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.
Related
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.
Other than these 2 niggles, I gotta say my HD7 with Mango is near perfect...
As I said, niggles... Not complaints or faults...
1. To fully exit an app you hit the back button. To keep it live and available to be jumped back into you hit the home key... Only issue? If you want to fully exit an app, but the back key in the app has another fuction like web browsing, you sometimes have to hit the back key 10+ times to fully exit...
2. When the home screen is fully scrolled to the bottom, the people live tiles pictures resets blank...
Oh, wow, because you sure have to freaking close the apps all the time. Or people will see your midgets porn?
I have several flaws to blame. But making a topic cursing the OS because you need to close the apps and its dificult to press the back button, and worse, the "People live tile resets blank". Seriously?! Does that bother you so bad?
The guy is entitled to post his opinions
There's really no need to exit a program fully unless it's actually a program that runs in the background (which will use your battery correct?). Else, just leave the browser.
If you're really going to be anal about exiting the browser, just go the browser tabs and hit the X. Now if you hit back it'll exit...
Like he said
argentocruz said:
Not complaints or faults...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Just stuff that bothers him, we all have something...
Having to press back to close apps does annoy me a bit. I know i technically don't need to but personally I just like having a clean multi task menu.
OCD ? maybe... just personal preference and the guy and myself are entitled to opinions. No need to get so angry about it.
So far...I've yet to even bother closing the application.
I just keep pressing the HOME key and I rarely get any problems.
By the way, how do you get rid of the Music Menu once you've started it? For example, when I press the volume up, I see the music track there with pause, play, etc. I don't see the music app running in the multi-task menu.
Anyway to exit out of that?
mikeeam said:
I have several flaws to blame. But making a topic cursing the OS because you need to close the apps and its dificult to press the back button, and worse, the "People live tile resets blank". Seriously?! Does that bother you so bad?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No need to get so angry about it.
I find topics like this helpful for me making a decision of when is the right time to return to WP7. It may not be a bug (the back button) but it's good for me to know what to expect shoudl I return.
I wouldn't have thought having the browser left open would be an issue but thanks for highlighting the porn, that might cause an issue.
Things that really niggle with mango.
1. Pressing the unlock button and there being a delayed animation for alerts and the date to come up, this was not present in nodo and really annoys me.
2. The jump tiles for apps. I think it looks really ugly, maybe if they were filled in tiles rather then the outlines it my be more aesthetically. Personaly i liked the serach system in symbian s60 5th where it was a jump to but the jump to would dynamicly change as you spelt a name out.
I have a few annoyances.
1.) Can't navigate to previously opened pages after closing IE. The back button turns into closing the app instead of previous page.
2.) Now this one is HUGE for me. All number fields should show up in the predictive text or be flagged as textable. I have multiple contacts who have work cell phone's as well and multiple businesses where the number is a cellphone. It's extremely annoying when I start to type the name and i get no results.
Another example is with voice commands "Text Frank Smith" i get no option to text the Work cell phone even though our entire conversation thread is from his work number and there has never been a text sent or received from his Mobile number.
Other business contact with the Work number only have no option to text the contact. I either have to hit the plus sign and scroll down or go to the contact and scroll left to history and click one of the previous text's.
mikeeam said:
Oh, wow, because you sure have to freaking close the apps all the time. Or people will see your midgets porn?
I have several flaws to blame. But making a topic cursing the OS because you need to close the apps and its dificult to press the back button, and worse, the "People live tile resets blank". Seriously?! Does that bother you so bad?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Um. You know... there is this thing called Prozac. It worked wonders for me!
If you look at the topic: 2 mango niggles - Otherwise perfect. That hardly sound like a scathing criticism. Maybe you are being a little defensive?
Mango does have issues, but remember people use phones differently and never come across certain useability issues.
Yeah, it can bother, but would you create a topic to speak how bad is Mango because it resets the People Tile? I noticed it too, but it make your experience worse?
Apps in background DO NOT consume your battery. It's not in background in first place. It is "frozen" in memory. So there is no need to close (using the back button) the apps. Unless you really want to close for whatever reason.
Something that really bothers: not resuming app when opening toast notification. You just cant chat with someone else if not by MSN or Facebook, because it turns to be frustrating.
PoisonWolf said:
So far...I've yet to even bother closing the application.
I just keep pressing the HOME key and I rarely get any problems.
By the way, how do you get rid of the Music Menu once you've started it? For example, when I press the volume up, I see the music track there with pause, play, etc. I don't see the music app running in the multi-task menu.
Anyway to exit out of that?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Dont not either, I forgot and it was gone after a while.
hwalker84 said:
I have a few annoyances.
1.) Can't navigate to previously opened pages after closing IE. The back button turns into closing the app instead of previous page.
2.) Now this one is HUGE for me. All number fields should show up in the predictive text or be flagged as textable. I have multiple contacts who have work cell phone's as well and multiple businesses where the number is a cellphone. It's extremely annoying when I start to type the name and i get no results.
Another example is with voice commands "Text Frank Smith" i get no option to text the Work cell phone even though our entire conversation thread is from his work number and there has never been a text sent or received from his Mobile number.
Other business contact with the Work number only have no option to text the contact. I either have to hit the plus sign and scroll down or go to the contact and scroll left to history and click one of the previous text's.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
To MS, it's non sense to people have two cell phones. This is really annoying, but of course it's not worse than the cursed people live tile.
mikeeam said:
But making a topic cursing the OS because you need to close the apps and its dificult to press the back button, and worse, the "People live tile resets blank". Seriously?! Does that bother you so bad?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sorry if it looks like I'm cursing the OS, but I'm not... I love it and have been a 'died in the wool' windows mobile man since day one... But I'm a virgo and if I painted a house to perfection, but missed one square inch, I would be able to not focus on that one tiny bit... It's just me...
Freypal said:
Having to press back to close apps does annoy me a bit. I know i technically don't need to but personally I just like having a clean multi task menu.
OCD ? maybe... just personal preference and the guy and myself are entitled to opinions. No need to get so angry about it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's me for sure... I only leave something available to jump back to if I know I'm going to be needing it in that same day, else, I fully exit...
Perhaps I should experiment one day and not close a thing and just try and get comfortable with it...
mikeeam said:
Apps in background DO NOT consume your battery. It's not in background in first place. It is "frozen" in memory. So there is no need to close (using the back button) the apps. Unless you really want to close for whatever reason.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There is a very valid reason to want to close apps using the back button. If you don't close them that way, they consume one of the (arbitrarily limited) 5 cards in the app switcher. If an app is one that you know you won't need to go back to any time soon, it makes no sense to waste a card on it, especially since Microsoft decided that we didn't need the ability to remove cards from the switcher.
leftspeaker2000 said:
Things that really niggle with mango.
1. Pressing the unlock button and there being a delayed animation for alerts and the date to come up, this was not present in nodo and really annoys me.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
When I updated to Mango, I had this problem. For another reason I hard-reset my phone and this bug has disappeared now for me.
---------- Post added at 08:26 PM ---------- Previous post was at 08:25 PM ----------
argentocruz said:
Sorry if it looks like I'm cursing the OS, but I'm not... I love it and have been a 'died in the wool' windows mobile man since day one... But I'm a virgo and if I painted a house to perfection, but missed one square inch, I would be able to not focus on that one tiny bit... It's just me...
That's me for sure... I only leave something available to jump back to if I know I'm going to be needing it in that same day, else, I fully exit...
Perhaps I should experiment one day and not close a thing and just try and get comfortable with it...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Exactly that. If there are 2 or 3 apps i'm using at once i like to have a clean multi-task card to switch between. Once i'm done i close them all.
mikeeam said:
Yeah, it can bother, but would you create a topic to speak how bad is Mango because it resets the People Tile? I noticed it too, but it make your experience worse?
Apps in background DO NOT consume your battery. It's not in background in first place. It is "frozen" in memory. So there is no need to close (using the back button) the apps. Unless you really want to close for whatever reason.
Something that really bothers: not resuming app when opening toast notification. You just cant chat with someone else if not by MSN or Facebook, because it turns to be frustrating.
Dont not either, I forgot and it was gone after a while.
To MS, it's non sense to people have two cell phones. This is really annoying, but of course it's not worse than the cursed people live tile.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I created a feature suggestion http://windowsphone.uservoice.com/f...344390-work-number-should-be-a-textable-field
PoisonWolf said:
So far...I've yet to even bother closing the application.
I just keep pressing the HOME key and I rarely get any problems.
By the way, how do you get rid of the Music Menu once you've started it? For example, when I press the volume up, I see the music track there with pause, play, etc. I don't see the music app running in the multi-task menu.
Anyway to exit out of that?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Play a video, and back-out of the player. Then the player controls are gone from the screen when you press volume keys.
Having extensive experience with both phone watches and BT-enabled watches, I want to make an important remark to firmware/software developers for these devices, more so after having recently acquired a SONY Smartwatch.
It is simple: NOTIFICATIONS NEED TO BE PUSHED ALL THE WAY. ALL GOODS NEED TO BE DELIVERED.
In the Sony Smartwatch, a vibration accompanied by a Gmail logo is useless. Having me awake the watch, click on ‘Events’, click again on the message and only then being able to see the email message defeats the purpose of immediateness. Probably easier for me to reach out to the phone and see what the notification is about.
The right way to go is simple: everything the phone has in terms of message info needs to be pushed to the watch notification:
“Email from John Doe
To [email protected]
Subject: Dinner on Tue
->And the entire body”
Same with SMS, IM notifications, or anything. Having only the SMS or Gmail or Whatsapp logos and have to hunt down for the message in the watch is absurd.
The way the MBW-150 worked offered way more info at a glance; Sony is moving backward with this minimalistic notification approach. More is needed.
Secondly: let me disable BT on the watch (say when batt is low or overnight) without forcing me to shut down the device -> no time telling anymore.
Third: watch brightness needs to be adjustable from the watch itself (let me manage battery life myself, I’m a grown up).
Fourth: an audio beep won’t kill anyone. When I’m driving, for instance, I cannot feel the phone vibration. A CASIO-style ‘beep-beep’ cannot hurt. While I understand this may involve additional hardware and pose operational complexities, this is a nice-to-have feature.
First two remarks are KEY, and I’d appreciate not only Sony but everybody involved in such development to think a bit smart before pouring a fortune into development.
Anyone has anything else worth highlighting?
Thanks
Sure dude. But first things first... I would scream that let these things display the clock at all times. Failure to do so defeats the whole watch disguise!
Sent from my GT-N7000 using xda premium
Which app are you using to get Gmail notifications?
jairmoreno said:
Which app are you using to get Gmail notifications?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I am messing with Customnotifier, GMail notifier (not 2), and RSS (which works best but drains the battery on the phone if set to frequent checks).
In any event, on the watch I only get an icon on the screen, no further info.
Rgds
Well they are moving in the right direction. With the updated firmware, that was released today, you are able to do a couple more things. You now have an option of leaving new watch faces on at all times. Also with notifications, you can now single tap the new notification icon and it will take you straight to the notification!
gtdRR said:
Well they are moving in the right direction. With the updated firmware, that was released today, you are able to do a couple more things. You now have an option of leaving new watch faces on at all times. Also with notifications, you can now single tap the new notification icon and it will take you straight to the notification!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes indeed. Touchscreen seems a tad more responsive now also, more polished.
Still, notifications need to appear spontaneously -no need to tap- and bightness should be adjustable -too much backlight for me; always staying indoors.
But it's a good step fwd and the app in the phone is more efficient.
Hi, I'm Considering buying this watch simply cos I'm a geek I guess, but, if it is possible for sony to update the firmware/create new apps, and others also to create new apps etc, isn't it almost inevitable that more detailed notifications will be developed eventually? Or am I wrong, is it up to just sony to develope new apps etc, meaning we'll have to wait for just them to decide, taking ages etc? (Unlinke the wimm one for example)..
It does look great, but I agree, notifications really MUST include details, and if this is a future possibility, then I'll get one. (Mainly due to the wimm one not being on sale over here yet! Arrghh!)
jmpcrx said:
Hi, I'm Considering buying this watch simply cos I'm a geek I guess, but, if it is possible for sony to update the firmware/create new apps, and others also to create new apps etc, isn't it almost inevitable that more detailed notifications will be developed eventually? Or am I wrong, is it up to just sony to develope new apps etc, meaning we'll have to wait for just them to decide, taking ages etc? (Unlinke the wimm one for example)..
It does look great, but I agree, notifications really MUST include details, and if this is a future possibility, then I'll get one. (Mainly due to the wimm one not being on sale over here yet! Arrghh!)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The notifications seem detailed to me I mean you see the icon if you want to read the message tap the icon once. I like the screen always on update but I won't use it often since I rather have the battery last through the week.
I've checked back ever so often and there new apps popping up so I think development will only improve. Its honestly one of my favorite phone accessories I would recommend trying it out.
general forceps said:
Yes indeed. Touchscreen seems a tad more responsive now also, more polished.
Still, notifications need to appear spontaneously -no need to tap- and bightness should be adjustable -too much backlight for me; always staying indoors.
But it's a good step fwd and the app in the phone is more efficient.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I agree I can't wait til they update to allow adjustment of of the backlight. The notifications I find using the MMS notifier over Sony's I get no delay in the notifications. The Gmail notifier app I use for Gmail sends me the notice without delay also.
Have you looked at the Metawatch at all? That ended up being my choice. Waiting for delivery.
RedRamage said:
Have you looked at the Metawatch at all? That ended up being my choice. Waiting for delivery.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Good choice RedRamage. I have the analog Metawatch and expect the new iOS digital version any day. Latest phone console release and functions here
OP - fullly agree with the "at a glance" concept. Metawatch provided this for me and I have the Sony, WIMM, original Liveview and MotoACTV also.
Only very recently I was able to stop using MetaWatch and switch to the Sony only for this. See my blog @ augmentedtraffic.wordpress.com/2012/06/09/finally-true-real-time-at-a-glance-notifications-on-sony-smart-watch (you need to cut & paste into a browser since I have < 10 posts).
I use Tasker/K-9 combined with my app to get "at a glance' on a SonyWatch!
I am still testing battery life, but it seems OK. I haven't put the app on the market as yet as it is very customized to my use cases and it may be a bit too much for others to use. The only thing I am currently missing from the MetaWatch is the next upcoming appointment. I have everything else I was using (notifications at a glance, phone battery life, location, weather). I even added my last Withings scale weigh-in
Ok, I've got both of the 1st Gen MetaWatch models (The bt2 Analog and Digital ones), and maintain a popular fork of the Android MW software (see link in my sig), so I'll try and answer your points in relation to that watch.
1) Yes, MW will display your notifications as soon as the phone does - gmail is a little tricky as google keeps changing/modifying/revoking permissions with the official gmail app, so the information available to the watch manager app can be a little sketchy. If you use k-9 mail, you'll see the sender and subject. It doesn't display body text yet, but that is doable. Gmail would also be fixable by just making the app go to the gmail server directly and pull the message text when the new mail notification comes in.
The fork I maintain has an "Other notifications" Option, that lets you selectively display any android notification, although the OS limits how much information we can actually pull. If anyone has requests for additional notification support, then I'm happy to try adding it, assuming the developer of the app has provided intents or an api to access that information.
Currently notifications will stay on screen for a few seconds, then disappear (except for the SMS notifications, which, on the digital watch can be set to stay on screen until dismissed, as you can see the full body, and scroll) - On the digital watch you can configure a button to redisplay the last notification again if you missed it, and there's an on watch menu of all the previous notifications which is only a few button presses away.
2) Yes, all the MW models have a menu option (on the watch) that let you disable BT without turning off the watch, so you can still tell the time
3) Yes, the Analog MW model has menu options to configure the OLED brightness. There's nothing to configure on the Digital model, as it has an always on LCD screen (though there's an option in my fork of the app to automatically turn on its light when a notification comes in)
4) The MWs don't have a speaker, but they do have a powerful vibrator inside - it's pretty hard to miss it when it does vibrate, and the app lets you configure different vibration patterns for different notifications, so you can know what sort of message it was without even looking.
Let me know if you've got any other questions!
MW has some very good stuff, I'm quite familiar with it.
Pity -both for MW and SW- is the poor pixel density. I believe MOTO has a much better display.
B/W displays appear sub-optimal to me and definitely not the direction the market wants to move toward.
Also, beyond the immediate 'at-a-glance' notification, can you read within the watch the full email or notification in MW? This is also a key element.
One more topic I missed on SW is that once connection is lost we need not only vibration but some on-screen display, like a warning sign or something. This feature prevented me from leaving behind a SGSII in a bar when I was using my ancient MBW-150. Vibration won't typically suffice.
I survive 2.5 full days with heavy notification traffic with my SW. How long you stay unplugged with MW under heavy traffic?
Thanks for the good discussion.
general forceps said:
Also, beyond the immediate 'at-a-glance' notification, can you read within the watch the full email or notification in MW? This is also a key element.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
As I said, the current software doesn't support that, but it's something I'm planning on adding.
SMS messages currently support this - you can page through a long message, then dismiss it when you're done, so I just need to add the code to pull out (and strip html from) the body text - I know for certain that it's easily possible using k-9 mail, gmail will probably need work to talk to google's mail server directly to get the message text.
general forceps said:
One more topic I missed on SW is that once connection is lost we need not only vibration but some on-screen display, like a warning sign or something. This feature prevented me from leaving behind a SGSII in a bar when I was using my ancient MBW-150. Vibration won't typically suffice.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, it'll display a "No watch connection" icon in the top right of the time display, which is pretty hard to miss!
general forceps said:
I survive 2.5 full days with heavy notification traffic with my SW. How long you stay unplugged with MW under heavy traffic?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I tend to get 2 or 3 days, depending on what I'm doing - 3 days for medium traffic, 2 for heavy traffic (usually when I'm developing features, so pushing lots of data to the watch)
3 days = Taken off the charger on Monday morning, needs to go back on the charger Wednesday evening before I go to bed.
I could probably get much longer battery life if I manually turned bt off each night, and back in the morning, but I like having my watch vibrate in the morning when the alarm goes off! Perhaps adding a "bt sleep" mode to the firmware would be a good addition.
How long does your battery last on the Sony Smartwatch if you keep the small digital clock on at all times?
I've had my watch a little over a week and haven't been able to make it through the day yet even with minimal notifications. The battery life has been very disappointing.
@benjymous:
I forgot to note that I shut it down when I go to sleep. In the morning I turn it on with no pairing issues, so we'd be looking at 18h/day actual uptime, for a total of say 45h per charge. Not stellar by any means.
@tjrhine:
It didn't even cross my mind to have the screen on full-time. It is obvious you won't make it tremendously far (I think the bat has a capacity below 130). No way. I push the button to get the time, I can live with this.
I also need to report that the glass is far from scratchproof. That's something that really pisses people off. Next HW release should DEFINITELY include at least Gorilla Glass and certainly a bigger battery. The thickness of the plastic clip and the strap can be each reduced by about half a millimeter that combined gives you 1mm that they should invest in a bigger capacity batt.
And obviously, a standard usb port.
Please keep ideas coming folks, thanks.
And this is how the notification queue should look like:
http://www.slashphone.com/media/data/767/inPulse_SmartWatch-2.jpg
I'm having exact same problem - Battery lasts barely 8-10 hrs. Do we need replacement watches?
general forceps said:
And this is how the notification queue should look like:
w ww.slashphone. com/media/data/767/inPulse_SmartWatch-2.jpg
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Looks like chinese product
EDIT: ignore; posted to wrong subforum.
Is there a way to disable the Google Now notifications for "travel to" and "weather" that popup on your phone all day long? I never need or want to know how long it is to travel to my home or office. I don't want a weather update either. How can I disable that crap? I tried going to the Android Wear app, then Settings | Block Apps, but there is nothing listed there that corresponds to these annoying notifications.
SoonerLater said:
Is there a way to disable the Google Now notifications for "travel to" and "weather" that popup on your phone all day long? I never need or want to know how long it is to travel to my home or office. I don't want a weather update either. How can I disable that crap? I tried going to the Android Wear app, then Settings | Block Apps, but there is nothing listed there that corresponds to these annoying notifications.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
In Now on the phone you can go to menu/Customize/Everything else and turn off the weather updates. I'm not sure about the travel ones.
CSX321 said:
In Now on the phone you can go to menu/Customize/Everything else and turn off the weather updates. I'm not sure about the travel ones.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thats not working for me, both weather and travel cards keep appearing
I think when the notification pops up on your phone you can go to google now and there is an option to "never remind me about this" or something like that. I've done it before I don't remember the exact process, good luck
xmeatizmurderx said:
I think when the notification pops up on your phone you can go to google now and there is an option to "never remind me about this" or something like that. I've done it before I don't remember the exact process, good luck
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, that applies to almost any app, but not for Google Now for some reason. You can't block them from the phone
This has now started to annoy me a bit too. The amount of times I glance down and think I've got a notification, only to find that it's telling me the weather outside the window I'm sitting next to.
The "travel to" is sometimes interesting, since it seems to pick up routines, but my life is pretty boring, so I've never had cause to use it. That, plus it updates slowly, so it'll tell me I'm 10 minutes from home when I'm inside.
I don't mind them being there if I scrolled down to view - similar to how Google Now works on a handset, but to have them constantly reappearing kind of dilutes the concept of notifications.
Cessquill said:
This has now started to annoy me a bit too. The amount of times I glance down and think I've got a notification, only to find that it's telling me the weather outside the window I'm sitting next to.
The "travel to" is sometimes interesting, since it seems to pick up routines, but my life is pretty boring, so I've never had cause to use it. That, plus it updates slowly, so it'll tell me I'm 10 minutes from home when I'm inside.
I don't mind them being there if I scrolled down to view - similar to how Google Now works on a handset, but to have them constantly reappearing kind of dilutes the concept of notifications.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm not sure I entirely buy their concept of notifications-only on the watch in the first place. Some of these cards represent information that I may want to know on demand. Delivering them only in the manner of a notification means that I can't find the information out right "now" when I want to. And, it means that they unnecessarily alert me to information that I don't want to know at that particular time.
And, if I want to leave them visible (i.e. not swipe to dismiss them), then they continually clutter the bottom of the screen as if they are important information that I'm not aware of - even if I've already visited them and read what they had to say.
There needs to be a concept of "information available" which are screens that can be set to "always available" and they do not act like notifications - they never vibrate and they don't show up on the screen, but you can swipe down to them when you wish.
Even notifications need an "acknowledged, but not dismissed" state so that even if it was a text message or phone call that you missed, you can leave it on the watch but once you've read it you can have it not peek out at you when all you want to do is read the time.
The data provided on the watch needs a lot more flavors and distinctions than "everything is an equally important and annoying notification that you must deal with or dismiss or it won't go away".
^ I agree, hopefully future upgrades of Android Wear will be more sophisticated.
I haven't seen anyone else post about this or maybe I didn't search correctly.
I'm on beta 5 using messages beta and when holding the icon to select a recent conversation the only time it opens directly is if the app is running in the background with that specific person being the conversation open. If I select someone after the app has been closed out or a different person it goes to the default list of chats, then severely lags about a full 5 seconds and then opens the conversation.
I've tried uninstalling updates and updating again. Also clearing the app cache and storage. Nothing works. Curious to know if this is affecting anyone else and if there's a fix. Thanks.
Yep, looks like you found a bug! This happens to me too on beta 5, and I'm not even in the Android Messages beta.
To clarify, I do not have the issue where my Messages app needs to be running in the background - for me, it always opens when tapping a long-press conversation shortcut, however, it just opens to the main Messages screen and then either never loads the selected conversation or lags horribly and then opens the selected conversation after about 5-10 seconds.
NippleSauce said:
Yep, looks like you found a bug! This happens to me too on beta 5, and I'm not even in the Android Messages beta.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Glad I'm not the only one then. Yeah I tried the normal and beta. Even went back to the official version of the app.
It also really doesn't like to connect to chat features. I've jumped between Google fi and Verizon and they both never turn on or it takes days.
Mine seems to load fine whether the app is running or not. Takes more or less the same amount of time to launch a conversation either way. I am in the Q beta and Messages beta (got an update yesterday) version 4.7.053 Kraken.