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Windows Phone 8.1 |OT| Update 1

F

Funky Papa

FUNK-Y-PPA-4
Oh, you are right. But I'm sure somebody will find the way to make them more useful or just plain make people like them.

We just love our shiny new shit. We are like ewoks or trout.
 
M

mattacular

Banned
I want to have another moan about creative studio as despite the name change it is still worse than its previous incarnation. Colour pop was a fun feature that I regularly used now it just said coming soon (it's said that for months now). You used to be able to collage photos but that is gone too as is the red eye fix it previously offered. Oh and to top it off the new filters mostly look dreadful and nowhere near as nice as the old ones. I just don't get why they would make the app worse it makes no sense. Anyone else annoyed with this change?
 
D

dLMN8R

Member
maeh2k said:
The following is off-topic, but it speaks to how much The Verge's review scores suck.

The Verge reviewed the Moto 360 (see review) and they gave it an 8.1. As far as Verge scores go, that's pretty high. A product basically needs to sport an Apple logo to get much higher than that. Seem like that would make it the smart watch to get right now, but is it really?

- "Google may technically support round displays with Android Wear, but the 360 provides constant confirmation that this operating system was designed with rectangles in mind. Scrolling through a list will often cut off titles and images; sometimes list items get kicked way down to the bottom of the screen for no apparent reason."

- "A few months in, there’s still really not that much you can do with Android Wear. Whenever I show it to people my demo almost always either ends in ten seconds ("look at all the watchfaces!") or involves me forcing someone to text me so I can respond from my wrist. There’s a heart rate monitor and a pedometer inside the 360, but neither are terribly accurate, and they feel like only a gesture in the direction of how powerful a fitness device a smartwatch could be."

- "This watch just happens to do more than tell time. Until, that is, it doesn’t do anything at all. That happens about 12 hours after I take the watch off its charger, a cool black wireless dock that the 360 slots into sideways. Motorola says the 360’s battery lasts a day, but I haven’t seen it last that long yet. I don’t expect a smartwatch to last weeks or years, but it ought to be able to last a day and a night no matter how much I use it. My watch now dies before my phone does, and that’s unacceptable. I’ve already spent too much time wearing a dead Moto 360, and good-looking a bracelet as it is, that’s not what I’m spending $249 for."


In my opinion that doesn't quite line up with the score. A watch that doesn't even make it through the day? Why the fuck would anyone even consider spending $250 on it? What was Motorola thinking? Android watch OEMs really shouldn't be surprised when Apple swoops in next week and effortlessly nabs the better part of the smart watch market.

"But the Moto 360 is to a sundial as the iPad is to a stone tablet: it’s the same, only completely different. Better." - Now if only the battery lasted as long as the sun is up each day...
Click to expand...

This review was incredible in how it was published days after this:

www.theverge.com/2014/9/4/6106485/stop-trying-to-sell-me-wrist-worn-smartphones


The review of the Moto 360 doesn't give me any indication whatsoever for why I'd want to buy it. "Woo notifications in another place"? I'm utterly baffled at it.
 
V

VanMardigan

has calmed down a bit.
I'm buying the ugly lg first gen one because it's the cheapest way for me to try out the platform, less than $140 on eBay. Also lasts a full day. That is unless apple wows me this week.
 
M

mrklaw

MrArseFace
Is it possible to export living images as videos? Had a wedding yesterday and shot a bunch of photos that I'd like to string together into a short video (and Lumia storyteller is too limited)
 
O

Opus Angelorum

Member
mrklaw said:
Is it possible to export living images as videos? Had a wedding yesterday and shot a bunch of photos that I'd like to string together into a short video (and Lumia storyteller is too limited)
Click to expand...

According to Nokia Power User:

Living images are a cool feature that Lumia Cyan will bring to only Lumia 1520, Icon and 930. As per Juha, If one removes the .thm extension of these files, you can see these as videos, because they are normal .mp4 files.
Click to expand...
 
Valkyria

Valkyria

Banned
Does any one knows if is possible to import the whatsapp contact's images into the phone contacts? Maybe by an app or something.
 
C

captive

Joe Six-Pack: posting for the common man
SCHUEY F1 said:
They really need to last at least a week.
Click to expand...

I don't think that is likely. The battery is going to have to be so small to make the watch not gigantic. As long as it lasts 24-48 hours it should be fine. Most people are accustomed to charging their phone every night. Never mind that most high end watches have a rest time of 24-72 hours before needing to be re-wound, but I don't think the market for high end watches is the same as the market for smart watches.




So, I know I'm still in the new phone infatuation phase... but I would like for someone to explain to me how IOS is ahead of windows phone 8.1(besides apps.) Even in the short amoutnm of time I've had the phone I've sent multiple people stop in this thread to trash the os, and in other threads around GAF. I had an iPhone for 3+ years and had a MacBook pro retina, and iPad retina for multiple years as well. Microsoft has done for me what apple couldn't. Meaning, I have apps and information synched across all devices. Like bing news, weather, sports etc. I have setup all my favorite teams and news feeds and it simply shows the same information, in live tile format I might add, on my surface, phone and any other windows 8.1 device. And I didn't have to use some third party app that works on my phone but not on my surface like with Apples products.

I love that I can pin stuff to start. For instance, every day on my commute, I listen to sports radio with my phone on the bus. On my iPhone I would have to open radio.com go to favorites then click on the station. On windows phone, I have the station pinned to start, so its one simple click. I also have my neogaf subscriptions page pinned to start, not life changing but, its so simple and easy.

I love that my lock screen changes every hour to something different. I like the translucent tiles that show a picture behind it. I like that the icons can be resized. Its just a different way of looking at mobile os, IMO.

Even though its been a short amount of time, I have yet to run into a single instance of damn my iPhone could do X but my windows phone cannot.
 
F

flonty

Member
captive said:
I don't think that is likely. The battery is going to have to be so small to make the watch not gigantic. As long as it lasts 24-48 hours it should be fine. Most people are accustomed to charging their phone every night. Never mind that most high end watches have a rest time of 24-72 hours before needing to be re-wound, but I don't think the market for high end watches is the same as the market for smart watches.




So, I know I'm still in the new phone infatuation phase... but I would like for someone to explain to me how IOS is ahead of windows phone 8.1(besides apps.) Even in the short amoutnm of time I've had the phone I've sent multiple people stop in this thread to trash the os, and in other threads around GAF. I had an iPhone for 3+ years and had a MacBook pro retina, and iPad retina for multiple years as well. Microsoft has done for me what apple couldn't. Meaning, I have apps and information synched across all devices. Like bing news, weather, sports etc. I have setup all my favorite teams and news feeds and it simply shows the same information, in live tile format I might add, on my surface, phone and any other windows 8.1 device. And I didn't have to use some third party app that works on my phone but not on my surface like with Apples products.

I love that I can pin stuff to start. For instance, every day on my commute, I listen to sports radio with my phone on the bus. On my iPhone I would have to open radio.com go to favorites then click on the station. On windows phone, I have the station pinned to start, so its one simple click. I also have my neogaf subscriptions page pinned to start, not life changing but, its so simple and easy.

I love that my lock screen changes every hour to something different. I like the translucent tiles that show a picture behind it. I like that the icons can be resized. Its just a different way of looking at mobile os, IMO.

Even though its been a short amount of time, I have yet to run into a single instance of damn my iPhone could do X but my windows phone cannot.
Click to expand...

This is very interesting to me because as I wrote a couple of pages earlier, I also consider to jump from iOS to WP.
I just don't know which lumia to get.
I've realized that I don't need the latest best flagship. Infact midrange seems to be where I'm heading. I'll either get a 925 or the 735.
 
juliushandle

juliushandle

Member
The lack of any carrier announcements in the US regarding the 730/830 is scary. Perhaps some of the Nokia people Microsoft fired were the people negotiating with the buyers from the carriers? Seriously, will we see any new 8.1 phones on carrier shelves besides the low end 635? Microsoft is gonna surely miss out on a big opportunity not having a lower cost alternative to the iPhone when all these consumers flock to retail stores to try out the new Apple device.

This is starting to feel like those dark Nokia days when they stopped dealing with carriers and sold their phones directly to consumers via Nokia stores.
 
n64coder

n64coder

Member
captive said:
So, I know I'm still in the new phone infatuation phase... but I would like for someone to explain to me how IOS is ahead of windows phone 8.1(besides apps.) Even in the short amoutnm of time I've had the phone I've sent multiple people stop in this thread to trash the os, and in other threads around GAF.
Click to expand...

Most people who trashed it have never tried it. I get mocked by my colleagues at work who all have iphones & androids. They have never tried it.

I think Microsoft paying extra attention to the low end market will help them. People will want to try a low cost phone to make sure they like it before shelling money for a better one.
 
P

PG2G

Member
camajise said:
The lack of any carrier announcements in the US regarding the 730/830 is scary. Perhaps some of the Nokia people Microsoft fired were the people negotiating with the buyers from the carriers? Seriously, will we see any new 8.1 phones on carrier shelves besides the low end 635? Microsoft is gonna surely miss out on a big opportunity not having a lower cost alternative to the iPhone when all these consumers flock to retail stores to try out the new Apple device.

This is starting to feel like those dark Nokia days when they stopped dealing with carriers and sold their phones directly to consumers via Nokia stores.
Click to expand...

Let not get ahead of ourselves, the phones haven't even been announced for a week. Have there even been many carrier announcements elsewhere in the world?
 
L

lastflowers

Banned
camajise said:
Nokia is just waiting on Apple to make camera humps sexy then they'll release a 1020 follow up.
Click to expand...

I saw that rumor that MS-NOK was fast-tracking a 1020 followup, and hopefully will come out before Christmas. Now, it's probably bullshit....but it'd be nice if it wasn't!
 
A

antiquegamer

Member
Razdek said:
If the message Microsoft is trying to send out to people that only Lumia phones will get the updates then what incentive of other OEMs to make WP if nobody is going to buy them? These Lumia Denim features should be in the OS itself and not specific to a phone brand.
Click to expand...

May be I am wrong but isn't it because of lack of firmware by HTC that the 8X do not support the 8.1? If HTC doesn't want to support their own phone why should Microsoft step in. It was the same with their Windows Phone 7 and their Android phones.
 
R

Razdek

Banned
captive said:
I don't think that is likely. The battery is going to have to be so small to make the watch not gigantic. As long as it lasts 24-48 hours it should be fine. Most people are accustomed to charging their phone every night. Never mind that most high end watches have a rest time of 24-72 hours before needing to be re-wound, but I don't think the market for high end watches is the same as the market for smart watches.




So, I know I'm still in the new phone infatuation phase... but I would like for someone to explain to me how IOS is ahead of windows phone 8.1(besides apps.) Even in the short amoutnm of time I've had the phone I've sent multiple people stop in this thread to trash the os, and in other threads around GAF. I had an iPhone for 3+ years and had a MacBook pro retina, and iPad retina for multiple years as well. Microsoft has done for me what apple couldn't. Meaning, I have apps and information synched across all devices. Like bing news, weather, sports etc. I have setup all my favorite teams and news feeds and it simply shows the same information, in live tile format I might add, on my surface, phone and any other windows 8.1 device. And I didn't have to use some third party app that works on my phone but not on my surface like with Apples products.

I love that I can pin stuff to start. For instance, every day on my commute, I listen to sports radio with my phone on the bus. On my iPhone I would have to open radio.com go to favorites then click on the station. On windows phone, I have the station pinned to start, so its one simple click. I also have my neogaf subscriptions page pinned to start, not life changing but, its so simple and easy.

I love that my lock screen changes every hour to something different. I like the translucent tiles that show a picture behind it. I like that the icons can be resized. Its just a different way of looking at mobile os, IMO.

Even though its been a short amount of time, I have yet to run into a single instance of damn my iPhone could do X but my windows phone cannot.
Click to expand...

The more you use it the more you'll the areas that the OS falls short of especially coming from IOS or android.
 
R

royalan

Member
Razdek said:
The more you use it the more you'll the areas that the OS falls short of especially coming from IOS or android.
Click to expand...

Completely disagree.

Came to WP from iOS, and in most areas WP completely stands up to it. Just a complete and streamlined experience.

I don't think WP has any real deficiencies as an OS at this point. It comes back to the 3rd party app situation.

Oh, and the phones themselves. I'm on a 635, and while the phone is certainly good enough to sell me on the OS itself, I'm now feeling the constraints of the phone being so low end. The camera is atrocious, and the 512 ram is barely sufficient to run complex apps like Spotify -- which completely loses its place whenever you exit out of the app and into another one, forcing you to completely reload the app and start from square one.

512 Ram was definitely a mistake. I wish I had a better phone to upgrade to.
 
F

Funky Papa

FUNK-Y-PPA-4
Hey, do you know what sucks ass about Windows Phone?

When you upload a new MP3 album to your device, it fails to recognize the songs, you delete the folder, upload it again and then the player crashes when trying to play it.

Is there a way to rebuild the library?
 
L

lastflowers

Banned
JaggedSac said:
How reliable is this tk tech site? Great news if true.
Click to expand...

never heard of them. The fact that no one else broke this rumor makes me think that it's a load of bollocks.

i_want_to_believe.jpg


Funky Papa said:
Hey, do you know what sucks ass about Windows Phone?

When you upload a new MP3 album to your device, it fails to recognize the songs, you delete the folder, upload it again and then the player crashes when trying to play it.

Is there a way to rebuild the library?
Click to expand...

it (seemingly) checks for new files on your device every time it starts up. It'll take a bit for them to show up.
 
C

captive

Joe Six-Pack: posting for the common man
Razdek said:
The more you use it the more you'll the areas that the OS falls short of especially coming from IOS or android.
Click to expand...
Again, I asked for specific examples, not some nebulous "you'll see" I saw what ios can do for 3 plus years. There's a reason I switched. Everyone's use case is different, so far, like I said Microsoft is providing me something apple couldn't, and their doing it with two devices instead of three.
 
H

hadareud

The Translator
It's hilarious that everything that another platform has and WP doesn't is somehow an unforgivable shortcoming while the unique features that WP has are somehow not worth mentioning.

Did I say hilarious? I meant it's bollocks.

Having come from Android myself it's just not true that over time you start noticing that WP is shite compared to Android or that you have to be somewhat of a entry level user to enjoy it. Well for me it isn't true. If it is for you there's two perfectly good platforms to go to without having to slag off the third.
 
E

Easy_D

never left the stone age
Just got 8.1 on my phone and fuck, this is what it should have been to BEGIN with.

I can't believe it launched with no way to close apps other than to press Back over and over nor touch controls for volume, separate volume sliders or a quick pulldown menu. Much needed update, now that everything is straight up gonna run Windows 9 (they can't psosibly be thinking of going Windows 8 for their unified OS anymore, can they?) it seems kind of late though.
 
L

lastflowers

Banned
Easy_D said:
Just got 8.1 on my phone and fuck, this is what it should have been to BEGIN with.

I can't believe it launched with no way to close apps other than to press Back over and over nor touch controls for volume, separate volume sliders or a quick pulldown menu. Much needed update, now that everything is straight up gonna run Windows 9 (they can't psosibly be thinking of going Windows 8 for their unified OS anymore, can they?) it seems kind of late though.
Click to expand...

huh?
 
L

lastflowers

Banned
Easy_D said:
That parenthesis was awful. Doesn't Microsoft have plans to run the same OS on all their devices in the works? PC's, tablets and smartphones? With that in mind, it seems like the WP8.1 update is too little too late.
Click to expand...

Windows 9 isn't a new codebase. The vast majority of that OS will come from 8. Win8 was already extremely tied with phone. Win8.1 even more so. The Windows Phone codebase wasn't just thrown away.

The differences between Win8 and WP8 may seem massive, but a lot of it is actually the 'shell'. Both teams are working under the same management now. That means people from Desktop windows probably have to think about Phone now as well. (
many teams didn't do that a lot before Win8.1
)
 
C

captive

Joe Six-Pack: posting for the common man
So here's another one, Cortana has shown me the scores of the Astros and Texans games today. Ok whatever Siri can do that.. Except Cortana did it automatically, it just had it as a suggested item since I've listed them as my teams in Bing sports. That's kind if cool I think.
 
hankster

hankster

Member
Razdek said:
The more you use it the more you'll the areas that the OS falls short of especially coming from IOS or android.
Click to expand...
Disagree. Came from iPhone and still have iPads with iOS7 now (8 next week?). Using an android phone at the moment (OPO with CyanogenMod) and used a Nexus4 in the past. Wife has a Galaxy S4 Active (REALLY jealous of the water/dust resistance of that phone). All that and still prefer WP, especially 8.1DP. The app gap really looms large when using the OPO, but the WP OS plus the camera button could still pull me back if MS comes out with a true contender phone.
 
D

dLMN8R

Member
MCD said:
I really need a better share functionality. sharing via IE only lists...SMS and facebook? wtf
Click to expand...

What else do you want to share by? When I share in IE I see:

-email
-tap to share via NFC
-SMS
-Twitter apps
-OneNote
-Reading List
 
E

Easy_D

never left the stone age
lastflowers said:
Windows 9 isn't a new codebase. The vast majority of that OS will come from 8. Win8 was already extremely tied with phone. Win8.1 even more so. The Windows Phone codebase wasn't just thrown away.

The differences between Win8 and WP8 may seem massive, but a lot of it is actually the 'shell'. Both teams are working under the same management now. That means people from Desktop windows probably have to think about Phone now as well. (
many teams didn't do that a lot before Win8.1
)
Click to expand...

Thanks :). Wonder how that will work for apps and stuff, universal apps with Smartphone/Windows/Tablet modes? The platform could certainly need it. I see more and more reasons to stay than go back to android.
 
A

antiquegamer

Member
Razdek said:
The more you use it the more you'll the areas that the OS falls short of especially coming from IOS or android.
Click to expand...

I have been using Android for the last month and only area that it is better than Windows Phone is notification center. Beside the lack of apps on Windows Phone, the OS stand toe to toe with iOS and Androids.
 
F

Funky Papa

FUNK-Y-PPA-4
WhatsApp sharing is a MUST. Quite probably my most used social feature when I fiddle with my Android phones.

Edit: And does anybody know how to rebuild Windows Phone's music list? For some reason my 920 wouldn't recognize some MP3 tracks, I deleted them, copied them again to the phone and now Xbox Music simply crashes when I try to play said album.
 
M

MCD

Junior Member
Funky Papa said:
WhatsApp sharing is a MUST. Quite probably my most used social feature when I fiddle with my Android phones.

Edit: And does anybody know how to rebuild Windows Phone's music list? For some reason my 920 wouldn't recognize some MP3 tracks, I deleted them, copied them again to the phone and now Xbox Music simply crashes when I try to play said album.
Click to expand...

Try another app like ModernMusic.
 
V

VanMardigan

has calmed down a bit.
camajise said:
Blu Products have released their WP devices, the Win Jr at $89 and the Win HD at $149.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bSTpTaW5sWw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8NAXzuKFazA

That Win HD at $149 maybe a great little device to hold us over until a true flagship is released.
Click to expand...

The dude that is doing the hands on hates Microsoft, lol. Oh man, how do people get so attached to companies? I understand having preferences, but all companies do certain things really well. I like certain things about Sony, Apple, HTC, MS, Google, and even Samsung. I have all of those brands in my house.

In any case, my daughter's 520 died, so I'm wondering what to replace it with. Either the Win Jr. Or the Lumia 635 will be my choice.
 
B

bedlamite

Member
Whatsapp sharing functionality is limited, but that's because of the app, not the OS. All we can do is wait till the app developers patch in expanded sharing options.

WP 8.1 does indeed stand toe to toe with the big boy mobile OSes. WP might not have actionable notifications, but Android doesn't have live tile folders either. In any case I wouldn't want OSes blindly copying each other's featuresets; it's always good to bring something unique to the table.
 
R

royalan

Member
bedlamite said:
Whatsapp sharing functionality is limited, but that's because of the app, not the OS. All we can do is wait till the app developers patch in expanded sharing options.

WP 8.1 does indeed stand toe to toe with the big boy mobile OSes. WP might not have actionable notifications, but Android doesn't have live tile folders either. In any case I wouldn't want OSes blindly copying each other's featuresets; it's always good to bring something unique to the table.
Click to expand...

It does in Cyan, unless I'm not understanding what an actionable notification is...
 
M

MCD

Junior Member
But by doing that, Bing is pretty much a porn only site. And whose fault Bing is not popular internationally?

Satya is poison to Windows. He is killing MS bit by bit.
 
M

mrklaw

MrArseFace
captive said:
So here's another one, Cortana has shown me the scores of the Astros and Texans games today. Ok whatever Siri can do that.. Except Cortana did it automatically, it just had it as a suggested item since I've listed them as my teams in Bing sports. That's kind if cool I think.
Click to expand...

It's a nice combo of Siri and google now. I'd like the cortana live tile to be able to surface content like that. On the dev preview in the UK so I don't know if the fuller experience in the US can do that?

I did have a nightmare trying to move an appointment more than a few days though. Eg 'move my dentist appointment to Friday 12th September' wouldn't go beyond Friday 5th, and often messed the timing up, resetting it to 12pm. The voice recognition was perfect, it just wasn't parsing it properly
 
N

Nero3000

Member
Couple points from the weekend.

Wifi Sense is awesome - My data allowance has run out for the month and was at a restaurant that is also a network dead zone for me. But my phone picked up a known, open Wifi hotspot and connected automatically.

Whatsapp - if data sense savings is on, it does not allow you to use it, even when open. Thats ridiculous.
 
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