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Windows Phone |OT3| Apollo has landed

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dorkimoe

dorkimoe

Member
Lucius86 said:
If I was to buy a phone now, it would be a 1020 for the camera - but I do love my 920 still, and yes wireless charging is awesome. If the camera means nothing for you, the 920 is still a very good shout.
Click to expand...

thanks. good stuff. Not worried about the camera
 
L

lastflowers

Banned
Razdek said:
Do you guys actually have someone on the team monitor the user voice and prioritize what features are going to be built? Some of those listed have been there since day one and nothing has been done about them so far.
Click to expand...

of course. Priorities definitely get shifted around due to user voice
 
M

MCD

Junior Member
Razdek said:
Do you guys actually have someone on the team monitor the user voice and prioritize what features are going to be built? Some of those listed have been there since day one and nothing has been done about them so far.
Click to expand...

We’re definitely here and paying attention to what you folks are asking for… keep in mind the trick for us is balancing things that make EXISTING devices better for you, our enthusiast users, versus things that create new devices to sell to a broader audience. A lot of the work in GDR2 was around enabling new devices— like the Lumia 1020, devices on Sprint, etc. so that we could keep growing the size of the WP ecosystem. We need to grow the number of people using WP so we get ISVs writing the apps, we get better/more accessories built, etc.

Of course this takes time and energy, but we still do intend to improve the user experience for you via new features. There’s some in GDR 2 (eg. DataSense broadly available, FM Radio) there’s more coming later this year, and still more after that.

Don’t worry – we are listening to you folks!
 
L

lastflowers

Banned
MCD said:
We’re definitely here and paying attention to what you folks are asking for… keep in mind the trick for us is balancing things that make EXISTING devices better for you, our enthusiast users, versus things that create new devices to sell to a broader audience. A lot of the work in GDR2 was around enabling new devices— like the Lumia 1020, devices on Sprint, etc. so that we could keep growing the size of the WP ecosystem. We need to grow the number of people using WP so we get ISVs writing the apps, we get better/more accessories built, etc.

Of course this takes time and energy, but we still do intend to improve the user experience for you via new features. There’s some in GDR 2 (eg. DataSense broadly available, FM Radio) there’s more coming later this year, and still more after that.

Don’t worry – we are listening to you folks!
Click to expand...

Hi Joe, how were the meetings today? Your schedule is packed like sardines in a crushd tin box
 
M

MCD

Junior Member
lastflowers said:
Hi Joe, how were the meetings today? Your schedule is packed like sardines in a crushd tin box
Click to expand...

sfgpQ1el.jpg


Just another day at work.
 
MrGreencastle

MrGreencastle

Member
Lucius86 said:
They really should pre-load the new Bing apps. I really like them, and the general public would not know to go off and look for them.

I found out today the maximum limit of contacts in a group is 25 - annoying now I use my personal phone as a work phone too.
Click to expand...

Preloading would be cool, but so would a really nice revamp of the Marketplace itself to better highlight things like this. It IS possible to check and see all the apps that Microsoft have made under their name, but it's not obvious like having a tile or something on the front page marked "Microsoft/Bing Essentials" or whatever.

Recently, Nokia released an update for their Apps Highlights app called App Social, which is much nicer than the stock Marketplace (although it's just barely "metro"). It does some things along those lines, but the Marketplace still has to grow a bit before these types of highlights make sense. And by grow I don't mean solely in number value, but also not having the stab in the chest that is seeing "X" new app "coming for iOS, Android, and Blackberry (of all places :-/ )

Some of this will just happen in time and isn't really something Microsoft can accelerate all that much outside of moneyhatting, which isn't entirely sustainable outside of mega-apps, and also with more devices being enabled with GDR2/3, etc, but another part should be with discoverability, too. Just look at the Windows 8 store vs the Windows 8.1 store. And there still could be quite a few improvements there, too.

I really liked the "This is my Windows Phone" ads, not because I thought they were all that great, but because I thought it was cool to see actual users' start tiles. Especially those of people who are on the inside. The Collections section on the Marketplace is sort of a step in the right direction, but they still aren't very obvious, nor are they kept up to date. Those 4 Bing apps should be front and centre, the second they are released, rather than having to follow through a link or QR code from here, aside from searching. Apple releases an app, and it's a freaking event on the front page of their store - you can tell they really take pride in their work and they show it. Microsoft bros should show it, too. :)

lastflowers said:
Hi Joe, how were the meetings today? Your schedule is packed like sardines in a crushd tin box
Click to expand...

<3

--

I've been taking a lot of photos around my area lately with my 920 and the new Pro Cam app, too. I'm such an amateur photographer it's ridiculous, but I'm still having a lot of fun playing around with the intuitiveness of the interface. It really is quite beautiful and fun to use. Maybe I'll share some of my favourites in a bit. I envy the 1020, but the 920 is no slouch, either.
 
R

Razdek

Banned
MCD said:
We’re definitely here and paying attention to what you folks are asking for… keep in mind the trick for us is balancing things that make EXISTING devices better for you, our enthusiast users, versus things that create new devices to sell to a broader audience. A lot of the work in GDR2 was around enabling new devices— like the Lumia 1020, devices on Sprint, etc. so that we could keep growing the size of the WP ecosystem. We need to grow the number of people using WP so we get ISVs writing the apps, we get better/more accessories built, etc.

Of course this takes time and energy, but we still do intend to improve the user experience for you via new features. There’s some in GDR 2 (eg. DataSense broadly available, FM Radio) there’s more coming later this year, and still more after that.

Don’t worry – we are listening to you folks!
Click to expand...

Lol, thanks for the canned response. I dunno, seems like the user voice page is one of those I hear ya pages to users while they go build out kid's corner 2.0. The top one is custom sounds for SMS from September 28, 2011. Ah well, the wait continues for WP8 blue.
 
S

SCHUEY F1

Unconfirmed Member
MrGreencastle said:
I've been taking a lot of photos around my area lately with my 920 and the new Pro Cam app, too. I'm such an amateur photographer it's ridiculous, but I'm still having a lot of fun playing around with the intuitiveness of the interface. It really is quite beautiful and fun to use. Maybe I'll share some of my favourites in a bit. I envy the 1020, but the 920 is no slouch, either.
Click to expand...

Post them here: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=500350

Can't wait to get my update as well as the Pro Cam app.
 
D

dLMN8R

Member
A lot of people (sensibly) presume that a huge company like Microsoft completely works in a bubble, ignores user feedback, etc. but that's pretty much not the case at all. You have some stumbles (small and massive) like some major things in Windows 8 of course, but for the most part it's not like the corporate borg that it's presented as.

Think about it - if you're working at Microsoft, especially in your 20s and 30s (which is a huge number of people), you're probably as much of a tech nerd browsing Reddit and blogs as everyone on NeoGAF, if not more. We understand what the common perceptions are of various products and features, but need to carefully balance the work done to improve those areas with the necessary work MCD describes to continually increase adoption.

Especially for something like Windows, more than Windows Phone at this time, are various business/IT/enterprise needs. It's absolutely insane how much time some of those things take to get right, and it's important to do so despite taking all that time away from "fun" stuff we'd rather be doing.



Oh, and the Windows Phone update process....I'm not going to say anything specific about it in any direction, but let's just say that the headline from the Nokia engineer complaining that Microsoft was working too slowly? It's infinitely more complex than that, and after seeing a presentation recently about the nitty gritty of how updates work, my hat is off to the Windows Phone team for literally creating an industry-leading solution for updates.

It might not seem like it right now because the result of that solution hasn't really benefitted existing customers yet, rather mostly being focused on new devices as MCD described, but holy god does the Windows Phone Update team have a lot of smart people working for them.
 
L

lastflowers

Banned
dLMN8R said:
Oh, and the Windows Phone update process....I'm not going to say anything specific about it in any direction, but let's just say that the headline from the Nokia engineer complaining that Microsoft was working too slowly? It's infinitely more complex than that, and after seeing a presentation recently about the nitty gritty of how updates work, my hat is off to the Windows Phone team for literally creating an industry-leading solution for updates.

It might not seem like it right now because the result of that solution hasn't really benefitted existing customers yet, rather mostly being focused on new devices as MCD described, but holy god does the Windows Phone Update team have a lot of smart people working for them.
Click to expand...

I work with these guys on a near weekly basis, and the bolded is definitely true.
 
T

this_guy

Member
MCD said:
We&#8217;re definitely here and paying attention to what you folks are asking for&#8230; keep in mind the trick for us is balancing things that make EXISTING devices better for you, our enthusiast users, versus things that create new devices to sell to a broader audience. A lot of the work in GDR2 was around enabling new devices&#8212; like the Lumia 1020, devices on Sprint, etc. so that we could keep growing the size of the WP ecosystem. We need to grow the number of people using WP so we get ISVs writing the apps, we get better/more accessories built, etc.

Of course this takes time and energy, but we still do intend to improve the user experience for you via new features. There&#8217;s some in GDR 2 (eg. DataSense broadly available, FM Radio) there&#8217;s more coming later this year, and still more after that.

Don&#8217;t worry &#8211; we are listening to you folks!
Click to expand...

Can you fix the Facebook notifications and chat? Or add the ability to "Like" individual comments on Facebook postings through the People Hub so we don't need the Facebook app any more.
 
C

Commodore

Member
Nice to hear a little about upcoming improvements to the update process.

So I've been trying out a new battery app for the past few weeks. Battery Performance Gave it a try simply because it looked like a really well designed app, and I'm a sucker for good design versus what I'd been using before with Battery Sense. Pretty rough at first, app wouldn't update properly for a few days, almost gave up on it, but it pulled through finally. There's some nice design flourishes, like including wifi/bluetooth/cellular shortcuts, and the logs and graphs contain some useful data. It was updated today and now everything is working great, lots of bugs are finally gone that had been bugging me. Definitely give it a try if you're looking for a nice live tile battery monitoring app.
 
V

VanMardigan

has calmed down a bit.
And keep in mind you are using the lowest of the low end Windows Phone. It reminds me of the people that have crappy $300 laptops and get fed up with it, buy a $1200 Mac, then go on and on about how much better everything is.
 
R

Razdek

Banned
Commodore said:
Nice to hear a little about upcoming improvements to the update process.

So I've been trying out a new battery app for the past few weeks. Battery Performance Gave it a try simply because it looked like a really well designed app, and I'm a sucker for good design versus what I'd been using before with Battery Sense. Pretty rough at first, app wouldn't update properly for a few days, almost gave up on it, but it pulled through finally. There's some nice design flourishes, like including wifi/bluetooth/cellular shortcuts, and the logs and graphs contain some useful data. It was updated today and now everything is working great, lots of bugs are finally gone that had been bugging me. Definitely give it a try if you're looking for a nice live tile battery monitoring app.
Click to expand...

I dunno' paying $1.99 for a battery app doesn't sound appealing to me but it looks nice.
 
The Shift

The Shift

Banned
At work we have been using the DT-910 in the office and the CR-200 in our cars. These products are a mixed bag to say the least. I could go into a long winded post of why that is but it's probably not worth it I guess.

Short examples are -

DT-910 Wireless Charging Stand
- can't assign any native communication apps People, Outlook etc
- WP OS times out after 5 mins max

CR-200 Wireless Car Charger
Nokia has an app for this *but* it is very limited, three applications can be assigned here and the main app 'CR-200 Car App' will stay open.

That's good, but -
- can't assign any native communication apps People, Outlook etc
- this app has a selection called 'Quick Call' that can only list 5 contacts

So it's all very frustrating. Worse is that the CEO loves these phones/WP8 but just can't fathom why the most simple of user facing functions are inconsistent.

ps - Windows devs, is that a mandate from Microsoft re: exposing the system applications to these accessories or is the ball in Nokia's court?
 
R

Razdek

Banned
dLMN8R said:
A lot of people (sensibly) presume that a huge company like Microsoft completely works in a bubble, ignores user feedback, etc. but that's pretty much not the case at all. You have some stumbles (small and massive) like some major things in Windows 8 of course, but for the most part it's not like the corporate borg that it's presented as.

Think about it - if you're working at Microsoft, especially in your 20s and 30s (which is a huge number of people), you're probably as much of a tech nerd browsing Reddit and blogs as everyone on NeoGAF, if not more. We understand what the common perceptions are of various products and features, but need to carefully balance the work done to improve those areas with the necessary work MCD describes to continually increase adoption.

Especially for something like Windows, more than Windows Phone at this time, are various business/IT/enterprise needs. It's absolutely insane how much time some of those things take to get right, and it's important to do so despite taking all that time away from "fun" stuff we'd rather be doing.



Oh, and the Windows Phone update process....I'm not going to say anything specific about it in any direction, but let's just say that the headline from the Nokia engineer complaining that Microsoft was working too slowly? It's infinitely more complex than that, and after seeing a presentation recently about the nitty gritty of how updates work, my hat is off to the Windows Phone team for literally creating an industry-leading solution for updates.

It might not seem like it right now because the result of that solution hasn't really benefitted existing customers yet, rather mostly being focused on new devices as MCD described, but holy god does the Windows Phone Update team have a lot of smart people working for them.
Click to expand...

I think that most people who post in this topic can agree that we put up with a lot of shit with the WP platform. I think we might might be the most tolerable of any phone platform users. From not being able to upgrade to WP8, slow updates, bugs in the OS, waiting forever to get basic features, more expense marketplace, less apps, poor support at retail and a lot more.

As a consumer I want to know that Microsoft is trying hard for this platform to make it viable. Windows Phone is in third place by default because Blackberry can't stop their slide to obscurity but there is so much work to be done. I know you guys are working hard up there in Redmond and that you have a lot of cool stuff you can't talk about or show us but it gets frustrating as a user to see the platform not reach its potential.

Microsoft has done a great job with Windows 8.1 which makes it a lot more user friendly but why treat WP as the red headed step son? The fact that Nokia has to create new features that are not in the OS is telling when these features should already be in the OS built by WP engineers. Here's hoping that when this new industry-leading solution for updates get released that it allows faster updates and more of them.

Speaking for myself I've owned an LG Quantum, Lumia 920 and now a 520 and I would consider myself a fan of the platform even though I have issues with it. If I wasn't I wouldn't have bought 3 phones but I want to know that Microsoft is committed to the platform. We keep hearing that they're "all in" in regards to it but they need to show us instead of telling us. You would think that a company that is way behind in marketshare would have more sense of urgency but it doesn't seem to be the case and yes I know it may be because of the Windows schedule.

Anyways this rant is long enough but as much as I criticize the platform I am looking forward to WP blue because if the jump is similar from W8 to W8.1 then there could some amazing new features as well as the ones we've been waiting a long time for.
 
K

killer rin

Member
Commodore said:
Nice to hear a little about upcoming improvements to the update process.

So I've been trying out a new battery app for the past few weeks. Battery Performance Gave it a try simply because it looked like a really well designed app, and I'm a sucker for good design versus what I'd been using before with Battery Sense. Pretty rough at first, app wouldn't update properly for a few days, almost gave up on it, but it pulled through finally. There's some nice design flourishes, like including wifi/bluetooth/cellular shortcuts, and the logs and graphs contain some useful data. It was updated today and now everything is working great, lots of bugs are finally gone that had been bugging me. Definitely give it a try if you're looking for a nice live tile battery monitoring app.
Click to expand...
Well, this just became my primary Battery App. Its pretty awesome.
 
B

brotkasten

Member
Why not repost something from Reddit for a change.
So here’s what’s coming in GDR3:

Orientation Lock
Driver Mode, will turn on automatically when you connect it via Bluetooth. Can reject phone calls / sms and send auto reply back
Ability to have 3 medium sized tiles in a row
1080p / new SoCs, which we knew for quite some time now

Other features that are currently being tested and are likely to be pushed to GDR3:

80% chance

Ability to actually close the apps via multi tasking

60% chance

Silent NFC (meaning no more constant confirmations for pairing something)

Please don’t ask for source, there is none.
Click to expand...

Please don’t ask for source, there is none.
 
H

hwalker84

Member
MCD said:
We&#8217;re definitely here and paying attention to what you folks are asking for&#8230; keep in mind the trick for us is balancing things that make EXISTING devices better for you, our enthusiast users, versus things that create new devices to sell to a broader audience. A lot of the work in GDR2 was around enabling new devices&#8212; like the Lumia 1020, devices on Sprint, etc. so that we could keep growing the size of the WP ecosystem. We need to grow the number of people using WP so we get ISVs writing the apps, we get better/more accessories built, etc.

Of course this takes time and energy, but we still do intend to improve the user experience for you via new features. There&#8217;s some in GDR 2 (eg. DataSense broadly available, FM Radio) there&#8217;s more coming later this year, and still more after that.

Don&#8217;t worry &#8211; we are listening to you folks!
Click to expand...

MCD do you have any idea how I can fix this without a hard reset???

wp_ss_20130808_0001.png
Click to expand...
Updated the Nokia extras+info and instead of call+SMS blocking i got that. Soft reset doesn't do anything.

edit: Damnit MCD doesn't even work on the team... Lastflowers ask one of the Windows Phone team to help me out please!?!?
 
V

VanMardigan

has calmed down a bit.
The belfiore quote that mcd used was posted in this thread, I'm surprised so many regulars missed it.

And I don't know what kind of world class update method the WP team is cooking up, but Apple is likely to remain the best at phone updates given carrier limitations on pushing updates for everything other than iPhones. I think that Google's solution of decoupling core apps from the OS is the best approach given the carrier interference.
 
L

Label

The Amiga Brotherhood
LOL just got about 6 Facebook notifications from Sunday. Amazing.

The weird thing is that I get notifications instantly on the Me tile, so it must be something wrong with the Facebook implementation.
 
H

hwalker84

Member
VanMardigan said:
The belfiore quote that mcd used was posted in this thread, I'm surprised so many regulars missed it.

And I don't know what kind of world class update method the WP team is cooking up, but Apple is likely to remain the best at phone updates given carrier limitations on pushing updates for everything other than iPhones. I think that Google's solution of decoupling core apps from the OS is the best approach given the carrier interference.
Click to expand...

Can't believe he got me and got me GOOD!!!
 
P

PG2G

Member
Some GDR3 news. Originally posted by someone in Redditt and seemingly backed up by Tom Warren

http://www.theverge.com/2013/8/9/4604990/windows-phone-update-rotation-lock-text-sync-features

http://www.reddit.com/r/windowsphone/comments/1k08rm/gdr3_feature_list/
So here's what's coming in GDR3:

Orientation Lock
Driver Mode, will turn on automatically when you connect it via Bluetooth. Can reject phone calls / sms and send auto reply back
Ability to have 3 medium sized tiles in a row
1080p / new SoCs, which we knew for quite some time now

Other features that are currently being tested and are likely to be pushed to GDR3:
80% chance: Ability to actually close the apps via multi tasking
60% chance: Silent NFC (meaning no more constant confirmations for pairing something)
Click to expand...
 
TTOOLL

TTOOLL

Member
brotkasten said:
He thinks that people here actually act bitter when someone switches from this platform. What we really do is salute them and wish them a better life on the other side.
Click to expand...


nah, I love this thread. I don't like Android-Gaf thread. I have posted some questions there in the past and NOBODY would answer me. WP-Gaf is the best community. I'm sad because I really like WP, but Microsoft pace is killing me, specially here in Brazil, so I had to leave
=(
 
V

VanMardigan

has calmed down a bit.
Tom Warren reiterated that the Microsoft-built instagram app is complete and fully functional but hasn't been released because "it's complicated".

Apparently temple run 2 and the enthusiast update program are also ready to go but held up for unspecified reasons.
 
R

Razdek

Banned
I'm a Zune/Xbox music subscriber and I just got an SD card for my phone. However all the music I downloaded on my WP7 phone is only available I'm the cloud and I can't do download it to my new one. The only option is to purchase it. I don't want to have all my cloud collection included in my music list. Is there any way to re-download the music to the new phone?
 
V

VanMardigan

has calmed down a bit.
Go to your Xbox.com account and make sure that you have authorized the correct devices. You may need to take one out that you are no longer using because there is a device limit for downloads.
 
R

Razdek

Banned
VanMardigan said:
Go to your Xbox.com account and make sure that you have authorized the correct devices. You may need to take one out that you are no longer using because there is a device limit for downloads.
Click to expand...

I did that already and this only applies to songs that I previously downloaded on my other device. I can download new songs without issues. Thanks for the suggestion.
 
P

PG2G

Member
Razdek said:
I'm a Zune/Xbox music subscriber and I just got an SD card for my phone. However all the music I downloaded on my WP7 phone is only available I'm the cloud and I can't do download it to my new one. The only option is to purchase it. I don't want to have all my cloud collection included in my music list. Is there any way to re-download the music to the new phone?
Click to expand...

Make sure you have Xbox Music cloud collection enabled on your phone. That should enable the long click -> download as well as the multi-select -> download.

Unfortunately it causes my Marketplace to crash... but that is probably just me lol. It has worked in the past
 
R

Razdek

Banned
PG2G said:
Make sure you have Xbox Music cloud collection enabled on your phone. That should enable the long click -> download as well as the multi-select -> download.

Unfortunately it causes my Marketplace to crash... but that is probably just me lol. It has worked in the past
Click to expand...

Ah, long press worked. Thanks for the help.
 
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