Wife completly turned off by WP

[Ivin Laney]

The problem is that people are dissing on WP even before they give it a chance! Just buy a Lumia 520 from the Microsoft store for $59 and give it to your wife to test out WP as a daily driver.

Thats what I did before I got my 925 but I'm a nerd so I have patience. She does not. At all.

 

[WanderingTraveler]

Thats what I did before I got my 925 but I'm a nerd so I have patience. She does not. At all.

You know, everyone is always at one extreme or the other. Never the middle.

Why don't you two switch phones for a day or two? You get to teach her things she won't normally learn on her own (like the fact that you can deactivate the three-tile layout, and that tiles are just fancy icons that change at will...every thirty minutes, or that Cortana is awesome.)

Learn to compromise. Democracy exists as a compromise between all parties, after all. America seems to have forgotten that.

 

[Ivin Laney]

You know, everyone is always at one extreme or the other. Never the middle.

Why don't you two switch phones for a day or two? You get to teach her things she won't normally learn on her own (like the fact that you can deactivate the three-tile layout, and that tiles are just fancy icons that change at will...every thirty minutes, or that Cortana is awesome.)

Learn to compromise. Democracy exists as a compromise between all parties, after all. America seems to have forgotten that.

That's actually a pretty good idea. I havent used my 925 in a couple of days and I'm still in the return window for another week or so. I'll run this by her and see what she thinks as I really do think WP is best for her.

 

[ohgood]

One of my girl friends was so tempted to get the 1020 since she loves to take pictures. She kept telling me that the screen is to busy. Not sterotyping, but maybe girls do like things to be simpler and more busy.

I mean, I'm not proving anything new here. Just watch a woman man and her man argue about home decor.


My wife likes her 925 but keeps telling me she misses her S3 because it's faster... I'll ask her about the times tomorrow and see what she thinks.

Would love to see some statistics on this somewhere.

+1


I tried making everything on my wife's phone active, updated, information rich, and in flux.

She hated it.

"All I want to see are the kids smiling at me when I turn on the screen" was pretty simple and easily accomplished.

That wallpaper gets changed weekly, or whenever a new favorite is tagged by her. No ripples, animations, widgets, slides, distortions, menu bar, dock, it anything besides the clock (semi transparent/small) and a SMS unread count.

Happy women are nice to have and keep that way.

 

[Orange Cat]

Reasonable, not everyone is going to like it. I love WP but I also own an iPhone because things like not easily being able to upload videos to Facebook annoy me (current situation).

Are there any apps that allow us to upload pre-existing videos to facebook or twitter?

 

[Blacklac]

Are there any apps that allow us to upload pre-existing videos to facebook or twitter?

I've read you can in the browser, with 8.1, but I haven't tried video.

 

[Reflexx]

This isn't directly related to the tiles but I don't feel like I can recommend WP to anyone non-technical, which is weird because it's a very simple, user focused design. For me the issue is that often things just don't work. I've got a Lumia 920 and I have

• plenty of freezes and resets (more when I first got the phone and less now after firmware & OS updates but they still happen more frequently then I'd like)
• apps often exit unexpectedly (a problem for the app devs, not the OS but I never had this many issues on iOS & I've had crashes from Bing News recently which is an MS app)
• mysterious & severe battery drains (seems to be a common theme on these forums)
• things like Internet sharing not working, sound only coming from 1 headphone, Bluetooth not working and all needing a restart to resolve

Compared to the iPhone 4 I had previously and my wife's iPhone 5s the Lumia 920 is downright unreliable, and from posts in these forums it doesn't seem uncommon for any & all WP devices to suffer these issues. I like my Windows Phone, it has some very nice features & I'll probably buy another, but if anyone non-technical asks me for a phone recommendation then I can't say WP.

I'm surprised to hear that you're having those issues. I don't think they're common at all. I know several people with the Lumia 920, and they've been pretty rock solid.

Well, except about the battery drain thing. It's confusing. It's not a consistent thing, but it will happen to several people around the same time. I think it has to do with the LTE network or something because I don't know how several different people will have phones that work well and then suddenly drain battery on the same day.

 

[nmercy]

Are there any apps that allow us to upload pre-existing videos to facebook or twitter?

The Facebook app allows photos and videos while the Twitter app only allows photos.

Easiest way is to just go to the Photos App, select the photo or video you want, select the Share button (looks like a recycle icon), and select where you want to share it to... in my case I have Facebook, Twitter, Email but other apps might let you do more.

 

[_Emi_]

what is this? dramawindows phone central? it's like you want advice or something about your wife? is this like a bed problem or something and you have to come and run and tell it to everyone?

but what can I say? I'm sorry but, not everyone will like Windows Phone, and your wife has dumb reasons to dislike Windows Phone, and you could have showed her how to CUSTOMIZE the start screen.... couldn't you do that?
she wants icons? what's so different about changing the live tiles to small size? she doesn't even have to have any big tile if she doesn't want to.
how is that different from an icon? nothing. so again, dumb reasons to dislike a platform, but what can we do? there is special people in the world who seem to "care" about technology and "oh I will die without useless static icons" but in the end they won't even use it much.
facebook, whatsapp? Line? kik? instagram? oh yeah, we need a completely new platform to be able to do that.... not! it's just the same useless thing in every platform.

I wonder if she knows what "cluttered" even means though.... I mean, I thought some people said WP was plain and boring! (and Android not busy or cluttered? what?... yeah I have used it and I still don't like it, not even because it's Android, it's because I just don't like the way it looks and works) so yeah it seems just excuses to me, especially if there was not even a real use of the OS and phone, but you couldn't even explain how to change the tiles size? wow... just wow. I bet there would have been another excuse, and then another excuse, but at least next time you should at least show how customizable WP is, specially in 8.1 which is stable and can be run in any wp8. and show a person how to really use or how things are done in the OS.

 

[Tony_Offends_U]

Lot of married folk around here.

 

[jsooney]

WP isn't really for the masses if you ask me. It's just not ready for the hordes of people who don't know or care how things work, and don't want to tweak things. I wouldn't give it to a wife or an aging parent, too much trouble.

It's kind of like Mac vs PC/Windows. I've always been a DOS/Windows person and using a Mac makes me nauseous because it's so dumbed down, but some people like that, need it even. I think iPhone vs WP is the same. It doesn't sound to me like the OP's wife is a candidate for WP.

 

[fdalbor]

That is exactly what I did. I bought a 520 as a backup to my 820. But my wife decided she might like to try a smart phone. So I gave her my 520 and she enjoyed it and figured it out in no time. I bought her a 925 shortly later and she loves it. Plus I get my backup phone back. She now knows how to use WP8 and I doubt she will be changing to anything else.

It is going to be very difficult for WP8 to get a great deal of marketshare trying to convert Android and IOS users. Best try to get feature phone users (my wife a good example) who want to try a smartphone but not spend a bunch of money. I would be willing to bet a small percentage of Android and IOS users convert unless they had a bad experience with their OS. I have a feeling if Apple had come out with a lower priced Iphone in the beginning they would be in Androids spot and not number two in the world.

 

[radmanvr]

Yeah, I know what you mean I download remote app for my phone and when my wife talks and complains I completely turn her off.... oh wait we are talking about something else

Well you can't turn off live tiles but there are some apps that where the live tile just sits there and it doesn't do any live tile stuff so technically it's just an icon.

And its not really a hard to learn WP8.

I have a similar story but with games I was telling my friend to buy Wild Star Online and she was like umm nah I don't want to learn a whole new game since she already knows how to play World of Warcraft so I told her your loss, its a way better game. She is activating a trial account as soon that is available.

 

[BobLobIaw]

This thread is motivating me to stay single.

 

[jleebiker]

Bottom line, she's going to use the phone. Not you.

 

[fatclue_98]

This thread is motivating me to stay single.

You don't know the joy! You don't know the joy!!!!! :crying: :crying:

 

[AngrySprintUser]

My wife says the same thing about my phone, the screen being too busy.

After downloading enough apps, even the iphone screen can get pretty busy, especially when you can't remember if that one app is on page 2 or page 5.

I know someone will bring up the folders, if you can remember which folder carries what, also, WP (at least mine) has app folders as well so my start screen is pretty consolidate now. I like it. Only the apps with useful Live Tiles I've pinned.

 

[mjrtoo]

Reasonable, not everyone is going to like it. I love WP but I also own an iPhone because things like not easily being able to upload videos to Facebook annoy me (current situation).

Huh?

 

[MDK22]

YES - Windows phone 8 (& 7 before it) was off-putting to some. The tiles were blocky & (some would say) garish.

Saw my boss's wife, recently. Asked her about her Note 2 (first smartphone about a year ago). She had some niggling little complaints (Battery, data (she's on Sprint), etc.). She then spotted my phone, clipped to my side. She asked what it was, I replied a 1520, showed it to her. I'm running WinPhone 8.1 Dev Preview & have a nice open water scene behind my transparent tiles. Taking advantage of the screen real estate, I have approx. 50% transparent small tiles. After taking a look at it, she said '...I thought you had a Windows Phone, I hated those, too much w the tiles, yours looks nice ...' After I told her it was a Windows Phone w the latest release, she was a bit jealous (& put off).

If Microsoft would run an ad with a Windows 8 phone, side by side with the upcoming Windows 8.1 phone (nice background, thoughtfully laid out Start screen) - the dialogue would be along the lines of this (WinPhone8) became THIS (WinPhone8.1), then briefly expound on the features, move some tiles around, resize them, take a live Facebook / Twitter update, then demo a picture snapped @ just the right moment (one of the kids).

... dunno, they might have something, because after all women are different than men ...

BTW - my wife LUVs my old Lumia 920 !

 

[A895]

"Why would anyone want to switch to WP if they already know how to use the phones the they already have?"

This explains a lot of reasons why WP adoption is so slow. I know it is touted that because it is different it's a plus, but at the same time no matter if you like it or not the iOS and Android interfaces are familiar and known and will be the first thing smartphone owners gravitate to and what new smartphone users use as well because these interfaces are so common around them that it will be the first OS`s they think about when they get a new phone. I think with WP, Microsoft has to explain to the average consumers why WP is different and why different will be good for them.