This OS is in desperate need of a 2nd home screen.

[bradleyj]

yes, wp7 needs a different way of doing the home screen. Scrolling and scrolling is not as efficient as having multiple pages because you have to try to stop at just the right spot, you can't just swipe twice and know you are on you 'social' home screen.

One solution would be horizontal scrolling (rather than vertical) as you would see more tiles more quickly with less scrolling.

 

[ninjaap]

No thank you. I like the scrolling better.

 

[lumic]

Yep, has been discussed countless times. There needs to be a notification centre, period. You don't need to waste such a large amount of space on a tile that does nothing but provide you with a counter. Also will solve the whole toast issue.

 

[manelscout4life]

Yep, has been discussed countless times. There needs to be a notification centre, period. You don't need to waste such a large amount of space on a tile that does nothing but provide you with a counter. Also will solve the whole toast issue.

A slide down notification center would work great.

 

[falconeight#IM]

Be careful what you ask for. We could end up with a mess like bbos

 

[jdd77]

Although, I agree that it can get pretty long, I feel like it is faster than having multiple homescreens like Android. With one swipe, at a modest speed, I can get through 2-3 groups (assuming each group is 4 tiles high). With the traditional type, one swipe to the left or right only gets you one screen over. You need to swipe more to get to the third or fourth. With WP, you just swipe harder to get to the third or fourth group. Less effort with WP.

The idea here is not how many swipes it takes to get somewhere. I mean we're talking milliseconds here...its not really that much more time consuming to swipe, say to a 2nd or 3rd homescreen as a pose to going up and down on the same screen. What it is, is being able to have apps that you don't particularly wanna look at everyday on your homescreen, but need to check often. Weather it be for notifications or just information, you can have them organized and outta the way..

 

[jfa1]

Just my opinion but I like it the way it is.

 

[BostonSammy]

The idea here is not how many swipes it takes to get somewhere. I mean we're talking milliseconds here...its not really that much more time consuming to swipe, say to a 2nd or 3rd homescreen as a pose to going up and down on the same screen. What it is, is being able to have apps that you don't particularly wanna look at everyday on your homescreen, but need to check often. Weather it be for notifications or just information, you can have them organized and outta the way..

I think the alpha list for apps works great for apps you don't check much.

I don't have my phone yet, but I plan to only pin two types of apps to the home screen:
1. Apps I use everyday
2. Apps with great live tiles

i also will pin some apps to the home screen when I am traveling only (i.e. airline, maps, onenote, etc.)

For everything else, the alpha list will work great. I can even see myself using tellme to open apps like flashlight or calculator.

 

[jdd77]

Well sort of. Having like apps organized on a separate page would be, I think a little better than an alphabetical list that you need to search. As for the home screen, apps (tiles) make up what your interface looks like. After awhile you'll find yourself arranging colors, adding extra tiles to keep it even looking, and only pinning things that look good as a pose to something useful but looks like crap. Wp7 is innovative, smooth and easy to use. You can't not like it. But there are some significant things that really need some work.

Edit: I wanted to add that most tiles do look good and with the ability to arrange them however you like, plus being able to pick a color, you will find a way to make it visually appealing. As for pinning certain apps for only when you travel..wouldnt it be nice to have a predefined screen just for "travel" that you could swipe to?

 

[N8ter]

Be careful what you ask for. We could end up with a mess like bbos

BBOS is pretty much dead now with BBX coming next year and it doesn't have that issue.

BBOS' notification interface wasn't that great, but the speed of the push notifications and the fact that it agregated them all in an easy to accessible area while providing app icon badges was excellent.

Great implementation, terrible aesthetics.

 

[falconeight#IM]

BBOS is pretty much dead now with BBX coming next year and it doesn't have that issue.

BBOS' notification interface wasn't that great, but the speed of the push notifications and the fact that it agregated them all in an easy to accessible area while providing app icon badges was excellent.

Great implementation, terrible aesthetics.

BB is a mess and Android is moving that way. Its the same with Windows OS on PC. They just keep stacking good ideas on without fixing the problems. WP7 is perfect as is and will be great with polishing. The tabs for web browsing needs to be simplified. Turning functions like wifi and bluetooth should be easier. Microsoft should let OEMS move the buttons around (On my titan the power button should be on the side). The capacitive buttons on the bottom need to be fixed because they are to easy to accidentally press. There are a few more things I would like to see fixed but the OS is perfect for a smartphone. Live tiles are awesome, email is excellent, and the fluidity is without compare.

I forgot BB is not going to be around much longer BBX or whatever else they come up with. If they don't get developer support and better hardware they are done. They can't deliver on current hardware and its not going to change in the future.

 

[jdd77]

I think the system is fine. You pretty much have unlimited hoemscreen. Only difference is its going up and down instead of side to side. If you want the feeling of a split homescreen, use an app called New Group. Its basically a tile that you use to separate your apps by naming the said tile (example news, games, etc). You can actually leave it blank creating the illusion of blank space. It can either be black or white in color to match the background.

I would prefer to create a blank space rather than have stuff written on my home screen but it doesn't let you. Unless you found a way to do it..

 

[fisci]

I would prefer to create a blank space rather than have stuff written on my home screen but it doesn't let you. Unless you found a way to do it..

put A space instead of a word..

 

[ninjaap]

Yup ^

 

[jdd77]

I was able to create only 1 blank tile using the spacebar. When I go back in to create another one, it says there's an error and the app closes. And thats after tapping the spacebar a different number of times. Is there a way to create more than one blank tile?

 

[ninjaap]

I was able to create only 1 blank tile using the spacebar. When I go back in to create another one, it says there's an error and the app closes. And thats after tapping the spacebar a different number of times. Is there a way to create more than one blank tile?

Try naming each tile first (ex: 1, 2, 3, or a, b, c, etc.). Then after pinning the tiles, go back and update each one to just using "space".

 

[jdd77]

Cool, thanks that works. Something I did with it before was change the keyboard language to Chinese or Japanese , and was able to create some cool looking symbols. new groups also allows more than 7 characters when you set the keyboard to another language.

 

[DontHate707]

there should be a notification center where all your app notifications come in and quick toggles for wifi Bluetooth etc. maybe even to manage multitasking? and the home screen is missing something idk maybe because the live tiles dont move enough? i think being able to customize more would help alot like re-sizing tiles and maybe even the shape? idk they can do alot to make the phone more lively and make it feel like its your phone not just any other wp7. i think they need to rethink this whole search thing its annoying having two searches on a phone that both only do a specific thing either integrate bing into the os without having to hit the hardware button so that means future phones wont need a button or integrate universal search into bing when you hit the hardware button. this os could easily be a webos like experience with no buttons and it would still be easy to use.

 

[lumic]

The simple reason why the current system does not work is because I shouldn't be expected to have every app that has notifications pinned to my start screen. The start screen is for the stuff I check often. A notification centre means I can see toasts I missed and jump into an app that I don't use very often. It means something appears only when a notification has arrived, so I don't need to waste a huge load of screen estate in anticipation of a tile updating.

 

[jdd77]

The simple reason why the current system does not work is because I shouldn't be expected to have every app that has notifications pinned to my start screen. The start screen is for the stuff I check often. A notification centre means I can see toasts I missed and jump into an app that I don't use very often. It means something appears only when a notification has arrived, so I don't need to waste a huge load of screen estate in anticipation of a tile updating.

EXACTLY! ...but I have a feeling Microsoft will not implement a notifications center or additional home screens.
Games are all organized into the 'games' hub. Camera roll, saved pics, Facebook albums, pics by date, mobile uploads, and related apps are all organized in the 'pictures' hub. Songs, playlists, albums, podcasts, videos, radio stations, related apps etc.. are all organized in the 'music + videos' hub.... SO WHY NOT a "notifications" hub?? One simple tile that integrates with whatever apps that show toast notifications and would have the same look as the 'people' tile. There is no reason why Microsoft couldn't implement something like that..