RIP Windows Phone

Tuvoc · 3 Feb 2016 at 03:35

Skeeter said:
So we all stand back to let the Windows Phone users have the floor to praise their OS... and they all get stage fright

I think we may have had enough of this thread, I've wasted a lot of time on it already ! I'll briefly mention the glance screen, and the fresh modern look of Windows phone. For example spend some time customising your home screen tiles, layout, sizing, background and transparency settings etc, and it is a thing of absolute beauty. So general look and feel and ease of use. WP also handles Dual SIMS very elegantly. And Windows 10 on my 640XL is superb. My work email and calendar are great in Outlook mail and calendar. Let's see how long it takes I.S. to block that access though and I have to revert to Touchdown on my Moto-G.

Anyway - hard to describe really, Windows phone just does things differently, and I like the way it does everything.

Apple to me looks old and dated, reminds me of Windows 3.1 in a lot of ways where we had icons simply plastered all over our screens and not much else. At least with Android you have widgets and more than one home screen. Lollipop is good let's be clear, no complaints, but I just don't enjoy using it the same way I enjoy Windows phone.

Kenai · 3 Feb 2016 at 05:12

Tuvoc said:
My work email and calendar are great in Outlook mail and calendar.

This is something that really frustrates me. I expected this to be brilliant but it simply does the job and nothing more. My colleagues who are senior enough to get iPhones have access to global address books etc. when writing emails that Windows just won't do, despite it being able to pull all the data from that list when I manually add contacts to the phone.

Windows should be so far ahead with exchange integration but it seems to do the bare minimum, albeit smoothly.

Skeeter · 3 Feb 2016 at 11:03

My work email and calendar were utterly crap on Windows Phone, mainly because it is Office 365!

I had to create a personal Microsoft account to use to log in on the phone and then add my 365 account as a secondary. That is utterly stupid.

You can use a Google Apps for Business account as the primary account on Android.

Tuvoc said:
I think we may have had enough of this thread, I've wasted a lot of time on it already ! I'll briefly mention the glance screen, and the fresh modern look of Windows phone. For example spend some time customising your home screen tiles, layout, sizing, background and transparency settings etc, and it is a thing of absolute beauty. So general look and feel and ease of use. WP also handles Dual SIMS very elegantly. And Windows 10 on my 640XL is superb. My work email and calendar are great in Outlook mail and calendar. Let's see how long it takes I.S. to block that access though and I have to revert to Touchdown on my Moto-G.

Anyway - hard to describe really, Windows phone just does things differently, and I like the way it does everything.

Odd you should say that, given that everything you described can be done on Android in basically the exact same way...

Tuvoc · 3 Feb 2016 at 12:04

Not at all - Glance screen, live tiles ? Android has neither. And the two systems have a totally different look and feel.

Skeeter · 3 Feb 2016 at 12:04

Tuvoc said:
Not at all - Glance screen, live tiles ? Android has neither. And the two systems have a totally different look and feel.

Err, yes it does.

Tuvoc · 3 Feb 2016 at 12:19

I'm referring to Lollipop, I have no experience with anything later. Again, totally different look and feel Windows Phone vs Lollipop is the main thing. I see no live rectangular/square tiles on Android, or any live tiles of any shape assuming you aren't talking about widgets. As for the Glance screen - well Android has something similar I guess.

gareth170 · 3 Feb 2016 at 12:56

i agree it is totally different look and feel Windows Phone vs android and tbh i do prefer the WP UI

on android you can't change the size of the icons, on WP your able to change the size of the titles

Mekrel · 3 Feb 2016 at 13:03

Tuvoc said:
I'm referring to Lollipop, I have no experience with anything later. Again, totally different look and feel Windows Phone vs Lollipop is the main thing. I see no live rectangular/square tiles on Android, or any live tiles of any shape assuming you aren't talking about widgets. As for the Glance screen - well Android has something similar I guess.

Active display was first pioneered by Motorola before Android 5.0 and Google added it to 5.0 with the Nexus 6 launch. Live tiles are basically a poor man's widget though and widgets are far more dynamic than live tiles. Take a news app for example. You can have the news app widget provide either the days top story, a simple list of stories, a scrollable deck of cards or a collage of the top stories from multiple topics.

Live tiles are limited. I have to use a WP for work and the news tile will only display one story, even if I resize the thing.

Skeeter · 3 Feb 2016 at 13:07

Live Tile and Widgets fulfill the same role, active on screen display of information from within an app. Android Widgets are infinitely customizable to do pretty much anything you want (which isn't always a good thing, I must add).

Do Live Tiles still have the restriction on how often they can update? I remember in WP8 HTC were the only people who had a clock live tile that was any good because they got an exception from MS to allow a 1 minute refresh interval, whereas the standard limit was 30 minutes or something?

The 'look and feel' argument is a bit short sighted too, considering WP has one look and feel, while Android has... lots (again, not always a good thing *cough* TouchWiz *cough*).

gareth170 · 3 Feb 2016 at 13:31

Skeeter said:
Do Live Tiles still have the restriction on how often they can update? I remember in WP8 HTC were the only people who had a clock live tile that was any good because they got an exception from MS to allow a 1 minute refresh interval, whereas the standard limit was 30 minutes or something?
.

just installed a live clock title and it seems to updates when i touch the screen

Skeeter · 3 Feb 2016 at 13:50

gareth170 said:
just installed a live clock title and it seems to updates when i touch the screen

The limit was on background updates, I think?

Shoei · 3 Feb 2016 at 14:12

Tuvoc said:
Not at all - Glance screen, live tiles ? Android has neither. And the two systems have a totally different look and feel.

Glance is brilliant, especially when "peep" is enabled. out of pocket, glance turns on. Great. Dont need it as much now as i use a Band 2 with the 640.

AndyCr15 · 3 Feb 2016 at 14:32

gareth170 said:
i agree it is totally different look and feel Windows Phone vs android and tbh i do prefer the WP UI

on android you can't change the size of the icons, on WP your able to change the size of the titles

They are a different look and feel, agreed. I disagree about your second statement though. I can easily change the size of both icons and widgets? Some apps have multiple style of widget, which can then be made larger or smaller to suit.

Skeeter · 3 Feb 2016 at 15:19

Lol, I missed that comment about not being able to change the size of icons or widgets.

You can change the homescreen layout to have as few or as many columns and rows as you like, and then resize widgets to be any size within that (providing they support it, of course).

Just have a look at the Post your Mobile Desktop thread to see the diversity and customisation of Android.

Tuvoc · 3 Feb 2016 at 16:27

I'll check that Mobile Desktop thread. I may well get some ideas for my Moto-G. Even with resizing on Android I still think Windows Phone has a more modern and fresh look. I prefer the look and feel of it. And as Shoei says, the glance screen is excellent.

glenimp617 · 3 Feb 2016 at 16:39

You could tell Microsoft were slowly giving up on their mobile offerings with what happened with sharepoint and onedrive integration. Fantastic on 8, rubbish on 10

Skeeter · 3 Feb 2016 at 16:57

Tuvoc said:
I'll check that Mobile Desktop thread. I may well get some ideas for my Moto-G. Even with resizing on Android I still think Windows Phone has a more modern and fresh look. I prefer the look and feel of it. And as Shoei says, the glance screen is excellent.

kona is pretty good at making Android look sweet.

glen8 said:
You could tell Microsoft were slowly giving up on their mobile offerings with what happened with sharepoint and onedrive integration. Fantastic on 8, rubbish on 10

Thats not just mobile, they borked it on Desktop too.

glenimp617 · 3 Feb 2016 at 17:10

Skeeter said:
Thats not just mobile, they borked it on Desktop too.

That was the ONLY thing I liked about my Lumia, and they took it away :rolleyes:

Tuvoc · 3 Feb 2016 at 17:28

OneDrive is handled differently on 10 than 8, it is surely a matter of opinion if that is better or worse.

gareth170 · 3 Feb 2016 at 17:36

Skeeter said:
Lol, I missed that comment about not being able to change the size of icons or widgets.

You can change the homescreen layout to have as few or as many columns and rows as you like, and then resize widgets to be any size within that (providing they support it, of course).

what i meant was resizing the icons

and anyway it's a personally choice. some will say i like X because it's XYZ, where others will say no i like Y because it's XYZ

theres no right or wrong, it's the same for everything in life.

it'll always be like this