Develop Bugs

new fan WP7 ad I made

I'd seen a couple of requests for fan made ads by people disappointed with Microsoft and the carrier's advertising presence, and I've seen some, well, underwhelming, wp7 commercials on TV myself, so I figured I'd try my own since I work in that field.
Check it out-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XE0SNs-erz0
The music and video were all created by myself. Shot with my Canon t2i, 50mm and 85mm lens, and music recorded with Hamer, Gretsch, and Rickenbacker guitars and basses, for those interested.

Well done, mate. Looks and sounds really great.

Good job on the video, but it was 31 seconds too long.

nathantw said:
Good job on the video, but it was 31 seconds too long.
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For a commercial they typically like 30 seconds, but I thought it was great. Sometimes a little longer is needed to really tell a story. Well done.

I would agree you have great video production skills.
but...
too bad your efforts went to a phone that will go no where. And the features you are showcasing are features that have been around forever on the iPhone and Android devices. This is actually the problem with Windows Phones. Their ads are basically only saying that they kind of caught up. Unfortunately, they will never catch up in the number of available apps in the marketplace.
But good job on your vid dude.

edufur said:
I would agree you have great video production skills.
but...
too bad your efforts went to a phone that will go no where. And the features you are showcasing are features that have been around forever on the iPhone and Android devices. This is actually the problem with Windows Phones. Their ads are basically only saying that they kind of caught up. Unfortunately, they will never catch up in the number of available apps in the marketplace.
But good job on your vid dude.
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It showcases the UI and interaction, which are much different than the other platforms. Who honestly cares about the number of apps still? Many of the "necessary" apps are already there, and many are much higher quality than on the other platforms. So long as more quality apps come along, and the ones you need are there, I think most can do without the other 299,000+ apps on the market. The needed functionality in the OS will come over time just like on the other platforms.

dtboos said:
It showcases the UI and interaction, which are much different than the other platforms. Who honestly cares about the number of apps still? Many of the "necessary" apps are already there, and many are much higher quality than on the other platforms. So long as more quality apps come along, and the ones you need are there, I think most can do without the other 299,000+ apps on the market. The needed functionality in the OS will come over time just like on the other platforms.
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I agree... and I shouldn't have made it sound like number of apps was most important. Because quite honestly, I think that is one of my complaints about the Android.... way too many junk apps are allowed to stay on the market. But... even though some of the WM apps are quality, there are way too many apps that you just can't get yet on WM... and unless they change that real soon, this last attempt for market share will fail.

Thanks- that's a good point; however I wanted to focus on the integration of the UI. I don't use any apps other than what is built in to the default user experience- in other words- this is something that anyone can do with WP7, and you don't need any aftermarket mods (Android) or in-app purchases (ios) to do any of it.

nathantw said:
Good job on the video, but it was 31 seconds too long.
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This was tough to even cram into 60 seconds. My first edit was about 2 minutes along and featured a bunch of other actions like going into the pictures hub, getting directions, etc. I think it's still a bit quick as it is.

I think its great man. I think it would be funny to do the exact same video with android or iOS and show the lack of cohesiveness between apps. I just converted from Android and I could not be happier.

Nice ad. But too long to be exactly an ad.

edufur said:
Their ads are basically only saying that they kind of caught up.
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Very apt words.

I saw this on wpcentral or something today, VERY well done! Looks pro, and you're right, it showcases what can easily be done with the native UI. Smartphones aren't about the apps, everyone has apps. It's about the UI. Why do you think Android is number 1 now? Cause it has an "interesting" UI. Much better than Apple's rows of boring boxes (although the iPhone is a very high quality device).
The problem I think is people's rightly held mistrust of Microsoft. They occasionally hit homeruns yes, especially lately. But in the long run, they're seen as the company that has software that will fail. This ad demonstrates what was missing from the original ads; the use of the core UI. Great great job.
edufur said:
I would agree you have great video production skills.
but...
too bad your efforts went to a phone that will go no where. And the features you are showcasing are features that have been around forever on the iPhone and Android devices. This is actually the problem with Windows Phones. Their ads are basically only saying that they kind of caught up. Unfortunately, they will never catch up in the number of available apps in the marketplace.
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I'm sorry, what is the point of this post? Do you even have a wp7?
Please take your grade-school bullsh*t to another forum. Adults are trying to talk.

Wow, I am seriously impressed! Great Editing, and a great demo of what WP7 can do without having to hit the Market.

Aren't you concerned when you showed that callers' number for all viewers to see? nice vid btw

edufur said:
I agree... and I shouldn't have made it sound like number of apps was most important. Because quite honestly, I think that is one of my complaints about the Android.... way too many junk apps are allowed to stay on the market. But... even though some of the WM apps are quality, there are way too many apps that you just can't get yet on WM... and unless they change that real soon, this last attempt for market share will fail.
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how is this even close to on topic???
OP, great ad!!!

Nice ad! A lot of the official MS ads didn't really highlight the uniqueness of WP7 UI and integration capabilities. For example, uploading to Facebook is so straight forward that you don't need to switch to another app. Great work on showing 'real-life' usage. Just one thing, as kieboy said, unless that number is fake (which it doesn't look to be), you might want to edit it out.
edufur said:
I would agree you have great video production skills.
but...
too bad your efforts went to a phone that will go no where. And the features you are showcasing are features that have been around forever on the iPhone and Android devices. This is actually the problem with Windows Phones. Their ads are basically only saying that they kind of caught up. Unfortunately, they will never catch up in the number of available apps in the marketplace.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
For someone who claims to be an expert analyst of the smartphone market, and knows that the phone isn't going anywhere, you've done a great job of missing the entire point of the ad. It wasn't really flaunting unique features, it was showing off the interaction and ease of use.

keyboardP said:
Nice ad! A lot of the official MS ads didn't really highlight the uniqueness of WP7 UI and integration capabilities. For example, uploading to Facebook is so straight forward that you don't need to switch to another app. Great work on showing 'real-life' usage. Just one thing, as kieboy said, unless that number is fake (which it doesn't look to be), you might want to edit it out.
For someone who claims to be an expert analyst of the smartphone market, and knows that the phone isn't going anywhere, you've done a great job of missing the entire point of the ad. It wasn't really flaunting unique features, it was showing off the interaction and ease of use.
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Thanks! Yes the number is my company phone number available elsewhere on the internet, so I don't totally mind it being in there. That's not my girlfriend's number, or her real name haha

silvertonesx24 said:
Thanks! Yes the number is my company phone number available elsewhere on the internet, so I don't totally mind it being in there. That's not my girlfriend's number, or her real name haha
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lol that's okay then (btw, I've added your video to my blog)

keyboardP said:
lol that's okay then (btw, I've added your video to my blog)
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Awesome thanks! I'll check it out and link people to it!

Lets talk... Why are there so many lackluster apps on the marketplace?

I was recently pondering this question of "Why are there so many lackluster apps on the marketplace?" while I was looking into improvements for my app.
It really does seem that there are only a hundred or so, really inspiring Metro based apps on the WP7 marketplace, and Im not sure why. Even many of the developers who are active with their apps have truly un-inspiring visual apps, or downright stripped functionality. Im not sure why, granted you see a similar pattern with Android, which from what I can tell is much worse, but WHY? These developers are just one-off releasing apps, they are most commonly very active.
Just thought I would see if anyone had any input on this.

Its like that on all market places. Did you think there was over 500,000 aw inspiring apps?
Sent from my Nexus S using Tapatalk 2

How many things
I have pondered the high number of apps for quite some time as well, but I approached it from another angle:
Think about it like this: How many different things can you possibly do with a smartphone? Well, quite a lot, obviously, but interestingly as soon as I start to enumerate, I run into problems to continue pretty soon. Maybe I can name 100 different things to "do" with a smartphone.
Now, say I forget a lot of things, and other people do other things than me anyway, and there will be new things that nobody has thought of so far, so let's take this times 10 and proclaim that you can use a smartphone for a full one thousand different things. (I would really love to see this list.)
If you cover each thing with, say, 10 different apps, so people have choice and can take the app the like, and there is healthy competition, we arrive a grand total number of 10'000 apps that make sense - ever. Anything beyond that is simply too much.
If you think 1'000 things to do with your smartphone is way too low I would challenge you to list 1'000 things that you do in your daily life, overall and in general, with your smartphone or otherwise - our lives are quite interesting, but there are limits of what we all do.
Ok, now let's be generous and throw in 50'000 different games which are not subject of things that must make sense, after all you can just invent and invent new variants of games.
That absolute upper limit of 60'000 apps or so is pretty low compared with the contents of the app stores, isn't it?

^ it is low, but you have to add in the different region apps too, different languages, and all of their variations. Thus the huge number of apps.
Sent from my Nexus S using Tapatalk 2

rbrunner7 said:
I have pondered the high number of apps for quite some time as well, but I approached it from another angle:
Think about it like this: How many different things can you possibly do with a smartphone? Well, quite a lot, obviously, but interestingly as soon as I start to enumerate, I run into problems to continue pretty soon. Maybe I can name 100 different things to "do" with a smartphone.
Now, say I forget a lot of things, and other people do other things than me anyway, and there will be new things that nobody has thought of so far, so let's take this times 10 and proclaim that you can use a smartphone for a full one thousand different things. (I would really love to see this list.)
If you cover each thing with, say, 10 different apps, so people have choice and can take the app the like, and there is healthy competition, we arrive a grand total number of 10'000 apps that make sense - ever. Anything beyond that is simply too much.
If you think 1'000 things to do with your smartphone is way too low I would challenge you to list 1'000 things that you do in your daily life, overall and in general, with your smartphone or otherwise - our lives are quite interesting, but there are limits of what we all do.
Ok, now let's be generous and throw in 50'000 different games which are not subject of things that must make sense, after all you can just invent and invent new variants of games.
That absolute upper limit of 60'000 apps or so is pretty low compared with the contents of the app stores, isn't it?
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1:Manage your bank account....how many different banks are out there.
2:Follow your local news....how many tv station, radio station, newspapers.
3:Follow your favorite sports team...how many teams out there.
4:Manage you reservations....for every hotel, rental car, airline.
5:Stream video....from every network, internet service, cable/satellite provider, your own network at home.
Now, how many tens of thousands of apps would it take just to cover those 5 functions that you can do with your smartphone?

Millions of apps
66stang351 said:
Now, how many tens of thousands of apps would it take just to cover those 5 functions that you can do with your smartphone?
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Yeah, I know, let me guestimate that there are maybe 10'000 large cities on this planet. Then you have 10'000 "Map of City x" apps, plus another 10'000 "Public Transport Time Table for City x", and again 10'000 "Coming Events in City x", and on and on.
Of course this brings up all kinds of questions, e.g. whether it really makes sense to turn all these things into an app where a website would perfectly do, but anyway, I concede you have a point.
I developped the habit to check all the new apps that appear in the Marketplace daily, and of course I see many apps of this type appear, but in my estimate at least half of the apps are just "garbage".
And what really makes me sad: Usually many days pass until I find a new app that really surprises me, an app with a real idea if you know what I mean, where somebody found something new - a rare gem of creativity. All that time spent building apps, what must amount to man centuries even, and then this meager result - it's a shame.

It's a growing thing. When Android and iOS were first released, there weren't many lackluster applications for awhile. Currently, developers are just trying to get everything on Windows Phone 7 that is already on Android and iOS...to include tools, games, instant messaging platforms, etc. Once they've caught up, then the developers will start using creativity.
It's not really a problem, just give it time

PoorCollegeGuy said:
It's a growing thing. When Android and iOS were first released, there weren't many lackluster applications for awhile. Currently, developers are just trying to get everything on Windows Phone 7 that is already on Android and iOS...to include tools, games, instant messaging platforms, etc. Once they've caught up, then the developers will start using creativity.
It's not really a problem, just give it time
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Don't you think its due to lack of API restricted by MS that not want to allow developer to work on!!

Just me maybe but i hardly even look at the market anymore.
Sent from my LG-P920 using xda premium

Well I rather lackluster apps than the other side of things shown here. Kind of explains why if you do not have one of the really popular Android phones why you may see more force closes than someone holding a SGS2.

taruian said:
Don't you think its due to lack of API restricted by MS that not want to allow developer to work on!!
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I totally agree with the API restrictions. It has kept me from making an app i really want to but on the other hand I as a developer feel that having eye candy in your app is a must. My specific type of apps for WP7 make the Android and iPhone users jealous as they dont have eye candy apps in that genre in their marketplaces. Also a lot of devs try to push many apps out for the money. Like if you include ads in your apps. The more apps the revenue you can earn as its a numbers game. So i think they rush on the design part.

vetvito said:
Its like that on all market places. Did you think there was over 500,000 aw inspiring apps?
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^This. Is there any objective evidence the amount of dross in the MSFT app store is any more than any other OS' app store?
People like to see their name in lights. It's as simple as that. Someone barely cobbles together an app with their meager programing skills and uploads it just to see their name in the app store.

sitizenx said:
^This. Is there any objective evidence the amount of dross in the MSFT app store is any more than any other OS' app store?
People like to see their name in lights. It's as simple as that. Someone barely cobbles together an app with their meager programing skills and uploads it just to see their name in the app store.
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Apple apply quality control on submitted apps. They will reject any apps that are buggy, crash or which don't serve a useful purpose. They are notoriously strict, causing quite a few famous publishing issues.
Mean while, Microsoft also have a submission possess, but not sure what it actually does? I remember reading on here about as developer that submitted 6 WP7 apps, that all just displayed a block on screen (each app was a different colour) and they all got published. A paid appstore should be no place for test apps; It's almost like MS don't care, and just want to boost their numbers..
Android market has no QA; anyone can submit anything. Most wild-west like app-store, but stuff doesn't get pulled off the store randomly like the above two.

^ you're joking about Apples QC right? That has got to be joke of the day.
Sent from my Nexus S using Tapatalk 2

whodisname said:
Just me maybe but i hardly even look at the market anymore.
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pretty the same here. For quite some time now I have found all the apps I need and I only look for new ones (or alternatives f.e. different twitter apps etc.) very rarely, maybe when "super new, awesome app blabla" is featured on some news website.
The majority of apps I use work fine and aren't "lackluster". Just 3 or 4 I wish they would make improvements/alternative app.
Of course there are many not so good apps in the marketplace but thats a problem of every device, not even only phones. just look how much crappy software or games are available for pc.

Let's get the minuum keyboard on the Moto 360

EVERYBODY get on and email them!! Make sure they know there's a demand! Maybe if enough people request this it will happen. Here's their email.
[email protected]
I emailed minuum and this was their response.
Thanks for letting us know! Unfortunately, based on current development priorities it seems unlikely we will have a finished version for the Moto 360 anytime soon.
If you haven't already, I recommend following us on your preferred social media network(Google+,Twitter,Facebook) and/or signing up for ourmailing listin order to receive the latest Minuum news, including any plans for a Moto 360 release.
All the best,

I joined the mailing list a couple days ago and put 360 as my watch. If demand is high enough, it will come.

I sent them an email as well saying a huge part of XDA is requesting it, etc.

A post in a different topic:
furiousgtz said:
I also emailed them last week..
"Right now we are very focused on our iOS release but we hope to resume development on our circular version soon. I recommend and signing up for our Smart Watch Mailing List(http://minuum.us4.list-manage1.com/subscribe?u=ca045cd04e580f1a87d5b9c63&id=3f537d0efb) to keep up to date with all Minuum for smart watches related news."
...
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So be patient. It'll come. iOS just has a bigger user base than Moto 360, so that gets priority

Wim!! said:
A post in a different topic:
So be patient. It'll come. iOS just has a bigger user base than Moto 360, so that gets priority
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I had email conversation with Prem Business Dev @ Minuum. Since there was no demand the project was put on hold. Now they are working on a working beta.

furiousgtz said:
I had email conversation with Prem Business Dev @ Minuum. Since there was no demand the project was put on hold. Now they are working on a working beta.
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Hell ya!

furiousgtz said:
I had email conversation with Prem Business Dev @ Minuum. Since there was no demand the project was put on hold. Now they are working on a working beta.
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Are you sure? This is an email I just got from Prem:
"Hi Omar,
Thanks for the input and we will definitely take it into consideration.
You would be surprised at the development resources necessary to completely rebuild Minuum for a circular watch face. Though we would love to just fully develop every cool permutation of Minuum, we are constrained by the resources available to us.
To be honest, the only realistic way we might be able to justify doing this is if the Android Wear A. officially opened up their platform to third-party keyboards and B. if a circular watch manufacturer engaged us in some sort of partnership.
Though this could happen, I don't see this being likely in the very near future.
Best,"
I replied back to him asking for a beta if possible or something that can at least be temporarily functional for the time being until greater resources are available.

opasha said:
Are you sure? This is an email I just got from Prem:
"Hi Omar,
Thanks for the input and we will definitely take it into consideration.
You would be surprised at the development resources necessary to completely rebuild Minuum for a circular watch face. Though we would love to just fully develop every cool permutation of Minuum, we are constrained by the resources available to us.
To be honest, the only realistic way we might be able to justify doing this is if the Android Wear A. officially opened up their platform to third-party keyboards and B. if a circular watch manufacturer engaged us in some sort of partnership.
Though this could happen, I don't see this being likely in the very near future.
Best,"
I replied back to him asking for a beta if possible or something that can at least be temporarily functional for the time being until greater resources are available.
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Click to collapse
Yes. From our conversion, it looks like they have been working on the Moto 360 and the keyboard is currently in development. I would like close to finish product to try because I have a feeling this might drain our battery.

furiousgtz said:
Yes. From our conversion, it looks like they have been working on the Moto 360 and the keyboard is currently in development. I would like close to finish product to try because I have a feeling this might drain our battery.
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It has almost no effect to battery life on my g watch. If that means anything. Couldn't be that much different

Guitarboarder28 said:
It has almost no effect to battery life on my g watch. If that means anything. Couldn't be that much different
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Agreed. Keyboards are not supposed to drain battery. Their coding is not that vast where it requires so much memory to be used. Someone got the STOCK android keyboard to come up by accident if you saw in the minuum thread. Maybe we can utilize that in the mean time? Anyone know how to enable it? I know adb has to be used. I'm assuming Minuum used the stock apk and built upon that.

[Beautiful Watches] My Watchface

I've really been enjoying using Beautiful Watches to create custom watchfaces for my LG G Watch (and the supplied designs are quite nice, too!). Once I've posted enough here, I'll share my custom watchface, built off one of the default designs ("Sunset"), using a photo I took in Juneau, Alaska this summer.

StDoormatius said:
I've really been enjoying using Beautiful Watches to create custom watchfaces for my LG G Watch (and the supplied designs are quite nice, too!). Once I've posted enough here, I'll share my custom watchface, built off one of the default designs ("Sunset"), using a photo I took in Juneau, Alaska this summer.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Looking forward to seeing it - was hoping to see some more BW designs on here.
I have another very cool 80's inspired watch using the shader engine that I should be able to post on here soon.

[Q] What happened to the forum???

Not been on the SW3 forum in quite a while but just visited now and it seems that all topic s have now all just been thrown into one section?
What happened to the separation of development, general, help and app topics??

Maybe almost no one still using Wear Watch (bad battery, bad UI, too many bug.....) ?

dersie said:
Maybe almost no one still using Wear Watch (bad battery, bad UI, too many bug.....) ?
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Still doesn't explain why the categories have gone.

TheATHEiST said:
Still doesn't explain why the categories have gone.
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Not enough people to justify a long categories list of watches that nobody use

dersie said:
Not enough people to justify a long categories list of watches that nobody use
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I'm not talking about categories of watches. I'm referring to sub-categories within the specific watch forum of a watch like General/Help/Development etc. We previously had them in here not gone.
...Also, many, many people use WearOS watches. Especially since 2.0. Not sure where you're getting the idea that "nobody" use them. You're either misinformed or you're just trolling.

I'm still using the watch despite everything.
It still works fine, except for the step counter but I don't care.
If we were to throw away all functional tech products only because of "unfair" business decisions regarding the updates we will waste money for nothing.
Sorry for the OT

Iryon said:
I'm still using the watch despite everything.
It still works fine, except for the step counter but I don't care.
If we were to throw away all functional tech products only because of "unfair" business decisions regarding the updates we will waste money for nothing.
Sorry for the OT
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My step counter works again, you need to update google fit!