Thoughts on Windows Phone Cyan?

[k12000lt]

You have to think different with WP - pin a contact to your start screen. Would that not do?

Of course it won't. Smart dialing has absolutely no substitute. BTW, when it was already there in all Nokias, why replace it with something useless and force everyone to use it? Now even all droids have it. It's immensely useful. And how many contacts you are going to pin to start? 10? 15?

 

[scgf]

Was just asking. I've never used speed dialling - I pin the four most regular contact to my start screen, other regular contacts appear under 'phone' as soon as you open it. Same when I used Android. How would you use speed dialling?

 

[Poirots Progeny]

Smart dialing is something I miss. Especially useful if I get a number on the landline and don't recognise it. Just start dialing and a contact will come up. Much easier than searching!! The contact app only allows names, not letters, to be searched. I think a smart dialer like on the blackberry bb10 os would really enhance the call experience on wp. Why all the extra steps? Go to dialer. Hit contacts. Search. Bring up contact. Call. It goes to dialer and calls.

I have a couple of contacts added to my start screen and yes, it's nice to have that link but it isn't speed dial: It opens the app. That is useful as you can manage how you want to communicate from there but sometimes you just want to dial. IOS doesn't have a smart dialer so that's the trend?

But then the msft dev forum has an open request for smart dialing - been open for years.

 

[Soumalya24]

How do you say battery life has improved, battery consumption has increased quite a long in comparison with 8.0

 

[fonix232]

Hello.
These are just my first impression about WP8.1/Lumia Cyan on my L925. I installed it yesterday. I did a factory reset after taking a full back up (Contacts and calender only) of my phone, before updating to Lumia Cyan. It took around 90 minutes for the whole process before my phone was all set up and ready to go. Following are the things I noticed:

I will reply to some stuff inline

The good:
1: Nice visual overhaul
2: Good action center, still needs some improvement though.
3: Toggle keys for WiFi, Location etc.
4: Nice default camera interface.
5. Nice transition effect while opening action center, browsing through menus etc.
6: Improved calender interface.
7: Very good IE. Can store passwords. Pages are much faster to load, rendered better.
8: Excellent battery life. Way improved. ( you need to restrict a lot many apps from running in background from new 'batter saver' app though. By default too many useless app are allowed.)
9: Changes in call history are welcome. Now calls from single number are consolidated and show number of calls in front of it instead of very long list like in WP8.

Actually I liked the previous call list more. Then I could see WHEN exactly the calls were made. Now, I can't. Android beats this, with the drop-down combination of calls.

The bad:
1: Still no smart dialing

I suppose by this you mean T9 dialing. As far as I know, it must be licensed, and would cost Microsoft some money to do so.

2: Can toggle WiFi on from the top drop down menu but can't toggle off. It goes to WiFi settings from where I need to slide it off.

Yes, and this is on purpose - as you're able to select when to turn WiFi back. In an hour, 2, or 4 hours, or around your common places. This give you the option.

Of course, a simple off toggle would be nice, but I like this more.

3: No toggle for GPRS/Data connection.

MS will get this toggle "soon" - as seen on their suggestion page.

4: No USB OTG.

What for? It's a PHONE, not a tablet or multimedia center - do you really want to drag it around with a hard drive/USB stick hanging out of it? I guess no.

5: No Powerpoint editor.
6: Calender and Battery saver keep running in background when I close them with back key. I always have to go to task manager and shut them down.

That is, again, on purpose. These are core apps - when they run, they don't eat much, but provide features you would need.

7: Still a lot of restricted implementation:
a:For Whatsapp
still can't send audio files in whatsapp.
can't find and replay/delete saved audio clips which I receive in whatsapp.

can't send custom ringtone, apart from all those few default ones.​

b:Security apps
like photo lock, private lite, 360 photo vault are severely restricted and crippled.
8: No native support to password protect gallery (Photos/videos) or certain apps.

Security apps must be updated to the new APIs and changes - this is not 8.1's fault, but the developers'! Don't diss the OS because a 3rd party wasn't able to update to the new stuff yet.

As for native password protection, how many people do actually need it?

9: Still can not create albums in gallery (Photos)
10: Store: can't remove uninstalled apps from 'My Apps' list.

The Store thing is pretty much how it is with Android - you downloaded an app, "made a purchase" (even if it's free), so it gets in your purchased items list. And the My Apps list shows exactly that.

11: Can not view or download/save any attachment (pdf/docx/jpg etc) from an email when viewing in Internet Explorer. Only png images can be saved.
12: Can not create birthdays in calender, in phone itself, like online account.

I had no issues with attachments so far - no matter if its PDF, docx, pptx, etc. It offered me to either open in the app, or download. After download it gave me the option to open in app.

To create birthdays, you have to edit your contacts and add it there.

13: In IE, when multiple tabs are open. when you open each tab in succession. the arrangement of tabs in 'Tab' menu keeps on changing. I mean the location of tab of opened page.
14: Can't delete single notification in action center. Also it gets extremely overwhelming when there are a lot of notifications form single or multiple apps.

Dunno about the IE stuff, usually I browse on my desktop - I barely use it at all.

The single notification thing is indeed annoying. I wish it was possible

Indifferent:
1: Unnecessary addition of things like Travel, health & fitness, food & drink.
They might be unnecessary for you, but not for others. E.g. I use the Health&Fitness app a lot, also Travel.
2: Little more storage usage for phones with no expandable memory (L925).
New features need more space. Besides, it's not that bad!
3: No change in overall speed of OS. It was faster already with WP8. (Doesn't "seem faster" :winktongue
Do not agree here. Some animations have been sped up, overall it is more responsive, even on my old 520.
4: Unnecessary change in call menu.
5: Wrodflow keyboard. May be useful to many others, ofcourse.

One more thing
Can any one tell me how can I change theme of my lock screen to [screenshot]?
I have seen it on many websites reviewing or discussing about WP8.1

You can't change to the new lockscreen yet. It was even posted on the front page yesterday, it's coming "soon".

 

[scgf]

Ah, just noticed I used the term 'speed' instead of 'smart' - maybe I'm thinking of a different thing altogether!

 

[k12000lt]

Was just asking. I've never used speed dialling - I pin the four most regular contact to my start screen, other regular contacts appear under 'phone' as soon as you open it. Same when I used Android. How would you use speed dialling?

It isn't speed dialing, it's smart dialing. When you just key in a few letters to a phone pad, it lists the names of all contacts which have those letters in them in that sequence. It's extremely useful feature which was already there, most used and most requested.

 

[Poirots Progeny]

It isn't speed dialing, it's smart dialing. When you just key in a few letters to a phone pad, it lists the names of all contacts which have those letters in them in that sequence. It's extremely useful feature which was already there, most used and most requested.

Aye, exactly the use scenario iI described above. Such a useful feature. And it has been requested for years. But then people have been asking for openvpn access as well, another huge request thread. Oh well :/

 

[k12000lt]

USB OTG is a topic of debate. I used it most with my old n8 a lot. I used to carry all my movies and song collection on pen drives and watch them while traveling. Now I can't as it has a very limited storage and it's going to go down as I install more apps, update OS/app, click photos, shoot videos. Some might say cloud is an option. For me it's out of question as I go frequently to areas where not even normal network coverage is available. forget 3G. And another thing is, when you already have everything with you, why upload it to 3rd party cloud solution, spend your data and money to see it again all the time?
Can you download any attachment when you open your gmail account in Internet Explorer on WP 8.1? I can't. I am not talking about mail client.
In android, you can delete app from your app list in store after you uninstall it-that is when you no longer use the app.
I would always prefer WIFi toggle as I do not need to auto connect. If at all I need to why would I need to keep changing the time to reconnect?I would set is once and for all.

 

[Poirots Progeny]

USB OTG is a topic of debate. I used it most with my old n8 a lot. I used to carry all my movies and song collection on pen drives and watch them while traveling. Now I can't as it has a very limited storage and it's going to go down as I install more apps, update OS/app, click photos, shoot videos. Some might say cloud is an option. For me it's out of question as I go frequently to areas where not even normal network coverage is available. forget 3G. And another thing is, when you already have everything with you, why upload it to 3rd party cloud solution, spend your data and money to see it again all the time?
Can you download any attachment when you open your gmail account in Internet Explorer on WP 8.1? I can't. I am not talking about mail client.
In android, you can delete app from your app list in store after you uninstall it-that is when you no longer use the app.
I would always prefer WIFi toggle as I do not need to auto connect. If at all I need to why would I need to keep changing the time to reconnect?I would set is once and for all.

Agree 100%. Aside from open vpn the other thing I want is usb otg, I'd they're isn't an SD card (though why they're is no SD card on some phones is beyond me). I'm not putting sensitive info into the cloud, nor am I putting my photos or anything else there. It's good for some, for me no.

Basically what you said

 

[k12000lt]

How do you say battery life has improved, battery consumption has increased quite a long in comparison with 8.0

You need to block all apps from running in background. Go to 'Battery Saver' -> block all apps which you don't need. That's all I did. My batter life really has improved.

 

[rmeigs]

1: Still no smart dialing

Might try one of the many Smart Dialing apps in the WP Store. I use RapDialer.

 

[beautyramses]

I have a big problem on my new windows Phone 8.1 that it can't open PDF files which is in large size but in my old phone which working perfectly with Android it can open any PDF files very easily , does anyone have any solutions ?

 

[Chris Sandiford]

I'm not 100% sure on this but I think the Me hub has regained some of its functionality/usefulness with Cyan.
I'm sure when 8.1DP was installed, the "post an update" part of Me took you straight in to the default app (in my case twitter and it took me straight into new tweet.)

Now, it has the old WP8 way of an o/s level update in the Metro box without opening the app. Much cleaner.

Has this changed back or did I dream it all?

 

[scgf]

My 930 takes me to the Facebook app to post On the screen where you click 'Ppost an update', go to settings. What do you have for 'Use for updates' ?

 

[Swiss7599]

Absolutely loath the new cursor! Don't understand why they felt the need to 'improve' it. Worked perfectly on WP8.

 

[scgf]

Yeah, I can't use it - my fingers are too big to hit the minute circle!

 

[k12000lt]

The BadCtnd.)
15: WiFi doesn't stay on. It doesn't disconnect but shows 'limited connectivity' after say approx half hour of inactivity. I have to disconnect and reconnect then it again works till it stop using apps which use network (IE or whatsapp or store or something similar)
16: IE sometimes doesn't show pages. It shows pages is fully loaded, there is refresh icon at the end of search bar but page is blank white. When I click refresh icon, the page reloads correctly. Happens once in a while.
17: When phone gets auto locked when whatsapp/office is open, it takes longer time for lock screen to appear. It shows 'resuming' for few seconds. Don't know if my cell has the problem or many others. Also when I get any mail/message and I try to unlock at the moment, it shows 'resuming' for a few seconds then the lock screen appears to swipe up.

 

[mhc48]

Health & Fitness on a 635 with Motion Data which is part of Cyan, allows the phone to count steps as I walk, and eliminates the need for a pedometer or interfaces with one or FitBit. Although on constantly it must use very little battery.

The Files program is super, allowing me to see what's on the phone and my SD card. You can even launch from it

Also, I just noticed that when I text, in addition to word recognition, it recognizes words and pops up an appropriate emoji

 

[mjrtoo]

GPS is trashed on my 925, way off or always gives an error when getting to find an address in the maps app. The hinders use of the links from people hub etc. Terrible, I've posted to Microsoft forums with no reply yet.