Rooms app please

[mprebich]

Since upgrading my two main phones to W10M, I have lost access to Rooms, most important, My Family Room.

My wife and I, and two children all have Lumias. From day one, I set up our Family Room to share our family calendar, photos, and group texts. We all loved the functionality, as do many others, as I have been monitoring the negative feedback since MS announced it would no longer support Rooms and remove the function in W10M.

Microsoft has once again disappointed loyal users, and I doubt we will see any action from them on this going forward.

But there must be some developers out there that can easily create an app to do the same thing. Given that users who created Rooms under WP7.8/8/8.1 will still have the files on their OneDrive backup, a W10M app can easily retrieve those files and bring our Rooms back to life.

Is it not that simple? Anyone?

Thanks!

 

[rhapdog]

From day one, I set up our Family Room to share our family calendar, photos, and group texts.

Skype allows us to do group texts.

My wife and I share our Photos with each other using OneDrive, so her photos which automatically upload to her OneDrive can be viewed by me on my devices, and mine can be viewed on hers.

As far as calendar sharing goes, my wife and I like to share "certain" calendar entries, but not all. For those we want to share, we set the other up as an attendee in the appointment.

There are 3rd party calendar apps that allow you to share with others. Something like that is what you are looking for.

Also, Wunderlist is a great way of sharing lists with other family members. (not something rooms could do, but just to broaden your horizons.) If my wife is shopping, and I notice something at home we missed putting on the list, I can add it and it will appear on her list while she is shopping, and she'll get an alert that it has been added. I've learned there are a lot of uses for it.

There are also apps that will allow you to share your location with your family members, or whomever you choose to share with. You can set some of those up for always on or by request only. Great for keeping track of your kids' locations if you need to do that, or if your wife's car breaks down and you need to go get her.

There are a lot of apps made to help families be more connected. And, honestly, those apps were getting a lot more use than Rooms ever did. Rooms was a feature that never really took off. Yes, the few that used it are very vocal about the demise, but there wasn't enough users to justify putting it into windows 10 for mobile.

Perhaps we can start locating and posting in this thread apps that can replace the individual components of rooms. I'd love to see a list, just don't have time right now to start the search.

 

[mprebich]

I started this thread to discuss possible options for the development of an alternative app that utilizes the setup of the Rooms functionality.

Rooms: Chat, Calendar, Photos, Notes

When a Room is created, a OneNote is created for this Room (stored on your OneDrive under Documents, one for each Room) and allows you to create LISTS, notes, etc. with embedded pics, maps, diagrams, etc., all OneNote functionality.

This file can easily be accessed by a new app, e.g. an existing app like GroupMe, which does calendar and chat, can access the Room OneNote to add this functionality.

Also, Room photos are stored and shared through OneDrive and can also easily be accessed.

The point is that the infrastructure of Rooms is already existing and available, and just needs to be accessed (?)

For consideration. I'm not a developer (anymore) and don't know all the implications.

Thanks!



@rhapdog thanks for the feedback and good suggestions, but I'm looking for a Room apps replacement, not multiple apps that individually do what Rooms did. Quoting "Also, Wunderlist is a great way of sharing lists with other family members. (not something rooms could do, but just to broaden your horizons)" - My horizons are broad (I use wunderlist), Rooms did this wonderfully utilizing OneNote; maybe you had not discovered that major function of Rooms.

If you want to start a thread that discusses alternatives to the Rooms app, please do. I'd be happy to contribute to that thread.

 

[xandros9]

GroupMe might be worth a look.

 

[rhapdog]

@rhapdog thanks for the feedback and good suggestions, but I'm looking for a Room apps replacement, not multiple apps that individually do what Rooms did. Quoting "Also, Wunderlist is a great way of sharing lists with other family members. (not something rooms could do, but just to broaden your horizons)" - My horizons are broad (I use wunderlist), Rooms did this wonderfully utilizing OneNote; maybe you had not discovered that major function of Rooms.

No, never needed that type of functionality, as I have been the only family member on Windows Phone until a few weeks ago, and now it's too late for rooms. I can definitely see where a single app to handle it all would be handy.

Xandros9, I think I may check out GroupMe myself. Thanks for the suggestion.

 

[mprebich]

GroupMe might be worth a look.

?

I mentioned GroupMe in my post. I am using it now for both Family and Parents. It is also available on iOS for those cross-platform families : (

It doesn't allow sharing of documents, as did Rooms trough use of OneNote.

As GroupMe is a Microsoft app (garage app?), they could easily incorporate the functionality and replace Rooms just like that.

 

[mprebich]

No, never needed that type of functionality, as I have been the only family member on Windows Phone until a few weeks ago, and now it's too late for rooms. I can definitely see where a single app to handle it all would be handy.

Not sure how you can offer alternatives to something that you never used?

Initially, our family had all four of us on Rooms. Now GroupMe is the next best thing for chat and calendar sharing, when some family members are on iPhone, as the app is cross-platform. Docs and pics shared other ways.

 

[Laura Knotek]

?

I mentioned GroupMe in my post. I am using it now for both Family and Parents. It is also available on iOS for those cross-platform families : (

It doesn't allow sharing of documents, as did Rooms trough use of OneNote.

As GroupMe is a Microsoft app (garage app?), they could easily incorporate the functionality and replace Rooms just like that.

GroupMe is also available for Android.

 

[Alain_A]

Since upgrading my two main phones to W10M, I have lost access to Rooms, most important, My Family Room.

My wife and I, and two children all have Lumias. From day one, I set up our Family Room to share our family calendar, photos, and group texts. We all loved the functionality, as do many others, as I have been monitoring the negative feedback since MS announced it would no longer support Rooms and remove the function in W10M.

Microsoft has once again disappointed loyal users, and I doubt we will see any action from them on this going forward.

But there must be some developers out there that can easily create an app to do the same thing. Given that users who created Rooms under WP7.8/8/8.1 will still have the files on their OneDrive backup, a W10M app can easily retrieve those files and bring our Rooms back to life.

Is it not that simple? Anyone?

Thanks!

Have you tried the group setting in people hub???? at least it will share txt and email

ok,I downloaded GroupMe seems to be closed to the Family room