Losing faith...

[trev81uk]

Well, I've got to admit I'm beginning to get frustrated with Windows Phone. You'll see from my previous posts that I have been a big supporter ever since coming on board, but things are slowly beginning to frustrate me, none more the continued lack of app choice and support.
For example, the facebook app I very poor, lacking many many features from other platforms, the same with Twitter. A poor app I can understand, but no one is creating alternate apps for WP such as Tweetdeck.
It's not just apps either, a once stable OS had now become the opposite since the release of 8.1 and subsequent updates, live tiles don't update, and toast notifications are inconsistent.

Anyway, rant over. Can anyone reinstate my faith or are people feeling the same. I may be getting desperate and consider moving over to Android.

 

[someone2639]

Are you on dev preview?

 

[noobchief]

A good alternate twitter app I use is Mehdoh. Facebook I don't use much. I'm dat person who doesn't use much apps or play much games

 

[peachy001]

I wish I had some decent internal news to share, sadly I don't. I do think that Windows 10 will be a huge leveller though. Can you wait though? Thankfully I don't need the apps, but I know most do, and I agree that the WP version often tends to be the poor relative.

My daughter, 11, bought a Windows phone, and loves it. But often bemoans the fact that she cannot get the same "cool" games and apps that her friends have on their Androids or iPhones.

 

[Ashish Gupta888]

Apps like Facebook do get updates and I believe MS is trying hard to make it better. Twitter basically serves the purpose and ofcourse has rooms for improvements. Live tiles do work fine and notifications are tad buggy but it has something to do with the apps and its not related to the OS. I personally find 8.1 much better than 8.0/7.8. I do not see any glitches on my phone.

 

[trev81uk]

Are you on dev preview?

Yeah I am. To start with it was fine.

 

[trev81uk]

A good alternate twitter app I use is Mehdoh. Facebook I don't use much. I'm dat person who doesn't use much apps or play much games

Thanks, I'll check that out.

 

[someone2639]

Yeah I am. To start with it was fine.

Live lock screen beta, and dev preview are my number one bug source.

 

[RoboLoftie]

Also starting to lose faith tbh. I love the design of my L920, hardware, software, everything. Yes things could always be better, battery, but for the whole I was very happy. SInce 8.1 things have been getting steadily worse.

Battery is worse, ok features have been added, but when the battery randomly drains at 15% and hour for no reason something is up. That's with nothing open and with battery saver showing no major power hog.

Live tiles updating have become problematic. OK, not all of them, in fact afaik it was MSN Weather, MSN News, Possibly MSN Health+Fitness too, and Facebook Messenger. Weather and News seem to be working now, although I'll see later on, though I've had to reinstall them in the past to solve the issue, Messenger is still having issues. This occurs whenever I've entered Battery Saver mode. It's like the background processes for these apps get jammed in the off position.

Battery Saver no longer dims the screen, yes ok it's minor but it's still an issue. Also why can't I choose to turn FB Messenger off? When does an App get to decide that it must always run in the background?

And of course the redesign of the Hubs which I'm still bitter about, even if I ignore the design aspect, music still fks up.

All in all, it feels like a very 'meh' effort from MS. Maybe I'll just roll back to 8 and stay there.

 

[mj0]

Microsoft is doing what every company in their position would be doing in order to gain marketshare in an (over)saturated market: mimic whoever is more successful. There are two different sides here: new smartphone users on the one hand, and smartphone users switching over from Android/iOS on the other. For the new users it's not that important what you offer that the others also do because they simply don't know any better yet. Thus, it's much easier to convince a person that has never owned a smartphone to invest in your product than it is to convince somebody who has already invested time and energy into a different ecosystem to switch. You need convincing arguments such as "we also have all these features that you love so dearly, plus the following ones" instead of "well, we can't do this and that and that other thing that is so important to you, but here's what you can do instead". This is why Windows Phone will eventually grow closer and closer to both Android and iOS. The Action Center is a clear indicator for that trend already.

A rather popular misjudgment on either side is that if you're dissatisfied with your current system you'll simply switch over to a different system, thereby getting rid of all your problems without ever encountering new ones. Now while it's true that if you switch over to Android/iOS you won't be bothered by stuck live tiles anymore and the app gap will most certainly close for you but you'll face other issues and problems in return. There's always two sides to every story and at the end of the day you win some, you lose some.

 

[skirush2014]

Nope, I can't. I feel the same way. The apps are not as good. Case in point...Twitter. It simply does not work as good...not even close to how it works on iphones and androids. I'm just buying time until I can renew and get another phone (i.e., galaxy note 4 or iphone 6).

 

[trev81uk]

Thanks for your slant on this, and on the whole I agree that other OS's have their faults. I also agree with what MS are currently doing, but they're doing a bad job of copying bits from Android and iOS unfortunately.

 

[Nicholas Maguire]

It's not stable because you're on Dev Preview... I used Nokia Software Recovery Tool, and now its just as stable as 8.0 was.

 

[TruPlaya187]

Hi, Thanks for your post and some stuff I do agree with you. Like Facebook is a little bit behind but with the latest update it became a lot more stable and has more features. Concerning Twitter I do feel your pain. I personally like the official apps but Twitter and Instagram is a joke. For Twitter I use MeTweets which is really nice and is working quite good!!! For Instagram, I use 6Tag which is also really good.

Honestly I think that when you look at the 3 platform, all of them has some good and bad things. I have faith in Microsoft and they came a long way from the WP 7 days! Some stuff I do miss which is the old Me Tile functionality.....

Anyway, I love WP and I will stay with that platform for sure...I can't wait to see what they have for us with Windows 10!!!!

 

[racolclough]

I'm getting a bit fed up and have been using Windows phone since Windows Mobile 6.2.

The app gap isn't so important for me, it's the functionality of some of the stock apps, particularly the calendar. Who thought that a two week limit on storing past appointments was a good idea, I need to search all past appointments at times. It's no good Microsoft saying it's to protect data when they allow apps like chronos to access the full calendar, as can Android and IOS stock calendars it you use those systems.

Just open up the system to the same level of functionality as Android etc for developers and the apps may appear. If you have a closed door system don't be surprised if people don't come in.

As for Twitter try Peregrin

 

[haikallp]

Well, I've got to admit I'm beginning to get frustrated with Windows Phone. You'll see from my previous posts that I have been a big supporter ever since coming on board, but things are slowly beginning to frustrate me, none more the continued lack of app choice and support.
For example, the facebook app I very poor, lacking many many features from other platforms, the same with Twitter. A poor app I can understand, but no one is creating alternate apps for WP such as Tweetdeck.
It's not just apps either, a once stable OS had now become the opposite since the release of 8.1 and subsequent updates, live tiles don't update, and toast notifications are inconsistent.

Anyway, rant over. Can anyone reinstate my faith or are people feeling the same. I may be getting desperate and consider moving over to Android.

I feel you. I've been in that position and that's why I jumped ship, to android. Rocking a Nexus 5 now. Honestly, I've never look back since. As much as I love Windows Phone, it has ways to go before it recaptures my interest. I'll wait on the sidelines and see how things go further down the road. Windows 10 for phone sounds interesting. But Microsoft needs to get their **** together.

 

[chezm]

I feel you. I've been in that position and that's why I jumped ship, to android. Rocking a Nexus 5 now. Honestly, I've never look back since. As much as I love Windows Phone, it has ways to go before it recaptures my interest. I'll wait on the sidelines and see how things go further down the road. Windows 10 for phone sounds interesting. But Microsoft needs to get their **** together.

Same scenario for me. Jumped ship from my L1020 with official 8.1/Cyan which introduced a TON of issues (my experience was worse than DP) to a Nexus 5 and havent looked back at all. Originally the app gap wasn't a big incentive, I just wanted a stable OS that didnt have major battery drains...which Android Kitkat has delivered much more than I expected. After coming to Android and getting on the app wagon, I'm floored by how many apps have substituted the lackluster website pinned versions I used to use (which was another issue, IE WP8.1 was not rendering many of my websites correctly, big pain that went away with Chrome).

Eagerly looking forward to Windows 10.

 

[RoboLoftie]

It's not stable because you're on Dev Preview... I used Nokia Software Recovery Tool, and now its just as stable as 8.0 was.

Except I'm not. I've had issues with it while running standard cyan, not DP. And I've hard reset. Still have the same issues. I've just had to reinstall MSN News again because the tile broke again, because my phone went into battery saver mode over night.
Weather seems to be working though, maybe it was the update.

 

[haikallp]

Same scenario for me. Jumped ship from my L1020 with official 8.1/Cyan which introduced a TON of issues (my experience was worse than DP) to a Nexus 5 and havent looked back at all. Originally the app gap wasn't a big incentive, I just wanted a stable OS that didnt have major battery drains...which Android Kitkat has delivered much more than I expected. After coming to Android and getting on the app wagon, I'm floored by how many apps have substituted the lackluster website pinned versions I used to use (which was another issue, IE WP8.1 was not rendering many of my websites correctly, big pain that went away with Chrome).

Eagerly looking forward to Windows 10.

Exactly, its after I owned an Android device is when I realize how Microsoft has a lot of work to do if they want to attract Android users to their platform.

 

[techiez]

You may move back to android and come back when wp is more mature, I would not ask you to stick to WP till W10 as I believe expectation with it are huge but it wont be a game changer, just another incremental step.
We expected WP8 to solve the issue when we had wp7.5m Wp8 and we expected wp8.1 to solve everything and now all hopes are pinned on W10 which will take at least and year from today(possible even more) to reach our current phones.

As for me I'll stick to WP as its enough for my needs, I dont use fb n twitter on phone, I use it on my laptop or tablet. App gap is very much there so I got a nexus 7 to fill those needs.