News on Windows Phone 8

[power5]

Not sure why Nokia pulled the FFC. N9 which the lumia 800 is a copy of, has a FFC.

 

[xeverous]

Not sure why Nokia pulled the FFC. N9 which the lumia 800 is a copy of, has a FFC.

It's probably a last-minute decision (since it was on the N9), either due to driver or the fact that (because they are in a close relationship with Microsoft) Skype / video messaging will not launch in the near future until Apollo with it's suite of devices, thus did this as a cost-cutting measure to be more competitive with the iPhone 4S in terms of price.

 

[power5]

Not sure how much a FFC 1.3mp VGA camera costs but with the disparity of other hardware between the 800 and 4S, I think they could have included it.

 

[cckgz4]

Sometimes I wonder why I post here lol

 

[VKris]

Not sure how much a FFC 1.3mp VGA camera costs but with the disparity of other hardware between the 800 and 4S, I think they could have included it.

cost of implementing FFC x number of units sold (say 200K units) makes a huge savings....auto companies have been doing this for a long time (cigarette lighters as an option). the fact is, competition is getting extremely tough and margins are getting tight. Nokia must have counted on many users who don't see lack of FFC a big deal, who instead will take the build quality and reliability as a positive.

personally, I consider FFC as must have feature.

 

[lumic]

Could have been a redesign issue. They had to fit in the capacitive buttons and whatever lies beneath. Just brushing on the basics, it would probably be illogical to keep the camera on the bottom right when the buttons are down there from both a usability and internal space standpoint.

 

[xeverous]

cost of implementing FFC x number of units sold (say 200K units) makes a huge savings....auto companies have been doing this for a long time (cigarette lighters as an option). the fact is, competition is getting extremely tough and margins are getting tight. Nokia must have counted on many users who don't see lack of FFC a big deal, who instead will take the build quality and reliability as a positive.

personally, I consider FFC as must have feature.

At this stage though, there isn't a practical use for using a FFC, aside from taking pictures of yourself using the Camera app, so this is probably another reason why they omitted it.

Also, FFC usually tend to be of lower quality in the front, or that their current supplier, Carl Zeiss, doesn't supply FFC either in enough quantity or quality, or that it was too expensive to have a Carl Zeiss FFC. Apparently Nokia has quite high standard for hardware manufacturing and they were known for quality hardware in the past.

 

[jeremyshaw]

At this stage though, there isn't a practical use for using a FFC, aside from taking pictures of yourself using the Camera app, so this is probably another reason why they omitted it.

Also, FFC usually tend to be of lower quality in the front, or that their current supplier, Carl Zeiss, doesn't supply FFC either in enough quantity or quality, or that it was too expensive to have a Carl Zeiss FFC. Apparently Nokia has quite high standard for hardware manufacturing and they were known for quality hardware in the past.

Issue is, the n9 the lumia 800 is based off of has the ffc.

Sent from my MB860 using Tapatalk

 

[VKris]

At this stage though, there isn't a practical use for using a FFC, aside from taking pictures of yourself using the Camera app, so this is probably another reason why they omitted it.

Also, FFC usually tend to be of lower quality in the front, or that their current supplier, Carl Zeiss, doesn't supply FFC either in enough quantity or quality, or that it was too expensive to have a Carl Zeiss FFC. Apparently Nokia has quite high standard for hardware manufacturing and they were known for quality hardware in the past.

to each his own, I travel a lot and would prefer to keep in touch with family via Video chat. I use this function in iPod touch through Vtok app. it works quite well. I can only see this getting more popular in a year's time. So the device you buy today should atleast be usable for a couple of years.

with the Lumia 800 in particular, the price does not justify this omission.

anyhow, to do some justice to the topic....anyone know if Lumia 800 is eligible for WP8 update

 

[justop26]

Could have been a redesign issue. They had to fit in the capacitive buttons and whatever lies beneath. Just brushing on the basics, it would probably be illogical to keep the camera on the bottom right when the buttons are down there from both a usability and internal space standpoint.

I believe this is the reason. That's why the screen is smaller, too.

 

[xeverous]

to each his own, I travel a lot and would prefer to keep in touch with family via Video chat. I use this function in iPod touch through Vtok app. it works quite well. I can only see this getting more popular in a year's time. So the device you buy today should atleast be usable for a couple of years.

with the Lumia 800 in particular, the price does not justify this omission.

anyhow, to do some justice to the topic....anyone know if Lumia 800 is eligible for WP8 update

Lumia 800 is probably going to be very likely be eligible for WP8. I'm quite sure Microsoft will not want to fragment the ecosystem (Like Google did with Android) by upping the system requirements that significantly.

 

[power5]

Win8 just needs to be designed to take advantage of as many cores as the phone has available. If it only has 1 core, it only uses 1. If it has 2,3,4 available, it can use as many as needed. This is still not fully utilized in all desktop software though either. Many games are still single threaded for most of the games processing needs with some secondary or tertiary processing done on other cores like sound processing.

 

[jeremyshaw]

Lumia 800 is probably going to be very likely be eligible for WP8. I'm quite sure Microsoft will not want to fragment the ecosystem (Like Google did with Android) by upping the system requirements that significantly.

MS (IMO) is going a Pseudo-Apple route. I'm betting old devices will see less and less functionality/performance, and support be fully discontinued 3 years later (so even the latest reasonable purchases of say, the focus, would be supported for the 2year carrier contract cycle).


Just IMO.

 

[Rallicat]

We really know very little about what will be in Apollo - it may have been acknowledged in an MSDN post - but, beyond that Microsoft are not talking about it. We can only speculate that features like NFC support might be involved based on it being a hot-topic right now.

As for FFC? Well, sure video calling might be integrated, possibly by making use of Skype in some integrated way.

We may never know why the FFC was taken out of the Lumia 800 - but here's my personal opinion: I think it was taken out because Microsoft don't yet have video calling in WP7, meaning Nokia would have had to create an entirely new video calling platform themselves (yeah, they could have used Tango, but that's just not how Nokia roll). I suspect that this option was considered, but supressed by Microsoft, who probably have plans of their own, and dont' want video calling to be something implemented by others and ending up fragmented. Sure some other partners are doing it, but the partnership with Nokia is 'special'.

It's pretty much obvious that whatever format WP8 takes, it will bring a range of new features and functionality. We don't know what that will be, but I sincerely hope Microsoft see sense, and take the 'Apple' approach and provide such an update to as many existing handset owners as possible!

 

[canesfan625]

We really know very little about what will be in Apollo - it may have been acknowledged in an MSDN post - but, beyond that Microsoft are not talking about it. We can only speculate that features like NFC support might be involved based on it being a hot-topic right now.

The speculation makes sense. Andy Lees said himself that NFC is coming in 2012. I don't think most people see a major function like that coming in a minor update and by the time Apollo hits the year will probably be mostly gone meaning Apollo could very well be the last update of the year.

 

[xeverous]

Win8 just needs to be designed to take advantage of as many cores as the phone has available. If it only has 1 core, it only uses 1. If it has 2,3,4 available, it can use as many as needed. This is still not fully utilized in all desktop software though either. Many games are still single threaded for most of the games processing needs with some secondary or tertiary processing done on other cores like sound processing.

Not sure how long support will be for older devices. The general interface of iOS hasn't changed for a long time (Still grids with app icons on it, and nothing graphically intensive), so they are able to do so. But Windows Phone requires lots of animations, thus the 1ghz processor requirement.

If they are not going to change the interface, then this will probably work, but if they want to take advantage of the new technology, then they will have to drop support or severely cut back what older devices can do (which is essentially the same as dropping support, but not officially)

 

[power5]

Its the same with all software developed for desktops. You have a minimum requirement and a recommended requirement for hardware. On the min hardware your experience would be similar to turning aero off in win7 and stuff like that. Take a little of the eye candy away and keep the overall experience. On recommended or above you get all the bells and whistles.

 

[jdd77]

Was browsing the Net just now and spotted something interesting on my Twitter feed and clicked it. Quite concise and sums up everything quite easily.

Just thought that I'd share this out with everyone.

Windows Phone 8 ? Apollo : Predictions ? Aveynes

Glad to see the flaws of the app menu is recognized in this article and a 3rd screen (swipe to right) will be implemented to include folders.

 

[xeverous]

Glad to see the flaws of the app menu is recognized in this article and a 3rd screen (swipe to right) will be implemented to include folders.

With Mango including a search feature within the 3rd screen / list of apps, a folders feature necessary any longer?

 

[jdd77]

With Mango including a search feature within the 3rd screen / list of apps, a folders feature necessary any longer?

Folders are a logical and necessary way of organizing and storing apps on a smartphone. Wp7 grudgingly uses a sloppy and unorganized alphabetical list that is beyond basic. The worst part is, this form is used not for the benefit of the user...but to starkly differ and oppose the popular and beneficial ways of other OS's, mainly the likes of Android. Microsoft misses the point, where if they incorporated such tried and true features, in addition to the smooth and intuitive interface of wp7, they'd have a chance to survive.