What do you miss most about Windows 10 Mobile?

[ocdtrekkie]

Just bought a new Windows Mobile device yesterday and it's arriving today. Why is Windows Central so obsessed with promoting Android?

 

[ocdtrekkie]

After using Android now for about 4 weeks, I'm shocked it is the #1 mobile OS. Clearly most haven't tried WM, because it is superior. I am very surprised how poor text message receiving and sending in the car is. The fact that it's just standard on WM, but there is no built-in solution on Android is very inconvenient. It's like buying a different brand of car and discovering that there's no cruise control. I thought that was standard. That's been my biggest disappointment.

Android is the number one mobile OS because Google is more or less engaged in operating a criminal cartel controlling the entire mobile industry, and paying off our government to look the other way.

 

[Jace Nelson]

While this was technically a Windows Phone feature and not a Windows Mobile feature, I miss the Zune software for media management. I can to Windows Phone from my Zune and that software is still freakin' fantastic. It's easy, it's clean, and here's a novel notion. You can actually RIP A CD!

Once that was done away with all we have left to rip an album is Windows Media Player, which is......archaic at best and clunky and clumsy at worst, which is always.

I'm seriously struggling trying to find a method to be able to sync my music collection and have a functional music player with my S8, and similarly had to do it manually with my Windows Mobile Devices. Spotify has NO reasonable method to sync and use your own music and I cannot find another service that does what I want it to do.

I miss the simplicity of setup. I could reset my phone and have all of my settings, contacts and preferences back to the way it was before the reset in about 15 minutes. With my S8 I dread the day I have to replace it on warranty or get a new phone. It took me FOREVER to get the preferences the way I want.

Settings are a freaking disaster! There's setting for syncing contacts in 4. Count 'em. 4 different places on my S8!

I miss having my Onedrive pictures directly in my Pictures app. Effectively, I now have two photo apps. One for the pics on my phone, "Gallery", and my Onedrive app.

I miss being able to delete emails straight from the notification center.

I miss not having all of that bloatware.

Definitely miss the camera shutter button.

I miss the simple file structure of my Windows Phone. I swear, I plug in my SD card from my S8 and there's more arbitrary random folders than ones I actually use. What a mess.

By FAR the feature I miss most from Windows Mobile is the keyboard. SwiftKey doesn't hold a candle.

 

[mutant 9]

Have a Nokia 6 and after these issues still use my elite X3 as my daily:

- lack of ability to read and reply to texts and automatically announce navigation instructions over Bluetooth. (had no idea this would not be standard functionality in Android WtF)

- easy contact management. Seem to have issues adding contacts on the phone and having them save to my online account.

Dialer with visual voicemail built in. How to download voicemail app from ATT.

Off line maps of all states I travel in. Had to use here maps for this.

No ability to save music to the SD card in groove.

No dark mode (the 2000s called and want all the white backgrounds back)

Lastly design esthetic is bland as heck. And no notification badges by default. As a result notification shade is very busy.

The main benefit is the apps. Other than that w10m is a better experience.

I keep the Nokia 6 on my desk for access to apps like eBay and mobile banking when I need them.

My elite X3 (best WP ever) rides with me.

 

[MsWinafan]

I'll miss when it goes Android. "The wolf came and ate the sheep".

 

[celticmagick]

While I have gained device build quality and access to apps that I haven't been able to use on W10m, I don't feel as though my device is my own. I feel as though I'm just borrowing space to access Microsoft/Windows services and features. Cortana, for example, is just a bolt on feature rather than an integrated part of the experience. Yes, some of the apps are Microsoft branded but I'm using them through another OS - one that I don't trust at all. Thank you for letting us down, Microsoft.

 

[jblanken64]

I miss the tiled UI and the BT interoperability in the car or on my motorcycle (via a headset). I was able to add Launcher 10 to satisfy my need for the UI, but I'm not sure the BT will ever approach what Cortana was able to do.
And IOS was not much better than Android when it comes to the BT integration.

 

[bjones0821]

So, lots of folks are switching from Windows 10 Mobile to Android or iOS, for obvious reasons. Even the most diehard Windows phone fans have to at least be considering a switch. But this question is for people who have already made the jump to another mobile platform.

What specifically do you miss most about your Windows phone? And do you regret switching? I have a feeling that the Live tile interface is probably going to come up in the responses quite often ...

Leaving Windows 10 Mobile?? I'm just coming back.

 

[hnikesch]

Sticking with my 950, Have an Android tablet with all MS apps and it still sucks. Miss glance, the lock screen and all build in functionality in window 10. Might pick up a elite X3 for when the 950 fails or get a spare new 950

 

[mrclpz]

So, lots of folks are switching from Windows 10 Mobile to Android or iOS, for obvious reasons. Even the most diehard Windows phone fans have to at least be considering a switch. But this question is for people who have already made the jump to another mobile platform.

What specifically do you miss most about your Windows phone? And do you regret switching? I have a feeling that the Live tile interface is probably going to come up in the responses quite often ...

I miss the extremely easy way that W10 mobile and Windows Phone manage the SD card space. I love to move all Apps to this space simply selecting it in system configuration.
In Android this point is a nightmare, specially in earlier versions.

 

[MrockNroll]

Sticking with my 950, Have an Android tablet with all MS apps and it still sucks. Miss glance, the lock screen and all build in functionality in window 10. Might pick up a elite X3 for when the 950 fails or get a spare new 950

Iam , thinking about picking up the Elite X3 as a spare also when the price drops enough. I wonder if the new Verizon HP X3 has the T-mobile band 12 in it ? any body here know ?

 

[afkaboogieman]

I jumped ship to Android earlier this year. What do I miss?

• Email and Calendar - #1 by far. If you use your phone for office work, nothing beats the WP integration of Email. Everything was clean, functional, and easy to read. Zero wasted space. Android email and calendar is clunky and ugly in comparison

• Those beautiful live tiles- A gorgeous collage giving me all the info I need and nothing that I don't

• Cortana on WP8.1 - When Cortana first debuted, it was tremendous. Fun, helpful, functional, different. Then that all went to crap with Windows 10 Mobile. Cortana became just a frontend for Bing. Disconnected and lifeless.

• Being unique - My fellow WP true believers will understand this. No iPhone/Galaxy owners get stopped in public and asked "what kind of phone is that?"

• Fewer and Less invasive ads - Call it a benefit of being part of a smaller group. Games/apps with ads just had simple, non-intrusive, randomly generated banner ads. Now on Android I get to enjoy having my entire browsing history whittled down into micro-targeted ads over and over, ad nauseum. That's fun.

• Being part of a close-knit tech community - I loved having this little corner of the tech world, and sharing feedback with the individuals who shared my passion for WP. Now I'm just another face in the Android crowd.

I miss quite a bit about Windows Phone. But the writing is on the wall. I can't stay tied into an ecosystem that is unsupported. So I made the jump and I'm not looking back. I didn't leave Microsoft, Microsoft left me.

 

[Lloyd_S]

I "left" 18 months ago because of the app gap. Don't regret it. However, I do miss the keyboard and Email (I think now called Windows Messaging?) features in Windows Phone. I turn on my Lumia 1520 or 950 from time to time and revel at the quality of the email and keyboard. Using Android I just have not found anything to rival both of these Windows Phone (or Mobile?) features I truly love and miss.

 

[Mark Kaplan]

I jumped ship to Android earlier this year. What do I miss?

• Email and Calendar - #1 by far. If you use your phone for office work, nothing beats the WP integration of Email. Everything was clean, functional, and easy to read. Zero wasted space. Android email and calendar is clunky and ugly in comparison

• Those beautiful live tiles- A gorgeous collage giving me all the info I need and nothing that I don't

• Cortana on WP8.1 - When Cortana first debuted, it was tremendous. Fun, helpful, functional, different. Then that all went to crap with Windows 10 Mobile. Cortana became just a frontend for Bing. Disconnected and lifeless.

• Being unique - My fellow WP true believers will understand this. No iPhone/Galaxy owners get stopped in public and asked "what kind of phone is that?"

• Fewer and Less invasive ads - Call it a benefit of being part of a smaller group. Games/apps with ads just had simple, non-intrusive, randomly generated banner ads. Now on Android I get to enjoy having my entire browsing history whittled down into micro-targeted ads over and over, ad nauseum. That's fun.

• Being part of a close-knit tech community - I loved having this little corner of the tech world, and sharing feedback with the individuals who shared my passion for WP. Now I'm just another face in the Android crowd.

I miss quite a bit about Windows Phone. But the writing is on the wall. I can't stay tied into an ecosystem that is unsupported. So I made the jump and I'm not looking back. I didn't leave Microsoft, Microsoft left me.

The only thing I disagree with here is your comments about Cortana on W10M. My experience was the exact opposite. Seamless integration and full functionality on both my Elite X3 and 950 XL. It is the most missed feature and a main reason I went back to W10M.

 

[Chef316]

I miss everything except the lack of apps. Broke my 950XL's digitizer and had to resort to using my back up phone...a budget android device. Hopefully won't be too long before I'm able to get the 950XL repaired. It's going to cost almost as much as I paid for the phone when it was on a half price sale last year.

 

[teddystiles]

What specifically do you miss most about your Windows phone? And do you regret switching? I have a feeling that the Live tile interface is probably going to come up in the responses quite often ...

I was starting to look seriously at switching to iOS or Android over the last few months, allowing the recent "Windows Phone is dead" press to get the better of me. A former Windows Phone zealot, I started to relax my disdain for the other platforms and go excited at the prospect of actually having the apps that are advertised everywhere. I read the reviews for the recent releases by Apple and Samsung, and allowed myself to get excited along with everyone else.

Then I changed jobs and was ISSUED an iPhone by my new employer. I was so confident that this was it for me and my Lumia 950XL that I allowed them to port my personal number over to Verizon.

It. Was. A. Nightmare.

I can't believe I had been worn down to think that iOS was actually the superior mobile OS. Years ago I had heard it called an "app launcher," and I was shocked to learn that this is still the case! Apple has built an app platform, barely changing the UI since it was conceived over a decade ago! Great app selection. Terrible, terrible phone. Sure, UI and familiarity makes any comparison highly subjective, but even by several objective measures, the iPhone is an inferior device.

Over the last few months I came to terms with Microsoft's failure in the mobile space, so I came over with an open mind (much more open that it would have been even 6 months ago) and was utterly and profoundly disappointed.

What did I miss? Aside from the apps, Apple Wallet, and the obvious features that iOS ripped off of Windows Phone over the years, I missed EVERYTHING about my Lumia 950 XL, not the least of which was having a phone that not everyone else and their mother had (I'm not a "me too!" person at all).

But when I say everything, I mean everything: Glance screen. Live tiles. Cortana integration (Siri is a joke: "Call my wife." "Which wife?"). Keyboard. Action center. Copy/paste functionality. App switching. Storage management. Linked inboxes. Pinning separate inboxes or linked inboxes to the home screen (I manage dozens of email addresses). Pinning separate instances of an app to the home screen (different locations for Weather, for instance). Calendar, and the general cleanliness of all the native apps. An alphabetized and searchable app list. Wireless charging. USB-C. A lock screen that isn't littered with notifications. A lock screen that doesn't respond in a half-dozen ways to different gestures and home button presses, especially accidentally. Camera button. Camera app (seriously - have you seen the iOS camera UI? What it does when you rotate to landscape? *shudder*). Photo quality. The ability to act on notification on the notification itself (think of using the "Approve" button on Microsoft Authenticator notifications or respond to texts in-line).

Without apps, Microsoft simply had to do more with the phone themselves - and they created a device that was fluid, stable, and tightly integrated. A joy to use.

Did I regret switching? Let's just say that after a few days of forcing myself to use the iPhone, I swapped the SIM card back to my Lumia; I was horrified when I realized that my 950XL wouldn't work on Verizon. Yes, you could say I regretted my decision. I would have had rather them just issue me a new phone number and carried two phones. Putting the SIM back into the iPhone was a particularly somber moment.

But it's not all bad news! So the Director of IT stopped by my desk today and asked how it was going with the new phone. I said I was transitioning from a Windows Phone and that it had been a difficult week. He pulled a Windows Phone out of his pocket. "I know," he said. He hadn't realized I was a WP guy, so he's going to switch me from the corporate Verizon account to their AT&T account so I can start using my Lumia again and regain my sanity!

This is a weird time. Kind of like the day after a major national election when the other party wins and you feel powerless about what is about to happen for the foreseeable future. Stunned that so many people could be so profoundly deceived. Devastated by the realization that you'll never see what might have been.

If Microsoft abandons the consumer market - where does that leave me? I don't trust Google. I don't like Apple. I've long maintained that if Windows Phone fails, Windows proper fails; if there are no Universal Apps, then iOS, Android, and ChromeOS win in the long term. Can Microsoft at least fork Android for us? Will the Windows-on-ARM project ever see the light of day? Is there a post-smartphone future that Microsoft will pioneer?

Without those answers, I'm going to cling to my Lumia 950XL. Until the apocalypse, if need be.

 

[JohnnyBawesome]

I miss syncing my contacts with Facebook so they all have pictures for their contact profile. I miss responding to texts via Cortana. I miss the camera app of the Lumia 950

 

[Florin Musetoiu]

I miss only the dark theme and the toggle bar at the top... IOS has a weird way of not disabling WIFI and BT from Control Center... other than that i don`t miss anything from Windows.

Maybe the live tiles a bit ....

OH... and the Camera ...

 

[rmark66]

I would keep using 950XL except my wife spider webbed her 950XL. So, now I don't want to buy another high end phone for a dying phone ecosystem. Especially since Microsoft could have saved it and made flourish by using a few more billion dollars. Since, they are not investing any more and a Windows 10 /ARM based surface phone any time soon, I have no choice. After I learn Android my wife and kids will get Android phones next.

Seems odd they didn't want to invest a few billion more to keep a foothold in peoples houses. Yes, I think it is only a matter of time before Xbox and Windows PC's are hit hard because of a lack of a complete home computing ecosystem. Stupidest decision a large company has ever made!

 

[NPGMBR]

I miss the integration. I miss being able to verbally respond to incoming SMS messages via Cortana in my car. I miss being able to Mute SMS conversations. I miss the simplicity of W10M that Android lacks. I find that I often have to make more movements or clicks to perform some tasks in Android whereas it was easier in W10M.