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Windows Phone 7 |OT|

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brotkasten said:
Now that's interesting and ... well, pretty stupid.

Microsoft is actually limiting one of the biggest selling points for WP7 (at least marketing-wise), the live tiles. You can only use 15 of them on the home screen.


WP7 Only Permits 15 Live Tiles
brotkasten said:
I think it's a bit of everything. Battery life, memory usage, data usage.

e: I'd like to see a comment from Microsoft.

And here is the comment: Details on the Push Notification app limits
 
brotkasten said:

Much better, thanks!

Yes, the limit is fifteen third party applications can be concurrently subscribed to receive push notifications (whether that is a live tile or toast). Parsing it out, the applications that come out of the box (like outlook, people hub, etc.) will not count towards this limit. So there is no limit on 15 live tiles. You can have 20+ if you add it up (that is about 2.5 screens worth of tiles on star menu)
An application is only counted if it has push notification or tiles push enabled and is subscribed to a channel. If you install an application but you do not enable push, it would not count towards the limit.
You should not have to go uninstall an application in order to free a slot. If an application is coded well, it should be prompting users and giving them the option on whether they want to use push notifications and/or live tiles (since there is potential bandwidth charges from the operator when these are pushed). if the user never agrees or it unchecks the box to subscribe, the application should free the channel; there fore uninstall should not be required.
Applications that use just scheduled tiles updates do not count towards the limit. If that is all you need be a good citizen and
If an application subscribes for tile updates, and is never pinned it unfortunately does count. Again, we count the channels.

Why is there a limit? The usual thrive to ensure there is a great user experience, good battery life, quality of service on back-end and front-end, bandwidth (cost) , etc. Limit will increase as we get right data on how people use push, impact, etc. Kevin’s feedback on there not being an API to enumerate all push apps is still valid. I know the product team has heard it (from Kevin, me and others) so I hope that gets addressed or the limits go high enough that the problem becomes a moot point.

Doesn't really seem like a big deal.
 
Totally missed that Microsoft's Joe Belfiore is on D's mobile event. I hope we get some news.

Engadget: Microsoft's Joe Belfiore live from D: Dive Into Mobile

Walt: So how is the product doing?

Joe: So far so good... we've try to make the launch go well. We wanted to get all the devices in the market, we didn't make that happen, but now we have 10 products around the world. We've ramped our ads up.

Walt: But how many have you sold?

Joe: We're not talking about numbers.

Walt: But other people do.

Big oohs here from the crowd.

I think we know that this isn't a good sign.
 
brotkasten said:
Totally missed that Microsoft's Joe Belfiore is on D's mobile event. I hope we get some news.

Engadget: Microsoft's Joe Belfiore live from D: Dive Into Mobile



I think we know that this isn't a good sign.

Walt is an absolute dick.

Walt: How many apps do you have now?

Joe: About 3000...

Walt: Well I downloaded a weather app, and the tile never updated, just like the iPhone, you have to go in and check it.

Joe: Well we'll see people implement that.

Walt: But this is the whole reson d'être of your platform.

"WELL HERP DERP". Weatherbug was the first third party app to have live tile, dickface.
 
brotkasten said:
Yes, he is. :lol But it's also his job. His Apple bias doesn't help, though.

True, but he's not very good at it. Did he really ask any objective question that didn't have a bias or agenda to it?
 
Lets be real here. Walt is kind of a douche, but the question about numbers needed to be asked. Shit straight tanked in NA sadly.
 
PG2G said:
Apparently transparent lock screen doesn't work if you have a password on your phone. If you don't have a password on your phone, you should have a password on your phone.
Why? it's my personal phone and the only ones who'd get their hands on it are my significant others (admittedly i do have some stuff to hide from them :lol ). But if you lose the phone you can remotely lock it with a password.
 
Brettison said:
Lets be real here. Walt is kind of a douche, but the question about numbers needed to be asked. Shit straight tanked in NA sadly.

True, some of the questions had relevance, but really, shit like this?

Walt: One last thing -- I want to talk about craplets. Why are you letting carriers do it? Why can't you stop it?

Every single app that's preinstalled can be removed and they're not too bad, either. Many of these questions are legit, but just worded in such an antagonizing way.

Joe wasn't that great either...really unspecific answers. He dropped the ball on the Live Tiles questions...if he'd known what he was talking about, he'd have something to spank Walt with. Pretty disappointing, overall.
 
Brettison said:
Lets be real here. Walt is kind of a douche, but the question about numbers needed to be asked. Shit straight tanked in NA sadly.
I think the phones do okay in Europe. However, me and my friends all were going to get WP7 this week to replace our iPhones, but we found out about what I've described on the last page. I don't think stuff like that is helping to sell those phone in Europe.
 
Brettison said:
Lets be real here. Walt is kind of a douche, but the question about numbers needed to be asked. Shit straight tanked in NA sadly.

I don't know. Maybe tanked is a bit much.

However I don't think it matters. Nobody expected it to compete in sales right away. When you think about how slowly Android started. There was only the G1 for months and that had its fair share of flaws, too...
 
Charred Greyface said:
Why? it's my personal phone and the only ones who'd get their hands on it are my significant others (admittedly i do have some stuff to hide from them :lol ). But if you lose the phone you can remotely lock it with a password.

I don't know man. I really wouldn't want to rely on security features like remote lock, there is way too much information on our phones nowadays. Banking information, email, all kinds of stuff you wouldn't want in the wrong hands. That and buying apps and music is as easy as clicking buy... no passwords required.

Besides, who knows how easy it is to circumvent those remote security features. I lost my phone a couple of weeks ago, none of the remote security features worked because it was turned off. Eventually you'd need to deactivate the SIM in that phone and I'm not sure whether or not the remote security features would continue to work at that point.
 
Took out a 12 month zune pass to go with my phone and really enjoying having it. Been trying it out on the Xbox today too and I really like the zune interface there for both music and video.

Was surprised to see that you can play music through the zune website. I had no idea you could do that, is it new? http://social.zune.net/home

That said it's currently coming up 'can't play' and didn't appear in chrome for me, only IE
 
Cj70 said:
Took out a 12 month zune pass to go with my phone and really enjoying having it. Been trying it out on the Xbox today too and I really like the zune interface there for both music and video.

Was surprised to see that you can play music through the zune website. I had no idea you could do that, is it new? http://social.zune.net/home

That said it's currently coming up 'can't play' and didn't appear in chrome for me, only IE
Playing music on the page as a Zune Pass subscriber is pretty old. All you need is a browser with Silverlight plug-in, which means it also works on Macs. :) They also hinted at cloud-based playlists.
 
Charred Greyface said:
Why? it's my personal phone and the only ones who'd get their hands on it are my significant others (admittedly i do have some stuff to hide from them :lol ). But if you lose the phone you can remotely lock it with a password.

Pimp.
 
maeh2k said:
I don't know. Maybe tanked is a bit much.

However I don't think it matters. Nobody expected it to compete in sales right away. When you think about how slowly Android started. There was only the G1 for months and that had its fair share of flaws, too...

Android had no competition though other than Crackberries for business people unless you had an iphone on AT&T. WP7 has competition on every carrier it'll hit now.


brotkasten said:
I don't know. People (still) use MMS? Only MMS I ever got was spam from my carrier.

I use MMS to quickly send a pic or something. Easier than e-mail IMO.
 
Spent two hours thinking and finally went with the Focus this time.

As for my Omnia 7, I will fix it one of these days. And this time, I ain't using the phone without some hard ass protection.
 
brotkasten said:
Totally missed that Microsoft's Joe Belfiore is on D's mobile event. I hope we get some news.

Engadget: Microsoft's Joe Belfiore live from D: Dive Into Mobile



I think we know that this isn't a good sign.

He is such an asshole and what a shitty host. Instead of asking good question about what is coming up and what is MS plan for WP7 he constantly nitpicking on thing that are absolutely stupid. Though the MS guy Joe, is not very good with answers and pretty much let the dickhead rope him in with stupid comment.
 
I'm sure tiny little Microsoft wasn't too traumatized by the big bad meanie man.

MS is entering a tough market with Android and Apple already rolling full steam ahead, they should be ready for a tough crowd. They have big boy pants on, I'm sure they can handle it. These types of tech conference interviews can often have tough questions, nothing new there.

And the sales number is a completely fair point, MS will be the first to crow about sales in PR when it suits them, they should be able to deal with questions about it if they go silent.
 
Vyer said:
I'm sure tiny little Microsoft wasn't too traumatized by the big bad meanie man.

MS is entering a tough market with Android and Apple already rolling full steam ahead, they should be ready for a tough crowd. They have big boy pants on, I'm sure they can handle it. These types of tech conference interviews can often have tough questions, nothing new there.

And the sales number is a completely fair point, MS will be the first to crow about sales in PR when it suits them, they should be able to deal with questions about it if they go silent.

It would have been a lot nicer to actually have a discussion on the phone, rather than gripe the whole time. The ignorance of the Live Tile question is ridiculous, both the question and the ball-less answer.
 
antiquegamer said:
He is such an asshole and what a shitty host. Instead of asking good question about what is coming up and what is MS plan for WP7 he constantly nitpicking on thing that are absolutely stupid. Though the MS guy Joe, is not very good with answers and pretty much let the dickhead rope him in with stupid comment.
Joe Belfiore isn't at fault there as much as Engadget's completely slanted presentation of what went on. Read this for a comparison:

http://mobilized.allthingsd.com/20101207/microsofts-joe-belfiore-talks-windows-phone-7-at-d-div/


Mr. Snrub said:
It would have been a lot nicer to actually have a discussion on the phone, rather than gripe the whole time. The ignorance of the Live Tile question is ridiculous, both the question and the ball-less answer.
Regardless of whether you think Mossberg was fair asking tough questions, and despite the fact that he did the same for Android/Google, there's simply no chance in hell Mossberg would ever be so totally, utterly, incomprehensibly ignorant about such a major feature in any Apple product. It's pathetic, really.
 
Mr. Snrub said:
It would have been a lot nicer to actually have a discussion on the phone, rather than gripe the whole time. The ignorance of the Live Tile question is ridiculous, both the question and the ball-less answer.

Eh, it is a discussion on the phone; these D whatever conferences aren't advertising or PR.


dLMN8R said:
Joe Belfiore isn't at fault there as much as Engadget's completely slanted presentation of what went on. Read this for a comparison:

http://mobilized.allthingsd.com/20101207/microsofts-joe-belfiore-talks-windows-phone-7-at-d-div/

There you go, now the questions are worded much more nicely. :lol


Regardless of whether you think Mossberg was fair asking tough questions, and despite the fact that he did the same for Android/Google, there's simply no chance in hell Mossberg would ever be so totally, utterly, incomprehensibly ignorant about such a major feature in any Apple product. It's pathetic, really.

What's the live tile issue?
 
dLMN8R said:
Regardless of whether you think Mossberg was fair asking tough questions, and despite the fact that he did the same for Android/Google, there's simply no chance in hell Mossberg would ever be so totally, utterly, incomprehensibly ignorant about such a major feature in any Apple product. It's pathetic, really.
Did you miss him prodding Jobs about Flash, App Store rejections, and Foxconn suicides?

http://www.engadget.com/2010/06/01/steve-jobs-live-from-d8/?sort=oldest&refresh=0
 
Vyer said:
What's the live tile issue?

Walt: How many apps do you have now?

Joe: About 3000...

Walt: Well I downloaded a weather app, and the tile never updated, just like the iPhone, you have to go in and check it.

Joe: Well we'll see people implement that.

Walt: But this is the whole reson d'être of your platform.

First off, this is just a stupid fucking statement. "Duuuuh, I downloaded a weather app and it didn't work." How vague can you get?

Second, Weatherbug had a live tile app in late October and it works perfectly.

Third, it's not like MS is ENFORCING Live Tiles. I wish I could find the article detailing how to get a Live Tile in your app and the restrictions, but obviously third parties CAN do it, they just haven't yet.
 
Thanks to the people who checked into the Windows Live Sign-in Assistant thing for me. My friend bought his phone, which he said was an LG, which I think he picked because of the QWERTY keyboard. Cheers.
 
Joe Belfiore interview actually looked great compared to the interview with RIM's CEO. Good god, it pains me to see a brand so beloved by many, Blackberry, go to shit due to poor leadership. They took 4 yrs to get a decent browser and they released zero new phones this year (no that flip phone or updated Curves don't count). Now RIM has completely lost their focus, they're targeting the niche tablet market, and the CEO has nearly admitted to bowing out of this gen's smartphones race in favor of next-gen dual core phones which are still about 6 months away. Let me tell you something RIM, your diehards aren't going to wait, I didn't.

That said, I expect MS to step right in and eat up a lot of RIM's market share. It'd be great if MS released a new Messenger for WP7 and included BBM like features.
 
thirty said:
Joe Belfiore interview actually looked great compared to the interview with RIM's CEO. Good god, it pains me to see a brand so beloved by many, Blackberry, go to shit due to poor leadership. They took 4 yrs to get a decent browser and they released zero new phones this year (no that flip phone or updated Curves don't count). Now RIM has completely lost their focus, they're targeting the niche tablet market, and the CEO has nearly admitted to bowing out of this gen's smartphones race in favor of next-gen dual core phones which are still about 6 months away. Let me tell you something RIM, your diehards aren't going to wait, I didn't.

That said, I expect MS to step right in and eat up a lot of RIM's market share. It'd be great if MS released a new Messenger for WP7 and included BBM like features.
If they make good use of TAT, I think giving up and rebranding might be for the best. When I think BlackBerry interface, Windows 95-style of ancient pops to mind. Then again, I've never really used a BlackBerry at length. That TAT purchase news made me pretty happy. They have the features people need, they just look like shit.
 
Mr. Snrub said:
First off, this is just a stupid fucking statement. "Duuuuh, I downloaded a weather app and it didn't work." How vague can you get?

Second, Weatherbug had a live tile app in late October and it works perfectly.

Third, it's not like MS is ENFORCING Live Tiles. I wish I could find the article detailing how to get a Live Tile in your app and the restrictions, but obviously third parties CAN do it, they just haven't yet.
don't blame that Walt guy, MS is choosing to market these phones that way. "a phone to save you from your phone!" let me tell you something MS, people like their phones and don't mind spending hours a day on them if they provide a great user experience like iphone or are feature rich like android. no one needs to be saved and no one believes you when you say using smartphones are a chore. live tiles are cool as hell, if anything, i'm on my phone more because of them. you wanna market something, market xbl on wp7, market the amazing zune pass/software, and show off that mega slick "on ball bearings" OS. sorry, rant over.
 
Firestorm said:
If they make good use of TAT, I think giving up and rebranding might be for the best. When I think BlackBerry interface, Windows 95-style of ancient pops to mind. Then again, I've never really used a BlackBerry at length. That TAT purchase news made me pretty happy. They have the features people need, they just look like shit.
look like shit? have you used an android phone? today's blackberry actually looks better than android, IMO. the issue with blackberry is that they are sluggish in comparison due to 500mhz cpu's and low on board ram, 128-256mb. they just can't compete hardware wise. the outdated cpu's RIM uses can make calls, email, and message great but they do a crappy job at web browsing and multimedia. which is why i choose to go with WP7. i absolutely love my HD7 but at times it feels like i don't have a phone but a pocket tablet with a weak phone application.
 
thirty said:
Joe Belfiore interview actually looked great compared to the interview with RIM's CEO. Good god, it pains me to see a brand so beloved by many, Blackberry, go to shit due to poor leadership. They took 4 yrs to get a decent browser and they released zero new phones this year (no that flip phone or updated Curves don't count). Now RIM has completely lost their focus, they're targeting the niche tablet market, and the CEO has nearly admitted to bowing out of this gen's smartphones race in favor of next-gen dual core phones which are still about 6 months away. Let me tell you something RIM, your diehards aren't going to wait, I didn't.

That said, I expect MS to step right in and eat up a lot of RIM's market share. It'd be great if MS released a new Messenger for WP7 and included BBM like features.
The RIM CEO clearly seems to be a business guy and they should send a product/tech guy out for these interviews. Nothing but buzz words and PR spinning from this guy.
 
thirty said:
look like shit? have you used an android phone? today's blackberry actually looks better than android, IMO. the issue with blackberry is that they are sluggish in comparison due to 500mhz cpu's and low on board ram, 128-256mb. they just can't compete hardware wise. the outdated cpu's RIM uses can make calls, email, and message great but they do a crappy job at web browsing and multimedia. which is why i choose to go with WP7. i absolutely love my HD7 but at times it feels like i don't have a phone but a pocket tablet with a weak phone application.
Damn =( Web browsing and music is what I use my iPhone 3G for almost exclusively (apps start so slow it hurts and then crashes at launch most of the time so I have to relaunch). Not going to be happy if web browsing / music is hard when I switch to BB x.x
 
Firestorm said:
Damn =( Web browsing and music is what I use my iPhone 3G for almost exclusively (apps start so slow it hurts and then crashes at launch most of the time so I have to relaunch). Not going to be happy if web browsing / music is hard when I switch to BB x.x
music is actually great on blackberry, especially some of the models with external media keys. browsing and video is what's awful.

sorry, i didn't mean to take this thread off course a bit. i do see a lot of blackberry users moving over to other platforms since RIM has all but abandoned them. hopefully, they'll go to WP7 like i did.
 
thirty said:
don't blame that Walt guy, MS is choosing to market these phones that way. "a phone to save you from your phone!" let me tell you something MS, people like their phones and don't mind spending hours a day on them if they provide a great user experience like iphone or are feature rich like android. no one needs to be saved and no one believes you when you say using smartphones are a chore. live tiles are cool as hell, if anything, i'm on my phone more because of them. you wanna market something, market xbl on wp7, market the amazing zune pass/software, and show off that mega slick "on ball bearings" OS. sorry, rant over.
their marketing message makes sense to the people that don't have a smartphone yet (a shit ton of people) and are watching everybody ignore their conversations while tapping away on their phone.

Now what the people don't know is that W7 Phone is just like the others and once you buy one you will be no different, you will be bumping into things while playing with your phone. But Microsoft doesn't care, they just want you to be interested enough to go to the website and then potentially buy a phone, (and then get sucked into it like everyone else does).

Anyway, the marketing campaign is for the people that don't have a smartphone, which is a lot of people.
 
Vyer said:
I'm sure tiny little Microsoft wasn't too traumatized by the big bad meanie man.

MS is entering a tough market with Android and Apple already rolling full steam ahead, they should be ready for a tough crowd. They have big boy pants on, I'm sure they can handle it. These types of tech conference interviews can often have tough questions, nothing new there.

And the sales number is a completely fair point, MS will be the first to crow about sales in PR when it suits them, they should be able to deal with questions about it if they go silent.

Oh, don't get me wrong I am in no way think it's not a fair game, but I want to read / listen to interview that not just trying to put the guest on the spot. Though reading the entire interview instead of Engadget shitty attention getting snippet make a lot more sense, I thought that was all the interview so...yeah.
 
Windu said:
their marketing message makes sense to the people that don't have a smartphone yet (a shit ton of people) and are watching everybody ignore their conversations while tapping away on their phone.

Now what the people don't know is that W7 Phone is just like the others and once you buy one you will be no different, you will be bumping into things while playing with your phone. But Microsoft doesn't care, they just want you to be interested enough to go to the website and then potentially buy a phone, (and then get sucked into it like everyone else does).

Anyway, the marketing campaign is for the people that don't have a smartphone, which is a lot of people.

and that is exactly their target.. the phone is dead simple to use.. and aesthetically pleasing in appearance. It is filled with TONS of little visual cues that help you figure out what your next action needs to be or can be.

I bought into it because I'm a speed junkie and I subscribe to zunepass and XBL. I'm very pleased with the device.. as long as they come out with regular updates and keep adding the "missing" features to the platform, I think it will go far.

In a way, it makes accessing information I need much easier.. I can look at my lock screen and know how many e-mails I have from what accounts, how many voicemails I have, how many phone calls I've missed and how many text messages are waiting... as well as my next calendar appointment..

There is so much "glance-able" information on this platform.. and the UI stays out of the way.. I like that I'm not always staring at the battery level or the signal bars.. if I don't see the bars, I can safely assume that I have a signal.. as it automatically displays when something changes.

None of this "saves me from my phone", it just lets me access the information I need more quickly and in fewer steps than my previous devices and frees me up to be able to immerse myself in a game or stream music from Zune or a movie from Netflix without fear of being interrupted by a phone call.

For a platform that doesn't do third party multitasking, it handles "interruptions" remarkably well.. by letting the built-in applications like the phone app, etc. display an overlay on top of whatever you're doing rather than truly switching you over to that application.

The effect is the same as multitasking in the way that most people care to use it, just a very smart implementation on Microsoft's part, imho.
 
Haha, they just called me to ask why I sent the phone back. I told them about my problems and they offered me free data for a year + the phone at a reduced price. That's perfect since internet and stuff like that is what I usually use my phone for. Now I'm on my way to pick up my HD7. :D
 
I am using an LG Optimus 7. About 50% of the games I have tried installing has gotten stuck with "Attention required. Press here." in the download manager. Pressing gives me a message that I should connect to wifi or connect the phone to a PC to complete the download. Unfortunately, neither resolves the problem no matter how I try. There is also a failed download flagged for upgrade which then fails again when I try the upgrade function.

I have gotten this with downloads started via Wifi, PC connected and using ordinary mobile internet connection. Great stuff.
 
Billen said:
I am using an LG Optimus 7. About 50% of the games I have tried installing has gotten stuck with "Attention required. Press here." in the download manager. Pressing gives me a message that I should connect to wifi or connect the phone to a PC to complete the download. Unfortunately, neither resolves the problem no matter how I try. There is also a failed download flagged for upgrade which then fails again when I try the upgrade function.

I have gotten this with downloads started via Wifi, PC connected and using ordinary mobile internet connection. Great stuff.

I had that happen twice with two different cases. If it was an update, I uninstalled and reinstalled it. Or else I restarted the phone.
 
snap0212 said:
Haha, they just called me to ask why I sent the phone back. I told them about my problems and they offered me free data for a year + the phone at a reduced price. That's perfect since internet and stuff like that is what I usually use my phone for. Now I'm on my way to pick up my HD7. :D
Snap you're in the US? T-mobile did this for you?
 
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