the OP, your post makes it sound as if you have already made up your mind. It sounds like you're looking for validation over workarounds. Plus, as many have pointed out, other than your email dilemma, you can do everything else you mentioned in Windows Phone 8. Even on Windows Phone 7.8, I was able to drive across Montana, use my navigation while having my music play over the bluetooth in the car. That was a no brainer.

A lot of what you want to do just needs to be attempted. However, if you're not willing to truly give the phone a chance, then you may want to go the iPhone route as I find that a lot of iPhone users that I know just want things to be as simple as possible. And there's nothing wrong with that. Nothing at all. I'd never knock anyone from wanting simplicity in their life. I just want you to have a phone that does everything that you want it to do. The thing is Windows Phone 8 is a marvelous piece of hardware that many users don't really give a chance because the numbers aren't there to justify trying it out.

Again, go with what you want, but you're giving up on a great product before trying. Stick it out a bit, try the suggestions listed here, and then make your decision.

 

[poddie]

I don't think that's fair. You have to admit that Google has made it somewhat difficult to do what the original poster is attempting. And email/calendar/contacts is the most important thing on the phone... If that's not going to work it is a cause for serious concern. I think the op can make it work, but I understand his frustration at the google support not being more direct. Granted, that is almost completely Google's fault, but to the end user that matters not.

 

[jbjtkbw007]

I don't think that's fair. You have to admit that Google has made it somewhat difficult to do what the original poster is attempting. And email/calendar/contacts is the most important thing on the phone... If that's not going to work it is a cause for serious concern. I think the op can make it work, but I understand his frustration at the google support not being more direct. Granted, that is almost completely Google's fault, but to the end user that matters not.

I know it is, but from his title, it can sound like he's already decided that the iPhone works better for him, and I've found that when someone is asking for reasons NOT to switch, it almost sounds like they are looking for validation TO make the switch. Yeah, yeah, it's all in the perception of the reader, but being on so many forums for so many years, whenever someone poses that type of question, they are almost always looking for validation for the decision they have already made by asking for solutions, but looking for those supporting that decision.

For example, when I read reviews for a product that I want, I tend to read the reviews that don't. I'm looking for something to tell me not to make the purchase, even though I've pretty much made up my mind to do so. I just seem to want someone to give me a reason not to buy, even though my mind is already set. Of course, it could be that he TRULY wants to give it a shot, but when it comes to users and the iPhone, when people decide to go back, it's difficult to dissuade at that point.

Fair or not, it's my .02. Overall, I just want him to be happy with a product that works for him. I'd much rather see people find a way to live with such a great product. Again, my .02.

 

[foxbat121]

I think OP should just get an Android phone. There are still many things from Google that can't be done correctly on iOS. If your life is dependent upon Google services, you have no choice but use Android.