Windows Phone 7/8 Catch All

I've got until September/October to decide what I'm doing for my next phone. We've decided to wait until the next iPhone comes out before switching carriers. Our current carrier is cheap but not cheap enough to justify sticking with them and their terrible, terrible data network (mostly still edge and poor connections half the time with that). With my employer discount it will be about 10% more so we're going to switch. Currently, I have a Dell Venue Pro WP7 phone that I really like. I believe most of my frustrations with it are due to the poor network but not all. I don't know if WP8 will be out by the fall but I'm hoping it will be (along with a new Nokia).

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).

One would hope that Microsoft eventually gets it and integrates Sky Drive with WP8 for similar "backup" and sync functionality as iCloud... but I'm not holding my breath.

TheGameguru wrote:

One would hope that Microsoft eventually gets it and integrates Sky Drive with WP8 for similar "backup" and sync functionality as iCloud... but I'm not holding my breath.

Since I've never used an iPhone/iCloud, I'm curious what seems to be missing.

I have had to replace a bricked DVP (and also restore after a hard reset) and it was absolutely simple. All of our photos and videos were automagically synched to SkyDrive, so when the DVP bricked, we didn't loose some very special videos and pictures of my daughter and my dad. I was terrified that we had lost all of those picts and vids and when I saw them on Skydrive, I was beyond elated.

TexasRay wrote:
TheGameguru wrote:

One would hope that Microsoft eventually gets it and integrates Sky Drive with WP8 for similar "backup" and sync functionality as iCloud... but I'm not holding my breath.

Since I've never used an iPhone/iCloud, I'm curious what seems to be missing.

I have had to replace a bricked DVP (and also restore after a hard reset) and it was absolutely simple. All of our photos and videos were automagically synched to SkyDrive, so when the DVP bricked, we didn't loose some very special videos and pictures of my daughter and my dad. I was terrified that we had lost all of those picts and vids and when I saw them on Skydrive, I was beyond elated.

Yeah, the photo part of Skydrive is as good or better than iCloud's in my experience. Unfortunately, it doesn't have the straight backup functionality unless you're going through a computer on your home wireless network. Good enough for me, but bad for people who only use tablets and/or phones.

I really only care about the photo and contacts part, so I don't have to worry about anything. Skydrive is perfect for me.

My only sad about WP7 these days is that the subsonic app is really buggy.

1. Often it doesn't download the complete song to the playlist. That is immensely frustrating. Even when you go clear the cache and try again, it effs up.
2. Crashes.
3. Freezes when I try to add some sigur rós songs. My guess is that it's having trouble dealing with the characters in some of the song titles.
4. It's a touch slugish, and the loading screen is atrocious.
5. About 1/4 of the options in setup as iSub. Some of which would be very nice to have.

Well, it works lots of the time, so that's good. I hope someone makes a better one. I should probably submit a bug list to whoever made it.

Having owned a WP7 for a year, officially supporting iOS devices and a few Android devices at work, and owning an iPad, I can't imagine switching from WP7 to another smart phone. iOS just feels clunky and outdated, and I'd rather have a dumb phone than any Android I've used.

Anybody here ever order from amazon wireless? My new phone is still out on the UPS truck for delivery but my current phone is suddenly in emergency only mode as if the sim card was disabled. Usually when I do this my old sim isn't disabled until I activate the new one.

ClockworkHouse wrote:

I'd rather have a dumb phone than any Android I've used.

My roommate is about ready to kill his HTC Android phone. He's on a replacement after his first one just randomly freezed and crashed all the time. The replacement does the same thing, so obviously it's a software issue. He's updated it to the most recent flavor of Android that HTC put out, but nothing has helped. He went in to the store to get a Lumia 900, but he isn't able to get the $100 upgrade + $38 fee + 2 year contract yet. I think he's eligible in September or so. When he told the guy at AT&T store that his current phone is barely functional, the guy was not helpful. The best he could probably do is get a replacement refurb again (obviously not going to fix it).

He gets so mad at it. I feel bad for him.

In other news, I've love the Bing Wallpaper app. It's nice to be able to save those to your phone as some of them are stunning. There are also some tailor made "official" wallpapers here that are incredibly good (more info on this website). I get a warm fuzzy feeling when I wake my phone now.

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Definitely have to give major props to Levi Freeman. Awesome stuff.

ClockworkHouse wrote:

Having owned a WP7 for a year, officially supporting iOS devices and a few Android devices at work, and owning an iPad, I can't imagine switching from WP7 to another smart phone. iOS just feels clunky and outdated, and I'd rather have a dumb phone than any Android I've used.

This is my exact experience with each of the phones in our house. One of the biggest annoyances is that a ton of everyday stuff I did with my WP7 phone has suddenly become less intuitive and requires more time to open and search for whatI want.

Dogcatcher may be a great podcast app, but not having to pay $5 and having access to start, stop, resume, FF, and Rewind from the lock screen was way more useful than anything Dogcatcher does.

I guess at some point I will figure out how to put frequent numbers I call as shortcuts, but irritates me that hitting the phone button brings me to the keypad. I preferred WP7 bringing me to the call log.

Over and over I am finding stuff that I took for granted in WP7 that is lacking in Android. Hell, the simplicity of Bing to search and find store or address and take me right a number or map blows away the process I went through yesterday to find a Starbucks when I was out of town. This is the kind of stuff people assume Apple has nailed, but Microsoft has actually trumped them.

I have no idea how Android gained as much marktshare as they have, other than possibly a lot of anti-Apple sentiment. I would love to see Microsoft take a major chunk of it so we see more development of apps.

I'm kind of amazed by all the stuff I do in WP7 that requires extra apps in iOS. I've been spoiled by the social network feed in the People tile, for example, or the ability to simultaneously post to Facebook and Twitter. The Bing search button is amazing for what it integrates into one place: local search, web search, image search, visual search (snap a picture of text to search it? Awesome!), music search, and so forth. I love it.

Jayhawker wrote:

I have no idea how Android gained as much marktshare as they have, other than possibly a lot of anti-Apple sentiment. I would love to see Microsoft take a major chunk of it so we see more development of apps.

That's why. Well, that and you can get them cheaper lots of the time.

For what it's worth, the Ice Cream Sandwich version of Android is quite nice. It's not perfect; the apps have a bad habit of all choosing slightly different interface styles. For instance, the menu button, three vertical dots, is sometimes on the top in apps, and sometimes on the bottom, and sometimes it's not there at all. All apps seem to use the same UI elements to mean the same things, but they're not consistent in placement. I don't think Apple would be very happy with that.

But I actually own my telephone, and that would make up for far more weaknesses than it actually has.

The thing that's driving those crazy "Android activation" numbers right now is that Android's become the default OS for super-cheap smartphones because there's no licensing fee for it. From everything I've read and seen, most enthusiasts are getting real tired of it, though I know several Android users who seem quite happy still.

From the way you guys are talking about WP7, it sounds like Microsoft has some great points on which to make a marketing push for it. What's being said about how you can get to things faster and do stuff with the OS that requires additional apps on other platforms are great points to make. What worries me is that Microsoft is traditionally so horrible at marketing that they'll bungle up that message and lose a large potential client base of frustrated Android users, dumb phone users and even iPhone users who are sick of the Apple treadmill. It's going to take a big marketing push to get WP7 the market share it needs for app developers to really start taking it seriously and ultimately, the app ecosystem is what's going to drive a lot of cell phone growth going forward. Though based on the large number of casual iPhone users I know who barely buy any apps (and some who have actually never bought any apps at all), I think just the phone's base features and price can be enough to convince a large group of people.

I'm anxious to hear if the 900 will get WP8. If it will, I think I may finally take my cell plan back from my employer and switch.

I think a lot of these impression problems could be solved by a solid marketing push. I hope Microsoft partners with an agency that can do it right, rather than another dumb campaign with Seinfeld talking to Bill Gates. WP7 needs its Don Draper. Except you know, in this decade.

Parallax Abstraction wrote:

I think a lot of these impression problems could be solved by a solid marketing push. I hope Microsoft partners with an agency that can do it right, rather than another dumb campaign with Seinfeld talking to Bill Gates.

There's actually been a lot of interesting advertising, but I don't know how extensive everything is. It's basically the "Beautifully Different" campaign. They post a lot of the videos up on YouTube (I check wpcentral.com which tends to list anything new that shows up). I've watched a few, and they're actually pretty good.

I don't know how pervasive the advertising is in pop culture as I'm slightly removed from it.

This one was kinda cool.

I agree with Jayhawker on the Windows 8 thing. I bought my phone knowing that it would probably not get Windows 8. I sooooo wish they would fix the IE9 thing because, as Jayhawker mentions, clicking on new forum posts does not bring you to the new post.

I'm just hoping for an update or two to fix bugs.

Jayhawker wrote:

Talking to my daughter today she said that when she told friends her new phone was a Windows Phone, they all said it sucked. But when she started showing it to them, they were kind of blown away. Microsoft has an image problem that they need to fix. I think Meto is an awesome UI in hand, but somehow comes off as clunky looking in ads.

They definitely have an image problem, but it's one they were able to overcome in another arena just fine: console gaming. I remember that when the Xbox was launched, the general impression from a lot of people seemed to be that it would suck because Microsoft made it. And yet after getting the system in front of people and marketing it hard, they now have a pretty loyal fanbase among console gamers who hold the 360 up as the ideal console.

But the time she customized tiles, and added her photos for the lock screen and certain tiles that use them, it transforms into sleek looking phone that represents her personality really well. It looks completely different than how i had it set up.

This has really struck me with my wife's phone. We have identical phone models, but once you unlock it, her phone looks a lot different from mine. The colors, the background, the live tiles, all of it. She's been able to customize it to really reflect her personality. Things like the Me tile really help with that, of course, putting her Facebook picture front and center on a live tile.

Jayhawker wrote:

I have no idea how Android gained as much marktshare as they have, other than possibly a lot of anti-Apple sentiment. I would love to see Microsoft take a major chunk of it so we see more development of apps.

I think a lot of it has to do with timing and cost. Sure, some of it is anti-apple sentiment but a lot more of it is that they were available on Sprint, T-Mobile, and Verizon when Apple was AT&T only. You have been able to get cheap Android phones for quite some time with many of them now being free on contract. Microsoft was very late to this party and now they are not usually thought of since most evangelists already chose Apple or Android. Most of the people I know that have Android phones got it because it was cheap. Most of the iPhone users I know got it because it's an iPhone.

One of the things I like so much about the iPhone is the number of things custom made specifically for the iPhone. I can get cases, car stands, docks, arm bands, stereos, etcetera made specifically for the iPhone. I can't do that with most android or WP7 devices. I very much enjoyed my car dock for my Nexus One phone. It was great. My dock for my Venue Pro is a $10 piece of crap that doesn't add one bit of functionality. For me, that's a big thing.

Parallax Abstraction wrote:

I think a lot of these impression problems could be solved by a solid marketing push. I hope Microsoft partners with an agency that can do it right, rather than another dumb campaign with Seinfeld talking to Bill Gates.

Their smoked by Windows Phone is pretty good but not great. I think they need to do more advertising and do more varied advertising. Nokia is doing a better job of marketing IMO but they are more focused on Europe.

I don't think the 900 is getting WP8, and it probably shouldn't for the same reason old iPhones start to suck when the OS upgrades. We get new phones every two years. Get the phone with the OS that works.

My upgrade comes up next January. By then, I believe, WP8 will be out and I can select a phone based on that. If my contract was up today, I would probably get the 900, and just upgrade to a WP8 phone the next time.

But every indication I have seen is that Microsoft does not want the impressions of WP8 to take a beating by users trying to use it on phones that can't handle it. I wish Apple would so the same thing. Of course, Apple sells the hardware, so it is incentivized to encourage user to upgrade to improve their experience.

Right now, WP7 is great. I feel absolutely no need to have a new OS. The only fix I want is for the browser to start going to the new post on forums I visit. For every forum, it just loads the page and I have to scroll to the new post. But that is not a new OS problem to be solved.

Talking to my daughter today she said that when she told friends her new phone was a Windows Phone, they all said it sucked. But when she started showing it to them, they were kind of blown away. Microsoft has an image problem that they need to fix. I think Meto is an awesome UI in hand, but somehow comes off as clunky looking in ads.

But by the time she customized tiles, and added her photos for the lock screen and certain tiles that use them, it transforms into sleek looking phone that represents her personality really well. It looks completely different than how I had it set up.

Jayhawker wrote:

Talking to my daughter today she said that when she told friends her new phone was a Windows Phone, they all said it sucked. But when she started showing it to them, they were kind of blown away. Microsoft has an image problem that they need to fix.

This is their main issue.

I have had people ask me what kind of phone I had and when I told them, their response was something along lines of "That thing is cool! I thought windows phones were supposed to suck." Changing those kinds of pre-concieved ideas is hard. As mentioned before MS has done it with the XBox and could certainly do it again. Perhaps WP7 is to phones what the orginal XBox was to game consoles.

TexasRay wrote:
Jayhawker wrote:

Talking to my daughter today she said that when she told friends her new phone was a Windows Phone, they all said it sucked. But when she started showing it to them, they were kind of blown away. Microsoft has an image problem that they need to fix.

This is their main issue.

I have had people ask me what kind of phone I had and when I told them, their response was something along lines of "That thing is cool! I thought windows phones were supposed to suck." Changing those kinds of pre-concieved ideas is hard. As mentioned before MS has done it with the XBox and could certainly do it again. Perhaps WP7 is to phones what the orginal XBox was to game consoles.

I really think they should have left Windows out of the name and that would have helped a lot. The xbox would have had a much tougher time if they had called it Windows Video Game System 360 or whatever.

For anyone wanting a replacement for Runkeeper now that it's gone from the marketplace (and never ran well for me anyway), Endomondo is great. I tried it out yesterday for a bike ride and a walk. More features than Runkeeper, it runs in the background, has voice prompts, syncs well, and starts up fast. Basically, it's Runkeeper that actually works well on WP7.

Dammit, I just decided not to get one because I don't like AT&T. They know my weakness!

I'm back! The more I got used to Android, the less I liked dealing with it on a day to day basis. I found another Quantum on Craigslist and picked it up for $90 today. It also came with a case that I actually like more than I thought I would. Best, it is in seemingly mint condition.

Just the process of setting it up was like a breath of fresh air. Not only was it easy, but the auto-correct is 100x better, making typing info a breeze. And it grabbed info I had set-up in Google Plus perfectly. And who would have ever thought I would crave the WP7 IE browser?

Now if MS could just convey this in an ad campaign somehow...

Google Plus is on WP7 now?

ClockworkHouse wrote:

Google Plus is on WP7 now?

Not completely.

Google is now a connected service to Windows Live

However, the social aspects of Google+ are not available yet, so don’t expect your Google+ social feeds to start flowing into your Messenger Social or Windows Phone. This might set to change in the future, given that Microsoft is continuously expanding the connected service’s capability over time (for example, most recently with China’s micro-blogging service Sina Weibo). There was also a wild rumor that Google+ is coming to Windows Phone, although the validity of the source is questionable.

Excited to see what Windows 8 brings to both tablets and phones...I have vague notions of ditching iOS for good..maybe it will become hipster cool to be anti-Apple and Google..

Or is it already??

If I'm doing it, it is already.

Apple still near totally dominates the hipsters.

This may be obvious, but I ran across several free ringtone apps. Free Ringtones is what I've been using, and it has a nice selection.

I should have assumed this was coming when Mango provided the ability to finally customize your ringtone. I just never thought to se if there were apps to help streamline the process. I was just using iTunes to to import stuff through Windows Phone 7 Connector on my Mac, which was kind of tedious.

So, yeah, my ringtone is the theme from Fringe. Tempted to roll with the 80's themed version.

Parallax Abstraction wrote:

Apple still near totally dominates the hipsters. ;)

Tis true. I'm from Portland, so I should know.