Now that we've got Mango, what will we complain about?

[Drewidian]

I posted this before, but I think this is a good place to bring this up again.

I recently had a conversation with a friend who wanted to migrate from his iphone 4 to WP7. I showed him all of the interesting and cool things I could do with Zune, XBox games (a couple that were XBox live games that were ported over), email, etc. When he asked me about books, I showed him the Amazon app which was pretty good in comparison to the ios version. He liked what he saw since he had only Amazon books, but I started to think that this is one place WP7 could and should be beating Apple and Google. A number of IOS users buy their apps from many different sources and get it "aggregated" to their Newsstand. I started thinking about a WP7 take on this using hubs and came up with a couple of ideas.

I think there should be two separate hubs to cover print and web media. A "News" hub could aggregate news from RSS feeds, Weather, News Apps, and have pivots for Favorites, New/Breaking/Now (not sure what to call it), Top Stories. It could work the way the Music and Videos HUB works with a History and New panoramic panels. Anytime a person clicks on an aggregated topic or link it would pass that info to the associated application such as the CNN, MSNBC, Fox, BBC, or now The Guardian. RSS feeds would open a specified RSS App or a web page of the article if so specified by the application due to deep linking coming in Mango. Perhaps it is even possible to set up standard sections such as Technology, Entertainment, etc. and aggregate the information to those sections of the hub. There are literally a dozen different ways to go with this, but if MS did this right it could be a huge benefit to WP7/8.

Another separate hub would be a "Periodicals/Bookshelf" hub. Obviously it is where you would
aggregate magazines, newspapers, books, and other traditional print media subscriptions. Following a similar model as the News and Information hub, this one would have pivots for Magazines, Books, and Newspapers, and have a Favorites and New pivots. The new pivot would show new issues (user specified) and could of course be pinned as well. Again opening an issue would open the respective app through which it was purchased. This one would also allow for users to synchronize their media with Skydrive and
allow for a person to go to any of the 3 screens to resume, keep bookmarks, and save issues that would be linked to your Live/Amazon/BN/etc. ID to avoid the pesky copywrite issues. MS could add a new section to the Zune software to allow for purchasing of subscriptions of Newspapers, Magazines, Comics, etc., and due to it being in the Marketplace, they could be downloaded to multiple devices or the Skydrive. On Skydrive, I'd have a folder for the hub and subfolders for each subscription. I could even see a Zune Pass for periodicals where you could bundle a number of publications together and have access to them all.Thanks for reading this. Any thoughts or opinions? Sorry for the long post, but I hope you find it worth the read.

 

[lumic]

Microsoft appears to be forcing Metro down on us. I can't see another explanation - they are heavily invested in their design language and would rather get others to see their vision than to provide ways for the user to deviate from it. This is referencing the images you posted, BTW.

I actually do like the idea of some Aero in Metro and would have loved something like the second image at launch. The thing is, so many apps are now just plain white on black (or vice versa) that having a wallpaper wouldn't really make sense. If MS came out of the gate encouraging devs to make custom backgrounds, it would work. Now, it just doesn't.

I personally despise almost every design outlined in the first image, but of course - personal preference. I'm just happy that there is a way to get custom accent colours. It's not convenient for the average user, but as a former WinMo user, I'm not backing down from some homebrew :]

But yes, for the point of custom accents colours (and maybe background colours) - absolutely wanted this in Mango, or some less intrusive colours preloaded (Mango and Lime are tolerable).

 

[lumic]

This, also they need to be 60fps now. Especially Fruit Ninja that's very slow, chops a lot and has the wrong name on the tile.

Fruit Ninja isn't even scaled right IIRC. I seem to recall that it was just a port, stretched for the wider WP7 screen ratio. Massive disappointment.

 

[TheWeeBear]

Fruit Ninja isn't even scaled right IIRC. I seem to recall that it was just a port, stretched for the wider WP7 screen ratio. Massive disappointment.

Plays good for me and looks fine, so obviously not a massive disappointment for everyone lumic.

Perhaps i'm just not as fussy as some though. Loving Fruit Ninja

 

[Dark Mirage]

I'm still going to whine about the games .

Mango fixed the majority of my OS complaints, but now I want my games dammit! And Fruit Ninja isn't so hot because it was a port. It still works... The graphic fidelity just isn't as nice. Which, actually, goes right back to my complaints about the games .

Hopefully more developers are updating their titles to work with Mango. The ones that have are MUCH better. Tiki Towers, for instance, runs at a buttery smooth 60fps now. Waaaay better than when it was awkwardly running below 30fps.

 

[kylej1050]

Love me some Beards vs Beaks! hahahaha

I honestly don't have a problem with any of the lack of customizations. I got all the customizations I could handle with Android. Only gripe I have about this update is that it didn't fix the stereo BT audio for videos issue.

But I will admit that I'd like to see some black tiles with green text like in that first photo, awesome!

 

[TheWeeBear]

Love me some Beards vs Beaks! hahahaha

I honestly don't have a problem with any of the lack of customizations. I got all the customizations I could handle with Android. Only gripe I have about this update is that it didn't fix the stereo BT audio for videos issue.

But I will admit that I'd like to see some black tiles with green text like in that first photo, awesome!

I agree with that one kylej1050, I wonder why they missed out the bluetooth video audio not working via bluetooth.

 

[Coffee]

just a guess, but I think we'll complain about multi-tasking...

 

[Airanp]

Customization

 

[lumic]

just a guess, but I think we'll complain about multi-tasking...

I don't quite get the six-screen limit, though. It's particularly annoying when you have apps which register as two screens (IE goes multiple, music hub and now playing screen are separate, etc).

Not sure if this is just what Microsoft is enforcing due to limited RAM, but I hope they ease up a little. I'd personally love to have around 10 screens, because I'm always forcing apps *just* off the limit of six - I guess my typical usage is around 7-8.

 

[Coffee]

Yeah, that's just the point at which MS has decided it will close apps. I think we've agreed that multiple instances of the same app shouldn't happen, with a workaround that you use MT to 'go back' to the app instead of launching it again.

 

[jalb]

My sounds (keyboard and camera) have stopped working consistently.

 

[theman60099]

I don't quite get the six-screen limit, though. It's particularly annoying when you have apps which register as two screens (IE goes multiple, music hub and now playing screen are separate, etc).

Not sure if this is just what Microsoft is enforcing due to limited RAM, but I hope they ease up a little. I'd personally love to have around 10 screens, because I'm always forcing apps *just* off the limit of six - I guess my typical usage is around 7-8.

Android has 5 and iOS just has 4, the RAM is far from limited as I don't think I've ever even used more than 32mb. I think it's to help reduce resource hogging and sucking apps like there are in Android. so can u stop complaining about it?

 

[Coffee]

Android has 5 and iOS just has 4, the RAM is far from limited as I don't think I've ever even used more than 32mb. I think it's to help reduce resource hogging and sucking apps like there are in Android. so can u stop complaining about it?

It wasn't a complaint, it was a declaration of personal preference. You need to let up on the personal posts. This isn't a ****** site, it's an informative site that allows for constructive critique and rational discussion, and Lumic's post was rational and clearly stated his preference.

 

[Dave Blake]

Lest continue the rational discussion rationally please

 

[Winterfang]

Plays good for me and looks fine, so obviously not a massive disappointment for everyone lumic.

Perhaps i'm just not as fussy as some though. Loving Fruit Ninja

I love it too, got all achievements. Then I saw the Ipod version and wanted to jump of a bridge. So jealous =(.

 

[goberrygo]

Multiple App Appearances In MT

Yeah, that's just the point at which MS has decided it will close apps. I think we've agreed that multiple instances of the same app shouldn't happen, with a workaround that you use MT to 'go back' to the app instead of launching it again.

@Coffee, could you please clairify this process of solving the instinces where an app will show multiple cards in MT instead of just the one? Do you know if there's a way to make it so this never happens? I love WP and Metro, but this MT bug, or whatever it is, is really annoying.

 

[Forgewizard]

yes,I do believe I will still fuss about not having customizable settings for alerts, ringtones, sms and alarms. Most all my old flip phones had this ability, even the treos and centro could offer individual settings! Settings for groups, times, profiles etc. THis is after all a "SMART"phone is it not?

When MS fixes this my device will suit me just fine!