Mango Beta Review - Windows Phone 7 General

So I am going to try to avoid talking at length about things already mentioned in press reviews unless its super relevant, I really just want to focus on my experience using the Mango beta.
Good things.
It’s freaking fast. Generally moving around the OS is noticeably quicker, not only due the actual speed of transitions, but also I think things have been rearranged so you are able to do what you need to more efficiently. Things are just organized better, e.g. search in the apps list.
Visual voicemail is simple and works (after a quick call to my carrier to turn it on from their end.) It looks like the screen where you choose ringtones with the play button on the left.
The improvements to the People hub are awesome. Groups works great, although I’d like to be able to have more than 20 people per group, and I’d like to be able to rearrange the order they are in. But otherwise, it’s really great. A contacts tile now shows when you have a new message/voicemail/email from them.
The improvements to messaging are also great. Messages you send are now a shade darker or lighter than messages from someone. After attempting to enable Facebook chat a dozen times it finally worked (something I’m assuming will be fixed by release) and chatting works well, switching chat mediums on the fly works better in actual practice than watching someone else do it. Since I don’t really have Windows Live contacts I’m not sure if that part of chat is working.
My one critique is that (like the people hub) I don’t understand why they don’t open the messaging hub to more 3rd party applications. If something like IM+ can connect to all these different chat services, why not allow the OS to? Also, why can’t we still send video?
E-mail works exactly as promised. Linked inboxes and threaded conversations.
Generally the UI has been made more consistent. Marketplace searches now yield a pivot menu to switch between music and apps and podcasts. The phone buttons are larger and more metro-y. The music controls are always in the same place whether in the music player, lock screen, or volume drop down (which itself now has been updated, shows volume as 20/30 instead of little bars.) You can have artist art fade in on the lock screen while listening to music which is pretty cool too.
Bad things/things needing improvement.
When you press the search button, now it ALWAYS brings up Bing and there’s a delay. This is how it should have been from day one, but since it isn’t, I’m still getting used to the fact that I can’t use it to search marketplace or email or any other place where previously the search button took you to an in app search. Also, whenever you do press the search hard button the phone temporarily freezes for a millisecond and music playing skips. Weird but noticeable if you listen to music a lot – but almost certainly a beta issue.
Multi-tasking. It isn’t multitasking. It’s the same as Windows Phone has always been since day one – you can back through previously opened apps. The difference is now you can see more than one at a time. This wouldn’t be so bad if they fixed the transitions, but as of now, it’s honestly pretty bad. You hold back (for a very short amount of time, I did it by accident a lot) and it zooms out (even if nothing else is in the “list” so to speak, I would prefer it does nothing and stays on start screen in this scenario) and you see the “open” (or “dehydrated”) apps, and can pan over to them to click into them. But once you do, they almost 100% of the time go to a different screen than the one you saw in the preview, and after loading look more like the preview. If the preview image matched what you saw when you clicked into the app, this would be an almost flawless illusion of multitasking, but as of now it’s just kind of messy.
Even with the start screen- animated live tiles are not in the same position in the preview as when you click the app, so it becomes visibly obvious that you aren’t actually seeing a live preview. I am really hoping that this is a beta issue, because the idea is good, just the execution is messy. In regard to background apps or audio, I haven’t been able to test this as I can’t find any apps that support it yet.
Internet Explorer 9 Mobile. This has probably been my biggest disappointment. While it most certainly is faster/better than IE now on Windows Phone, the HTML 5 execution doesn’t seem anywhere near as impressive as Microsoft makes it seem. If you go to the MS HTML 5 mobile demos (like the fish and speed reader) they work great… but go to an HTML 5 site, and it barely works, or works really really slowly (like Flash on Android.) Even simple things, like Dragon Age Legends HTML5 mobile version, don’t work at all in some cases. If HTML5 is the industry answer to “why no Flash?” it needs to work better. Every single HTML 5 site I went to either didn’t work, or worked poorly. Not acceptable. Again, I’m hoping this is a beta issue only, and that it’s resolved by release.
Bing navigation. It’s serviceable but just barely. The fact that the map updates, but not the directions, is bizarre. So if you are driving to a destination, the map rotates and moves along with you, but to actually hear what you need to do next, you need to tap the direction. Again, hoping this is a very early version.
Connection to hidden Wifi doesn’t seem to be possible even though the WP devs said it was. And I guess you can use custom ringtones but through a workaround using the Zune software. Also, Wifi sync doesn’t work
So, generally, the Mango beta shows some promise, but still needs a lot of work. I’ll be using it on my main phone for at least a few weeks, then I’ll decide if I want to go back for the time being. For the record, I have an App Hub account and am running Mango legitimately on a developer unlocked T-Mobile USA HD7 which I hard reset after the update. I’ve had a few apps that won’t start, or crash a lot since updating.

Related

Windows Phone 7 owners, test an app?

Hey, i just got my dell venue pro today and was finally able to try out my app i created!
I added it to the market on the 15th of oct and it received poor reviews from the guys in the UK (not sure why).
Using it on the dell and it works great.
Anyway i was wondering if you guys could give it a try and give a review of what you thought.
My app is in the Health Fitness section and it is called My Workout.
Description:
It is a handy app that allows you to save your workout routines to an easy to access and easy to read schedule. My app also has a stopwatch and 1 rep max calculator.
It doesn't keep track of workouts, nor does it have any pre-loaded. This was created to allow gym savvy people (anyone who's worked out before) to digitally have their workout routine with them at the gym (i use my phone for music) to replace paper.
Video of app:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sVoqy0xYmNg
* BUGS/ FEATURES NOTICED SINCE USING ON REAL DEVICE***
1. The lock screen wipes out any in progress routine that you were entering. Same with stopwatch.. If you are running the stopwatch and the screen locks, the stopwatch will reset. ( will fix with new lock screen guidelines that were just released)
2. I need to make the return key allow for the exercise to be added to your list instead of always hitting the add button.
Discovered that new users to windows phone 7 are oblivious to pivot controls and they love hitting return to enter data. WILL fix the return bug, the pivot control is essential to the metro ui. Cant change that.
* End bugs/features**
If you guys find anything let me know!
Thanks,
Blake
do not mean to hijack this thread but does the venue pro have a sd card slot? if it does it will be the phone i get.
I have nothing to test it on, but I do think the timer should have milliseconds as well.
the dell venue pro does NOT have a sd card slot.
Nice app, wish I had it when I was in the gym.
It's simple and straight to the point. Good to keep up with your routines.
Micro I just tested it in my HD7. Very nice app. I don't go to the Gym. (Too many posers there). Instead I ride my mountain bike and go swimming. Still your app will come in handy to many.
I've just written a brief review on Marketplace and given it 5 stars- user name jfsfoster.
Looks solid, I have two issues, but they're just aesthetic. The flexed arm doesn't really fit in too well with the default icons. I know, silly gripe, but it caught my eye. I'd try something more low key. Such as a round weight.
Remove the white border around Start/Stop and Reset and remove the speedometer graphic. It will fit better with the WP7 look.
These are just my opinions. The actual usefulness of it looks great and I will be downloading it once I find a Venue Pro.
After having friends use the app for the first time (first time wp7 users as well)
The most common problems were:
1. Unable to figure out that the navigation is pivot.
2. Why hitting return doesn't add exercises to the list.
I cant do anything about #1
However i have made some significant changes to how the textbox entry is maintained and have fixed some major bugs:
Disabled the lock screen from enabling via phone idle (microsoft wont like that i bet..) - Had to do it, if you are half way entering data and you set the phone down for 30 seconds it locks and then guess what, NO MORE DATA, you have to start over if you haven't finished the routine.
Allowed for the return (enter) key to add exercises to the list.
fixed misc bugs.
Version 1.4 look for it in about 2 days.
what do you mean navigation is pivot? as in, how they have to slide left/right? people just have to get use to that with the phone, it's not your fault. if they owned the phone, after a couple of days use they would work it out and it would be natural.
what do you mean no more data? i thought the new guidelines said the app could stay alive even if the screen goes to stand by? can you write to isolated storage upon screen lock?
Yes, you are right. People do need to get used to that but what's happening is that they download the app, attempt to use it for 2 min and then rate it 1 star and uninstall. I've noticed many apps getting poor ratings and they seem perfectly fine to me.
You are allowed to run in the background, however you cant have any timers running as per power saving guidelines. So that would mean that my stopwatch would have to be disabled.
I'd rather just disable the phone idle while using my app..
Also as for the data erasing, I write to isolated storage but not until the routine is at a specific point in the process. If you are say entering exercises and you have to go do something and set the phone down and it auto screen locks, the app re-sets and all that data you were entering gets cleared since it didnt get to the isolated storage save point yet.
that is fixed, it's just up to microsoft to see if it passes testing now.
Will download and test it, but can't report back for a few weeks. Can't go to the gym this week and next I'm out of the country.
App updated 11/10/2010
Added the ability for users to import exercises from previously entered routines. This saves time for those who do the same routine throughout the week.

WP7 Bugginess?

Been playing with my HD7 (TMo USA) for two days now. Main problem's been that it's highly buggy.
I left it overnight to charge, and when I turned it on in the morning, everything was disconnected (no updates from Internet) as the Wifi connection was off. Went to the settings app, and only the first three options (ringtones & sounds, theme, and airplane mode) were even present. The entire rest of the menu panel was not even visible for some reason, so I couldn't enable Wifi.
I then restarted-- it connected to Wifi, slowly loaded one webpage, then when I returned five minutes later, it was in a weird state. Wifi could not be turned on (attempting to turn it on in settings had no effect). Opening IE would load a grayed-out version of the tab selector then crash back to the home screen with any click. Pretty much all apps would load an initial page but then crash whenever any input was submitted (e.g. email address/password for setting up accounts).
Pretty poor so far-- the UI is smooth and hasn't locked up per se (as Windows Mobile always inevitably does), but the inconsistency and random crashes make this feel like alpha software.
Actually it kind of feels like what'd result if you were to put a GPU-accelerated GUI on top of WM 6.x and then forced it to either act in a few seconds or abandon the task. Sometimes things work, sometimes they don't, and the GUI just glosses over as if nothing's wrong.
Anyone else having similar issues?
Hmm...the OS has crashed (causing a reboot) three times today so far-- once when downloading email (in inbox screen), once when loading a particular message, and again when trying to open the Marketplace (froze with one highlighted app, Need for Speed, shown, then 10-15 seconds later, phone restarted).
Wifi's also only intermittently connecting with a strong signal in the area (toggling it on/off doesn't seem to fix it).
There is the possible chance of just having a faulty device, (or simply a faulty MicroSD card which is used for memory. Have you tried a Hard Reset on the device and seeing if the problems resurface? Most people who have used WP7 for the most part so far have not mentioned issues like yours on the vast scale you have.
I've had mine for a couple days now also and it has been perfection as far as operation goes. I did have a bug in IE when I tried to respond to an XDS PM. I tried to delete the accumulated text and it funked up. Couldn't back out to a previous window so had to reboot WP7 to be able to use IE. I was able to tap the windows button and go to the main screen, but I couldn't use IE till after the reboot
had my samsung since launch the 8th
I have not had any problems what so ever!! and i have installed a 32gb class 2 card in connection with the 8gb internal and it runs great no problems to this time never had to reboot or lock ups nothing... most likly you have a bad sd card...
yea i can also report the same, mine is smooth as. what i have been doing of late is leaving my pc on at night, and my phone connected to wifi (charging as well), and it would sync with my pc throughout the night. get up the morning and videos are ready to go for me to take on the train. haven't experienced any difficulties at all yet.
i would report the issue to your carrier and get a replacement handset, or hard reset first to see if it's not just some dodgy build on your phone.
Ive been using my device for 3 days. I've only encountered 1 or two odd problems
1. when i was connected to the uni's wifi and visited weather.com it kinda borked out (i think it had to do with my uni re-directing to a login page to verify identity)
(or it could have been weather.com loading some scripts (didnt see it as a mobile device)
2. i develop for wp7 and sometimes after i deploy an application to my phone, the back button wont work. (sometimes meaning it happened once )
No crashes or anything of that nature though..
Can anyone agree that the shutter speed on the camera is really slow? I am assuming its a windows software issue as the cameras in almost all wp7 devices are the same.
It really sounds like a faulty hardware. 3 crashes in a day? Wow, even my Fuze never did that with XDA builds. From the reviews and experiences from other users here. I'd say you are either alone or one of very few in that experience.
I handled a Focus for few mites yesterday side by side with iPhone 4 and Captivate. Android felt like beta, iphone4 as final RC build and WP7 as RTM in terms of usability. I like and still use my iPhone 2G so nothing against iPhone really.
microhaxo said:
Ive been using my device for 3 days. I've only encountered 1 or two odd problems
1. when i was connected to the uni's wifi and visited weather.com it kinda borked out (i think it had to do with my uni re-directing to a login page to verify identity)
(or it could have been weather.com loading some scripts (didnt see it as a mobile device)
2. i develop for wp7 and sometimes after i deploy an application to my phone, the back button wont work. (sometimes meaning it happened once )
No crashes or anything of that nature though..
Can anyone agree that the shutter speed on the camera is really slow? I am assuming its a windows software issue as the cameras in almost all wp7 devices are the same.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
yea, the auto focus and shutter do take their time. it should be really snappy. it should auto focus and take phone pretty much instantly... sadly it isn't the case. hopefully it picks up, though i don't seem them doing this till like WP8.
The main thing is, MS will be doing the updating and that means quality updates for each and every handset out there. But the latest news has me a bit concerned, Balmer selling off so much stock in MS. So far he has sold 49 million shares of MS and is said to sell a total of 74 million eventually. I'm wondering if it's related to WP7 and if there is something we all should be concerned about.
MartyLK said:
The main thing is, MS will be doing the updating and that means quality updates for each and every handset out there. But the latest news has me a bit concerned, Balmer selling off so much stock in MS. So far he has sold 49 million shares of MS and is said to sell a total of 74 million eventually. I'm wondering if it's related to WP7 and if there is something we all should be concerned about.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Very interesting indeed. That's a lot of cheese. You got me wondering too.
he has a few hundred million shares if not billions in MS... i believe what he's selling is a mere few percent if that of his shares. Bill Gates sells off that many regularly to support his charities... i wouldn't take much note of it.
Tried hard-resetting, to no effect. It's bad enough that at this point I hope it's an isolated hardware problem, as I wonder what my not so tech-savvy friends/family would do if they bought a WP7 phone and encountered this.
It's been crashing out of apps, freezing at the shutdown "Goodbye" screen, showing UI issues in IE, giving DRM errors in Netflix (and restarting every time Netflix is closed), sometimes not turning the screen off (pressing power key would just lock the phone), etc.
Hopefully T-Mobile can swap this out tomorrow.
(oh and this is attempt 2 at writing this post-- tried it on the HD7 the first time, and after I pressed Submit Reply, the phone dropped Wifi, IE went to an Action Cancelled page, and then the OS crashed)
1toadfacedfrump said:
Very interesting indeed. That's a lot of cheese. You got me wondering too.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There is also a change in capital gains tax, he maybe wanted to take advantage or needed some liquid cash. I doubt very much it is anything else!
amb9800 said:
Tried hard-resetting, to no effect. It's bad enough that at this point I hope it's an isolated hardware problem, as I wonder what my not so tech-savvy friends/family would do if they bought a WP7 phone and encountered this.
It's been crashing out of apps, freezing at the shutdown "Goodbye" screen, showing UI issues in IE, giving DRM errors in Netflix (and restarting every time Netflix is closed), sometimes not turning the screen off (pressing power key would just lock the phone), etc.
Hopefully T-Mobile can swap this out tomorrow.
(oh and this is attempt 2 at writing this post-- tried it on the HD7 the first time, and after I pressed Submit Reply, the phone dropped Wifi, IE went to an Action Cancelled page, and then the OS crashed)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That definitely sounds like a rogue habdset, I have the HD& and have had hardly any issues.
I really don't think MS is betting the farm on WP7, sure it's important to their lineup, but it's never going to be the money maker like the iPhone is for Apple.
MS makes it's break and butter off OS's(Server and Desktop), Office Suite and XBOX Live.
Everything else is just a plus.
Just to follow up, went and swapped out the phone, and now it's all fine. Guess HTC/T-Mo's quality control needs some work.
When I described all my issues to the people at the T-Mobile store, their response was "it's a Windows phone-- all Windows phones freeze and do things like that" . Finally was able to get them to swap it out though.
Incidentally they had a bunch of HD7s sitting around-- apparently I'm the only one who's actually bought one from the store (and this is in New York) .
i have been using WP7 since it came out in UK, untill yesterday there has been no siginificant issues, couple to times accelrometer didn't work properly but yesterday
marketplace app wouldn't launch
couldn't buy apps on marketplace, can get free apps
twitter app errored out
scrolling in marketplace app got stuck for few mins
had to reboot it twice, back or windows button wouldn't work.
MrAlchemist said:
I really don't think MS is betting the farm on WP7, sure it's important to their lineup, but it's never going to be the money maker like the iPhone is for Apple.
MS makes it's break and butter off OS's(Server and Desktop), Office Suite and XBOX Live.
Everything else is just a plus.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I kind of disagree...from what I've read they are betting on this as they know the future is mobile to a large extent. I believe they will force WP7 to be a success, similar to what they did with Xbox...
lip said:
I kind of disagree...from what I've read they are betting on this as they know the future is mobile to a large extent. I believe they will force WP7 to be a success, similar to what they did with Xbox...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
And I'm hoping you are 200% correct. Because it means our mobile platform of choice will only get better; will only improve. That means MS will listen to the market (general public, not customizers) and give it what it wants.
Speaking of wants, what the forecast for Angry Birds on WP7?

NoDo changes

Besides the C&P and faster apps, there is virtually no other changes with NoDo...
i have no idea what MS are talking about regarding bluetooth, i see no difference before and now, still crappy sound. The same with camera settings (better stability switching from photo to video???).
I guess the most important thing is the stability of the system right now.
Ah well, time to wait for mango
Market works much better now.
So you haven't actually launched a game, or an app at all yet? Not gone into the Marketplace yet? Marketplace used to be a nightmare, and you needed third party search apps to actually look around...now it is ... SO SMOOTH :'')
And apps launch noticeably faster, and app switching (with back button) as well as apps running after screen lock/unlock are much quicker to load.
There are definitely other unnoticed bug fixes as well. Also, WiFi stores more profiles (still won't allow manual network config though), and some changes to About page in settings...
Overall it is a minor update.
yes i mentioned besides the stability and faster apps update, the bluetooth and camera updates were not significant (since MS stated that on their update page so i was expecting at least a little bit of improvement from there.
I was really hoping to start using my bluetooth headset with my Mozart... guess ill have to wait longer then.
toothfish said:
I was really hoping to start using my bluetooth headset with my Mozart... guess ill have to wait longer then.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What's the problem with your bluetooth headset?
I'm using mine since November without issues, no use for me to improve anything with NoDo.
Now that M$ have put Cut/copy and paste into WP7 can anyone please check and see if you can move calendar entries around like we used to be able to do in Windows Mbile?
I just want to be able to (both) copy or cut and paste a calendar entry to another day. Not the text within an entry, but the whole entry. In my work I usually need to go to a customer's house two or three times. I need to be able to cut or copy an entry and move it. I'm currently stuck on WM6.5 because of this.
mister gun said:
Now that M$ have put Cut/copy and paste into WP7 can anyone please check and see if you can move calendar entries around like we used to be able to do in Windows Mbile?
I just want to be able to (both) copy or cut and paste a calendar entry to another day. Not the text within an entry, but the whole entry. In my work I usually need to go to a customer's house two or three times. I need to be able to cut or copy an entry and move it. I'm currently stuck on WM6.5 because of this.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
in short no. Its not exactly a priority feature. Wouldn't be shocked if it never made it.
Far out...thanks. That screws me over in a big way. I literally have no alternative other than carrying a laptop around and moving calendar entries around in Outlook.
Removing this (standard WM feature) makes no sense to me.
mister gun said:
Far out...thanks. That screws me over in a big way. I literally have no alternative other than carrying a laptop around and moving calendar entries around in Outlook.
Removing this (standard WM feature) makes no sense to me.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It was never a matter of removal, WP7 was built from the ground up as an independent OS. Windows Mobile had a ton of functions that WP7 doesn't because for the most part they were completely unnecessary and just bogged down an already fairly laggy OS. I mean honestly, how many times a day do you have to rearrange a number of calendar appointments? I can't see how it could be enough to lug around a laptop everywhere you go...
z33dev33l said:
in short no. Its not exactly a priority feature. Wouldn't be shocked if it never made it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Perhaps not a priority feature as such, but the thing is - had they implemented CnP correctly we would have been able to copy/cut images, photos, calendar entries et all instead of just plain text.
OS support is already there, what is missing is high-level support in their first-party "apps" and APIs.
They [Microsoft] said that CnP was always on the roadmap for WP7 but pulled from RTM as it wasn't polished enough. IMO what they did was simply to bundle their existing CnP code with some bugfixes and performance tweaks in order to deliver an update in January (which was subsequentially moved to late March). I would be very surprised if there isn't a more polished implementation in WP7.5.
z33dev33l said:
WP7 was built from the ground up as an independent OS
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This is where the PR and marketing people lied to you. WP7 is built on the same old Windows CE as WM6.5 (more or less). The OS has been around for a decade in one form or another. WP7 is basically a new GUI.
I would not be surprised to see a convergance of Windows CE and Windows 8 in the future - once Windows proper can run on Arm I see no reason to keep on top of two different codebases. WP8 will, IMO, be running with Windows 8 under the hood.
emigrating said:
Perhaps not a priority feature as such, but the thing is - had they implemented CnP correctly we would have been able to copy/cut images, photos, calendar entries et all instead of just plain text.
OS support is already there, what is missing is high-level support in their first-party "apps" and APIs.
They [Microsoft] said that CnP was always on the roadmap for WP7 but pulled from RTM as it wasn't polished enough. IMO what they did was simply to bundle their existing CnP code with some bugfixes and performance tweaks in order to deliver an update in January (which was subsequentially moved to late March). I would be very surprised if there isn't a more polished implementation in WP7.5.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
how do you know its there in the OS??? This is not an upgrade from 6.5, its a whole new OS.
Do any other OS's offer this feature?
nrfitchett4 said:
how do you know its there in the OS??? This is not an upgrade from 6.5, its a whole new OS.
Do any other OS's offer this feature?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Read my edited post
But in short, I know OS support is there because I can copy pretty much any object into the buffer using native code.
skycamefalling said:
What's the problem with your bluetooth headset?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The problems with bluetooth headsets;
1. Random dropouts when listening to music
2. Occasionally the phone drops the connection to the headset entirely and you have to force a disconnect / reconnect manually
3. Headset button longpress does not start voice control
4. Headset microphone cannot be used for voice control
5. Videos do not output their sound to the headset
6. Because of (5), games with video segments cannot be played using a BT headset unless you want to periodically blast people nearby when the videos play
There you go
Jim Coleman said:
The problems with bluetooth headsets;
1. Random dropouts when listening to music
2. Occasionally the phone drops the connection to the headset entirely and you have to force a disconnect / reconnect manually
3. Headset button longpress does not start voice control
4. Headset microphone cannot be used for voice control
5. Videos do not output their sound to the headset
6. Because of (5), games with video segments cannot be played using a BT headset unless you want to periodically blast people nearby when the videos play
There you go
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
AMEN! This was the main thing I was hoping would be fixed in NODO. I hope a small incremental update will fix this before MANGO...
With my Blueant Q2 the sound has noticeably improved. I've never had any issues with the headset as I always carry my phone in my right pocket, and wear my headset on my right ear... Just out of habit, I'm right handed. However, if I were laying down with the phone on my left, at times I would hear static. That appears to be gone in the 4 or so hours I've been using it now. Other issues with the headset are the headsets issue, I assume Blueant will improve it with their much needed firmware update...
Jim Coleman said:
The problems with bluetooth headsets;
1. Random dropouts when listening to music
2. Occasionally the phone drops the connection to the headset entirely and you have to force a disconnect / reconnect manually
3. Headset button longpress does not start voice control
4. Headset microphone cannot be used for voice control
5. Videos do not output their sound to the headset
6. Because of (5), games with video segments cannot be played using a BT headset unless you want to periodically blast people nearby when the videos play
There you go
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
1. Never happened to me.
2. ^
3 & 4. I can use the provided features just fine, the problems you are implying aren't bluetooth problems, but search function limitations...
5 & 6. Haven't tried.
I also think C&P in integrated so much more nicely than I would have expected. For instance, if you go into a contact's information, and hold down on their phone number, the option to copy it pops up. That is a feature I personally never saw demoed and I am very happy it has been included, it definitely makes up for the lack of an ability to paste contact cards. The whole implementation is also much smoother than I expected, and also looks much 'prettier' in person than it did in videos.
The apps are smoother, not only in their load times, but also in their pivot controls. I kept hearing this had been altered in this update, and a few apps have confirmed this for me, with the exception of the horribly laggy Board Express Pro. The games I play the most to kill time (Spades, Hearts, etc) load much, much quicker. The OS is definitely smoother, and it's a big plus on the HTC devices that they unexcusably decided to use SD cards on.
I don't really need to speak about the market, as most people have beaten it to death already, but it's much smoother. No longer opening an entry and waiting a day for it to load the information. Also, when downloading an app, the whole process is faster and smoother, aside from the download which is connection dependent obviously. Going through the app list, and pages is a pleasure now, no longer a hassle, though I never really experienced the crash that others had so often. The section specific search is also a huge plus, no more music entries when I'm looking for apps, love that inclusion.
Settings have also been adjusted, but most noticeably, especially probably more for us on this forum who understand security is the inclusion of the MAC address in the about screen. I had to jump through hoops to set up my phone on my home network just because this wasn't listed. Also, it appears my network connection is more stable now. At times in the past, when I would wake the phone from sleep, I would have to wait a good 2 minutes for it to reconnect to a network, now it's almost instant, every time so far.
Camera appears to load slighty faster, and at least for me, it has also started focused already, rather than having to focus. It also seems to be smoother, transitioning through the settings and such. I, for one, am glad the settings don't save, and agree this is a 'feature' - those of you who complain about the video settings not being saved (HD settings) have to understand how much more space that consumes, and the average user would have no idea. With the exclusion of swappable storage, I think that's a BIG plus... Though, they should have some out of norm way to force it, just to make users happy.
Sorry for the long post, just wanted to be specific. I'm sure I'll find more goodies as I play with the phone more, and I'll try to post them as I go along. I'm very pleased with this update, especially considering how 'minor' it is.
FiyaFleye said:
3 & 4. I can use the provided features just fine, the problems you are implying aren't bluetooth problems, but search function limitations...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I too can use the voice control fine, with a long press of the WINDOWS button and not havin a bluetooth headset connected.
But with a bluetooth headset connected, the longpress of the headset doesn't start voice control as you would expect. However you can longpress the WINDOWS button still, and though that starts the voice control software, because it's trying to use the microphone in the bluetooth headset, and that doesn't seem to work, you cannot issue any voice commands. It wouldn't be so bad if it didn't disable the microphone in the phone itself.
Basically, if you use a bluetooth headset, you cannot use voice commands, but if you disconnect your headset, you can.
This is not a "Search function limitation", I'm not talking about search, I'm talking about voice commands.
Cheers
amtrakcn said:
Market works much better now.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I do not see any difference.
arturobandini said:
I do not see any difference.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Market hasn't crashed for me yet... thats a huge difference
mister gun said:
Now that M$ have put Cut/copy and paste into WP7 can anyone please check and see if you can move calendar entries around like we used to be able to do in Windows Mbile?
I just want to be able to (both) copy or cut and paste a calendar entry to another day. Not the text within an entry, but the whole entry. In my work I usually need to go to a customer's house two or three times. I need to be able to cut or copy an entry and move it. I'm currently stuck on WM6.5 because of this.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Actually, you can open the entry and edit it, changing the hour or/and day of event. Then it automatically moves to correct date.
For Nodo
Not having Marketplace freeze on me every other time I browse on it (requiring a reboot) is NIGHT and DAY!
Much, much faster....
Just a heads up, I did a hard reset after NoDo forced-update, b/c I had lost 3rd Party Live Tile functionality, and I believe that it runs even smoother after the clean-up. Plus, as soon as I synced w/ Zune, it started downloading all the apps I had on it previously...didn't realize that little bonus.

True multitasking for messenger apps (Kik, Whatsapp, Skype)

Hi, I've just moved from android to WP7.5 mango but I'm a little disappointed by the lack of apps that can truly multitask, especially messenger apps.
Yea they all "work" fine but after moving from a high end android to a high end WP7 I'm surprised that even though the app can alert you of notifications through push, when you click on the appropriate app it has to almost open up/boot up from new, unlike in android where the program is constantly running in the background and can be summoned almost instantly without the lag of resuming from a deep sleep.
I've checked in settings under "background tasks" and none of the messenger apps appear there which makes me wonder if they are truly multitasking (which I'm pretty sure they are not) as this was one of the supposed key features of the mango update.
Does anyone know if this is going to be the way it will always be or is this something that is going to improve with time, so we can switch between apps at will without the app ever closing or hibernating?
Also, something else I've noticed, push notifications will not start until the first time the messenger app (in this instance Kik) is started up for the first time since boot. Unlike in android I guess a background process started running from when the phone boots so that even though the app hasn't actually been opened yet it will still alert you of anything new.
Skype is rumored to be floating about withi MS... possible end of Feb release? Would guess app will take advantage of toast, push, etc. if not, then as you've discovered with existing IM's, less than ideal experience.
Cheers
if you jailbreak your phone, there is a registry edit that will make every app work with the multitasking regardless if it supports mango or not. I believe it is the dehydration hack to 0, something like that.
sikodemon said:
Hi, I've just moved from android to WP7.5 mango but I'm a little disappointed by the lack of apps that can truly multitask, especially messenger apps.
Yea they all "work" fine but after moving from a high end android to a high end WP7 I'm surprised that even though the app can alert you of notifications through push, when you click on the appropriate app it has to almost open up/boot up from new, unlike in android where the program is constantly running in the background and can be summoned almost instantly without the lag of resuming from a deep sleep.
I've checked in settings under "background tasks" and none of the messenger apps appear there which makes me wonder if they are truly multitasking (which I'm pretty sure they are not) as this was one of the supposed key features of the mango update.
Does anyone know if this is going to be the way it will always be or is this something that is going to improve with time, so we can switch between apps at will without the app ever closing or hibernating?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Messengers like Whatsapp and Kik use push notifications. That's why they don't appear under Background tasks as these are scheduled tasks that are executed periodically. And I personally rather wait that extra 2 or 3 seconds for an app to load instead of having it wasting precious battery life and RAM. Especially the latter sucks since it causes instability and lags.
lovenokia said:
if you jailbreak your phone, there is a registry edit that will make every app work with the multitasking regardless if it supports mango or not. I believe it is the dehydration hack to 0, something like that.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That isn't actually background processing. It just stays in memory so exectution can immediately resume without reloading the app and data.
For many things, this is actually desired behavior. Imagine playing some arcade style game. Switch to a different app for a few minutes. Return to the game only to find that it is over. And for other apps that don't change the display without the user entering information, there is no point for CPU consumption until it is back to the foregroung.
I have the setting applied and verified with Angry Birds that it pauses once in the background, but immediately resumes once you return.
dkp1977 said:
Messengers like Whatsapp and Kik use push notifications. That's why they don't appear under Background tasks as these are scheduled tasks that are executed periodically. And I personally rather wait that extra 2 or 3 seconds for an app to load instead of having it wasting precious battery life and RAM. Especially the latter sucks since it causes instability and lags.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I can see where you're coming from now, yea, I suppose I too would prefer to wait a few extra seconds than have it drain battery. Just didn't realise such a simple app like kik/whatsapp would use so much resourses to cause a serious effect.
Oh well
Also, as mentioned above, I don't seem to receive notifications via the messenger apps until I open it for the first time since the phone boots.
on android the power consumption of whatsapp in background is so low, that it almost can't be messured at all.
It is quite annoying that you have to wait for reloading everytime you get a message pushed.
i have tried not to use whatsapp and google talk on my galaxy s for a while and used wp7 apps instead. but it didn't last long. it's simply to slow, when you are used to android (4).
The load time of WhatsApp doesn't bother me.
The big problem is that I want to use WhatsApp instead of text messages, but because push notifications usually arrive very late (usually 15 minutes late, sometimes more), I can't rely on it instead of text messages.
EDIT: I decided to bite the bullet, and did a hard reset to my phone. Now push notifications are working properly. Yay!
Piino23 said:
on android the power consumption of whatsapp in background is so low, that it almost can't be messured at all.
It is quite annoying that you have to wait for reloading everytime you get a message pushed.
i have tried not to use whatsapp and google talk on my galaxy s for a while and used wp7 apps instead. but it didn't last long. it's simply to slow, when you are used to android (4).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
But why? Why should the push notifications take so long compared to android devices? Surely they both use a similar process to check and receive. I've gotten so used to apps running perfectly behind the scenes that suddenly not having it almost makes the phone unusable
Having serious second thoughts about WP7 now.
sikodemon said:
But why? Why should the push notifications take so long compared to android devices? Surely they both use a similar process to check and receive. I've gotten so used to apps running perfectly behind the scenes that suddenly not having it almost makes the phone unusable
Having serious second thoughts about WP7 now.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Actually, I felt in same way as you do now, when I moved to WP7. I had an iPhone which works like Android (front ending at least). Instant resume. So I wanted to die everytime I had to open Kik or just open a toast notification. WHY RELOADING THE APP?
Now I got used. I really think MS is going to change this in WP8 (6 months from now?), and really love the OS. I hate those icons scattered all around my screen, and tiles are perfect at my personal taste.
And Push Notifications works just perfect for me. Me and my brother are in same group conversation at Kik. When someone sends a message, we receive together. Actually, I receive first. One second or less first.. Same for WhatsApp.
And Push Notifications from WP7 are much more solid than Android; MS use a system pretty much alike Apple's. If the Push Notifications are not working in some app, you can put the blame on the developer or maybe your carrier. Like Facebook app there is a 15 minutes delay indeed, but this is how the notifications are meant to be.
I had an Android and I remember the freaking lag. Reseting it all the time, worrying about custom ROM, ASOP ROM, updates that was not coming to me, infected apps, and I wouldnt change the app loading for this again.
Relax and enjoy your new phone.. You have much less to worry about now.
From what you say I'm understanding that you go and open the app each time you get a new message, or you tap the notification so the app opens from scratch.
The app is actually hibernating if you dont close it (dont know the correct term).
-Open the app and go to a conversation.
-Hit the windows key to go the main view
-Press and hold the "back" button, move to the left and the app will be right there, select it and you'll get your instant resume.
Push notifications works fine for me, WhatsApp at least.
Just confirming what Imsparta said. Any Mango app will let you instant resume. Follow these very simple rules:
A.) When exiting any app you may want to go back to, exit with the Start Button (Windows button) NOT the back button.
B.) When seeing a push notification or toast, DO NOT tap on the app OR notification.
C.) Instead, hold down your back button until your app cards appear, then select the app you wish to return to.
The app will resume instantly with little to no load time at all and you can jump back in and continue where you left off.
Happy hunting.
Wyn6 said:
Just confirming what Imsparta said. Any Mango app will let you instant resume. Follow these very simple rules:
A.) When exiting any app you may want to go back to, exit with the Start Button (Windows button) NOT the back button.
B.) When seeing a push notification or toast, DO NOT tap on the app OR notification.
C.) Instead, hold down your back button until your app cards appear, then select the app you wish to return to.
The app will resume instantly with little to no load time at all and you can jump back in and continue where you left off.
Happy hunting.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes this is all true and I am aware of the instant resume feature in mango, BUT:
Although a toast and/or notification appears at the top of the screen or on the app icon it still has not updated the message list within the actual app, so if you "instant resume" it still has to connect to the app server to retrieve an updated list of messages received which can take up to 10-15 seconds and can be quite painful if I'm in a 2g coverage area.
So in lamens: I'll see a notification at the top of my screen which also displays part of the message I've just received, and the app icon will have a notification symbol, but when I resume KIK it shows an outdated conversation until it "syncs" with the server.
....kinda sucks.
Don't get me wrong though I love WP7, just not this little crease.
Also someone mentioned windows 8, will this be coming to wp7 users or is that meant more for tablets/PCs?
sikodemon said:
Yes this is all true and I am aware of the instant resume feature in mango, BUT:
Although a toast and/or notification appears at the top of the screen or on the app icon it still has not updated the message list within the actual app, so if you "instant resume" it still has to connect to the app server to retrieve an updated list of messages received which can take up to 10-15 seconds and can be quite painful if I'm in a 2g coverage area.
So in lamens: I'll see a notification at the top of my screen which also displays part of the message I've just received, and the app icon will have a notification symbol, but when I resume KIK it shows an outdated conversation until it "syncs" with the server.
....kinda sucks.
Don't get me wrong though I love WP7, just not this little crease.
Also someone mentioned windows 8, will this be coming to wp7 users or is that meant more for tablets/PCs?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm with you. Love WP7, but hate the multitasking. Specially when it comes about messenger apps.
And I mentioned Windows Phone 8, not Windows 8. Windows 8 is for tablets and PCs indeed.

1 Month with the PD - thoughts

It has been a month since I got the PD.
Some brief thoughts based upon my experience with the phone.
I was an Apple user since they launched the iPhone in 2007. Nothing to do with the perpetual Apple vs. Android debate, just iOS suited my purposes, that's all.
I was using the HTC 10/BB DTEK50/Priv for a while, as a second phone.
I got fairly used to the operating system and to be honest, they are all very similar. But carrying 2, sometimes 3 phones was becoming a right pain, so looked for a good dual sim phone that would run two What's app accounts simultaneously.
Enter the PD. Easily love at first sight. I said this was my "jumping off point".
Wasn't very easy to get hold of, where I live, so had to wait almost a month and PAID-A-LOT-!! LOL
What a truly beautiful phone. I have used every Apple phone ever made, every BB phone made, 2 Vertu's (UGHH), and hand on my heart can say, I still cannot stop looking at it.
I had a major issue after setting it up, which is discussed in another thread.
I had no home screen icons or apps visible, only a blank screen that allowed calls and messages to come through in the status bar, could enter settings, but that was it.
The eventual solution, after almost suffering a heart attack, was to load both sims in, and then ejecting the sim tray. The apps just popped up instantly. Very strange, indeed.
After that, everything has been super easy.
-Stellar Battery (and I am a heavy user)
-2 whatsapp accounts running - awesome.
-What a lovely screen!
-No complaints with the camera. I like it. Even the slightly synthetic "Leica" look in the Wide Aperture Mode.
-The Fingerprint sensor is absolutely instant.
-EMUI is easy and nice to navigate
-The ability to edit the quick launch(?) icons in the pull down menu is excellent.
Now the bits that are bugging me.
1) No firmware updates. The last one was, I believe, in December, and I still am on B138. This is something that Huawei needs to look into post haste. I have written to them 5 times, till today. No response whatsoever.
2) Notifications - this is the elephant in the room. They are random at best.
All the Settings - Unlimited data Access, Battery Optimizations, Battery Ignore Whitelists, Priority Notifications, etc. are all on, as is oft discussed, and checked, but whatsapp and emails sometimes still do not give me a notification, until I open the app. This IS an issue for me. I am missing time constrained messages all the time. If anyone has a fix or solution for this, I will be very grateful.
3) Keyboard, Sometimes, the keyboard will freeze if the screen sleeps whilst the keyboard is open in an app, and I reopen it.
I have to collapse the keyboard and bring it up again. Not a huge deal, but an annoyance, none the less. Maybe a GBoard thing?
4) Screen Auto Brightness - Takes an age to organize itself. In the dark, it will blind you, before thinking to itself, that it is, indeed, night, and the screen should be a wee bit less bright. The exact opposite in the day - Very dim and then will eventually get off its backside and decide to brighten up the screen. Very annoying.
5) How do I change the name of my phone. It's not the Bluetooth and Wifi name. My car still picks it up as Huawei LON-L29, as do apps like Photosync and whilst connecting to my Mac.
6) Photos. Now this may not be a PD Specific issue, but when I transferred my 22,000 images across, they all came as a big jumbled mess. No date-wise organization. So looking for specific images, is well, impossible.
7) Music - No equalizer settings in the stock music app. For my specific purposes, unusable, because in my car's bluetooth radio, the bass is overwhelming.
So, apart from these minor points (and 1 big one), I love the phone. I wonder how they could possibly improve it...Firmware, Huawei! Firmware!
For photos delete the cache. That'll sort the jumbled up mess.
For Music Player Google removed the EQ option a few months ago, I hate Play Music now. I use Captune. It has its shortcomings but its the best EQ.
Keyboard - I use Swift with no problems.
My worst issues are the crappy screen protector (GG3) and the lack up updates. I'll be selling it shortly.
I'm enjoying my phone,the only gripe I have with it is the UPDATES.
As for keyboards Try downloading Blackberry Keyboard or Google Keyboard.
Thank you for your suggestions, guys.
I tried clearing the cache, but no joy there. I tried an app called Quickpic, that is apparently supposed to deal with this. Didn't help either.
I was wondering, even if I had to reimport all my image and video files, is there any way they could be sorted by date taken?
This is turning out to be as big of an issue as the notification one, as I depend on images and videos, to send and discuss with my clients. And needless to say, I can't find anything. So am relegated to carrying an iPhone 6s+ just for my media, so I can send the required files via email or WhatsApp. Really, Not an ideal situation.
I will try the BB Keyboard.
Regarding the packaged screen protector, agreed, it is appalling. Before I buy the 2.5/3D tempered glass screen protector, has anyone had any experience with it?
Bonerp, Captune works for me, Thank you.
Have any of you'll worked around the notification bug?
For example, WhatsApp notifications sometimes do not wake the screen, but when a second or third WhatsApp message comes through, it may wake...Or not.
Seriously, if this is such a widely publicized bug, why is Huawei not looking into this?
ap10046 said:
Thank you for your suggestions, guys.
I tried clearing the cache, but no joy there. I tried an app called Quickpic, that is apparently supposed to deal with this. Didn't help either.
I was wondering, even if I had to reimport all my image and video files, is there any way they could be sorted by date taken?
This is turning out to be as big of an issue as the notification one, as I depend on images and videos, to send and discuss with my clients. And needless to say, I can't find anything. So am relegated to carrying an iPhone 6s+ just for my media, so I can send the required files via email or WhatsApp. Really, Not an ideal situation.
I will try the BB Keyboard.
Regarding the packaged screen protector, agreed, it is appalling. Before I buy the 2.5/3D tempered glass screen protector, has anyone had any experience with it?
Bonerp, Captune works for me, Thank you.
Have any of you'll worked around the notification bug?
For example, WhatsApp notifications sometimes do not wake the screen, but when a second or third WhatsApp message comes through, it may wake...Or not.
Seriously, if this is such a widely publicized bug, why is Huawei not looking into this?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I tried a curved tempered glass protector and it was awful so binned it. It had tape on the edges and just didn't look good and lost sensitivity.
Have you tried clearing cache at the boot screen or from settings/storage? Might help with the notification bug.
I've sent Huawei several things to fix and just had a 'thank you' response and nothing more. I'm not aware of a notification bug though. I definitely had one on the mate 9 until the first pre release fix was received, but not on this one.
Only other thing I can suggest re pics is delete data, or delete google account, delete cache then add your account again.
How do you guys work around the copy-paste thing?
I mean to having to bring out a paper and pen for copying an email address, phone number, passage from a message or an email is just unacceptable, when this is a widely utilized convenience on other platforms and, I believe, some Android UI's too?
I have tried a few apps that claim they can do this, but no joy.
Also, sharing contacts from the contacts app, only allows vcard, text message and attach to email, no What'sApp, Outlook or any app, for that matter. Can this option be changed somewhere?
quick question
I am looking to get the mate 9 pro; which is the same phone as the PD, just without the fancy branding..
Are any of you on Tmobile in the USA, and, do you get 4G/LTE?
The reseller I have been emailing with on Amazon says you do NOT get 4GLTE on Tmobile in the USA with this phone, but I have read that you do.
Thanks if you can help with this! :good::good:

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