The Dumb things of Windows Phone OS

[DavidinCT]

No PC software where we can backup our phones (like iTunes)

If you didn't know when Windows Phone 7 was out, we used Zune to access our phones (like iTunes) and by a lot accounts and reviews, Zune was far better than iTunes ever was (and could do full backups with a minor script or a phone update).

Would love to see them bring a software package like Zune back, as an option. If you have Windows 7, the app for Windows Phone looks like a software package that was built in a garage someplace, another joke here..

I really hate the double volume control introduced with 8.1. ow, when I want no sound coming from my phone, I have to check two bar instead of only one, that was simply, smarter.

Believe it or not, this was one of the larger requested features on Windows Phone. This allows you to lower your music volume with out changing you ringer/notification volume. This is a feature common on Android and iOS (and was one from Windows Mobile) Compared how it was on Windows Phone 7, no question, I would not be willing to (and I think most people who use WP) give it up.

Maybe an option to "Mute all volume" so you can click once and it will do a full mute on your phone ?

 

[DCTF]

I said this one yesterday in a different thread, and I've brought it up before:

Get rid of the hardware Search button.

It's pressed more times accidentally than it ever is deliberately, it's redundant, and it would literally be better to have a blank space there than any kind of button. I'd hate it less if it was a button you had to depress, but a flat touch-responsive surface is not a good presence under the heel of the thumb.

 

[16valve]

Why cant I dictate text on every screen that uses the keyboard? Using the microphone button in OneNote creates an audio file?! Why?

 

[sinime]

Why cant I dictate text on every screen that uses the keyboard? Using the microphone button in OneNote creates an audio file?! Why?

I believe this is coming with Win 10.

 

[AdSh]

Lock screen in windowsphone are not interactive as they are in Android

 

[jacquesvan]

Need to allow third party keyboard. Desperately miss the cursor keys and numbers top row that I had with Swiftkey/Android

 

[ROBBIE HALL]

The music player when the phone is locked. The fact it disappears and to make it reappear I must lock my screen then skip my songs. Think there should be a transparent or permanent way to keep the music player visible in the lock screen?

 

[anon(9476064)]

Not sure if you know but if you highlight a word then press the search button it searches it on bing, the top answer is normally a definition

I don't know, all that happens when I tap the search button is that Cortana pops up. It doesn't matter if I have a word highlighted or not....

 

[Great deal]

The list can go on and on..however a lot of the problems are a result of the old Microsoft, the one where teams didn't talk to each other hence the disjointed and obvious ommissions....Im judging Satya Nadella on Windows 10 and seeing if everything works together well or at least attempts to..I saw a pic on a post somewhere which sums it up...

 

[Dadstar0410]

The music player when the phone is locked. The fact it disappears and to make it reappear I must lock my screen then skip my songs. Think there should be a transparent or permanent way to keep the music player visible in the lock screen?

Press one of the volume rockers and the music controls show up.

 

[pampurio97]

He asked a permanent way because it should be always visible on the lock screen. There's nothing to hide below the music controls.

 

[sketchy9]

The three things that absolute drive me insane (and on some previous version, probably WP7, they didn't exist-- i.e. MS introduced these problems and has tried to pass them off as improvements):

1. The music control overlay USED to be transparent. Why does this matter? Because a) the solid block of gray is ugly; and b) it completely obscures all of the icons for as long as it is on the screen. Transparent controls were a godsend but apparently some idiots out there complained they were hard to see and now we have the gray block.

2. The cursor is impossible to place properly because it is DIRECTLY UNDER YOUR FINGER. How is that a good thing? Didn't anyone at MS realize that, you know, if your finger is on the screen, maybe you shouldn't place the graphical element you're trying to manipulate directly underneath it? Oh wait, someone did-- originally, a long press in a text field would bring up a cursor about a cm above your finger, which you could then move while seeing it. Apparently, more stupid users complained about this, since it wasn't obvious, and rather than educate users, we're stuck with not being able to see the cursor.

3. The #1 complaint of mine-- IE tabs that constantly reload. It's obviously some sort of memory management but I can't figure out when it decides to reload and when it doesn't. I can come from a soft reset, with one tab open, and it will reload. Once again, this is not how the behavior was originally: there used to be a hard limit of 6 open tabs (now it's more or less unlimited) but the upside was you NEVER reloaded a page. It all stayed in memory. Not anymore, also because of stupid, short-sighted users who complained about the hard limit. It's a phone, people. You don't have infinite RAM. Of course a compromise needed to be made if you wanted unlimited tabs "open"-- they would need to reload. So they're not even really open and you just ruined an otherwise good experience.

MS had some really nice UX elements that they completely kneecapped because of user feedback. That's why I wish they took a more Apple-like attitude: end users are, by and large, morons who only care about their one particular usage scenario. These companies have smart software engineers and UX experts working for them and I trust them more than joe schmoe on a message board (see the new OneDrive file implementation in W10 for another example of a great feature being ruined by end user complaints).

 

[sketchy9]

He asked a permanent way because it should be always visible on the lock screen. There's nothing to hide below the music controls.

except all of your notification icons, signal strength, etc.

 

[Yazen]

My Lumia 520 can't open multiple tabs. It reloads everytime when I switch to different tab. Is there a setting or something which I am missing ?

No setting, Windows Phone has aggressive memory requirements. Kind of annoying

 

[wgs84]

I'm on Denim, and there are a lot of things I like about it, but one of the things I wish I could do is save email attachments to my phone folders. I was really surprised when I tried to save a pdf to my sd card, and the option to save was grayed out. Instead you have to use an app to open the attachment. I'm using Pocket File Manager to save my pdfs, which helps, but it would be immensely useful to me if I could just save it right from the email.

 

[tharaka7nw]

No way to turn on/off data connection without going to settings... why they don't add it to action centre

 

[r4v]

They did actually. Update your phone.

 

[bitshifts]

It won't switch over to 4 bar cellular when it has 1 bar of wifi (it should do it's radio selection based on signal quality)

 

[pavvento]

All of the notifications are simple and elegant except for the calendar ones. Many times I'm working on something or (the worst!) someone is taking a picture and notifications pop up completely jarring you out of what you're doing, unlike all the other toast notifications.

Along with notifications, I find that there is no consistency for how long a text notification stays on the screen. Sometimes it is the normal amount, sometimes it stays on forever until swiping it away.

Also as someone mentioned the onscreen keyboard when inputting text, there is no way to hide it and some websites do not have a lot of 'clickable' space to make it disappear.

 

[monedetoune]

the os needs to grow. kill off cheap phones and focus development for mid - high range devices. theres a reason why the overall experience during wp7s / wp7 was awesome. all devices shares the same chassis requirement. Microsoft and the windows phone team spends less time on optimization on different hardware profiles. reduce the diversity of hardware and focus on the actual development instead of getting stuck on fine tuning