Reason to not update to lumia cyan?

[sd4f]

My WP8.1 Cyan update has just gone live for my L920 in my region. I've been reading a fair bit of contradictory information and just wanted to find out if i'd be having problems with the update if I chose to go ahead.

As it stands, I stuck to official firmware only, didn't go to the WP8.1DP, so I haven't used WP8.1 at all. I've been hearing that there's a battery bug that has been causing grief and I'd prefer to hold back that get a battery bug.

Also, can anyone explain or link me to an article or forum post which outlines what features have been dropped in WP8.1. I am rather fond of the social media integration (and most importantly consolidation) and would have liked to have it stay that way, rather than have discreet apps operate.

I'm rather fond of WP8, but need my phone to be reliable. Battery bug is really unwanted, but otherwise I'd go to WP8.1 so some clarity to the situation would be most helpful.

 

[peter14f]

Do you stream music and use Here Drive+ in your car via bluetooth? This could be the one reason I prefer WP8
WP8.1 - Problem with Navigation Voice - YouTube

 

[sd4f]

Thanks for that. Since I don't have bluetooth in my car, I can't use it, but it's good to know.

 

[se7en20]

There's no reason to hold back. Updates are meant to add, not to drop features. Cyan is bringing tons of awesome features you don't wanna miss. It didn't bring any battery bugs on my phone if that's what you're worried about. It depends on the phone I guess but not really caused by cyan. I have battery draining issues before and it turned out some app is causing it. We all have different cases. I'm not a 920 user so I really can't tell. If it's all 920 users having battery problems after cyan then it must really be something but if not, they might just be having their own problems just like what I had before.

 

[Etyrnus]

I've actually seen substantial improvements in battery life after Cyan. I'm on a 1520, before the original 8.1 dev preview on wp8 I was getting 28-30 hours, during dev 8.1 it was down to 18-20 hours. Dropped to 8 to get the official update, massive improvement, up to 40 hours I've seen capable. Same goes for 8.1 gdr 1 dev preview, still getting great battery life.

 

[sd4f]

Fair enough. It's just like I said, I've been reading about battery bug issues, and I need my phone to be reliable, as I can't have it conking out 6-8 hours after taking it off charge.

I guess I'll just go ahead. Wanted to be sure that I wasn't in for something I'd regret, and it's easy enough to ask people who are in the know.

 

[rajrhins]

I have serious problem with my battery after 8.1 update. I used to get 12 - 14 Hrs of battery life in a normal usage but after cyan update its just 6 -7 hrs,..

 

[se7en20]

check apps running in background.

 

[saJustin]

how do people measure battery life in hours on the 920, i measure mine in days!!! Running 8.1.1DP on my ATT 920 and i use it for spotify in the car, while running, gps app while running, spotify at the gym, email for work, gmail, and random stuff thru the day.

As for the original question, 8.1 is far better than 8.0, swipe keyboard is awesome! Notifications, awesome! BT4LE, enough said!

 

[sd4f]

well I did the update, and now i'll see how it goes. So far seems good.

Although, there are a few changes I'm not too impressed about, though they are minor. First is that putting the phone into silent is a little bit more annoying. Was fairly straight forward before since you could bring down the sound menu and just press a single button on screen. Now need to press a couple of buttons or hold down the volume rocker.

Also I don't like that games have made it into the app list. It was a good feature before that games were in the 'games' app. I wish they did it with lenses as well.

The photo sorting, is a bit inefficient. Would much rather that I could set photos as they were before. The camera app is also a bit more annoying to use. Don't need redundant software button when hardware button is there to take snaps. Overall I think the new camera app is a step back, however, a great feature is when you switch off the tap to take photo, then when you touch the screen it focuses where you tap it. This is a great feature to add as it means you don't have to focus what you want in the very middle of the screen.

There's also a few things that could have been optimised a bit more such as the file manager; since I don't have an SD card, the first screen is somewhat redundant, since I can't select anything other than device storage. Sure if you have an SD card, then you need to select either the device or the SD, but many phones can't.

I've also noticed that the touch screen is a bit more sensative, and accidently click things when I just want to swipe across. Needs a little tweaking (or getting used to).

None of these things are debilitating, but they're small nuisances, which would be great to fix. Certainly the improvements are really great and much needed.

 

[marcos86]

First is that putting the phone into silent is a little bit more annoying. Was fairly straight forward before since you could bring down the sound menu and just press a single button on screen. Now need to press a couple of buttons or hold down the volume rocker.

?
Volume up/down and tap on the bell icon.

 

[BatteryLife]

?
Volume up/down and tap on the bell icon.

Volume up/down, tap on volume, tap on bell. You missed one xP

Guess its more annoying for those people who does that often, as it was 2 click as opposed to 3.

 

[colinkiama]

My WP8.1 Cyan update has just gone live for my L920 in my region. I've been reading a fair bit of contradictory information and just wanted to find out if i'd be having problems with the update if I chose to go ahead.

As it stands, I stuck to official firmware only, didn't go to the WP8.1DP, so I haven't used WP8.1 at all. I've been hearing that there's a battery bug that has been causing grief and I'd prefer to hold back that get a battery bug.

Also, can anyone explain or link me to an article or forum post which outlines what features have been dropped in WP8.1. I am rather fond of the social media integration (and most importantly consolidation) and would have liked to have it stay that way, rather than have discreet apps operate.

I'm rather fond of WP8, but need my phone to be reliable. Battery bug is really unwanted, but otherwise I'd go to WP8.1 so some clarity to the situation would be most helpful.

The social intergration is still there but you now you need the app so the social network is in the people app. So I would need to download facebook for it to show in the people hub. However now when you want to view pictures or post comments, it will launch in the facebook app. Sadly facebook and messenger are not in the messaging hub anymore

 

[b0blight]

Social Integration got removed because the WP team realised that there was a big problem with it. Previously in WP8, Facebook and Twitter integration was done in the OS itself. This gave rise to one major problem. Because Facebook and Twitter keep imporving/adding/removing features at such a rapid pace, they would have to constantly update the Peoples Hub. However because the integration was embedded in the System, this meant that to add the new features of Facebook they would have to issue an OS update everytime, otherwise the alternative was to leave it as it is, but with alot of features missing. So in WP8.1, MS decided to strip all the integration away, and instead build a framework so that developers can plug in their apps into the OS. Same can be said for the Messaging, Battery saver, xbox music & video, Storage sense, Data sense. So in WP8.1, they would rather have the developer to just plug in their app into the peoples hub and connect with it, so updates can be pushed out faster (read: Windows Store), instead of having an OS wide update just for one small feature. In conclusion, WP8.1 saw a lot of app decoupling as MS wanted to make their OS more flexible, and much much faster when it came to adding new features, which saw the removal of FB/Twitter integration in the peoples hub.

Hope that helped to clear up some confusion.

 

[DavidinCT]

If you like the Xbox hub that is totally stripped down in Windows Phone 8.1....All your games will show in your app list, not like before where you can keep them in the Xbox hub....No updates for Xbox one achievements or games

This is a major fail on Microsoft on this aspect, for a gamer...but, over all the positive out weights the negative, so it's a worthy upgrade

 

[RoboLoftie]

Have a quick read of this jrjohnson1701.wordpress.com/2014/04/17/windows-phone-8-1-brings-unwelcome-changes/ ( I can't add links, under 10 posts sorry ) and scroll to the bit about Hubs. There are some screenshots to show the changes.

Your social integration is gone, what's left is a feed. At least with regards to FB, I don't use Twitter so I can't comment. Like before where you had all the What's New feed, you can still have that but you need to install the FB app to have it. When you try to comment or like something, instead of being able to do so, it'll open the FB app at the appropriate page.

If you liked the Messaging App having FB messages in there, well that's gone too. Completely. You'll have to download and use the FB Messenger app.

Battery for me has halved. Idle time has improved, but using it drains way more power. Using any app seems to drain about 50% more power than before. This morning, opening the News app and reading the headlines, not the articles just the headline titles, checking the Weather App for Folkestone, having a quick look at the BBC weather website and then sending 1 SMS - total time about 5 minutes but lets be generous and say 10 minutes - my phone dropped 10% power, 54% to 43%, all of this was on WiFi. The FB messenger app drains about 30% an hour, which probably isn't anything new but since I now can't use the messaging hub if you want to send a FB message your battery life will be eaten faster than a bar of chocolate in front of a child. Twitch/Youtube streaming on 3g used to use about the same/less power on my phone.

All the Hubs have changed, in my opinion not one for the better. While some are personal taste like the Photos Hub, or Music/Video being split, Store etc, some genuinely have lost functionality.

Pros

Action Centre is helpful. I've never been one for massively needing a Notification Centre. The 5 things I want to be notified about are all on my lockscreen, so I can see if I want to check anything, but I can understand and appreciate that it will be helpful to others. The Actions are also helpful, again though I was never too fussed about using a live tile shortcut to turn of WiFi etc. But still helpful.

There are others, but I haven't used them so I won't comment. Those were my thought's anyway.

TLDR: For me, biggest gripes, them messing with the Hubs both in design and functionality, and now sub par battery life.

 

[sd4f]

I've noticed rather greatly increased battery usage when the phone is being used. Idle time has been improved, but while the phone is going, it drains very rapidly.

All in all, the original WP8 (and i think WP7) vision was really good. Pity they couldn't follow through with it. Would have been much nicer if the people hub still had the ability to make posts, rather than just be a feed, and for messaging to still go beyond SMS.

I guess it's a bittersweet evolution of the platform; gained some really big features, lost some really good features. To put it in perspective, the features we gained were really things whose absence were crippling the platform, whereas the stuff that has been lost, was really enhancing it way beyond what the competition is doing.

Some changes to the store also have made the UI feel more cluttered. It was nicer before.

I guess part of the broader problem is that MS decides on some sort of aspect they want to try out, then they don't follow through with it. A good example of it is when they introduced the ability to close running apps when you hold the back button. They put the little 'x' in, but windows 8 had the swipe down to close. They didn't do that with the phone OS. By no means is this a major problem, but it's just an example that there's little uniformity in what the company is doing across the board.

 

[willslumia]

Well I for one wished I didn't update to 8.1. At first I thought all went well, but far from it. The update returned me to my very first Windows Live account some 15+ years ago, and I have no idea about a password, and to make matters worse neither does MS.
So I am left with a Factory restore, dozens of apps, for me a total nightmare.
Would never again let windows do a update Amen.:angry::angry::angry:

 

[sd4f]

I've found a new change which i don't like at all.

Got used to when you go to the phone app, when you have a missed call, and before, they had the circle which you pressed to immediately call back, otherwise if you pressed the name or number, you got options screen where you could do other things. I'm getting a bit used to this change. I think the old way was better though, because now, it's easier to accidentally call someone, whereas before, well, you mightn't immediately call them, but you got the options to do more than just one thing. So if you're dealing with a missed call for instance, you can SMS, or send something through other means as well.

Overall, it's a good update, they've added a lot of important features, but I think they changed a few too many things which didn't need it either, those typical change for change's sake.

 

[BatteryLife]

I've found a new change which i don't like at all.

Got used to when you go to the phone app, when you have a missed call, and before, they had the circle which you pressed to immediately call back, otherwise if you pressed the name or number, you got options screen where you could do other things. I'm getting a bit used to this change. I think the old way was better though, because now, it's easier to accidentally call someone, whereas before, well, you mightn't immediately call them, but you got the options to do more than just one thing. So if you're dealing with a missed call for instance, you can SMS, or send something through other means as well.

Overall, it's a good update, they've added a lot of important features, but I think they changed a few too many things which didn't need it either, those typical change for change's sake.

I find that extremely frustrating too. And you can't even long press for more options. You can only do one thing... that is to call. It makes me use the People apps, instead of just the Phone app xP