Windows Phone 8.1 |OT| Update 1

Late to the convo, but I really, REALLY love WP's keyboard, aside from typing in special characters like apostrophes. But the fact that it follows my theme, and does Multilanguage in a way that blows FUCKING EVERYTHING out of the water is amazing. Switching languages in Android was a PITA.
 
Alright so hey, figure this is the best place to ask this, but I'm wanting to get the most out of my phone. To me Smartphones are basically just portable web browsers and music players, but I know I can do so much more than that with this thing.

So GAF, what do you guys suggest as for making my Icon more than a web browser? Any GOOD games? (I hate typical mobile trash, but I see FF3 is on here) Any apps that will make my life easier? I love the WP environment, so anything that integrates well with the People app/Cortana/color themes/live tiles is a major plus. I currently dont use Twitter or Reddit(REALLY don't care about celebrities) but if there's any cool things I can use them for, that's be cool too.

Also, RSS feeds. Any cool shit I can do with those? Never really bothered to even check what that shit is for haha.
 
H3XAntiStyle said:
Alright so hey, figure this is the best place to ask this, but I'm wanting to get the most out of my phone. To me Smartphones are basically just portable web browsers and music players, but I know I can do so much more than that with this thing.

So GAF, what do you guys suggest as for making my Icon more than a web browser? Any GOOD games? (I hate typical mobile trash, but I see FF3 is on here) Any apps that will make my life easier? I love the WP environment, so anything that integrates well with the People app/Cortana/color themes/live tiles is a major plus. I currently dont use Twitter or Reddit(REALLY don't care about celebrities) but if there's any cool things I can use them for, that's be cool too.

Also, RSS feeds. Any cool shit I can do with those? Never really bothered to even check what that shit is for haha.
Click to expand...

What kind of games are you into? FFIII, Chaos Rings, Dragon's Blade 1&2, GTA: San Andreas, Spectral Souls, Asphalt 8, Beach Buggy Racing, GT Racing 2, Age of Empires, Heroes of Order & Chaos, and other great games are out there.

As for improving your life, that depends on your day to day life. Is there anything you would like to do but not sure if you can do it on your phone?
 
H3XAntiStyle said:
So GAF, what do you guys suggest as for making my Icon more than a web browser?
Click to expand...

I would suggest getting Music Deals app if you haven't already. There were some free albums (~50) that were available last week and this week as well as a number of cheap albums.

I like reading news so I enjoy the MSN News app.
 
H3XAntiStyle said:
Late to the convo, but I really, REALLY love WP's keyboard, aside from typing in special characters like apostrophes. But the fact that it follows my theme, and does Multilanguage in a way that blows FUCKING EVERYTHING out of the water is amazing. Switching languages in Android was a PITA.
Click to expand...

Yep. As an ex-Windows Phone user on Android, the keyboard on WP is much much better.
 
KageMaru said:
What kind of games are you into? FFIII, Chaos Rings, Dragon's Blade 1&2, GTA: San Andreas, Spectral Souls, Asphalt 8, Beach Buggy Racing, GT Racing 2, Age of Empires, Heroes of Order & Chaos, and other great games are out there.

As for improving your life, that depends on your day to day life. Is there anything you would like to do but not sure if you can do it on your phone?
Click to expand...

I'll probably check those games out. Apparently there's a "Try" feature for some games, so Ill take advantage of that.

n64coder said:
I would suggest getting Music Deals app if you haven't already. There were some free albums (~50) that were available last week and this week as well as a number of cheap albums.

I like reading news so I enjoy the MSN News app.
Click to expand...
Hrm. I might check that out. I have some weird tastes in music though, dunno how much mileage I'll get out of it.
 
H3XAntiStyle said:
I'll probably check those games out. Apparently there's a "Try" feature for some games, so Ill take advantage of that.


Hrm. I might check that out. I have some weird tastes in music though, dunno how much mileage I'll get out of it.
Click to expand...

Try the game Gunhouse. It's a matching game with tiles combined with a bit of RTS, kinda. Fun art and music. And free!
 
So are you unable to download music to your phone with the android Xbox music app? It seems like I can only add it to stream my collection.

This is a deal breaker since I travel frequently for work on airplanes.
 
Poindexter said:
So are you unable to download music to your phone with the android Xbox music app? It seems like I can only add it to stream my collection.

This is a deal breaker since I travel frequently for work on airplanes.
Click to expand...

Hmmm, I know with the iPhone you can download your playlists for offline use.
 
Poindexter said:
Ah that's it! I have to add them to a playlist and click make offline. Strange but that works! Thanks!
Click to expand...

There should have just been a circle with a arrow facing down to represent the download. When you buy an album, it should give you the option to download the whole thing. Other than sorting music by what's on my phone, I'm not sure how to make songs offline.
 
Cortana comes you Europe.

When we introduced Cortana as a beta as part of Windows Phone 8.1 in the U.S. this past spring, she generated worldwide interest and excitement which was amazing to see. With the Windows Phone 8.1 Update we announced last summer, we extended Cortana’s availability as a beta into China and the U.K. Since then, we have been working very hard to continuously deliver updates including making her available in more languages. Later today, we will begin rolling out an update to the Windows Phone Developer Preview Program that makes Cortana available in France, Italy, Germany, and Spain as an “alpha”.

Alpha means that Cortana is new to these countries, most of the features in the beta version are available but some are missing or coming soon. For example, flight tracking is not available at this time for alpha. Transit data is currently limited to larger cities and will expand as we have more data. Additionally, reference data (e.g. “How tall is Mt. Everest”) is also not available – but we’re working hard to enable this soon! We have also worked hard to tailor Cortana’s personality in each language (with local chit chat and jokes) to make her more locally and culturally relevant (i.e. make sure she fits in!). Cortana will also show European football (or as we Americans call “soccer”) league data, including Bundesliga, Serie A, Ligue 1, and La Liga.

More at the link: http://blogs.windows.com/bloggingwi...-france-italy-germany-and-spain-as-a-preview/
 
Just saw that Friday Night at Freddy's 2 was ported to WP. That's pretty cool, downloading it now, hope it's good. I've seen videos of the first game but never understood what's scary about it.
 
brotkasten said:
Cortana comes you Europe.

When we introduced Cortana as a beta as part of Windows Phone 8.1 in the U.S. this past spring, she generated worldwide interest and excitement which was amazing to see. With the Windows Phone 8.1 Update we announced last summer, we extended Cortana’s availability as a beta into China and the U.K. Since then, we have been working very hard to continuously deliver updates including making her available in more languages. Later today, we will begin rolling out an update to the Windows Phone Developer Preview Program that makes Cortana available in France, Italy, Germany, and Spain as an “alpha”.

Alpha means that Cortana is new to these countries, most of the features in the beta version are available but some are missing or coming soon. For example, flight tracking is not available at this time for alpha. Transit data is currently limited to larger cities and will expand as we have more data. Additionally, reference data (e.g. “How tall is Mt. Everest”) is also not available – but we’re working hard to enable this soon! We have also worked hard to tailor Cortana’s personality in each language (with local chit chat and jokes) to make her more locally and culturally relevant (i.e. make sure she fits in!). Cortana will also show European football (or as we Americans call “soccer”) league data, including Bundesliga, Serie A, Ligue 1, and La Liga.

More at the link: http://blogs.windows.com/bloggingwi...-france-italy-germany-and-spain-as-a-preview/
Click to expand...

Good to see this is rolling out. Still would have liked for this to be at the very least on par with the uk beta, since it has been. so. long.
 
So I guess The Game Awards will be streaming via YouTube. Anyone know of any 3rd-party apps which support YouTube streams on Windows Phone?

Or heck, does the mobile site actually support that?
 
The Cortana germany update is available since 19:00 for me, currently installing. I haven't really followed the Cortana stuff, is it possible to have set a different phone language (e.g. english) then the voice input (german) simultanously?
 
nan0 said:
The Cortana germany update is available since 19:00 for me, currently installing. I haven't really followed the Cortana stuff, is it possible to have set a different phone language (e.g. english) then the voice input (german) simultanously?
Click to expand...
It would be awesome, but no. Otherwise I'd leave my phone on Japanese and just talk English to it.
 
dLMN8R said:
So I guess The Game Awards will be streaming via YouTube. Anyone know of any 3rd-party apps which support YouTube streams on Windows Phone?

Or heck, does the mobile site actually support that?
Click to expand...

The XBO, they are promoting it as being broadcast on "Xbox Live", which in the past I believe has been through the Xbox Live Events app, which is also available on WP.
 
n64coder said:
She mentions dumping Evernote and switching to OneNote which she raves about. I use EverNote myself. What is better about OneNote?
Click to expand...

OneNote is absolutely amazing. I can't remember too much about Evernote to remember specifics, but the fact that the full Windows version supports handwriting pretty much makes it the greatest thing ever.
 
Had to restore my mom's 1520 because certain apps like WhatsApp and MSN apps refused to open. Can't even Uninstall. Was really weird.

Restore backup also got stuck at 84% so I started fresh. WhatsApp didn't even ask me if I want to restore backup. :(

First time WP failed me this hard.
 
MCD said:
Had to restore my mom's 1520 because certain apps like WhatsApp and MSN apps refused to open. Can't even Uninstall. Was really weird.

Restore backup also got stuck at 84% so I started fresh. WhatsApp didn't even ask me if I want to restore backup. :(

First time WP failed me this hard.
Click to expand...

I had the same thing happen to Whatsapp a few days ago. All I had to do was initiate a phone backup and it became available again.
 
I've had my Nexus 6 for 3 days now but I'm definitely missing my WP.

I know 3 days isnt long enough for a fair shake but oh well. I have a year or so probably to see if it grows on me.

-apps seem to crash more often than even 8.1 which was a step back for WP experience in that regard already.
--Chrome doesn't show the text I type in on web pages half the time. Its especially bad on forums.
-I dont like the way the back button works on android. As in I go back through that app, not what I was actually doing. So if I'm on the web and I get a text, respond and press back I see the list of texts receive instead of going back to web browsing
-Menus galore. Options everywhere and spread out everywhere
-On the notifications menu if I receive one email I can see the subject of it. But if I receive two it just says two messages received. Thats kind of annoying.
-WP home screen. I miss you
-keyboard is meh
-I can't find an easy way to block numbers from calling. I had to create a contact called blocked and add numbers to it and select that contact to send them straight to voicemail

+performance is awesome. Smooth (except crashes) no matter how much I have open.
+dat screen
+battery life is awesome. I'm still running off my charge from the night before last
+flexibility is awesome. I've been playing ff8!
+the speakers are incredible

Maybe I am just having withdrawals
 
I'm a little surprised nobody has done a custom launcher that at least partly recreates the live tiles thing on android.
 
Poindexter said:
I've had my Nexus 6 for 3 days now but I'm definitely missing my WP.

I know 3 days isnt long enough for a fair shake but oh well. I have a year or so probably to see if it grows on me.

-apps seem to crash more often than even 8.1 which was a step back for WP experience in that regard already.
--Chrome doesn't show the text I type in on web pages half the time. Its especially bad on forums.
-I dont like the way the back button works on android. As in I go back through that app, not what I was actually doing. So if I'm on the web and I get a text, respond and press back I see the list of texts receive instead of going back to web browsing
-Menus galore. Options everywhere and spread out everywhere
-On the notifications menu if I receive one email I can see the subject of it. But if I receive two it just says two messages received. Thats kind of annoying.
-WP home screen. I miss you
-keyboard is meh
-I can't find an easy way to block numbers from calling. I had to create a contact called blocked and add numbers to it and select that contact to send them straight to voicemail

+performance is awesome. Smooth (except crashes) no matter how much I have open.
+dat screen
+battery life is awesome. I'm still running off my charge from the night before last
+flexibility is awesome. I've been playing ff8!
+the speakers are incredible

Maybe I am just having withdrawals
Click to expand...

Don't use Chrome. You're on Android, you have a gazillion alternatives like Firefox, Javelin, Dolphin or Opera.

On Android you can expand notifications. If you get two emails and it says just that, then swipe the notification down and you should get all subjects. If you have one and you swipe down, you get actions like delete on the lock screen. Super awesome.

With keyboards it's the same as with browsers. You don't have to use the default keyboard. Don't like it? Try SwiftKey, for example. It takes a bit until it gets your habits, so try it for few days, but then it can be pretty awesome. Gave it a try and still don't like it? Try an alternative. If you don't like the way it looks, you can pick a different skin as well. Some are free, some are paid.

The back button behavior is just a thing you're used to and it's actually a legacy behavior on Windows Phone, from the pre-Mango era, where it didn't have a multitasking view. On Android, try the app switcher. Again, it's something you have to get used to as well, but it makes sense and it's not as cumbersome to use as on Windows Phone or iOS.
 
Man if WP8 had all android apps, or some way to run them, I'd basically never upgrade my phone. I'm really hoping that someday an app that doesn't get WP support is the outlier, not the rule.

Hopefully WP10 helps that, with universal apps. One app across effectively 4 platforms should help out with that, right?
 
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