WP8 folders?

[Traxan]

Howdy. I'm new to WP8 so forgive the newbiness of this question. In iOS, if you drag one app icon onto another, a folder is created. This did a great job to reduce clutter and organize my main window. Can I do that in WP8?

TIA.

 

[Paul May]

No. You really need to do some research on WP8. You have your app list and main page but you have control on what you have on your main page by choosing what to pin to the start page. Using folders on WP8 would be redundant because it has the live tiles. So whatever u pin to the start shows updates on whatever that app is.

 

[Traxan]

Ok thanks Paul.

 

[danaplz]

[iOS Folders] did a great job to reduce clutter and organize my main window.

Using folders on WP8 would be redundant because it has the live tiles.

How are live tiles related? Can't having too many live tiles make one's screen cluttered?

 

[robinleck]

Folders & Files concept is an obsolete & legacy concept from the old days of Windows/Mac desktops. Only iPhone/Android phones are still using the decades-old system.
In Windows Phone, Live & Resizable Tiles are the new normal. Its a groundbreaking modern-day UI. It's a paradigm shift in mobile OS platform. If you can adapt & assimilate to it, it's very refreshing & flippingly fun to use. It's like having a beautiful gal winking at you everytime you unlock the start screen. We need to wean ourselves of ancient files- folders lifestyle. Cheers

 

[DuncanF62]

Files and folder will be with us forever. The question is one of apps and folders. And for the same reason that when you have thousands of files you categorise them into folders for easy location, it makes sense to have that same ability with a myriad of apps, just as you can do by grouping tiles on Windows 8. My home screen is two pages long and that's about enough for me. The trouble is my apps screen is getting longer, and some apps are not always intuitively named so I have to scroll to find them. So yes, I do think folders are useful for apps to categorise them and I'm hoping some gentle soul will bring out an app to do this.

 

[danaplz]

^ that.

 

[robinleck]

Unless it's about my lifespan, I really dread the word "forever".
It's like iphone/android UI are FOREVER boring & stale.
However, I am optimistic about WP progression.
Those holdings WP phones, we are in exciting time.
Don't Miss it !!!

 

[robinleck]

Apps & folders vs files & folders...
Same difference

 

[Gergolos]

I just don't get the "folders are sooo boring and not cool! The other OS-versions have it and because of the fact that WP doesn't have it, it can not be cool or practical!" argumentation...

That's just ignoring the facts...at least in my opinion...

Of course I love the Live Tiles and the listing option... That's the thing I love most about WP... but as Duncan already wrote: if you have a lot of apps, folders would be really awesome! I happen to search for one kind of an app all the time because of the crazy (and not task related ) names some of them have...If one uses all the apps all the time, I guess it's not that kind of a big deal... but it's not possible for me to use/remember all the names from all of my 100+ Apps...It would help a lot to have folders like "Foto manipulation" and so on...

So please... Not every decision Microsoft made (dealing with WP) has to be the right/best one...

 

[robinleck]

I just don't get the "folders are sooo boring and not cool! The other OS-versions have it and because of the fact that WP doesn't have it, it can not be cool or practical!" argumentation...

That's just ignoring the facts...at least in my opinion...

Of course I love the Live Tiles and the listing option... That's the thing I love most about WP... but as Duncan already wrote: if you have a lot of apps, folders would be really awesome! I happen to search for one kind of an app all the time because of the crazy (and not task related ) names some of them have...If one uses all the apps all the time, I guess it's not that kind of a big deal... but it's not possible for me to use/remember all the names from all of my 100+ Apps...It would help a lot to have folders like "Foto manipulation" and so on...

So please... Not every decision Microsoft made (dealing with WP) has to be the right/best one...

Totally respect your opinion even though we may not agree on certain issues.
But these App Addiction has to stop, its getting pretty ridiculous... 100+ apps Reeeally

 

[Gergolos]

@robinleck:

I know what you mean, but in my case the 100+ apps make at least a bit sence I am working for a provider here in Europe, so I have to use and test a lot of apps for my clients/customers. After testing all of these apps are being deleted... so actually I only counted the apps which I have for my personal use...

I have quite a few foto/picture manipulation apps which I love to mix because of the lack of a "master app" doing everything perfectly. I check the news from different websites, check some science related info by using several science apps, use different syste related apps because of my, use all the amazon/ebay/paypal apps, watch/stream movies and video over a few different apps, have some radio apps, because not all of them are doing the same job. And so on...

I think one could call me a heavy user, yes.. but having the fact that all the native "apps" from WP appear on the app-list, one can have some tough time finding the app one wants, if there are more than 50+ apps or so...

 

[Ron Gramann]

I have to chime in on this app issue. Every OS boasts about quantity,and rarely about quality. So your OS has 500,000 apps? What does matter if 99% of them are crap? The question should be - does the OS provide all the functionality and service I need and expect on a mobile device? Personally, I can only think of about a dozen or so truly vital apps. But, that's just me.

 

[deuxani]

You can use Groupy or Wiztiles to order your tiles by groups. It's the closest thing to folders that you can get

 

[Gergolos]

@Ron:

I don't know if you were referring to my posts, but if so:

I was never talking about the actual number of apps available for WP or other systems... (actually I don't think anyone did...)

 

[Ron Gramann]

@Gergolos - not related to your original post. Conversation drifted to app addiction

 

[narv]

I don't see the reason for having folders in WP8. The point of having your tiles out there is to see the live update. And you don't need to pin all of your apps to the start screen. Unlike ios and android, if the app isn't displayed on the screen, it's not accessible. However in wp8, you can just swipe to the right and see a list of all your apps and just tap the letter heading and select the letter the app starts with, and go right to it (or launch the app with the voice aid by pressing and holding the windows key, just like siri).

Plus with resizing the apps, you can fit all sorts of stuff on the screen with all sorts of different layouts that fit you. and all the games are put in the xbox gaming app so that is sort of a folder in itself.

Also, since the start screen is one LONG page instead of the iphones 8 seperate small pages, it's very easy to scroll to what you need.

 

[Gergolos]

See, that's the thing: I as well think that there is no need for folders on the start screen... but nobody is talking about that... at least I wasn't.

I want folders for the applist. You're right of course when you say "you can just swipe to the right and see a list of all your apps and just tap the letter heading and select the letter the app starts with, and go right to it". That only works, if your organizer APP is named "Organizer", the dropbox App is called "Dropbox", the epub reader app is called "Epub Reader App" and so on... There are quite a few Apps which have names not related to their tasks. The "worst" ones are third party apps like "BoxShot Free", which is a Dropbox App. So for doing what you mentioned in your sentence, I have to know what the name of the app is to search for it, right? If you don't remember the App, you are forced to check all the apps until you find it...

This might be a smaller problem for folks using just 20 Apps or so... But for people who have mor than 50 or 60, there is quite a chance to forget the names for a second (Apps one uses twice a month are terrible for this^^)..

And the other thing is: task related folders! As I mentioned before: I use foto manipulating apps sometimes and have 7 of them on my phone. But because of the different names, they are all mixed up and not together. A lot of times I change the apps a few times during the editing proces. It's really annoying to search for them all the time...I could pin all of them on my Screen, yes... but that's not the point. I don't need them all the time, so that would not make sence...

But all in all:

That's not a huge problem for me. So I don't really "need" folders all the day. But what I don't like is when people try to "explain" to others how stupid it is to use folders, because that's so lame and old...bla bla bla... If someone thinks he needs them, just let him...

 

[Slai]

Can't having too many live tiles make one's screen cluttered

Not if you organize them?

Make a section named Apps, make one named Games, one named Photo, one named Video, one named Work, one named Office, one named Family, one named Advanced Math, one named Intergalactic Foreign Psychology if you need, just make it organized and then no... it cant really be cluttered :s .

 

[Patrick Flynn]

It's frustrating when you see people scrolling their app list all the way down to find something. You can pretty much get to any app in three clicks if you use the alphabetical shortcuts.