Convince Me to Switch - From WP8 to 8.1

[Dk92]

Sometimes i wish I could go back to WP8 honestly. Had a superior photo app among other small things. Plus 8.1 is pretty sluggish compared to 8.

 

[Mr Lebowski]

This is WC's version of a selfie :grin:

 

[jefbeard911]

OK, I updated my 920 to 8.1 last night. Not because I'm convinced its better for me but because my 920 is having probs and will return it for another WP8 920 today. Its a chance to give it a try for a day or two with no risk. Here's what I've noticed:

it isn't any faster or slower then 8 and my battery seems to be about the same - of course this is after about 5 hours total of playing with it.

the new tweeks and refinements to the OS are nice. For exampe, the icons for wifi, signal strength, ext are larger Nice. Action center is nice and helpful but i can live without it

Cortana outside of the US (I'm in Viet Nam) is of limited use to me. Yeah, I can do some shortcut things like set an appintment but the real benefits of Cortana are lacking for me. Quiet hours can be had with an app.

of course FB interation is not there (and going away soon for WP8 anyway) whichis a real bummer. The MS FB ap isn't as bad as I remember but FB Beta is slow so I got rid of it. So using the FB / Messenger app will be OK. I don't know how bad a drain they are yet on battery life so we'll see.

A couple apps I really liked on 8 have become 8.1 only apps so I can now get them back. One is Vieather which is the best weather app out there.

email formats much better now in 8.1 . It was horrible in 8 - A welcome improvement.

the ME tile is now useless. I used it constantly with 8. I hadn't used Rooms much and was looking forward to it. Oh well..

Overall, I m less disappointed that I thought I would be. I'm really not opposed to advancements in tech. In most cases I want the latest and greatest. Its only been with the slow, gradual decline of WP as I knew it from WP7 days that I've become hesitate.

WP7 was an all-in-one integrated solution that had a much better experience than iOS and Android. Now with MS and a app-centered WP , in my opinion, you loose something. But its not MS fault. I believe they set out on a smartphone path that wasn't fully in their control.

​Anyway, ....not sure yet if I'll remain on WP8 on my new 920 or just go wih the flow to 8.1. It hasn't been as painful as anticipated.

PS- Not being able to have Bing as your wallpaper AND have Glace screen is just dumb. WTF MS?!

 

[vsmh96]

Sometimes i wish I could go back to WP8 honestly. Had a superior photo app among other small things. Plus 8.1 is pretty sluggish compared to 8.

We can, just requires the willingness to take the risk (in flashing) and the abiltity to follow step by step instructions.

By the way could you explain more on superior photo app?

 

[jefbeard911]

I use location based reminders at least once a day and they always work for me on my 930 in the US

​Of course it woks in the U.S...Its the Rest Of The World that has problems. We don't all live in the US....

 

[mary beth hale]

​Of course it woks in the U.S...Its the Rest Of The World that has problems. We don't all live in the US....

I know that. I was just trying to be specific as to my situation for the reply to you.

 

[nohra]

Do your location based reminders ACTUALLY work? if i ask her to remind me to get something when i'm at the store she
A) doesn't ever
B) does like an hour later

this is on the 3 windows phones i currently own. Location based reminders in Canada don't work AT ALL

Yeah, it seems to work most times for me (in U.S.), but not 100% of the time. Sometimes I do get the long delay like you mentioned, especially if the command is "remind me of X when I leave Y" and Y happens to be a building with low reception. Then it seems that the app needs a while to pick the location back up and then realize I've left location Y. And other times the lag doesn't seem to have a reason, and the lack of a reminder poping up doesn't seem to have a reason.

Funny example, there are two stores next to each other, Store A and Store B. I set a reminder for the next time I was at Store A. Over the next several weeks I had to run into Store B for something, and the reminder would pop up, even though I wasn't at the right store. So I would just snooze it until I was the correct location next time. That happened at least twice, snoozing it each time. Then I finally happen to go to Store B... no reminder pop up So yeah, it's not perfect, but it works enough to be useful for me.

 

[nohra]

OK, I updated my 920 to 8.1 last night.

Hope you like it! The only downside I find with 8.1 on my 920 is that if I have a lot of things stuffed into Live Folders, sometimes the start screen is laggy on moving quickly up or down, but still worth it for the improvements.

Out of curiosity, does WordFlow work on the Viet Nam keyboard? I hope so, but I didn't know if that was like Cortana; being rolled out slowly.

 

[Dk92]

We can, just requires the willingness to take the risk (in flashing) and the abiltity to follow step by step instructions.

By the way could you explain more on superior photo app?

I liked the panoramic view of the photo app when it was first opened, the fact that you could set your favorite photo as the background while swiping through the menus was great. It had aesthetic superiority...in my opinion.

 

[jefbeard911]

Out of curiosity, does WordFlow work on the Viet Nam keyboard? I hope so, but I didn't know if that was like Cortana; being rolled out slowly.

It does work (Wordflow) but I have a 920 from England set to English KB and region. It works fine under those settings. Im not Vietnamese so I use an English KB.

Incidentally, When I set the region and Language to English-US Cortana didn't show up. I had to switch it back to settings that matched the phone (RM-821) and Cortana appeared, even though I am in Viet Nam. Who Knew?..

Posted via the Windows Central App for Android

 

[jefbeard911]

I know that. I was just trying to be specific as to my situation for the reply to you.

My apologies for being so harsh. I didn't intend it to come out that way..Cheers.

Posted via the Windows Central App for Android

 

[mary beth hale]

My apologies for being so harsh. I didn't intend it to come out that way..Cheers.

Posted via the Windows Central App for Android

Didn't take it as harsh. Cheers back at you!

 

[vsmh96]

I liked the panoramic view of the photo app when it was first opened, the fact that you could set your favorite photo as the background while swiping through the menus was great. It had aesthetic superiority...in my opinion.

I see. Thank you for your explanation ^^

 

[mjrtoo]

You will lose facebook integration soon.

 

[envio]

Hmm, here's a reason. If the OP doesn't upgrade to Windows Phone 8.1, they can't get Windows 10 so might as well do so now and get used to the changes and benefits in time to get ready for even more changes and benefits to come. Or, get a new device.

 

[jefbeard911]

Hmm, here's a reason. If the OP doesn't upgrade to Windows Phone 8.1, they can't get Windows 10 so might as well do so now and get used to the changes and benefits in time to get ready for even more changes and benefits to come. Or, get a new device.
View attachment 106272

​But if I don't want 8.1, why would i want W10?

 

[envio]

​But if I don't want 8.1, why would i want W10?

What do you think you're losing out on if you choose to upgrade to 8.1? The social integration changed because Microsoft couldn't continue to hold the platform and the integrated social services to ransom by hardcoding it all into the OS. So they changed the integration model such that the app rather than the OS handles the integration allowing for faster innovation. So at first when 8.1 was released, it broke the existing integration but as those apps have updated over time, pretty much everything except universal chat is back. As an aside, I use a very light-weight app called Multishare and it puts back the same multi-posting feature from 8.0 and more. Check it out.

There are many benefits to upgrading to 8.1, your mileage with any of them will obviously vary. I actually find that the separation of the volume levels, whilst a small thing as you said, has a big impact on daily use. I didn't think that I would make much use of the Notification Center but boy was I wrong. I can't be without it. The quick access to things like turning off Wifi or setting brightness level or turning on Tethering is an invaluable timesaver. 8.1 introduced Quiet hours which again, I never thought I would make much use of it but is very useful and takes care of silencing my phone during meetings (automatically looks for free/busy in your calendar) and at set times at night. There are so many little things, some subtle, others more pronounced.

I like the way that the Folders on Start screen works. Rather than a static folder holding app icons as I expected (and ala IOS/Android), instead, it works in harmony with your live tiles and your live tile sizes, allowing you to make better use of your screen space and organise things. Before 8.1, I used to have a single tile for my linked Inboxes that I only casually looked at from various secondary email accounts that I have. Now with folders, I pin each linked inbox as a tile and then put them all in a folder so when I tap the folder, they all fly out and I can, at a glance, see what's new across all my linked inboxes rather than a single tile which aggregated everything. But it goes further than that--I have several email aliases tied to one Microsoft account and now I have a live tile for each alias - as if it were its own mailbox and each is pinned inside the folder. That one step makes me much more productive and I'm on top of all my email.

Wow, I could on and on. Like I said, your mileage will vary with all these things but it's the benefit of the whole rather than picking at one feature that's unlikely to change the world on its own. Ok, one more feature I love is reading mode - it's one of the nicest features of the new browser (IE 11) in 8.1 which redraws webpages to make it easier to read more like a book. Whilst we're talking about IE, there's InPrivate browsing, you can sync your Favourites, passwords, history, wow so much to like. Don't let social integration hold you back.