Benefit of Windows phone to MS ecosystem?

[justinm001]

I'd say Xbox music but I don't think you can add a song on the phone and have it download to both phone and surface pro
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[jhguth]

Oh please tell me how can you:

Access your Skydrive across both devices - auto upload photos, documents etc using an android?

Access your music collection across both devices - download a song on Xbox music on Windows 8 and have it ready and waiting for you on your android?

Access your documents - office and notes, across both devices - edit a note on your android and have it ready waiting for you to pick up on your OneNote on Windows 8?

Control Xbox using Xbox Smartglass on WP and/or Surface. - this you know already how you can't do on android.

Access awesome UI across both devices - dont tell me you consider Launcher 8 anything closer to live tiles and UI of Windows Phone!

Sync games across both devices e.g. WordFeud - I play from laptop sometimes, sometimes from phone. - please tell me how this wordfeud scenario works between an android and Windows 8, seriously.

come on now, lets not be naive fan boys
-You can get the Skydrive App for Android if you want skydrive, if you want seemless syncing you can use numerous other options in the Android ecosystem. There are literally multiple ways to do this, dropbox probably being the most popular.

-Xbox music I guess is a benefit if you really want it, but you don't really need it. Unless you really want to use your Xbox for music, there isn't much advantage to Xbox music right now.

-OneNote on Android works well, and there are multiple good options to open and edit other office documents on Android.

-Smartglass is on Android (and iOS), and this thread made me actually try it. Its comparable to the iOS experience, so just barely less useful than WP8. But lets be honest, the smartglass experience hasn't exploded, we haven't seen a ton of companion apps. Its only kinda useful, and if you are sitting in front of a WIndows 8 device, just use smartglass on that. So like I said before, barely slightly a benefit.

-You're the first person I've ever met who tried to tell me the gaming experience on WP8 is a benefit, but if you really want you can play words with friends on both your laptop and android.


There just isn't a huge advantage to using WP8 if you are in the microsoft ecosystem right now. There are a few things that work marginally easier if you have WP8, but most of these things can be done with third party apps just as well with Android. The majority of Android users also use the Windows ecosystem, so you better believe that developers have created ways for them to work well together. If you like WP8 and want to switch, go for it, in my opinion the benefits outweigh the tradeoffs. But if you are happy with Android and just curious if there is advantage with going all Microsoft everything, the fact that WP8 is by the same company that made your computer OS and productivity software suite isn't reason enough to switch right now.

 

[rdubmu]

So if you edit a document on android, it automatically is synced to your Windows 8?

yes you can do this.
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[rdubmu]

There are alot of benefits which the other users have listed plus: on WP you can do some things with the native OS that would otherwise require an app on android. The people hub also is top notch compared to anything on android.

I agree with you except the people hub could be considered an app, and I find it to be top notch as well. The biggest thing with the other platform, there are a lot of solutions to any issue especially how customizable android is. With iOS "there's an app for that" I personally use windowsphone as I find the operating system a joy to use. I also like the SkyDrive integration. I wish we had a speed dial similar to IOS, that would make people/phone hub even better instead of most recent.

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[eric12341]

come on now, lets not be naive fan boys
-You can get the Skydrive App for Android if you want skydrive, if you want seemless syncing you can use numerous other options in the Android ecosystem. There are literally multiple ways to do this, dropbox probably being the most popular.

-Xbox music I guess is a benefit if you really want it, but you don't really need it. Unless you really want to use your Xbox for music, there isn't much advantage to Xbox music right now.

-OneNote on Android works well, and there are multiple good options to open and edit other office documents on Android.

-Smartglass is on Android (and iOS), and this thread made me actually try it. Its comparable to the iOS experience, so just barely less useful than WP8. But lets be honest, the smartglass experience hasn't exploded, we haven't seen a ton of companion apps. Its only kinda useful, and if you are sitting in front of a WIndows 8 device, just use smartglass on that. So like I said before, barely slightly a benefit.

-You're the first person I've ever met who tried to tell me the gaming experience on WP8 is a benefit, but if you really want you can play words with friends on both your laptop and android.


There just isn't a huge advantage to using WP8 if you are in the microsoft ecosystem right now. There are a few things that work marginally easier if you have WP8, but most of these things can be done with third party apps just as well with Android. The majority of Android users also use the Windows ecosystem, so you better believe that developers have created ways for them to work well together. If you like WP8 and want to switch, go for it, in my opinion the benefits outweigh the tradeoffs. But if you are happy with Android and just curious if there is advantage with going all Microsoft everything, the fact that WP8 is by the same company that made your computer OS and productivity software suite isn't reason enough to switch right now.

Xbox music is a huge benefit, you can stream music on WP,W8 and Xbox with the same subscription and can download as many songs as you want in one place and have them show up in the cloud music collection on the others. With iTunes or google play music you have to purchase each song separately. In addition you can also stream music videos in HD on Xbox and W8, something that currently isn't possible with anything else without having to buy each video.

OneNote on Android only allows a certain amount of notes to be created in the free version then you have to purchase it. In WP it's unlimited.

With SkyDrive on android you can't take pictures or videos and have them uploaded automatically, also cannot seamlessly access all office files and edit them.

 

[darkoman4]

The biggest problem with the Skydrive, it uploads downsized photos to the cloud and your synced photos are worthless. Google+ for Android, iCloud ,Dropbox and even Flickr for HTC phones and Shugarsync for Blackberry upload full images. There is no advantage there at all, au contraire.

Edit: Found solution deep in photo settings.

 

[Zeroplanetz]

How about the benefit to not need an anti-virus protection? Or the benefit to not need to defragment? Windows phone for me is the choice because it offers enough customizability for my liking and I don't need to worry about my stuff being hacked or bits of files being thrown everywhere. Yes android has more apps but windows has more everyday stuff built into the os. But in the end it comes down to your personal preference. Yes listen to people but don't make your decision based on other people. Take it all in to account when you go and play around with the phones yourself.

 

[omniusovermind]

I'm also going to add these points to the sticky, but here are some positives that have been making me consider WP8 more strongly recently:

• As has been mentioned a million times, the UI is very fast and fluid. I think it ties with iOS for 1st place in this regard.
• text selection for copy/paste is WAY easier than Android and BB10. Can't speak for iOS, I don't do Apple. I copy/paste text a LOT on my phones. This isn't an eye popping wow factor feature, but sometimes the boring little details can become pretty important.
• Sharing on WP8 is only rivalled by Android. Both offer you a list of all installed apps. Nobody else does this
• The UI is highly polished even once you go deeper into it. Some OS's only look good on the homescreens but then get messy further into different areas of the phone like contacts, dialer, settings etc. WP8 did a great job with Look and Feel inside the UI and not just on the homescreen.
• I'm not a big fan of "openness" as I used to be. Back in the 90's when MS had this rep as a big evil giant monopoly the openness movement had more merit. Nowadays computing is simply just more secure on MS and Apple walled gardens. You'll be extremely hard pressed to find larger companies saying they're comfy with you hooking your Android Phone up to the network

 

[omniusovermind]

How about the benefit to not need an anti-virus protection? Or the benefit to not need to defragment? Windows phone for me is the choice because it offers enough customizability for my liking and I don't need to worry about my stuff being hacked or bits of files being thrown everywhere. Yes android has more apps but windows has more everyday stuff built into the os. But in the end it comes down to your personal preference. Yes listen to people but don't make your decision based on other people. Take it all in to account when you go and play around with the phones yourself.

I feel the need to run LBE Privacy Guard, and have to waste a lot of time checking permissions these days. It's highly annoying to find a really cool UI tweak on Play Store or whatever name-an-app that has zero requirement to ever access the internet listing it as a permission. I'm sick of apps wanting to know my location with no need to, ever. I'm just getting tired of dealing with stuff like this, and it's getting old, real fast.

 

[cgk]

Xbox music is a huge benefit, you can stream music on WP,W8 and Xbox with the same subscription and can download as many songs as you want in one place and have them show up in the cloud music collection on the others. With iTunes or google play music you have to purchase each song separately.

But you can do this on spotify, in the UK, it's half the price if you are a student and the clients are better on most devices - I ever have one on my roku box.

 

[rockstarzzz]

But you can do this on spotify, in the UK, it's half the price if you are a student and the clients are better on most devices - I ever have one on my roku box.

Spotify collection is inferior in both quality and quantity

 

[Zeroplanetz]

Spotify collection is inferior in both quality and quantity

while spotify may be loved by some or several, I had it and deleted it. I'm not saying Xbox music is the way to go. Just that spotify is not a all owning god between music stuff. I personally won't use it even if its the last music service left.

 

[astraith]

You can currently:Access your Skydrive across both devices.Access your music collection across both devices.Access your documents - office and notes, across both devices.Control Xbox using Xbox Smartglass on WP and/or Surface.Access awesome UI across both devices.Sync games across both devices e.g. WordFeud - I play from laptop sometimes, sometimes from phone.

Plus possible more benefits going forward.

 

[astraith]

MS and it's ecosystem is a tricky one. On one had you can understand the business side with microsofts decisions to put all its apps/services on IOS and Android and on the other it seems counter productive in making it's own Mobile OS needed or wanted over the others.personally I think they should release watered down version of they're apps/services on IOS/Android and have premium versions on WP.

That's where I actually disagree. Yes, it is something that subtracts value, but look at Google. Google says screw you loyal gmail, drive, google+ subscribers. If you aren't on Android, you don't get our support. Yes, i know they support the iPhone, however that's because they don't have an option. They have to have their apps on that platform. To many users.But Windows 8, or Windows Phone? Nope, screw you guys. And I'm sorry, I am glad Microsoft isn't like that.