The Windows Phone Thread

[ssk_the_gr8]

This Thread is for Everything WP
be it apps, updates, problems etc.

Current Versions

WP7 - 7.10.8773.98 (Tango)
WP8 - 8.0.9903

7.10.8773.98(Tango) Update change log:

Messaging. Adds new messaging capabilities to your phone. You can now attach multiple pictures, videos, audio notes and ringtones to text messages.

Other quality improvements. Includes many other improvements to Windows Phone.

8.0.10211.204(Portico) Update change log:

Messaging improvements. A great messaging experience is now even better. You can now add multiple recipients at the same time when you send a text message and automatically save unsent text messages as drafts. You can even edit received text messages before you forward them.

Text replies to incoming calls. Can’t take a call? Now you can send a prewritten text reply to a caller directly from the call answer screen. It’s a nice way to let people know that you’re not ignoring them.

Internet Explorer improvements. You can now change your settings to prevent pictures from downloading automatically—an easy way to help keep data usage low. You can also delete selected sites from your browsing history and leave the rest intact.

Wi-Fi connectivity. Got a favorite Wi-Fi network? Windows Phone 8 will now prioritize Wi-Fi connections based on your connection history.

Other improvements. Includes many other improvements to Windows Phone.

Latest Beta Versions

WP7 - 7.10.8858
WP8 - 8.0.10531

Phones Available

WP7

HTC Radar Product Overview - HTC Smartphones
Nokia Lumia 800 - Nokia - India
Nokia Lumia 710 - Nokia - India
Nokia Lumia 610
Nokia Lumia 510 - Smartphone with windows OS 7.5 - Nokia - India
Samsung Omnia M

WP8

Windows Phone 8X by HTC Overview - HTC Smartphones


Upcoming Phones

WP8

Windows Phone 8S by HTC Overview - HTC Smartphones
Nokia Lumia 920 - Windows Phone with PureView Camera - Nokia - India
Nokia Lumia 820 - Windows Phone with Wireless Charging - Nokia - India
Nokia Lumia 620 - Windows Phone 8 with MS Office - Nokia - India
Samsung Ativ S

Links

Windows Phone | Cell Phones, Mobile Downloads, Mobile Apps, and More | Windows Phone 7
Windows Phone Blog

Recommended Apps

Outsider
Opera Link for WP7
IndianRail
SimpiRSS

(More Recommendations are welcome, they will be added to the list)

[rajan1311]

Will be applying the update on my phone today... I did face the keyboard issue at times... Nice that they fixed it

Btw guys, any good apps on the market?

[noob]

4th and mayor
AppTastic
Birdsong
BookMyShow
Connectivity shortcuts
IBNLive
IMDB
Moneycontrol
Mid day

Cant recommend any single IM app..be it IM+ or WhatsApp because both are pathetic on WP and equally awesome on Android. Blame the OS for same and not app developers.

[ssk_the_gr8]

i've posted the 4 i've been using...

i'm acollege guy so i've found a new app for myself... we need this in college

Where's my money?

btw, did you get the notification or you're doing a forced update? cause i have not got the notification for 8107 till now

[noob]

@rajan1311 : How you won that phone ?

[ssk_the_gr8]

true .. IM apps are not upto scratch

[noob]

i've posted the 4 i've been using...

i'm acollege guy so i've found a new app for myself... we need this in college

http://www.windowsphone.com/en-IN/ap...7-41038e837935

btw, did you get the notification or you're doing a forced update? cause i have not got the notification for 8107 till now

same here but got the notification this way....download any random app from market....in date and time settings make sure you have UTC 5:30 time zone and set automatically is turned OFF. connect phone to zune and you should get the update...which phone you got ?

[ssk_the_gr8]

Samsung Omnia W

btw whats with the boring nokia lumia 800 siggy? i'm enjoying WP a lot

[noob]

Samsung Omnia W

btw whats with the boring nokia lumia 800 siggy? i'm enjoying WP a lot

Lack of quality apps, Lack of free apps , OS restrictions, crap zune software, WP UI controls reminds me a lot about my old WinMo 6.5 phone.. dumb metro UI (e.g Facebook app has metro UI which is totally BS ...look at twitter metro UI ...super awesome.. ) will post about it in details this weekend for sure..this metro UI is a double edged sword..will mostly post a blog it. it been on my mind since i have started using WP.

Infact MS has this habit of serving old wine in new bottle..same is for WP
Current WP home-screen = Stock WinMo 6.5 home screen (present same things in square + make it interactive)

UI elements : It has not at all changed. We have clearly seen how UI elements got slow yet nice update...you can clearly see the difference in basic UI elements (buttons , scroll bar ,progress bar ) ..see how they looked in Windows 98,Windows XP and Windows 7.
No such transition (i am not talking about animation) from WinMo 6.5 to WP7.

[ssk_the_gr8]

hmmm , you seem to have a different opnion, everyone i have shown my phone have fallen in love with WP ui and love metro/live tile concept..
i've been using it for so many days, i still enjoy it

[noob]

hmmm , you seem to have a different opnion, everyone i have shown my phone have fallen in love with WP ui and love metro/live tile concept..
i've been using it for so many days, i still enjoy it

Yes. My opinion is bit different because I am using both Android and WP and hence can pin point which things are better on given OS. Ofcourse, it is from my point of view.

Even i do and love tiles But it gets boring over the period of time. Add the broken notification system of WP to it. Also after extensively using WP, i have came to the conclusion that tiles and having list of installed apps in vertical list is not more functional compared to widgets and grid style layout. Also multiple home-screen is a MUST have these days.
It is real PITA to find 1 app from list of apps as i have to scroll n number of times. Also there is a limit to no of tiles one can have.

On the other hand, on iOS and Android you can have small icons placed on home screen which saves UI space when compared to tiles + you can keep more icons in 1 screen = easy locating particular app from huge list of installed apps. If at all you want something auto updating , you can have a real interactive widgets.

Even scrolling is not smooth on WP compared to iOS as of now. This is bound to get huge improvement in next OS update.

*looks like i need to stop now and put my thoughts on blog* On a positive note, Apollo update will bring native C++ coding to WP and it will be a game changer..late 2012 or Q1 of 2013.

[rajan1311]

Won it at a Nokia quiz buddy.. Should have got the 800 but am happy with the 710...

I do agree, there is a serious lack of quality apps - free apps on the market..
the YouTube app ain't even an app, MS could have at least done that well...

I an just using board express and easymusic&ring ..

I got the notification on my phone that the update is available...
Do i have to backup all my stuff before i update?

any chance of getting flash support ? At least flash lite or something...

[noob]

Cool......buddy. No backup required..and how would you even backup ? esp contacts and SMS ? there is no way to do it as of now. (if it is , let me know) So just update and enjoy

[rajan1311]

I was worried about the pics actually...
But good I don't have to do anything...

[ssk_the_gr8]

When you update auto backup & restore takes place . Anyway your pics will be synced with zune so don't worry

Sent from my GT-I8350 using Board Express

[rajan1311]

updated...feels pretty much the same...

[Vyom]

Ok... so I have got my hands on a Windows Phone, HTC 7 Mozart, for "a day"... to fiddle with!!
(given to me by a friend who doesn't know how to operate it! )

Now, I have few hours to learn and experiment on it as much as I like.

Due to an Android user, I hope I just pop in the SIM into it, and it starts to sync everything from cloud.

Update: Ok, I was able to find a way to open the backpanel and slide in the sim. So far this is what I have discovered in the phone:
1. This handset doesn't support gprs settings and to add airtelgprs.com as Access name (as written on a message). But I am not able to find the setting in which I should put it!
2. A female voice reads out the number when a call is received! Nice!
3. Everything is Tile based, and lack of menus is making me a little uneasy!
4. But, the animation between the different tiles is fluid and subtle animations in the background looks nice!

[ssk_the_gr8]

it does support gprs but through an app, samsung phones have the wireless manager or network profile, HTC must be having a similar app.

btw, theres always settings >mobile networks> add apn , try that

[Vyom]

Update2: I did find the APN setting and was able to transfer a picture that I needed to get from phone. Since, I couldn't send it through Bluetooth to my Android! (hated the phone for this).

But after the phone was connected to hotmail account, it automatically synced all the contacts on my live ID. (This was a major task for me).

But the absence of a context menu button makes me uneasy a lot of time!

Now exploring what kind of games and features does it supports.

Btw, I now know why the tagline of WP7 is, "Putting People first". Since the phone contains an app called, "People" on the first row of Home screen (?)

[ssk_the_gr8]

you'll get used to now context menu, u'll learn the WP way

and the reason for putting people first is not the peoples tile, it is about the integration of twitter ,fb and linked in, into the phone.. add all these accounts , use it , then you'll understand?

btw , what os version are you running?

settings>about my phone>more

[Vyom]

^^ LoL.. I was kidding!

Btw.. the OS version is: 7.10.7720.68 (which is mango I suppose).

Also can you recommend me some gaming apps on WP7 for racing.. free and small in size. Small is important since I am on 2G!
And some benchmarking apps too! I want to test this baby a bit!

[ssk_the_gr8]

WP is not made for 2g , you have to use 3g or wifi to truly enjoy it.

small racing game is diifficult, give armored drive a try, it's not actually racing

you have an older phone which does not have adreno 205, but it can easily handle armored drive

[sam]

And some benchmarking apps too! I want to test this baby a bit!

so Gingerbread + 600Mhz + Adreno 200 (you'll overclock for sure) vs Mango + 1Ghz + Adreno 200 (stock)? cool

[ssk_the_gr8]

WPBench.. it's the de facto standard for WP ... dont know if there's a cross platform benchmarking tool

[Vyom]

Lol... 1 GHz will obviously win, but yes, need a cross platform benchmarking app to really compare the two!

I just want to keep scores of WP7 for record purpose. It may help someone else later. Although HTC Mozart is already discontinued from the market, so there will be better phones at the same price now.

[arian29]

suggest a good chat client for wp7... something like the imo in android. couldn't find Flory in marketplace

[rajan1311]

suggest a good chat client for wp7... something like the imo in android. couldn't find Flory in marketplace

there are none

also, my dad (who is now using the Lumia 710) is on a prepaid connection. He does not get any notifications on his call charges, which you generally get..also, no data usage notification, no missed call notification (blinking lights?) as well..

He hating it for these basic reasons

[Vyom]

^^ Service notifications mostly comes on top. And I too don't get data usage notifications, to know which I think there is some number to call. Like for eg, in Airtel you have, *123*10#.

For the last one, i.e., missed call notification, that comes on the tile of home screen displayed along with a number.

Yes, WP7 is low on notifications. Something as basic as a status bar should have been implemented!

[sam]

^^ Apollo should fix all these complains of your, if tango doesn't do it beforehand. but still at least M$ should have implemented this in mango only. some may say it as copying from Android but this is a necessity.

[rajan1311]

no service notifications at all man(nothing on top)...at least balance notifications should have been implemented..

I know the tile tells me about the missed call, but i needed a notification which tells me that I have a notification without even unlocking the phone... they could make the windows button light on the phone strobe or something..