Why did Microsoft hold the official SDK to their chest until release, when everyone knew about all the end-user features months in advance?
They really hampered the launch by doing this. So many of my WP7 apps technically "run" on my new 920, but not that great.
1) Tiles on a lot of WP7 apps look low-res. This is probably because they are not updated to take advantage of the higher res screens on WP8 hardware.
2) Live tiles and notification tiles on a lot of apps broke during the transition from WP7 to WP8. Some half work too, when they are in "medium" mode, but break when the tile is small.
3) Apps are missing. Photosynth, tunein, etc.
4) Devs haven't had the chance to take advantage of any new features, like lock screen notifications, small/medium/large tile sizes, start screen resume, etc.
Everyone chalks this up to "developers need to update for WP8". That's my whole point. So now we have to wait months for developers of apps we like to just give us a simple update so the tile doesn't look blurry. If MS released the SDK in advance perhaps we'd have more quality apps available upon release.
I really can't understand what took MS so long to come out with the SDK. It is frustrating because the WP8 launch could have gone much better, but MS shot themselves in the foot.
Plus, in all honesty not much changed between WP7.5 and WP8. I am dissapointed with the lack of end-user features in WP8 like a notification center or folders to organize apps, or even home screen "sections" or something NEW. It's all the same. In my head I'm chalking it up to the fact that the team had to spend so much time re-coding for the new kernel, laying a "base" so to speak. I'm hopeful that in the next year the programming team will spend much more time on end-user features and deliver them to us OTA.
I've been waiting around with Windows Phone for a year, and I like it enough to wait another year with the 920. But this will likely be my last shot with Windows Phone. The potential is there but I'm just hampered with it as of present. MS really needs to step up the game this next year, all the pieces are in place. If they can't deliver, no one to blame but themselves.
/rant
They really hampered the launch by doing this. So many of my WP7 apps technically "run" on my new 920, but not that great.
1) Tiles on a lot of WP7 apps look low-res. This is probably because they are not updated to take advantage of the higher res screens on WP8 hardware.
2) Live tiles and notification tiles on a lot of apps broke during the transition from WP7 to WP8. Some half work too, when they are in "medium" mode, but break when the tile is small.
3) Apps are missing. Photosynth, tunein, etc.
4) Devs haven't had the chance to take advantage of any new features, like lock screen notifications, small/medium/large tile sizes, start screen resume, etc.
Everyone chalks this up to "developers need to update for WP8". That's my whole point. So now we have to wait months for developers of apps we like to just give us a simple update so the tile doesn't look blurry. If MS released the SDK in advance perhaps we'd have more quality apps available upon release.
I really can't understand what took MS so long to come out with the SDK. It is frustrating because the WP8 launch could have gone much better, but MS shot themselves in the foot.
Plus, in all honesty not much changed between WP7.5 and WP8. I am dissapointed with the lack of end-user features in WP8 like a notification center or folders to organize apps, or even home screen "sections" or something NEW. It's all the same. In my head I'm chalking it up to the fact that the team had to spend so much time re-coding for the new kernel, laying a "base" so to speak. I'm hopeful that in the next year the programming team will spend much more time on end-user features and deliver them to us OTA.
I've been waiting around with Windows Phone for a year, and I like it enough to wait another year with the 920. But this will likely be my last shot with Windows Phone. The potential is there but I'm just hampered with it as of present. MS really needs to step up the game this next year, all the pieces are in place. If they can't deliver, no one to blame but themselves.
/rant
Facebook
Twitter
Instagram