Windows Phone 7/8 Catch All

Great.

And then I get to wait for AT&T to send it to my Focus.

AT&T is updating windows phones to mango on the 27th.

Then I look forward to being pleasantly surprised.

I sold my HD7 and got a Dell Venue Pro (on sale from Dell for $299 unlocked). It's kind of boring getting the exact same OS but I like the phone. Keyboard is nice and the screen is more vibrant (AMOLED) but a little smaller. Unfortunately, the entire phone is a fingerprint magnet.. One another note, MS has a long way to go towards making switching to a new phone simple and easy. Very little is backed up (just stuff you have uploaded to your live account). Many games don't save progress. I also lost Star Wars: Battle for Hoth as it is no longer available in the market. Still, if anyone has T-Mobile or AT&T and wants to get a WP7 phone off contract it's a nice phone and not a bad deal.

Mango is out. If you don't want to wait you can try forcing it to update now (same as the nodo trick. Working for me on my Dell Venue Pro. Installing the second update now.
http://www.wpcentral.com/force-mango...

EvilHomer3k wrote:

Mango is out. If you don't want to wait you can try forcing it to update now (same as the nodo trick. Working for me on my Dell Venue Pro. Installing the second update now.
http://www.wpcentral.com/force-mango...

Thanks for the heads up and the directions. I'm doing this now. Here's hoping it goes well.

I am installing 7403 I believe. It didn't say anything about 7392 but I charged ahead anyway.

it has been a long time since I have had to fool my computer by unplugging the NIC.

One thing to note is that it takes time to get the "there are updates" message. If you do it wrong it tends to take just a few seconds. If you do it right it takes a minute or more (at least for me). In addition, I did not have to trick it the second time. Once the update train started rolling it just kept going. My update download of Mango is at 99%!

I gave it a try. I am either not doing it right, or this will not work with my Windows Phone 7 Connector for Mac. I can't use Zune for obvious reasons. I guess I can try to boot over to windows and see if I can get it going that way.

The network trick only took me up through the first update of 7390; it doesn't prompt me for further updates. I guess I'm not one of the first 10% who are scheduled to see the update in the first week.

Mango'd

Kurrelgyre wrote:

The network trick only took me up through the first update of 7390; it doesn't prompt me for further updates. I guess I'm not one of the first 10% who are scheduled to see the update in the first week.

Repeat the network tick again. I had to do so to get my phone all the way updated.

Damn, this update is really, really slick.

I haven't heard of anyone even trying it for mac.

My update is finished so now I'm playing. One of the things I'm hopeful for is tethering but I can neither find it or find much information on it. Of course I also cant find anything on using QR codes either.

I finished the update and I guess I don't notice the difference. Obviously since the UI is the same it is more of an under the hood thing but I should go read up on what the features are I should be looking for.

EvilHomer3k wrote:

Of course I also cant find anything on using QR codes either.

Like, how to scan them? Search button, then the little eye icon. That'll let you do a visual search with the camera, which will include QR codes.

ClockworkHouse wrote:
EvilHomer3k wrote:

Of course I also cant find anything on using QR codes either.

Like, how to scan them? Search button, then the little eye icon. That'll let you do a visual search with the camera, which will include QR codes.

Thanks. The scan text feature is pretty awesome. You can scan text and then do a search based on it or translate it. The qr code reader seems a bit fiddly. It had trouble reading a code off of my monitor screen.

I really like the way threaded email is handled now. You can see all the replies together and deal with them as a whole. Very nice.

The mapping is much improved. I like how they've integrated a lot of the functionality of apps like 4 square and 4th and Mayor into the maps. It is well organized as well. If you zoom in enough on the map it automatically switches to the aerial photo. Very slick.

I really love the Local Scout feature.

Also, notification of Facebook and Twitter responses on the personal live tile? That's wonderful. (And the notifications thread within, of course.)

farley3k wrote:

I finished the update and I guess I don't notice the difference. Obviously since the UI is the same it is more of an under the hood thing but I should go read up on what the features are I should be looking for.

What version number did you end at? It might not be the final Mango.

Why did no one tell me that I could use the search just like Shazam?

WPCentral Forum thread on mango features.

EvilHomer3k wrote:

Why did no one tell me that I could use the search just like Shazam?

That's one of the features I've been most looking forward to. It's faster than Shazam, and it doesn't cost money for more than five tags a month.

Kurrelgyre wrote:

What version number did you end at? It might not be the final Mango.

Mine is 7720 using the NIC trick.

ClockworkHouse wrote:
EvilHomer3k wrote:

Why did no one tell me that I could use the search just like Shazam?

That's one of the features I've been most looking forward to. It's faster than Shazam, and it doesn't cost money for more than five tags a month.

Kurrelgyre wrote:

What version number did you end at? It might not be the final Mango.

Mine is 7720 using the NIC trick.

Too bad the tags are not saved in history. One of the things I liked about Shazam was that it would save the tag in it's history.

I am at 7720 as well.

EvilHomer3k wrote:

Too bad the tags are not saved in history. One of the things I liked about Shazam was that it would save the tag in it's history.

They are. On the search screen, tap the ... in the corner. That will pull up a menu with your music history on it.

Another nice little touch: when playing music, the controls now show up on the lock screen automatically, so you don't need to hit the volume button first before you can access them.

ClockworkHouse wrote:
EvilHomer3k wrote:

Too bad the tags are not saved in history. One of the things I liked about Shazam was that it would save the tag in it's history.

They are. On the search screen, tap the ... in the corner. That will pull up a menu with your music history on it.

Cool. Thanks. For the visual search there's a dedicated history button. Bye, bye, shazam.

With the new update I am finding all kinds of apps I no longer require. I'm surprised they haven't figured out how to bake the weather into the map system yet.

I wish Nokia would hurry up and release their Windows Phone(s).

I'm ready to upgrade at any time, yet with iPhne 5 info coming next week and the complete lack of any new WinPhone7s on Verizon, I find myself holding off.

Looks like my phone was still "Walshed" since I hadn't repaired all of the installed keyboard languages, instead only repairing the active one. With the disconnect trick, Zune's applying the updates now.

Edit: It can finally connect to my WPA2-AES network properly.