Windows Phone 7/8 Catch All

The DVP design makes it where some earbuds might not make very good contact and that is probably the source of the complaint. The jack is seated at an angle on the tapered top of the device. I haven't had any hissing/noise issues thru the headphones, but I don't use it as a music device that often.

Classic Microsoft blunder in the phone space. Leaking that no current Mango phones will upgrade to the soon to be released Windows 8 (apollo)

When you are a distant 4th or 5th or even lower in the smartphone space and have some tiny bit of momentum with a new worthy piece of hardware finally what's a sure way to kill that? Make sure that everyone who just invested in your platform is cut off from the latest OS that releases in 6 months or so.

Very dumb move on their part. I'd be pissed if I hd just bought a new Nokia.

Well, I assumed that my Lumia 900 wouldn't be able to upgrade to Apollo. I looked into it, and there were no indications that you would be able to upgrade to Windows 8. It was still worth it to me to upgrade.

We had a few posts awhile back regarding this when Ars did a write up on it.

Is there any indication yet on how Windows Phone 8 relates to Windows RT?

This is the same problem Android phones have had since the beginning and yeah, it's a dumb move on Microsoft's part if they want to stand out as the good iOS alternative. Android's quickly becoming the OS for cheapy smartphones because of this, Windows Phone can't be like that. iOS devices may become basically useless after 2 years but at least you know that if you buy a 4S today, you'll be able to get iOS 6 when it comes out.

TheGameguru wrote:

Classic Microsoft blunder in the phone space. Leaking that no current Mango phones will upgrade to the soon to be released Windows 8 (apollo)

When you are a distant 4th or 5th or even lower in the smartphone space and have some tiny bit of momentum with a new worthy piece of hardware finally what's a sure way to kill that? Make sure that everyone who just invested in your platform is cut off from the latest OS that releases in 6 months or so.

Lol, I just got done ordering a Lumia 710.

Crunchyroll has an app now. It's funny that they rolled theirs out before HBO and Hulu. I don't subscribe to crunchyroll anymore because there hasn't been anything that has sparked my interest since Steins;Gate.

Woo! Now, hurry the hell up, Hulu.

I had my new Lumia 900 with me at a tradeshow in Vegas last week. I had at least 5 different people ask what it was and comment on how slick it looked. On a shopping excursion, I was using the phone to send pictures of dresses to my wife and the sales girl asked what kind of phone I was using - I told her what it was. She responded with "Wow, I thought Windows phones were supposed to suck!". When I asked he why she thought that, she didn't really have a solid answer. I think that is pretty telling of what MS is up against.

A lot of people are tainted by the old Windows Phones but it sounds like Nokia is helping to change that. HTC, Samsung, and others won't.

EvilHomer3k wrote:

A lot of people are tainted by the old Windows Phones but it sounds like Nokia is helping to change that. HTC, Samsung, and others won't.

My daughter is 14. I doubt she will ever own an Android phone again. It might be that the phone (LG Phoenix) itself is kind of sucky, but she has problems with memory management and a weird issue where it just stops taking or making calls. It's been nothing short of a headache.

She's going to lobby, and probably get an iPhone when she upgrades. Because my wife's iPhone does everything she wants, but without the headache, and she doesn't have to fear that she just got the wrong phone to mkae the OS work well.

That's what WP7 needs, and what the Lumia 900 is starting to create. The OS is already simple and intuitive. Throw that on a phone that just works and people like, and it should sell like crazy.

I'll tell you what, as much as my wife loves her iPhone, if the Lumia really is that solid, she could be talked into switching just so she can play Wordament. She steals my phone all the time now to play it.

I haven't had anyone ask me about the Lumia 900 at random, but my friends seem to think it's pretty cool. I do think that non-techie iPhone users find the interface very obtuse although I imagine they could get used to it quickly.

tuffalobuffalo wrote:

I haven't had anyone ask me about the Lumia 900 at random, but my friends seem to think it's pretty cool. I do think that non-techie iPhone users find the interface very obtuse although I imagine they could get used to it quickly.

My wife was turned off at first, but has kid of come around. It's different, but I vastly prefer it to both the iPhone and Android because it just feels like it makes it easy to do what I want to do most.

Jayhawker wrote:

I'll tell you what, as much as my wife loves her iPhone, if the Lumia really is that solid, she could be talked into switching just so she can play Wordament. She steals my phone all the time now to play it.

Haha. That game is crazy good. I wish I didn't suck at it.

tuffalobuffalo wrote:
Jayhawker wrote:

I'll tell you what, as much as my wife loves her iPhone, if the Lumia really is that solid, she could be talked into switching just so she can play Wordament. She steals my phone all the time now to play it.

Haha. That game is crazy good. I wish I didn't suck at it.

She scored better than 90% a few times last night. I went nuts when I made it over 50%, once.

Since it is a Microsoft published game, and free, to boot, I doubt it shows up on the other OS's. Since I only use my phone as an occasional distraction, and will usually just surf the web when I do, I don't mind the shallow pool of games it has. But it does make up for that by having a few really outstanding games.

Jayhawker wrote:
tuffalobuffalo wrote:
Jayhawker wrote:

I'll tell you what, as much as my wife loves her iPhone, if the Lumia really is that solid, she could be talked into switching just so she can play Wordament. She steals my phone all the time now to play it.

Haha. That game is crazy good. I wish I didn't suck at it.

She scored better than 90% a few times last night. I went nuts when I made it over 50%, once.

Since it is a Microsoft published game, and free, to boot, I doubt it shows up on the other OS's. Since I only use my phone as an occasional distraction, and will usually just surf the web when I do, I don't mind the shallow pool of games it has. But it does make up for that by having a few really outstanding games.

Yup. I very rarely played games on iOS except for the likes of Sword & Sworcery. For some reason it's not my thing. I will occasionally have a fling with a mobile game, however, and currently it is Wordament. I also only get around 50 percent average. My brain just doesn't work in the way that Wordament requires. I am still satisfied if I can find a couple huge words in a puzzle, however.

I play a lot of games. That's primarily what I do when messing around. WP7 is worlds ahead of android where android was at the same time in it's development. I'd also rather have a WP7 phone for games than an android phone. Everything on android is on iOS and most of the time it was on iOS months/years ago. WP7 has significantly more games that are exclusive to WP7 than android. I've already got an iPad so android doesn't open up any new games to me while WP7 does.

Even Woz seems to love the new Win7 phone

"Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak has praised the user interface of Microsoft's Windows Phone, saying that aspects of its user interface are more 'beautiful' than comparable sides to the iPhone. The comments, in a New Domain, follow on from a comment by Forrester boss George Colony who blogged that Apple would decline in the post-Jobs era. Both pieces have kicked off the kind of online argument you would expect."
ClockworkHouse wrote:

You're looking for Windows Live Mesh.

So, I checked out Windows Live Mesh. I expected my SkyDrive to show up but couldn't get things to sync. Turns out, that's a way to sync folders between computers, but it seems it is separate from your regular SkyDrive. I couldn't get it to work like I wanted it to.

So, I finally found that they do have a shiny new app for SkyDrive that you can download to your Windows PC, Mac, OS mobile device, or Windows phone that syncs your SkyDrive between all devices much like iCloud. A SkyDrive folder is created in your user folder and added to your favorites in Windows Explorer. It's very slick and exactly what I wanted all along.

I managed to get the free 25 GB of space too which is pretty sweet.

Finally, MS put my new update to Milestone out on the Marketplace. Switched back to paid, but with an unlimited, ad-supported free trial.

Thanks to ClockworkHouse for the feedback to make it behave like other WP7 apps, and to hopefully make it a bit less confusing.

New features:

  • One list for events, with a setting to sort by day of year or day of month.
  • Settings also allows you to set a default message for when you share an event.
  • You can now select which parts of the time since an event you want to show (Years, Months, Days), and it'll recalculate on the fly.

I got rid of the quick date compare, but it can be easily added back in. Again, any feedback/pimping of the app to friends and family is appreciated.

So my wife and I are doing a medically supervised diet program that is pretty hardcore. One of the things we have to do is keep a specific journal related to the meal replacements and other things. The iPhone and droid have apps that not only let us log everything on the go, but is set up to email that log to the health coordinator.

My wife has an iPhone, but my WP7 Quantum is a no go. So I reluctantly swapped phones with my daughter, who has an LG Phoenix with Droid 2.2.

To paraphrase H to the Ickle, "f*ck this phone."

Seriously, Droid sucks. I could not be unhappier with the entire experience. From spending $5 on podcasting app that is worse than the functionality that ships with Mango, it's ugly as sin UI, and it's mind-numbingly restrictive use of SD cards, I'm not sure I could hate a smartphone OS more. I completely understand why my daughter hated her phone so much.

On the flipside, she is giggly over how much she is enjoying the Quantum. She went from fighting with her phone to do what she wants, to just doing it.

The worst, even though the app I want to use is good for 2.2, it's not compatible with my phone. No reason why, it's just not. It's like an immediate blast to remind me why I hate "flexible" OS's. And now I don't have have the heart to make my daughter take her phone back. So I'm stuck with this until January, or until I get so fed up I spend way too much money on another WP7 phone.

I don't think I could appreciate WP7 more than I do right now.

Which app, Jayhawker? In case someone wanted to eat their lunch.

Food-Trac

The needs are pretty specific to the program, but also pretty simple. If you are wanting to do a WP7 version, I can give you the details and buy you lunch!

I have no idea if this app is used by other across the country by others that have a similar program.

I've lived with my Lumia 710 for a few weeks now and I have to say I have zero regrets. I support iPhones at work and have played with various android phones and I've got to say the Metro UI is by far my favorite.

The Lumina 900 destroys the iPhone 4S in every way.. its faster in every way since AT&T turned on LTE in some of the places I've been in.. and on 3G is faster since Verizon has basically let their 3G network languish while AT&T has poured dollars into it to ensure their iPhone experience was up to par.

I'm sure my frustrations with the iPhone 4S are more network than anything else but I find the Windows Phone UI more intuitive and easier/quicker to get the 90% done.. the iPhone for that 10% excels simply from its vast array of apps some of which can do some really cool things.. I just don't end up using it often enough.

Hoping for a Verizon LTE Nokia 950? Because that would be awesome.

I'm still very torn about my next phone purchase. I've used iOS in the past (iPhone 3GS on AT&T and Vodafone in Ireland). I switched to an LG WP7 device and have enjoyed using it overall. Now that I'm moving back to the US it is time to replace the LG and I'm looking at either the Nokia 900 or an iPhone 4S.

The Nokia has WP7 (and hopefully WP8), which I enjoy more as a general user-experience. I also like the social integration better, the Xbox Live integration, and the email system (much better).

The iPhone takes better photos (mostly software related as far as I can tell, though if you fiddle with custom settings the Nokia can match it). It also wins (hands down) in backup/restore functionality, Skype integration/app, music-making apps, Facebook, and smart things like iMessage (where if you 'text' another iPhone you're only sending data packets, not SMS - so saves money on a standalone SMS package).

Is the 900 getting WP8? I thought I read somewhere recently that no model currently on the market will be getting the upgrade. I was waiting until WP8 was out before I pulled the trigger on dumping my employer-paid BlackBerry 9900 but if the 900's getting it, maybe I can rationalise doing it sooner.

Parallax Abstraction wrote:

Is the 900 getting WP8?

Nobody seems to know for sure (publicly). I can understand why it wouldn't happen - if Apollo is built on Win8 (and not WP7), the hardware delta would be too much between the old Mango devices and what Apollo would require to run well. I suppose they haven't sold enough WP7 devices to be worried about making their customer base obsolete.

If that is the case, though, I'd definitely opt for an iPhone 4S and then re-assess my next-next phone purchase after Apollo is available (as well as the next iPhone and iOS update).

I order the lumia 900 from amazon wireless the other day for 10 bucks with free 2 day shipping and it's out for delivery today and I can't wait to get it. Currently I have a Samsung focus so this isn't a huge upgrade by any means but it will be nice to have a phone the doesn't feel so damn cheap. As for the discussion about whether or not the phone will get the 8 upgrade or not I don't think it would set a good precedent for them to abandon all us early adopters like that. Granted they did do that with the old windows mobile phones but those phones had radically different hardware.