Develop Bugs

Bugs in TouchFlo & missing items

Going from a TyTnII to a Touch Pro 2 a few bug & short comings become obvious in the TouchFlo interface.
Home
The Date is only in US format, it ignores the region settings on the device
The alarm frequently doesn’t go off
The region settings if you change home city around midnight it will show day for original home city as yesterday but not as tomorrow
The calendar only shows today & tomorrow, the is no way to change this to the next 3 – 5 – 7 days
You can’t add tasks or anything else to the list
People
It’s fiddly to thumb through the contacts without accidently selecting one, & the side images are very fiddly
Go to All People find someone, select a number call them, but no answer. Go back to get another number & you have to start all over again, rather than still being on the same contact or even that same place in the list
Messages
It takes too long (5 seconds) for a message to change to read. Sending a contact by 3G it goes as MMS not SMS which it does when working just in Windows 6.1
If it’s a long message you can’t scroll up / down
The tab to enable the predictive 4 words is missing, only being enabled in the registry, possibly related but full querty keeps changing to a numbers only keypad or HKLM\Software\Tegic\eT9\Ime.change CurrentET9Style from 0 to 1
Internet
Once active it doesn’t time out after any time. Hence opening you up to extra data charges & lower battery life
(If you want to stop it auto connecting, just put a user name but now password in the connections setting)
Calendar
No week view
Music
Takes a long time to load
No ABC list at side (as in contacts) with 5GB of music it’s a lot of scrolling
Library only shows those on Device unless you change it in WMP.
Camera
Why isn’t the 5 MP like the touch HD?
Why isn’t the GPS location enabled to start, rather than having to go into the registry
Stocks
I don’t know as I don’t do them
Settings
This looks better in 2.5
Buttons
Only one can be remapped – I use Phone button long hold to get into Windows 6.1
A number of games, while in the game could be remapped for left right turn fire
Software
Record isn’t there – so no more voice memos / call record mid call
Also there wasn’t a radio, but thanks to http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=521356 there is & it even has RDS, but more than 6 memories would be nice.
Even if it has a radio it still needs TMC for the traffic update in the CoPilot 7 GPS
Why when you upgrade 6.0 to 6.1 & I guess to 6.5 the whole device gets wiped, you have to load all the software again and there is no way of keeping scores or levels.
I had a TREO & the software took a normal back up, then apply that to a replacement & you can’t see the difference. Why can’t Windows backup do this?

Voice Recorder & Radio : it all depends on where you get your device. Mine comes with both.
Upgrade ROM wipes everything : that has always been the case with Pocket PC, not just with wm6

Wow, that's a long rant. But a lot of the stuff can be addressed or will be in the next revision of TF3D.
cjatcti said:
The Date is only in US format, it ignores the region settings on the device
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Click to collapse
You can change the date format with Advanced Config tool.
cjatcti said:
The region settings if you change home city around midnight it will show day for original home city as yesterday but not as tomorrow
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Click to collapse
This is a little weak. You're deliberately doing something that a normal person would not normally do just to try to trick the device. I'm not buying this rant.
cjatcti said:
The calendar only shows today & tomorrow, the is no way to change this to the next 3 – 5 – 7 days
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Click to collapse
Really should search for such a common issue.
cjatcti said:
You can’t add tasks or anything else to the list
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Click to collapse
You can use Manila Today.
cjatcti said:
It’s fiddly to thumb through the contacts without accidently selecting one, & the side images are very fiddly
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This will be fixed with Manila v2.5
cjatcti said:
Go to All People find someone, select a number call them, but no answer. Go back to get another number & you have to start all over again, rather than still being on the same contact or even that same place in the list
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Use the phone app. IMHO, it's not as flashy but faster to search for a name in the phone app. Just type the person's name either with the dialpad or slideout keyboard.
cjatcti said:
Once active it doesn’t time out after any time. Hence opening you up to extra data charges & lower battery life
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Click to collapse
Opera does time out on me quite a bit. If it takes too long to read from a site, it gives the 500 error timeout. Anyway, you can choose to completely kill Opera from your running programs. Search for it if it really bothers you. I think someone from the Topaz forum figured it out.
cjatcti said:
No week view
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Fixed in Manila v2.5
cjatcti said:
Takes a long time to load
No ABC list at side (as in contacts) with 5GB of music it’s a lot of scrolling
Library only shows those on Device unless you change it in WMP.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have quite a bit of music on my SD card and it doesn't take an annoyingly amount of time to load. Besides, when it's loading, your device is still very much functional.
There should be a search function to find a particular song. But I think it fine as long as all your music are tagged appropriately so that you can search via album or artist.
The library shows all music in your SD card and in your My Music folder in main memory. I don't see anything wrong with this setup. Where else would you want the library to look?
cjatcti said:
Record isn’t there – so no more voice memos / call record mid call
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Record is still there. It just no longer has a dedicated program link. Just go to Notes. Go to menu-view recording toolbar.
cjatcti said:
Why when you upgrade 6.0 to 6.1 & I guess to 6.5 the whole device gets wiped, you have to load all the software again and there is no way of keeping scores or levels.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This a little annoying. But I take this as an opportunity to clean out my device. I put organize all files into their respective folders, decide whether or not a particular app is useful enough to be reinstalled, etc.

Thank you for the reply & the links, I wasn’t trying to rant, just list the easily fixable short comings in one place & possibly HTC might get them fixed in a future release. I know it can be fun tinkering to improve, but I believe it should work out of the box.
Kitchens should be for extras

Time Zone Bug in the touch flow interface.
To avoid Outlook moving the times of my flights as the time zones change, I tell the phone not to auto update time zone & just change the time in my home town.
So when I arrived in Poland, I set my home town Cheltenham time on an hour. Later I discovered that the Phone had added GMT +1 Berlin & ignored the Warszawa time zone I had set.
When I came back to the US, turned on my phone looked later & it was asking me to select a city.
1) The problem with Outlook changing appointment times to suit time zones is just plane wrong.
2) Yet again Touch flow ignores a windows interface setting
3) It should at least ask you if it wants to change
4) It should look to see if you have a city in country you are in already selected instead of just adding more World Clock entries

you are saying that the week view is fixed in 2.5? is this out now or coming soon?
ty

frozenbutt said:
you are saying that the week view is fixed in 2.5? is this out now or coming soon?
ty
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Of course, not officially released by HTC yet. But then, Windows Mobile 6.5 isn't officially released either and that didn't stop people from getting it on our devices...

Slowliness of Sense in teh handling of SMS & Contacts

I may be kind f an exception and probably very few people are in my case, however I'd like to know if anybody has fuond a solution
I have more than 1,000 contacts and over 15,000 SMS. Yeah I know it's a lot but I dotn wnat to archive my SMS and I need my contacts
It was very well handled on my Hermes with Manilla 2D (Everything was quick, responsive, etc...)
With Sense, from the original one with Win 6.1 at delivery of the phone, up to Sense 2.1 and now 2.5 every upgrade has made the management of contacts and SMS slower and slower (To the extent I sometimes have to wait a minute obetween 2 operation, it's just laughable for all friends who have iphones, Nokias, etc...)
Simply put, whenever leaving a conversation within my SMS list (hitting the back button in Win 6.5.3) I have to wait a looong time. Similarly when leaving a contact and going back to the main list or clicking on a contact in the main list. When viewing a contact, clicking on the tab for conversations is also really really slow
I guess it has a lot to do with the integration at the contacts level of the different elements (Facebook, conversations, etc...) an dif I had to take a bet it would be the link to SMSs
It's making me all the more pissed off that old Manilla versions work perfectly and handle thsi very smoothly
So my question are:
1. has someone found a way to speed up the SMS application (or using another SMS application that is faster, typically the "Good old one" from pevious Manilla versions ?
2. Is there somewhere a cache or a buffer that I could increase allowing a smoother operation of the SMS application
3. Has someone managed to disable the tab (or the link) pointing on a contact to the conversations with this contact ?
Thanks a lot for your ideas & suggestions

Seriously? You NEED to keep 15,000 SMS? Just get a grip and delete them. You'd be amazed at the performance gains from just that.

KevinACrider said:
Seriously? You NEED to keep 15,000 SMS? Just get a grip and delete them. You'd be amazed at the performance gains from just that.
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I do not doubt it will be faster but I'd like to keep them
My poiunt is wioth WM6.1 and Manilla 2D it was impressively FAST on an old Hermes !

this is just a problem with win 6.5 ive been battling this for a while now. it seems its something to do with the threading and the way it indexes through the messages. if you disable threaded messages, there is no doubt you problem will go away. the problem seems to get worse with the more messages you have.

Jeyo mobile extender
Use Jeyo Mobile Extender for Windows Outlook and save all the sms on your pc. Keep less than 100o on your WM device and enjoy.
Jeyo helps you to see them date wise, sorted and sending from PC itself.

dineshh said:
Use Jeyo Mobile Extender for Windows Outlook and save all the sms on your pc. Keep less than 100o on your WM device and enjoy.
Jeyo helps you to see them date wise, sorted and sending from PC itself.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I dont wanna give up having them on my phone
Especially since my old HTC handles them properly

The Sense 2.5 Messaging app is slow even when you have very few (like 15)text messages from a single contact. When I reply to someboday it takes like 5 or more seconds depending on the number of messages just for the input box to take focus. The speed of the HTC text messaging app is pretty unbearable, to the point that I don't event like to text messaging that much anymore b/c of it's slowness.

ScubaSteve20001 said:
The Sense 2.5 Messaging app is slow even when you have very few (like 15)text messages from a single contact. When I reply to someboday it takes like 5 or more seconds depending on the number of messages just for the input box to take focus. The speed of the HTC text messaging app is pretty unbearable, to the point that I don't event like to text messaging that much anymore b/c of it's slowness.
Click to expand...
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It's actually with a ROM including the previous SMS client
But eyah anyway HTC has lots of work to do...

I really understand this problem becouse i also stryggel with it. My TyTn2 is alot faster and my TP2 and that is unacceptible i think.
Im totaly new in to this ROM flashing and is running original HTC 6.5 ROM. So my question is: will i overcome this problem with a flashed ROM or does these ROM just change the interface/looks on the phone or do they fix this root of the problem that is driving me totaly mad... My TyTn2 kicks ass over my TP2 in preformance. And i cant understand that out from the hardware specs... Even if i Run no Sens/Manilla(?!) an onely SPB mobile shell om mboth phones TyTn2 still kicks ass.
My TP 2 hav with Sense driving a memory use of 85-95% with no other programs running.

dzwacki said:
this is just a problem with win 6.5 ive been battling this for a while now. it seems its something to do with the threading and the way it indexes through the messages. if you disable threaded messages, there is no doubt you problem will go away. the problem seems to get worse with the more messages you have.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes agreed. It happened for me only on Win 6.5 and it seems to be re-indexing the whole conversation everytime (I was away on holidays, did a few tests and came back with the same conclusion)
By disabling the threaded SMS I solved the problme (And it handles very smoothly my 20,000 SMSs...)

hilux38 said:
I really understand this problem becouse i also stryggel with it. My TyTn2 is alot faster and my TP2 and that is unacceptible i think.
Im totaly new in to this ROM flashing and is running original HTC 6.5 ROM. So my question is: will i overcome this problem with a flashed ROM or does these ROM just change the interface/looks on the phone or do they fix this root of the problem that is driving me totaly mad... My TyTn2 kicks ass over my TP2 in preformance. And i cant understand that out from the hardware specs... Even if i Run no Sens/Manilla(?!) an onely SPB mobile shell om mboth phones TyTn2 still kicks ass.
My TP 2 hav with Sense driving a memory use of 85-95% with no other programs running.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I agree "Unacceptable" is the word that comes first to my mind (and very surprised not to see more threads about this)
It seems to be a WM 6.5 issue (I tried without Sense and I have the same issue). WM 6.1 was working perfectly for me
It might be an option somewhere in the registry. I will see if I can find it (Although I doubt it...)
That said it seems to get better with time, so I suppose it's rebuilding one way or the other the indexation bit by bit while you click on a conversation (It may very simply be that PIM backup doesn't save all the necessary information (which is normal since was created before threaded SMS clients were created) and WM 6.5 doesn't handle this as smoothly as WM6.1 did)

Lats complain (And for this I really don't know what's up, maybe it's linked to the SMS issue, since everything is linked on the contact page): opening a contact takes ages (When you have lots of them), and going back to the list of contacts from teh contact view takes... even longer
When I say ages I mean a minute or more

Totally was just going to post a thread similar to this. You simply beat me to it Yeah I noticed that for the Sense 2.1, when you go to the "messaging" tab it will say messaging but it will take like a minute to load the most recent message you received. I remember 6.1 it was instantaneous. I disabled the TF3D messaging to that it just has the windows threaded messaging but the loading time is still the same. Same goes for the contacts tab.

Look at my last post on this thread. Might be the same issue I had...
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=594249

I managed to live with the SMS issue (It's getting better over time... Just dont ask me why...)
Can't live with the contact slowlyness...

Alcibiade said:
I managed to live with the SMS issue (It's getting better over time... Just dont ask me why...)
Can't live with the contact slowlyness...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I had to cut down my contact list that syncs to the phone to around 4500 (from the 6800 that I want to use). It's sluggish but acceptable. I keep an old Treo 650 in my car with the full contact list for when I need to do a lookup.
My wishlist is about ActiveSync - I wish it was faster. It takes about an hour to reload my (reduced) contact list, and if I don't keep it under 4500 it gets exponentially slower for every contact over that.

rouxdoo said:
I had to cut down my contact list that syncs to the phone to around 4500 (from the 6800 that I want to use). It's sluggish but acceptable. I keep an old Treo 650 in my car with the full contact list for when I need to do a lookup.
My wishlist is about ActiveSync - I wish it was faster. It takes about an hour to reload my (reduced) contact list, and if I don't keep it under 4500 it gets exponentially slower for every contact over that.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have only 1,100... Yes Activesync is slow like hell. BUT opening contacts or coming back to the main list from an opened contact is incredibly slow. More than annoying... It makes it unmanageable
I am not sure it's linked to the number of contacts though
What really sucks is old version of HTC's software dont have these shortcomings...

SMS-like or SMS replacement software options

My wife and I both now have WM phones (mine is a Tilt 2, hers a Pure) and we don't want to spend money on text messages to each other, since each text message would count twice... once for her receiving and once for me sending. (on a pay per use plan it would be $0.40 each!).
I was looking for other options. Push email is o.k. but often times there can be a minute or more delay, and my early tests of push gmail are not producing any confidence that it would push reliably.
So then I was thinking IM. It looks like IM programs would be battery hogs, and have to stay running in the background, and could easily be accidentally closed. Also, when the phone goes to sleep it seems like they then switch you to "offline".
So am I missing something? What are my sms like, non sms options?
Also does anyone have any small programs that would set up a auto-soft reset on a repeating schedule, it would be great if I could start the morning with a fresh phone. Thanks.

boufa said:
My wife and I both now have WM phones (mine is a Tilt 2, hers a Pure) and we don't want to spend money on text messages to each other, since each text message would count twice... once for her receiving and once for me sending. (on a pay per use plan it would be $0.40 each!).
I was looking for other options. Push email is o.k. but often times there can be a minute or more delay, and my early tests of push gmail are not producing any confidence that it would push reliably.
So then I was thinking IM. It looks like IM programs would be battery hogs, and have to stay running in the background, and could easily be accidentally closed. Also, when the phone goes to sleep it seems like they then switch you to "offline".
So am I missing something? What are my sms like, non sms options?
Also does anyone have any small programs that would set up a auto-soft reset on a repeating schedule, it would be great if I could start the morning with a fresh phone. Thanks.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, any non-sms messaging app for your phone would obviously use data (3G or EDGE connection) to communicate, and would need to be left on all the time to be able to receive incoming messages and notify you in real-time...so battery drain would be in direct proportion to that.
The best solution I've ever seen for that is Palringo, a free IM-integrator app that can connect you through most of the common IM networks (yahoo, AIM, Google talk, etc), or just direct through it's own (if I remember correctly)...meaning that as long as you and she both have the palringo client installed, you don't necessarily have to use any of those services to be able to IM each other. It's also free, and I seem to recall that it can be set (but isn't by default) to stay connected even when the phone goes to sleep, but don't quote me on that part.

It would be great if one of these programs had a "listening" service that would run in the background and then notify you of the "call" similar to an email.
I have seen a few online, (my research has just begun) that indicates "push notifications". Sound interesting, the data connection would remain active all the time that does not bother me.
I seem to have lost the setting to switch the "x" button from close to minimize. That would solve the issue with accidental closing the program. It would have to be managed via the task manager.. no biggy.. and then if I can find a soft reset scheduler it would keep the open programs from overwhelming the phone.

boufa said:
It would be great if one of these programs had a "listening" service that would run in the background and then notify you of the "call" similar to an email.
I have seen a few online, (my research has just begun) that indicates "push notifications". Sound interesting, the data connection would remain active all the time that does not bother me.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you'll find one, please let me know
lost the setting to switch the "x" button from close to minimize.
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Click to collapse
it's the other way around. default for winmo is minimize, there is
an htc bundled app called taskman. it's in settings - task manager which is making apps close when you click X
plenty of other apps can change that too
and then if I can find a soft reset scheduler it would keep the open programs from overwhelming the phone.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i made myself app doing change on backlight settings every morning and evening, I changed it for you to do reset
give it a try tell me if it's working for you and if error will pop up let me know what's it saying, at least line number

SMS/MMS Texting lag

I don't know either its my phone that lags or the rom, but recently after installing Energy rom, going into sms mode to send a text to someone takes at least 10 seconds. Is there a fix for this? Or is it my phone's problem

I've read that it's got something to do with WinMo 6.5. I don't have in depth knowledge of the topic myself. All I can tell you from my personal experience is that I've seen the same lag ever since I got off of the stock Sprint 6.1 ROM. (Been using variations of MightyRom ever since). It aggravates the hell out of me.
I bought this phone because, at the time, it was the best Windows Mobile phone on the market. If this was the best, I'd hate to see the worst. It doesn't even do simple BS like SMS as well as my old throw-away LG dumbphone did. Don't even get me started on the lagginess, freeze-ups and other pains of the 'advanced' functions...

Yeah with my TP2 whenever I open a text convo, do my thing, then exit.. it takes atleast 10-15 seconds to un-freeze into the All Messages window.. tried clearing the ram, but still nothing..

This is horrible! I recently started having this problem, if you have a really long text message conversation, the phone becomes completely un******* usable. I threw mine out the window of my truck today I was so aggravated. Mine has gotten to the point that you have to pull the battery out, or wait 5-10 minutes after you close out the text messaging thread. I'm getting an Evo - I really want to stay on TP2 but if I cant even text message, this phone/winmo 6.5 is totally junk. I'm hoping someone has a fix or tweak for this.

The only solution is to purge your messages, Arcsoft likes to load up all the messages before allowing you to do anything, sucking up alot of RAM and CPU, so less messages = less work, you could also try the classic text messaging (non threaded), the new overclock app kinda helps with this stuff. And the HTC messaging client as a last resort. the structure of the app is different and it doesnt take quite as long to load the messages, and it unloads itself much quicker than arcsoft in my experience.

I try to not to keep any SMS older than 2 weeks. I'm not one of these SMS crack-junkies that likes to keep 20k messages on their phone. I only regularly text maybe 4-5 people, so I never have more than a couple hundred messages on my phone at any given time.
I'd actually delete them sooner, but there's no decent app to purge based on message age. SMSPurger is a slow, buggy piece of junk, and nobody else seems to have written an alternative.
That brings me back to my old LG phone. It had a function where it would auto delete the oldest message once the combined sent/received list hit 300(?) messages. New message comes in, oldest one gets deleted. Why is it my WinMo superphone can't do something this simple?

If the issue is that you want an auto delete program, then the reasoning is that No one like to develop for WinMo, and the SMS has kind of always been an issue on the Professional Version, I had no problems with the SMS on my first WinMo device, the Moto Q9h (kinda miss it). I have had SMS issues on all 4 of my PPCs LG CT810 (incite) hTC Raphael (Touch Pro), Rhodium 210 (Touch Pro 2) and Rhodium 300 (Tilt 2). Best solution I have had, purchase Sms-chat if you really like your texting, It was lag free, and worked 100%, the only thing that I didnt like was the cheesy iPhone rip off. The main reason I still get WinMo is because I HATE apple. - but anyway, your issue is suffered by many, and it might take a while to solve.

hi
Just install the fix from this thread:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=664915
I did it and it solved problems with sms in manila 2.5- no need to purge or delete long conversations.

Mango messaging... the downside

The mango messaging system seems nice and all, but I really wonder why they did not keep it seperated.
I had my doubts and than I read this article http://wmpoweruser.com/mango-and-messaging-we-have-a-problem/ which sums up some more issues.
Basically my biggest problem is that we send more important stuff trough SMS it has a much higher value than an IM. So whenever somebody smsses an adress, i will need to scroll trough 100s of IMs which I can not clear since the address is still there in one of those messages.
Second: the media are different, you can not expect the other user to switch to FB chat to MSN than to sms because I want to change service, this still incorporate 3 different media for the majority of the users namely a WL desktop client, facebook webpage and a phone for regular texting (which also costs money so people will use it differently)
Third, we used msn when we were 12, now nobody uses it in my country but I would like to use FB chat... This is not possible, you can only switch off FB chat or switch off both. So the whole feature will be useless if I dont want to use msn/windows live messenger.
Notifications: what if smsses are inportant but IMs not, hopefully I will be able to receive a toast ONLY with sms messages and just let the IMs slide. Imagine receiving 100 messages every 10 minutes it will drive you nuts. And here comes the next problem when there is an important sms inbetween you dont know who send it, because if you open up messages they all look the same so you dont know who texted you (important) or has send you and im (which has less priority).
I wish they can make a new tab for the im conversations or atleast filter the thread down on ALL / SMS / IM. As it is now, it will be nice for kids but if you are 16+ it will become a major pain to find what is important and what is just spam.
The system right now is shortsighted and of poor value. an implementation like blackberry's is better. SMS is a different system, mail is a different system, IM is as well, you all respond differently on each one of them. It should be possible to mannage each seperately. Now ill have to be always offline and rely on third party just to im trough FB which kills the use of this native feature, but SMS messages are just to important to blend with the IMs.

This is all speculation to be fair, they have beta testers so if there are issues with notifications they will probably be aware of these. I'm happy to use a separate messaging client and keep my messaging hub for sms only as long as WLM is allowed again in IM+ and others. That would just make things easy.
On a side note people should stop complaining that nobody uses WLM, enough with that, it's the most used IM client in the world!
I'm not 12 andstill this is my number one choice for IM as I barely use my facebook account and it has integrated facebook chat anyway.

fair (and while I wrote the article)
one major issue with being in a beta of anything is that it takes time for testing and that's huge. I mean looking at Adam Lein and others, the sms interface was a bit bare and naked - save from the actual threaded view.
In nodo, we have seen the issue of some lag in the SMS window (not nearly as bad as windows mobile, but still very noticeable) and there needs to be some richer options for recall, optimization and trash collection.
I love the idea for having a central messaging hub that integrates the services I use most (microsoft specifically). I still use MSN and it's my favorite messaging tool (I used yahoo early in college, and AIM in high school) so I use MSN a lot.
The notification I don't feel is a huge issue (as Eldar contends). There are far more bigger problems with the SMS view from a variety of different contexts. All in all, there may be a big problem. I doubt it will be solved till Apollo but that is definitely a worse case scenario.
I mean yes, the sms lag is better in nodo, but not by much

One thing to note, if you dont want to use WLM or Facebook chat just change the method of communication to SMS. There is absolutely nothing forcing you to send IM's if YOU dont want to, its only there as a convenience to WP7 users so you can continue your conversation across the different mediums seamlessly. Just because someone is online on Facebook chat or WLM doesnt mean you cant just send an SMS if that is your preference.

efjay said:
One thing to note, if you dont want to use WLM or Facebook chat just change the method of communication to SMS. There is absolutely nothing forcing you to send IM's if YOU dont want to, its only there as a convenience to WP7 users so you can continue your conversation across the different mediums seamlessly. Just because someone is online on Facebook chat or WLM doesnt mean you cant just send an SMS if that is your preference.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I know. Thats not the problem. But it will render the built in IM useless if disabled.
The problem is the communication trough SMS is totally different than the communication trough IM. Which will occur on different devices still for the majority out there. An SMS to me is still a high priority thing in some cases, if you want to make an appointment it works fine trough sms, however if its cluttered with all IM's from other users and stuff Im afraid one can easily get lost in the received messages and not find the IM of the appointment when looking for it or trying to find it again after you have read it.
Having IMs seperated (which are in general sended way more frequently with less important stuff than SMS) would be better because now the user can decide to use the built in IM and keep it seperated from the SMS OR mix them in a thread if he/she desires. But one will still have the advantage of starting an IM out of the people hub.
Also I know you dont have to use it, I've seen all the demo's and read about it. But the thing is what if I want to use it but just Facebook and what if I still want to see my SMS messages seperated. Using just FB chat is not possible atm, it will also pull up your WLM contacts, it would be totally cool if I could set MSN status as offline and FB status as online, but as it looks right now its only possible the other way around...
To explain the problem in more detail
Picture this: you have the device in your pocket, its fine if people want to contact me trough Facebook, but if somebody sends me an SMS with the appointmet and half an hour later starts talking to me on FB chat (because he/she is on FB than), I check my phone and the SMS with the appointment has sunk all the way down since there have been 10 new IM's from this person.
Its easy to lose/forget the valuable information if you can not check your phone every minute.
Dont get me wrong, its a feature with great potential but as of now, it will need more control over the different services (individual statusses per service) and some way to filter out the SMS messages and hide the IM or vica versa.
This feature will benefit a lot more when it would also be possible for whatapp to be integrated, which resembles the SMS a lot better than IM.

Maybe Microsoft could add a filter option? For example, when the SMS filter is toggled it would only show text messages as well send only text messages .

@Marvin_S: You could come across the same situation if you get a lot of SMS's as well, same as with email. I see your point but making them separate just makes it messier, having to switch back and forth to send messages and having to determine where a new message is. If you start adding separate notifications for each protocol then it becomes even more complex to implement and manage.
Much easier to have all the messages on one screen and you can easily just scroll to find what you want and not have to try and figure out by which method the message was delivered.

SMS isn't just for important conversations. There is a reason why people run through thousands of SMS in a month nowadays, and its not because they are really important. Its because people use SMS the same way they use IM, to chat.
If you are getting something really important in an SMS (like an appointment), it might make sense to copy it over into a task or your calendar.

nice work !http://media.xda-developers.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif

Why would it make anything messier? It should be optional ofcourse, so it will only help those who will need to keep it organised.
Well SMS and IM are very different. That some of us use it the same way is a choice of course, just like some people chose to use it as different media to communicate.
You can NOT receive IM's if you dont want to receive it (OFFLINE) and the other party will not be able to send you one, while with SMS it will be sent whenever somebody desires and will be read whenever the reader has the time (always delivered --> higher priority/value).
This for me is a fundamental difference and makes SMS more reliable for appointments or letting somebody know where you are on the go.
And I just wondered why MS chose to do it this way, while all the other platforms have these forms of communication seperated.
I can see this having a good and a bad side, maybe I worry too much about the negative aspect, but it can be solved easily by providing us with some more settings to have more control over how we want to receive our IM's and Texts.
Like sheltem said a switch or a pivot with All/IM/Text will make it simple for the user to narrow its search down. And maybe defaulting it to All (like email, All/unread/flag) and having the same interface to delete IM's and texts will be great.
I have faith MS will come up with a solution which will satisfy both parties and I have full faith that they will...

thank god I didn't have to reiterate my position ad nauseum
I've been doing that since the article has been written and while I don't mind spirited debate of how windows phone is versus how it could be, it's like many users sorta either focused on Eldar's contentions, the notification, or the sms window and not the total sums of each argument.
As I said before, for us, geeks, there may not be much of an issue. But consider who/what microsoft is trying to target - everyone else. Place yourself in their shoes, and of course it can lead to some frustration and some easy mistakes from users thinking hey I sent it this way when in fact it came in another way - EVEN WITH THE TEXT/FACEBOOK option open.
I don't think there is anything wrong with an extra swipe gesture to switch mode of communication. It is almost the same thing microsoft is doing, but instead of it being in the menu setting, it is in the face of the user. And sometimes, that makes all of the difference.
I'm not knocking the idea or the service, but asking everyone to consider how people without windows phone may view it. And that empathy is important for Microsoft to make it a success. So it's not a knock at Microsoft or their intentions.

domineus said:
thank god I didn't have to reiterate my position ad nauseum
I've been doing that since the article has been written and while I don't mind spirited debate of how windows phone is versus how it could be, it's like many users sorta either focused on Eldar's contentions, the notification, or the sms window and not the total sums of each argument.
As I said before, for us, geeks, there may not be much of an issue. But consider who/what microsoft is trying to target - everyone else. Place yourself in their shoes, and of course it can lead to some frustration and some easy mistakes from users thinking hey I sent it this way when in fact it came in another way - EVEN WITH THE TEXT/FACEBOOK option open.
I don't think there is anything wrong with an extra swipe gesture to switch mode of communication. It is almost the same thing microsoft is doing, but instead of it being in the menu setting, it is in the face of the user. And sometimes, that makes all of the difference.
I'm not knocking the idea or the service, but asking everyone to consider how people without windows phone may view it. And that empathy is important for Microsoft to make it a success. So it's not a knock at Microsoft or their intentions.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Exactly... this is how the a standard user will use it:
Im running late, hurrying to get to the station on time. Ill text my friends "hey Im on my way to the station" but he left his computer on with his FB account and the message will get send to his FB account because I forget to switch to SMS mode... I think I sended the message just fine, but sended it trough FB instead of text. Of course there is this status text saying FB, but still.
It might sound really stupid and exaggerated, but I can assure you this will happen and it will be annoying to constantly switch back to SMS if you do really have to SMS. Having a seperate click in the people hub for sent IM, sent SMS, or a pivot in the messaging hub will totally rule out these errors.
But this is ofcourse the downside... and hopefully they come up with something smart and think a bit outside of the box. The system has great potential, no doubt.

Marvin_S said:
Exactly... this is how the a standard user will use it:
Im running late, hurrying to get to the station on time. Ill text my friends "hey Im on my way to the station" but he left his computer on with his FB account and the message will get send to his FB account because I forget to switch to SMS mode... I think I sended the message just fine, but sended it trough FB instead of text. Of course there is this status text saying FB, but still.
It might sound really stupid and exaggerated, but I can assure you this will happen and it will be annoying to constantly switch back to SMS if you do really have to SMS. Having a seperate click in the people hub for sent IM, sent SMS, or a pivot in the messaging hub will totally rule out these errors.
But this is ofcourse the downside... and hopefully they come up with something smart and think a bit outside of the box. The system has great potential, no doubt.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I know personally even though it says the service in a tiny font, I'll cry foul because of user error. Microsoft's main goal is to sorta cease some consensual user error not increase it. There are a variety of ideas to kick around
One comment noted a notification system in the messaging hub that indicates where the user messaged you at (like the notifications portion of the people hub) in conjunction with the swipe/pivot gestures to make a fairly good solution of which service the notification is coming from and keeping it organized.
Adding to that paradigm, I can still see how the initial chat window serves a function, as a unified way the person contacted you recently. And I have to be honest, that would be really a great and refined method of implementing a submessaging system full of notification and a clean user experience.
But to ask
does a swipe really complicate the user more than a tap setting>mode>switch service to (sms/facebook/msn)
I'm sorry, I don't see how a pivot is less complex than the system that is in mango already. replacing the finger taps for one or two pivots...
imho should've posted this write up on xda

Well the thing is MS has its vision of having everything related into a horzontal scrolling panorama. Which is absolutely great.
And they want you to use the settings menu as less as possible, so in this case yeah this switch setting (which I will be using frequently) will be more annoying since its click select close than type. While the pivot swiping to the right will get you into sms directly and the user will always stay in the same "level" or layer.
And it follows the consistency of the system this way.
You will have all the options with 1 just one pivot menu:
All (which is the way it works right now) / SMS / IM / Online
if you are on all, its the threaded view with default reply option as it is now. When swipe to the right it filters the messages down to sms only with reply as SMS.
Im the same but than reply as IM.

actally that too is a good point
Microsoft has made a unified design experience focusing on pivots and wipes with metro. The idea of tapping through settings is sadly reminescent of apple and android; somethign I don't really want to go back to anytime soon

Marvin_S said:
Exactly... this is how the a standard user will use it:
Im running late, hurrying to get to the station on time. Ill text my friends "hey Im on my way to the station" but he left his computer on with his FB account and the message will get send to his FB account because I forget to switch to SMS mode... I think I sended the message just fine, but sended it trough FB instead of text. Of course there is this status text saying FB, but still.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I agree that there is the potential for a problem here. Ideally, the facebook connection would be detected as idle and the OS would choose the fallback method of SMS. I haven't used it so I can't say for sure how it handles this, I'd hope it is that good. Of course, that still leaves us with the potential for problems in the window that it takes for the user to go from online to idle/away. Not nearly as big of an issue though.
It all comes down to how accurately the software can determine a user's presence. If the OS automatically sends a message via Facebook because it knows the user is actively using Facebook then I don't think there is an issue.

Personally I think ms should just separate the all and using the metro theme, sperste elm, fb chat and SMS. So you just slide. I don't use wlm, and hardly use hotmail there spam filter is awful.
Sent from my 7 Mozart T8698 using XDA Windows Phone 7 App

Actually, hotmaii filters out spam just fine for me. Quite well, actually.
On topic. I think we should wait and see how this works in its entirety. I don't think it's going to be as big of an issue as you guys think it may be.
And, separating the services defeats the purpose of the threaded convo view in the first place.

PG2G said:
SMS isn't just for important conversations. There is a reason why people run through thousands of SMS in a month nowadays, and its not because they are really important. Its because people use SMS the same way they use IM, to chat.
If you are getting something really important in an SMS (like an appointment), it might make sense to copy it over into a task or your calendar.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This.
Seriously. If you got something important to note you probably should learn to write it down or train your working memory to recall the info instead of relying so much on technology.

Marvin_S said:
Exactly... this is how the a standard user will use it:
Im running late, hurrying to get to the station on time. Ill text my friends "hey Im on my way to the station" but he left his computer on with his FB account and the message will get send to his FB account because I forget to switch to SMS mode... I think I sended the message just fine, but sended it trough FB instead of text. Of course there is this status text saying FB, but still.
It might sound really stupid and exaggerated, but I can assure you this will happen and it will be annoying to constantly switch back to SMS if you do really have to SMS. Having a seperate click in the people hub for sent IM, sent SMS, or a pivot in the messaging hub will totally rule out these errors.
But this is ofcourse the downside... and hopefully they come up with something smart and think a bit outside of the box. The system has great potential, no doubt.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hmm, interesting my reasonable response and the response of others would be to hit the line of communication the person would check the most which arguably is a person's self phone.
Too each his own for sure, but I don't think it's out of the norm or rather is the norm that people would message someone on their phone first, especially if going somewhere to meet someone.