Your turn - 8 things that Microsoft needs to fix in Windows Phone 8 right now.

[snowmutt]

I feel like I should just write "ditto". EVERY point above to some degree will help WP from a blip on the Radar to the Mountain Range that takes up the whole mobile landscape. If I were to add anything, I would want replace the folders idea with something more WP-like: I want to be able to have a second or even third swipe menu option.

For instance: Start screen with your favorite Live Tiles. I do not want to lose this. It is what makes the Modern UI (almost used to that) the UI it is.

Swipe right for your notification center as has been suggested. Love that. Lets do that. Easy fix, natural progression.

Swipe Left to get to your app/tool list. Problem is, mine is so freaking long it adds two - three more steps to find the tools/apps I want. So, I want to swipe once for one list, and then left for a secondary list. Let me arrange these lists as I see fit for my convienince. Still a natural progression and motion for WP, but a little more organizational options for me.

Better Office intergration, a return to WM6.5 functioality (why on Earth did they move away from what actually WORKED in their old OS??), seamless XBOX Live/Music and better Windows 8 intergration had BETTER be coming in WP 8.1, or else they are truly killing any reasons for mordern smartphone users to adopt them.

 

[celikkoseoglu]

-Good games
-VPN
-Viber
-Better Skype, Facebook, Twitter apps
-Brightness slider
-Notification Center
-Better Music app (create playlists)
-Instagram
-Better Skydrive integration
-Better batery life
ALSO, I WANT TO UPDATE MY PHONE AT THE SAME TIME WITH OTHER COUNTRIES!

 

[Morten Andersen]

-Dropbox App
-Spotify
-Facebook
-Youtube
- Portico update soon... I'm living in Denmark and we still don't have s***.
- Better ringtone customization. Like choose the ringtones and messenger sounds that I want and not some prechosen.
- Notification center
- And better batterylife.

 

[IceDree]

Rotation lock would be cool , but I can live without it ... a bit inconvenient , but "Still ... It Could've Been Worse"

 

[mrmdj31675]

Until they do, I will still insist in better coding, encryption, and DIRECT SUPPORT for CDMA 2000 carriers in the US (although getting Sprint on board is a sign they are actually addressing the issue, since more likely the rest of the CDMA carrier community will choose the devices from HTC and Samsung Sprint will bring).

 

[slashd0t]

Fix the "Other" storage problem..

 

[pfe1223]

Love the idea of a notification center.
I don't know about WP8, but WP7 has a white email screen even if you choose the dark theme. On an OLED screen, white uses way more power than a darker color.
Proper, native podcast management.
I would like it if, on the People Hub, it would remember your place on the timeline. I dislike having to scroll back down only to read up to the top.

 

[Raghav77]

1-8 Instagram :straight:

 

[windocks96]

1. App "X" killer/management

2. Ringtones for all notifications*

3. Lock Screen Rotation

4. Volume Controls

5. Notification Center (swipe to the left)

6. Bing* Universal Phone Search

Folders/VPN/Toggles/etc

More Games and Official Apps (Temple Run/Instagram)

I.E 10 reader/offline/options

Music & Xbox Improvements

 

[Ridemyscooter86]

I have a wp 7.8 so what I say won't be completely 100% valid but I'll try.

1. Instagram-I don't use it and don't care to, but a ton of people do. This is one of those killer apps, If they don't have this then that's bad.

2. Notification center - I don't think it really needs one since they have live tiles, but if they do make one, I really hope that they do a less is more approach, like maybe make a notifications tile which groups all notifications together or stick it somewhere in the multitasking card menu or something.

3. Xbox - Why isn't MS pushing one of its bigger brands with more leverage on WP? Why aren't more game companies developing for WP? Why do we get fable coin golf instead of an actual mobile fable game. Or what about a halo game? And yes, its possible to do an fps on a mobile phone. Also, why don't they let you stream games? Maybe cause of network lag, but tht would be awesome to see.

4.lock screen rotation - minor, but not hard to implement.

5.launch app from lock screen, would be very easy to do. Hold finger over which icon you want to unlock and swipe up over top of the icon and it launches that app, a minor thing, but every other OS has this feature now.

6.Universal search. I love the universal search in windows 8, that you can search every file, app, setting, or do a search in every app from the search bar

7.obviously more apps in general, but windows 8 getting more popular will help with that

8. More OEMS, they are gaining more, but they need to get LG to make more phones they need sony on board, pantech, sharp, Panasonic(if they decide to make phones anymore past eh eluga series), yes I know they are not as popular, but they need every OEM they can get. I was very happy to see Huawei and ZTE get onboard

 

[Hupsakee]

draft for text

 

[Chinarabbit]

phfft..

umm..

"Office"

 

[Laura Knotek]

I'd like to see one-stop purchases for games/apps for all devices. In other words, if I buy a game/app for Xbox, I get the same game/app for Windows Phone/Windows 8/RT.

Apple does not require one to purchase apps/games separately for iPhone/iPad/iPod Touch. Once the apps/games are purchased, they are usable on all iOS devices. I'd like to see that for Windows devices also, rather than charging separately for the same app on a different Windows device.

Achievements also should be unified across all devices. I had Wordament for Windows Phone, but when I installed it on Windows 8 I had to start from scratch with achievements; none of my achievements earned on the Windows Phone version counted on the Windows 8 version. That needs to be fixed.

 

[a5cent]

If I buy a game/app for Xbox, I get the same game/app for Windows Phone/Windows 8/RT.

Apple does not require one to purchase apps/games separately for iPhone/iPad/iPod Touch.

Don't we already have this? A touch UI game you purchase for W8 will also run on a W8RT tablet without repurchasing it, right?

I'm sure those apps will also run on the next XBOX as the OS will also be just plain Windows.

The difference is only the level at which compatibility breaks, e.g. you can't play an iOS game on OSX. Or am I mistaken?

 

[lemonsteveo]

Better and more reliable push notifications for Messenger, Facebook and other communication apps - that is all.
I dunno why my 920 seems to miss messages here and there when my Surface RT gets all of them and I am on 4G constantly.

 

[JimiDiGriz]

Agree with most of the above but having read about syncing your itunes library to WP8 my biggest gripe right now is Xbox Music. Dear God what a nightmare! Have an aging 32gb ipod touch 3rd gen and thought that now I have a phone with adequate storage (L820 with 64gb SD card), I could start using that for music and podcasts instead of carrying around two devices. It all seemed so simple, got the WP8 desktop app which said it could pull music from existing iTunes libraries ( I don't have a problem with continuing to use this to manage my subscriptions etc as long as it all syncs properly to the phone). Plugged the phone in and it all went south. Some music sync'd, some didn't, no podcasts. Okay so back into the app I go, make sure everything is ticked in the limited options. Manually selected music albums and set to all unplayed podcasts. Sync again. Multiple instances of the same songs appear, some but not all podcasts. Go into the phone in explorer and can see all podcasts on the SD card. Delete everything from the SD card and try again. Same completely random errors.

Gave up and decided to make do with what I had, opened up podcasts through Xbox Music while I was out for a walk and what I could see was in a completely random order! Not by date, not by episode name and I couldn't see the whole title to work out what order I should be listening in! And then when you get to the end of a podcast it doesn't move onto the next one, you have to take your phone out, guess which the next one is and press play. This should be an option, play one or play all in series.

 

[WinFan1]

Less focus on jessica alba, cam newton, and smoking other phones; more focus on developers and apps. Period.

well lets not take all the focus off of jessica alba

 

[orelzion]

1. More libraries.
MS should open libraries to developers to use. We want to send videos through whatsapp or line or whatever 3rd party app, we want to be able to download a song directly to our music library, the same thing is right for movies.
2. Messaging integration.
Just imagine how great it was if Skype or whatsapp was integrated into the os. MS can do that, like they do with Facebook chat. And it will be just great. I mean one of the great point of WP is its integration with the system, so come on.
Oh and also let those apps integrate with People app.
3. SD card opened for developers.
I have more to add, but everyone pretty much covered it already, so that's it.

 

[Connie Litrenta]

1. Unable to add/delete lines in a spreadsheet unless I go to web version of office (VERY dumb)
2. Would like a little more customization with notifications please (sounds)
3. Being able to group things on home screen (folder) would probably be good if you have a lot of apps
4. Voice recognition could stand improvement
5. A few times I have tried using the voice recognition for creating a note but the darn thing would always stop before I was done. Time limit?
6. You are MIcrosoft! I expect Office to work better than on any other non-Windows phone. C'Mon Microsoft.
7. Possibly have pull down notification bar have ability to turn off/on BT, WiFi, etc.

I would like to state for the record that although I have a number of things I would like to see improved (as well as others in this thread), I absolutely love my Windows 8 phone and would not trade it for anything. I expect MS to continue to make improvements and thus making my phone better. I am simply contributing my 2 cents to the conversation

 

[jhoff80]

I don't have eight things that I want fixed, just one huge one. I already stated this on the main page comments, but I'll repeat it here:

What they REALLY need to do, is connect Windows Phone 8 to Windows 8 and Windows RT better. Just some examples off the top of my head that there is no reason to not do. My web passwords (and bookmarks) that are synced in Windows 8 and Windows RT need to sync to the phone. Text messages should show in the tablet/PC messaging app (a la webOS), and I should be able to tap on a phone number on the tablet and have it dial on the phone. Game saves (other than Skulls of the Shogun) need to be synced between devices. If I set up an email account on my tablet, it should also show up on my phone, without having to re-set it up a second time.

The list goes on and on. Right now, Windows Phone 8 and Windows 8 are two entirely separate products that pull from the same pool of data (ie, Google Reader apps both pull from Google Reader, my email is connected separately on each device to the same EAS server, my devices are both separately connected to Skydrive), but what really needs to happen is that Microsoft needs the devices to feel cohesive, like each is an extension of the other. That would allow Windows Phone 8 to grow symbiotically as sales of Windows 8 products ramp up over the next few years. Instead, there's little incentive for a user to be entirely in the Microsoft ecosystem.