This OS is in desperate need of a 2nd home screen.

[Big Supes]

Having a separate screen for notifications would mean you may as well do away with live tiles and have a bunch of smaller icons.

The beauty of live tiles for me is that I get the best of both worlds. It's a start screen, and a notifications screen combined. My only criticism is the tiles can be a little lazy in some cases. Eventually I'd like to see them more in sync and maybe flip faster when you have a notification (to stand out from the rest).

 

[Judge_Daniel]

Having a separate screen for notifications would mean you may as well do away with live tiles and have a bunch of smaller icons.

The beauty of live tiles for me is that I get the best of both worlds. It's a start screen, and a notifications screen combined. My only criticism is the tiles can be a little lazy in some cases. Eventually I'd like to see them more in sync and maybe flip faster when you have a notification (to stand out from the rest).

+1 I agree wholeheartedly about the lazy live tiles. I feel like many of them are still terrible about being "live". The saddest ones are the games that MS puts out that don't do a single thing (even Shuffle Party and Kinectimals don't do anything, and they were released AFTER Mango). I realize these are just games, and don't really have notifications, but they could at least flip with high scores or something. I'd even take one like Beards & Beaks, where it flips between a gnome and a bird.

It isn't a big deal, but if MS is going to push the almighty "live tile", they need to make sure the tiles aren't just giant icons.

 

[barbequtioner]

+1 I agree wholeheartedly about the lazy live tiles. I feel like many of them are still terrible about being "live". The saddest ones are the games that MS puts out that don't do a single thing (even Shuffle Party and Kinectimals don't do anything, and they were released AFTER Mango). I realize these are just games, and don't really have notifications, but they could at least flip with high scores or something. I'd even take one like Beards & Beaks, where it flips between a gnome and a bird.

It isn't a big deal, but if MS is going to push the almighty "live tile", they need to make sure the tiles aren't just giant icons.

The platform isn't even a year old yet... Good things come to those who wait.
A lot of complaints here are either superficial or can easily be handled by not pinning everything to your Start screen. I keep everything I dont use frequently away from Start screen as not to clutter.

All it really take is a bit of house cleaning. The OS is actually fine the way it is, and we clearly can all agree it's only getting better.

 

[Judge_Daniel]

The platform isn't even a year old yet... Good things come to those who wait.
A lot of complaints here are either superficial or can easily be handled by not pinning everything to your Start screen. I keep everything I dont use frequently away from Start screen as not to clutter.

All it really take is a bit of house cleaning. The OS is actually fine the way it is, and we clearly can all agree it's only getting better.

There are a few things that made me cringe about this post. First off, I was sort of upset at myself because I almost included that I only keep one game pinned to my start screen at a time (usually the most recently bought or one that has an achievement over which I am pining). I left it out, since I thought it was negligible, but I now realize that it sounds like I have countless games pinned to my start screen.

Second, Windows Phone has already been criticized for being too closed. Our trade-off for customizable widgets is the ability to customize our start screen with live tiles. To tell people that WP still falls short there is to really add insult to injury. We NEED to be able to customize as much as we want there, and each tile really needs to look good. I am starting to wish that MS would have a competition about making the coolest use of live tiles. That is a competition worth having.

That being said, I'm sure that there will be a day where 75% of apps will have true live tiles. However, this isn't that day and it should be addressed...especially if MS is to blame for a single one of them.

Oh! And welcome to WPCentral! I hope you enjoy your times at the forums. Not everyone is as critical (or as supportive, for that matter) as me.

 

[jdd77]

I'm sure that there will be a day where 75% of apps will have true live tiles. However, this isn't that day and it should be addressed...

If thats the case, this "cell phone" is going to turn into a giant message command center (lol) with an ever-growing display of tiles that show notifications, scattered among a very busy home screen.
I would rather see 1 tile (hub) that integrates with all the apps that show updates, alerts, notifications, etc.. It would be the same idea as the people tile but instead of it displaying the faces of your contacts, it would show what apps are currently integrated with it (if we cant have another screen full of live tiles). Because eventually, theres gonna be a whole lot of scrolling up and down to do.

 

[Judge_Daniel]

If thats the case, this "cell phone" is going to turn into a giant message command center (lol) with an ever-growing display of tiles that show notifications, scattered among a very busy home screen.
I would rather see 1 tile (hub) that integrates with all the apps that show updates, alerts, notifications, etc.. It would be the same idea as the people tile but instead of it displaying the faces of your contacts, it would show what apps are currently integrated with it (if we cant have another screen full of live tiles). Because eventually, theres gonna be a whole lot of scrolling up and down to do.

I'd be fine with that, too. It just irritates me that I spend money on apps and they are missing features that seem so essential for Windows Phone.

 

[1jaxstate1]

Why does it mean doing away with live tiles? I don't see the connection. The WPC app has a live tile with a # indicating new articles. A notification center would let me know to go check the tile or go directly to the app. It's just a surefire way that you're not missing any notifications. By the time I actually check the WP7 app, there's like 15 new articles. I only know about them due to me playing with the phone and noticing the new articles, not from me being notified about the articles.

Having a separate screen for notifications would mean you may as well do away with live tiles and have a bunch of smaller icons.

The beauty of live tiles for me is that I get the best of both worlds. It's a start screen, and a notifications screen combined. My only criticism is the tiles can be a little lazy in some cases. Eventually I'd like to see them more in sync and maybe flip faster when you have a notification (to stand out from the rest).

The live tiles and toast/tile notifications are great when you are with your phone or using/playing with your phone. But if you are away from your phone, you're SOL.

If someone could do a repeating Toast Notification or something [NO SOUND], until it's checked, then I'd say there's no need for a new Notification system. Or maybe they could just stay on screen [WebOS] until they are dismissed.

 

[barbequtioner]

There are a few things that made me cringe about this post. First off, I was sort of upset at myself because I almost included that I only keep one game pinned to my start screen at a time (usually the most recently bought or one that has an achievement over which I am pining). I left it out, since I thought it was negligible, but I now realize that it sounds like I have countless games pinned to my start screen.

Second, Windows Phone has already been criticized for being too closed. Our trade-off for customizable widgets is the ability to customize our start screen with live tiles. To tell people that WP still falls short there is to really add insult to injury. We NEED to be able to customize as much as we want there, and each tile really needs to look good. I am starting to wish that MS would have a competition about making the coolest use of live tiles. That is a competition worth having.

That being said, I'm sure that there will be a day where 75% of apps will have true live tiles. However, this isn't that day and it should be addressed...especially if MS is to blame for a single one of them.

Oh! And welcome to WPCentral! I hope you enjoy your times at the forums. Not everyone is as critical (or as supportive, for that matter) as me.

I don't see how customization can change the OS and be that go to feature that sells devices. But, that's just me. If I asked 100 sheep out there who buy Apple and Android devices what their main selling feature for the device was, I bet you wouldnt get more than 1 or 2 saying "I could customize it the way I like it."

While I appreciate it that basically everyone here is a power user, for me absolute customization is a selling point that isn't gonna get more people to buy it. And for the record, I dont even pin one game, I hit my Xbox Live tile and go from there.

There are just so many other things they can be tweaking in the OS rather than pure customization.

And thanks for the welcome mat

 

[N8ter]

Live Tiles serve the same purpose as Badges and Widgets. All Microsoft did was consolidate the two into one entity. They do not replace a decent notification system, nor do they compose a decent notification system. Just because you implement a Global Notification Cache and Notification Center, you don't have to get rid of Live Tiles and Tile Badges...

It has nothing to do with tweaking. As far as the start screen is concerned, implementing Folders would probably be enough for most users (if they open to half-sized tiles, for example). As far as Notifications go, Live Tiles just don't cut it - period. They never have, and they pretty much never will. Flip Tiles are cool. People like looking at them, and I like showing them to people, but it's a colossal waste of time staring at your phone waiting for those to flip to see what may be on the other side. It's not practical. Microsoft should have known that, especially once you have a non-trivial amount of tiles pinned to your screen.

The WP7 Start Screen is like a Vertically scrolling Android Home screen with Square Icons with integrated Badges and Widgets.

Examples:

1. Facebook for WP app supports Push Notifications for 10 Event Types. If you see a 3 on your Facebook Tile, cause you missed the Toasts. How do you know it's not just 3 people Liking a post, as opposed to an enraged customer or important private message?

2. How do you know the 2 on your Email Tile isn't just for Subscription emails from eBay or Amazon.com?

3. How do you know what the number on your Messaging hub is for? Is it an IM? An SMS? Who is it from? There's no preview?

4. Unless you barely do anything on Twitter and Facebook (and LinkedIn), the Me Hub's Live Tile is virtually useless. It only gives a snippet of 1 Notification, and ONLY if you ONLY have ONE notification. Otherwise, it will just say "# New Items." That's basically a badge in a Phrase. Mind as well just put a number there so I don't have to wait for it to flip, right?

5. There is no Alert for Marketplace Updates, and it's only a Badge. Unless that's pinned high up on your Start Screen (seriously?) you won't know unless you scroll down. There isn't an option to automatically update applications, so we're basically forced to check that at least occasionally.

6. Phone Tile: Who called? What Time? Who Left a Voicemail? What Time? Was that just the same person calling me over and over, or different people?

7. Finally - The Current system forces you to pin an inordinate amount of applications to your start screen, which - frankly - sucks. I can go down to 1 blank home screen on Android and still get all of my Push Notifications and view them. On WP7 85% of the time if that app is not pinned, you're SoL.

You know what the end result of that is? It's going into all of those and checking "Notifications" in every app with a badge because either you missed the Toast Notification or that app (like Marketplace/Email/Me Hub Live Tile) doesn't give you a Toast Notification at all). No Previews, anywhere...

There is absolutely no way to triage several notifications.

I get it. Some people are less busy, so that is less of an issue for others than it may be for me or people who may share any of my views on the matter. But it's a serious usability issue that completely contradicts their marketing. Windows Phone 7 was supposed to give us more information at a glance and save us from our phone. It makes me use my phone even more, becuase it takes me 5x as long to triage Notifications on my HD7 than it does on my Vibrant or iTouch - almost entirely due to the lack of a Global Notification Cache, Notification Center, and inconsistent implementation of Toast Notifications across even Stock OS functions.

No, I don't think it's cool that I have to background an app that may or may not have factorable resume times just because I got an email, when I could pull down the Notification bar on my other devices, see that it's just an ebay newsletter, and instantly go back to what I am doing. It completely destroys workflow, and it's not something I can just "get used to." I boxed up my Vibant Thursday and tried to use the HD7 full time. I couldn't do it. I like using the device, but the lack of a decent notification system (and the slow push notifications esp for third party apps) just kills the experience for me.

Also, WP7 was released over a year ago. So "the platform isn't even a year old yet" is incorrect, and doesn't cut it anymore. They should have added this in NoDo. It's more important than the barebones Twitter and LinkedIn INtegration, and Flip Tiles, IMO.

 

[sayonical]

N8ter micromanaging is what you're after and Wp7 is not going to satisfy that.

A notification center sounds good but it's what everyone else is doing. Lets see how Microsoft innovates in this space rather than give us the same ok pull down menu with a clutter of stuff I have to keep clearing when the live tiles already cover the basics.

Sent from my HTC Titan using Board Express

 

[N8ter]

Wanting to triage notifications efficiently is micro-management now?

Wow. I'll keep that in mind for the future, lol.

Live tiles don't cover the basics. Being able to see what a notification is actually for is the basics of a notification system. They fail colosally at providing that function.

Like I said in my post. Live tiles are analogous to badges and widgets. If they were good enough, there wouldn't be a need for notification centers in.... Well, pretty much any smartphone os out there.

Sent from my SGH-T959 using Tapatalk

 

[lumic]

Having a separate screen for notifications would mean you may as well do away with live tiles and have a bunch of smaller icons.

The beauty of live tiles for me is that I get the best of both worlds. It's a start screen, and a notifications screen combined. My only criticism is the tiles can be a little lazy in some cases. Eventually I'd like to see them more in sync and maybe flip faster when you have a notification (to stand out from the rest).

A notifications list can't show the content a live tile can. Good example would be Metrotube, where I can have thumbnails of the latest videos. Live Tiles as numerical counters (email, messaging, phone) actually serve no more purpose than a smaller iOS icon with the red counter, so should not be wasting 1/8th of my screen estate.

Having a separate screen for notifications simply means I can have apps I access frequently on an uncluttered start screen. Why should I have to pin the Facebook primary tile so I can see if I've received a new inbox? If you think this is a good system, you must be delusional.

Live Tiles are a decent approach for a home screen - app launching, live content, deep linking. However, you can't escape the fact that they are just an interesting alternative to widgets (where they are tied to apps). Android has a notification centre, widgets, and an app list. Its notification system is widely praised. I wonder why?

Lets see how Microsoft innovates in this space rather than give us the same ok pull down menu with a clutter of stuff I have to keep clearing when the live tiles already cover the basics.

If it's not broken, don't fix it. Just pay Nokia for the Harmattan notification screen and call it a day. As for "keep clearing", it doesn't need to be a jumbled mess like the Android status bar. You don't need a separate icon to show for every notification, just show a generic toast icon. Notifications can be sorted chronologically, perhaps you could pin important ones. How is seeing a list of recent notifications worse than having to scroll down your home screen to check all your tiles?

 

[fisci]

A notifications list can't show the content a live tile can. Good example would be Metrotube, where I can have thumbnails of the latest videos. Live Tiles as numerical counters (email, messaging, phone) actually serve no more purpose than a smaller iOS icon with the red counter, so should not be wasting 1/8th of my screen estate.

Having a separate screen for notifications simply means I can have apps I access frequently on an uncluttered start screen. Why should I have to pin the Facebook primary tile so I can see if I've received a new inbox? If you think this is a good system, you must be delusional.

Live Tiles are a decent approach for a home screen - app launching, live content, deep linking. However, you can't escape the fact that they are just an interesting alternative to widgets (where they are tied to apps). Android has a notification centre, widgets, and an app list. Its notification system is widely praised. I wonder why?



If it's not broken, don't fix it. Just pay Nokia for the Harmattan notification screen and call it a day. As for "keep clearing", it doesn't need to be a jumbled mess like the Android status bar. You don't need a separate icon to show for every notification, just show a generic toast icon. Notifications can be sorted chronologically, perhaps you could pin important ones. How is seeing a list of recent notifications worse than having to scroll down your home screen to check all your tiles?

so anyone that doesn't have the same opinion as you is delusional?

Interesting....

 

[fifthGear]

What about a compromise that allows users to keep things the way they are now?

Allow the user to add start screens (i.e. a configuration option, not required). The Metro launcher would require a minimum of one start screen, in which case it would look and as it does now (though the arrow might be gone).

Here's how it would be "very Metro": Each start screen can have its own title and accent color. The title would appear at the top of the current start screen. Swiping left and right would walk through the various start screens one at a time thus behaving just as many of the metro apps currently do. I suppose each page would look a lot like 'recent' in People though the tiles would be vertical as they are on the current start screen. The app list would then be just another page.

If you have a lot of start screens, perhaps long-holding on any start screen title would bring up a jump list of all the start screens. This would be much like the jump list that comes up for alphabetical lists when touching the letter (e.g. as in the app list, contacts list in People, etc.)

 

[N8ter]

Seeing a latest Youtube video is unimportant compared to see who called youbor sent you a text message. I dunno why anyone would use that as a counterexample.

We already said adding the notification cache and center doesn't require any changes to live tiles, anyways.

Sent from my SGH-T959 using Tapatalk

 

[lumic]

so anyone that doesn't have the same opinion as you is delusional?

Interesting....

Whether you're trying to be funny or not, I should not be forced to pin an app to my start screen in order to get a notification once I've missed the toast. I can't think of any reason that someone would defend such a system, other than them being a massive ******.

So no, disagreeing with me does not mean you are delusional. Thinking the current notification system is perfectly fine when it has already been extensively called out as incompetent? I don't think I even have to be the judge of that.

 

[Matthew Mazzenga]

I should not be forced to pin an app to my start screen in order to get a notification once I've missed the toast.

You're not forced to do that. You could use Android or iPhone. I mean, I generally would never try to deter someone from using WP, in fact I usually do the opposite, but it seems that if you're so annoyed by something that is one of the core concepts of the OS, then maybe you shouldn't be using the OS. You're basically saying "This is a good OS, but I would like it a lot more if it were more like this other OS". Well, then.....just use that other OS.

I can't think of any reason that someone would defend such a system, other than them being a massive ******.

I can think of a great reason. It's a concept called "different strokes for different folks". I, personally, have no issues with the current notification system. I don't see why that makes me a ******. Maybe it just makes me someone who isn't very difficult to please. Maybe it makes me someone who prefers not to make mountains out of molehills. The apps that I want to get constant regular updates from, I keep pinned at the top of the Start screen (mail, messages, phone, Facebook). The ones that I want to get notifications from, but don't need to be "up-to-the-minute", I pin lower on the screen (Marketplace, Twitter). This system has worked great for me for almost a year now, and I don't see any need for it to change. Again, not because I'm a ******, but because it works for ME.

 

[fisci]

You're not forced to do that. You could use Android or iPhone. I mean, I generally would never try to deter someone from using WP, in fact I usually do the opposite, but it seems that if you're so annoyed by something that is one of the core concepts of the OS, then maybe you shouldn't be using the OS. You're basically saying "This is a good OS, but I would like it a lot more if it were more like this other OS". Well, then.....just use that other OS.



I can think of a great reason. It's a concept called "different strokes for different folks". I, personally, have no issues with the current notification system. I don't see why that makes me a ******. Maybe it just makes me someone who isn't very difficult to please. Maybe it makes me someone who prefers not to make mountains out of molehills. The apps that I want to get constant regular updates from, I keep pinned at the top of the Start screen (mail, messages, phone, Facebook). The ones that I want to get notifications from, but don't need to be "up-to-the-minute", I pin lower on the screen (Marketplace, Twitter). This system has worked great for me for almost a year now, and I don't see any need for it to change. Again, not because I'm a ******, but because it works for ME.

some peopLe seem to have a hard time differentiating between opinion and fact..

The notification system is fine for me and many others, though I guess we're all delusional lol

 

[erasure25]

I would like 3 home screens as such:

1 Home Screen with your pinned tiles (as we already have)
1 App Screen (as we already have)
1 Notifications Screen (this would be a new screen that shows your list of notifications that have not yet been viewed/responded to by the user)

 

[Matthew Mazzenga]

If there HAS to be a different form of notifications from what we already have, I would have to vote for more notifications in the ME tile. I don't keep my ME tile pinned to my Start screen, so basically I could just ignore all that and keep using my phone as I already do.

I feel a drop-down list would be overly-intrusive (to me, anyway), and while a third screen to the left (as many have requested) would at least be out-of-the-way enough that I could ignore it....if they put another giant f-ing arrow on the Start screen to waste even more space, I'll be done with WP.