Windows Phone 7/8 Catch All

tuffalobuffalo wrote:
Parallax Abstraction wrote:

Apple still near totally dominates the hipsters. ;)

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

Oh, and...

Well, it's officially confirmed that current windows phone devices won't get the upgrade to WP8 becaue the kernel is now changed. It's a good move for the long run by MS and expected. WP8 looks like it has a lot of nice features.

tuffalobuffalo wrote:

Well, it's officially confirmed that current windows phone devices won't get the upgrade to WP8 becaue the kernel is now changed. It's a good move for the long run by MS and expected. WP8 looks like it has a lot of nice features.

This didn't happen immediately after I bought a WP7 phone. The timeline has changed!

I knew I shouldn't have gotten my Lumia.

Meh, I'm totally fine with the purchase and expected this to happen (it was all but officially confirmed). I like WP7.5 a lot. By the time 2 or so years roll around, I'll be ready to upgrade and WP8 will have worked out all of its kinks.

The only thing that'll suck is that there may be some essential apps that won't work on WP7.5. I really want a better version of Subsonic because the current implementation by whoever did it is super buggy. That's really all I want.

Edit: Another huge reason to not feel bad is that WP8 would probably kill the performance and battery life on a Lumia 900 anyways. It's just like what happened with the iPhone nearly every time iOS got upgraded.

I think i'm really disappointed about not getting the new kernel with native code support. I understand not being able to use the nfc, sdcard and other hardware specific stuff.

Nice! I didn't notice that we'll get a 7.8 release with the new start screen. Sweet!

http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2012/...

Sidenote: I subscribed to Crunchyroll again so that I could watch Kids on the Slope. The Crunchyroll app is really good. I like it even better than the Netflix app on WP and the Crunchyroll app on iOS.

I must be a bad techie, because I'm not at all bothered by this. I don't buy technology with the expectation that it will be fully compatible with the latest and greatest updates. Then again, by the time Windows Phone 8 rolls out, my phone will be two years old, so I'm not feeling like I bought something whose lifespan was unexpectedly truncated. No buyer's remorse here.

Nice that we'll be getting the 7.8 OS. Hopefully it includes some of those fancy new 8.0 features, but I'm not going to be hurt if it doesn't.

tuffalobuffalo wrote:

Sidenote: I subscribed to Crunchyroll again so that I could watch Kids on the Slope. The Crunchyroll app is really good. I like it even better than the Netflix app on WP and the Crunchyroll app on iOS.

Agreed. The Crunchyroll app on WP7 is really nice. I'd like a Hulu Plus app, though, so I can round out my media services.

Of all the new stuff they announced for WP8 only the start screen really made me sit up and take notice. I am thrilled that I'll be able to get that on my Lumia 710.

I'm sure if I had purchased a Lumia 900 I'd be dissappointed. As it is, though, I'm happy to be getting the upgrade to 7.8 and all the niceties (especially the start screen) that come with it.

EvilHomer3k wrote:

I'm sure if I had purchased a Lumia 900 I'd be dissappointed. As it is, though, I'm happy to be getting the upgrade to 7.8 and all the niceties (especially the start screen) that come with it.

I should have known better. I should have taken one look at the specs of the phone and realized it wouldn't be very upgradable. But what about non tech people that don't know any better. Microsoft and Nokia have been shouting to the heavens about their flagship phone the Lumia 900 and then turn around 2 months later to say well its not getting the next version of the OS in a couple of months because its not powerful enough. If Apple the other week during their announcement of IOS 6 said that no current model of Iphone would be able to upgrade to it but instead would get IOS 5.6 with like 1/10th of the features of IOS 6 people would be flipping out.

Like is going to happen when they release the next iPhone with a different dock connector? :p

General Crespin wrote:

Like is going to happen when they release the next iPhone with a different dock connector? :p

Heheh... Or like when they released iOS 5 and it basically broke the iPhone 3G because the 3G was too slow to use it.

tuffalobuffalo wrote:
General Crespin wrote:

Like is going to happen when they release the next iPhone with a different dock connector? :p

Heheh... Or like when they released iOS 5 and it basically broke the iPhone 3G because the 3G was too slow to use it. ;)

But the iPhone 3G is a few years old at that point and not 2 months. If iOS 6 broke the iPhone 4S because it was to slow, people would be very angry.

breander wrote:
tuffalobuffalo wrote:
General Crespin wrote:

Like is going to happen when they release the next iPhone with a different dock connector? :p

Heheh... Or like when they released iOS 5 and it basically broke the iPhone 3G because the 3G was too slow to use it. ;)

But the iPhone 3G is a few years old at that point and not 2 months. If iOS 6 broke the iPhone 4S because it was to slow, people would be very angry.

I really don't agree. My wife would have no problem with iOS 6 not being available to her 4S. She loves her iPhone right now. Of course, she already lived through iOS 5 killing her 3G. And she felt like it was for no good reason, as she liked her iPhone just fine.

I do think the Lumia 900 is a special circumstance, as that is a quick turnaround. But seriously, WP7 is great, right now. Lumia phone owners will be upgrading to a new phone in less than two years, and will be jumping into WP8 after several patches and fixes.

But I wouldn't buy a Lumia right now if my contract was up. I'd hold on to my Quantum until WP8 comes out and I see what my choices are. As it is, my contract will let me upgrade in January.

But it would be smart for Microsoft to make a special case for the Lumia phones if the hardware can handle it. Microsoft already lost LG as a partner, and this move has to hit Nokia really hard. But you would think that Microsoft would have already been in talks with Nokia, who should have a WP8 phone out as soon as possible.

I think it would be wise for everyone, from manufacturers to consumers, to consider a phone's OS as specific to their phone. If they want the new hotness, get a new phone.

Always, always only buy it for what it does, not for what you think you can hack it to do or what future updates will add.

Unless it's a Nexus device.

Kurrelgyre wrote:

Always, always only buy it for what it does, not for what you think you can hack it to do or what future updates will add.

But isn't the ability of the phone to be upgraded over time one of the many defining features of a smart phone versus feature phones of the past?

breander wrote:
Kurrelgyre wrote:

Always, always only buy it for what it does, not for what you think you can hack it to do or what future updates will add.

But isn't the ability of the phone to be upgraded over time one of the many defining features of a smart phone versus feature phones of the past?

Only for a small subset of customers. I think those users should appreciate Android for what it is.

But isn't the ability of the phone to be upgraded over time one of the many defining features of a smart phone versus feature phones of the past?

In theory, yes. In actual practice, phone makers don't support their phones very well, with the exception of the Nexus phones, which usually have a nice long life. Rumor claims that Android 4.1, for instance, will be rolled out soon to those devices.

Apple offers updates, but frequently artificially limits old phones to not run new features they're perfectly capable of running.

I wrote up a quick marketplace review of the Subsonic app and sent an email to the dev. Hopefully the bugs will get fixed. I've been having some really annoying issues. I'll post it here in case anyone was thinking of using it.

I used iSub on an iPhone 4 for a very long time which worked great (streaming from a dedicated ubuntu server running subsonic). I've used this app for a few months, and it is very buggy. Here are some things I've had trouble with.

1. Songs where the actual filenames have foreign language characters won't play most of the time. This is incredibly annoying and seems like a trivial bug that should have been fixed ages ago. I've noticed this happen with some sigur rós songs and also some songs with Japanese characters.

2. There are times even when there are no foreign language characters where the app just gets hung up on “Download Pending”. It's very frustrating, and I don't know what the cause is.

3. There aren't nearly as many as many detailed setting options as there are on iSub. For example, you could choose different downsampling options for 3G and WiFi networks using iSub. Very handy if you use this app all day and run into 3G trouble spots frequently.

4. The startup splash screen for Van Zuylen's Research is very ugly and not in keeping with the "Metro" style. This isn't a bug, obviously, but it's worth noting.

Lastly, I give this app 2 stars instead of one because it partially works most of the time if I wrestle with it. It doesn't get 3 stars from me because of the very serious bugs that make the application unusable quite often.

I looked for a different Subsonic on Windows Phone option and found some information at http://subsonic.codeplex.com/. Looks like someone was going to make an app for WP7 and ran into MP3 frame-parsing issues. They decided to bag it and skip to W8. Maybe this is part of why this app has issues.

"Watched" Engadget's live coverage of the Nokia/Microsoft event. I think the 920 looks great. The camera sounds very good for low light stuff. The phones look very pretty. The wireless charging built in is cool. The screen looks beautiful and the auto-adjustment for sunlight could make it readable outdoors. Too bad they are not releasing anything until Q4. I think that's a big mistake with Apple announcing in just a week and shipping at the end of September. My wife and I have been waiting to switch providers until the iPhone 5 announcement and I don't see us waiting any longer. I was disappointed they didn't have more concrete release dates and more (any) information about carriers.

Another issue has been getting their best phones on the major carriers. AT&T is about the only provider that has decent windows phones (Titan II and Lumia 900). Sprint dropped their only windows phone and Verizon's only phone is the ho-hum HTC Trophy. T-Mobile only offers the Radar and Lumia 710. If Nokia and Microsoft want to succeed they are going to have to convince all the carriers to carry the 820 and 920. They can't compete with Android or Apple unless they can get their best phones available on all carriers. The Samsung Galaxy S III is available on the four major carriers as well as several others. I know several people who bought the S3 on US Cellular simply because it was the best device they had.

It looks like Nokia has the phone ready but is just waiting for Microsoft. Too bad. If they shipped with WP7 and offered free upgrades to 8 I think they'd be much better off (though that may not be technically possible).

Looks like the 920 will fix all the issues I have with the 900. If they allow current Lumia 900 owners the normal discounted/subsidized with a new 2 year contract, I may have to pick one up late in the year or early next year. The WP7 Subsonic app just has too many problems that are unfixable.

I agree with everything you mentioned, EvilHomer3k. I sure hope they can get these Windows Phone 8 devices to take off.

Very interested to hear more about the 920's camera. My girlfriend's barely working BlackBerry is about to be replacement ready and she's set on the iPhone 5, for no other reason than the camera. She's a photo buff and doesn't care much about apps or games (seriously, we have an iPad 2 and I'm the only one who has spent any money on it). I've been trying to steer her away from Apple and she's basically said "If someone else makes a phone that's easy to use and does the camera as good or better, that's what I'll get." I heard the spiel which is that it's apparently a stunning camera and theoretically better than what's in the iPhone 4S but I haven't seen any hands-on impressions and obviously, we don't know what improvements are coming in the iPhone 5. I hope the 920 still ends up on top, not just because of my dislike of Apple but because with the way my girlfriend treats her phones, I know an iPhone won't survive through the 3 year cell contracts we're stuck with in Canada.

Engadget just put up some new info on the camera. Well, not much new info, but a video from Nokia about the camera.
http://www.engadget.com/2012/09/05/p...

Between the OIS and F2.0 lens it should be better with low light. No mention that I've seen about ability to control shutter speeds or aperture. Despite the F2.0 lens I didn't see much depth of field either. I'm sure the sensor is really small and the DOF will be quite limited. If they had some good DOF and some sort of manual controls I could see using one as a replacement for a P&S camera in some situations where it was sufficient.

Be slightly cautious about the Lumia's camera - several sources are saying the Nokia footage was faked.

Zelos wrote:

Be slightly cautious about the Lumia's camera - several sources are saying the Nokia footage was faked.

It was. But I've also read hands on that the stabilization does work really well. It's not that special, as it's tech that has been around in camera's for a long time.

So yeah, they faked the shot by using a van and real video camera. But the purpose seemed to be more about getting a good image than it was pretending to be stabilized. Nokia has already apologized and released legitimate a clip showing it working.

Besides, is anyone really buying smartphone because of image stabilization?

Jayhawker wrote:
Zelos wrote:

Be slightly cautious about the Lumia's camera - several sources are saying the Nokia footage was faked.

It was. But I've also read hands on that the stabilization does work really well. It's not that special, as it's tech that has been around in camera's for a long time.

So yeah, they faked the shot by using a van and real video camera. But the purpose seemed to be more about getting a good image than it was pretending to be stabilized. Nokia has already apologized and released legitimate a clip showing it working.

Besides, is anyone really buying smartphone because of image stabilization?

Not until now. No other smartphones have one. I'm more impressed with the images they are taking inside of the dark room. The Lumias images are much, much better than the S3, iPhone, and any other phone they tried.

I know it's a little early, since all the features of WP8 haven't been announced and the Nokia phones are the only hardware we've heard of, but is anyone switching to WP8?

I have an iPhone 4 and my girlfriend is on a hacked T-Mobile iPhone 3G. My contract is up in January and I wasn't all that impressed with iPhone 5. I'm up for something fresh, and I'm adamently anti-Android (sorry). Might make the switch.

Well, I'm switching from WP7. I loved my Quantum over my wife's iPhone 4s. My upgrade comes due in January, so I will have an opportunity to assess both by the time I decide. But WP7 feels like exactly what I want from a smartphone. WP8 looks like it will just enhance that.