In one of their latest shows, Vernon and Andrew from the awesome Glance and Go Radio discussed whether or not having a lockscreen still makes sense.
Unlike many people may think, lockscreens were not really meant to protect a device from being accessed by other individuals, but derived from the keypad locks cell phones used to have to avoid accidentally performing a phone call while carrying the device in your pocket (butt dialing).
While you may argue about the actual use on touch devices, I find lockscreens a great way to further personalize my device. Especially with the new features Microsoft introduced with Windows Phone 8.
Meanwhile several dozens of all kinds of lockscreen apps can be found in the Windows Phone store. Some of them offering quite unique features. I’m currently going with Lock Buster, which you can find here.
And even though there are certainly more important parts of the OS which need optimization and improvements, I seriously hope Microsoft hasn’t reached their end of the line with the lockscreen options. I personally would like to be able to add more than just 5 apps to it. I don’t see a single reason why a second array of icons couldn’t be added.
And while these icons at least serve the purpose of letting users know about the amount of new items for the configured apps, I don’t see it necessarily stop there. I’d love to be able to tap the icons to have them reveal more detailed information about what’s awaiting me. These could simply be displayed above the clock. Perhaps with a net slide or fade in effect.
That’s just my personal opinion of course.
What do you think? Would you rather get rid of this ancient feature or keep it? Share your thoughts in the comments below.
That’s a question that’s been driving me for some time now. When I first came to Windows Phone – on my HD2 back in the days – I was kind of disappointed too. Coming from Windows Mobile and Android I was used to have access to almost anything in the system. I used to have all these nifty things like a file browser, a task switcher/manager, custom lockscreens, custom alarms, custom ringtones. Well, I spent more time for tinkering with the OS than I actually used the device. Not to mention that I flashed my device at least twice a week. Why? Because every single iteration of the ROMs I used was supposed to bring a little more stability and speed. I can’t even tell if this was actually true, but I always considered it well worth a shot.
So after flashing the first DFT WP ROM onto my HD2 – which was months ahead of the first update aka NoDo – I came to realize that MS obviously took a couple of steps back in terms of features. It almost felt as if they were approaching mobile OSes the same way Apple did. Which I found kind of shocking to say the least. Pre NoDo – and even pre Mango – WP7 lacked a lot of features that I felt were a necessity for each mobile OS. There wasn’t any multitasking, no official Messenger app, no social networks. But unlike many other users I saw the potential this new OS had. Even though it was lacking in so many ways. After spending a couple of weeks with it I started to lose the feeling to actually need file browsers, RAM cleaners, task managers and even the whole lot of customization I had gotten used to. Windows Phone’s strength was the focus on delivering information without the need of digging through a thousand of apps. It was its focus on providing a unique user experience and convenience that only Apple managed to provide with iOS so far. And from my point of view they did it in a much better way.
NoDo, Mango and now Windows Phone 8 all built up on these strengths. They added more features and even more access for devs to the underlying system. Each and every single feature Microsoft added was well thought about and felt right. It didn’t have that Frankenstein like patched together feeling I’ve always had with Android and even Windows Mobile.
I’m not blind though. I know that Windows Phone still lacks a few things and certainly doesn’t do everything right. Backups anyone? Podcasts? Xbox Live video support? Unlike many others I at least don’t have any issues with synchronization. But I can see that this is still considered a construction zone rather than a top notch solution. Zune did a better job there. But these are downsides every single OS has to deal with. There isn’t something like perfection.
I’m going to cut the chatter here now and go to what was supposed to be the original topic:
so who are actually the users who complain so much about Windows Phone and what it does or does not? That’s the point I was making with my personal story. It’s mostly these people who feel limited, because of the lack of customization. Limited because of the lack of access to the system. What these people see as boundaries is in fact the exact opposite. Windows Phone set them free. Free from things they actually don’t need. The issue is, they refuse to give into it. They refuse to take the time it needs to get comfortable with it. If more people would really USE a Windows Phone for more than just a couple of hours, they would see and feel the difference. Just like I – and many others now – did.
Bottom line is, it’s up to Microsoft and the OEMs to convince people that Windows Phone does (almost) everything a smartphone needs to do these days. And it does it in the most beautiful and convenient way possible.
Windows Phone 8 Developer Summit is finally over and has many early adopters who recently purchased a second generation device left unsatisfied, to say the least. As an early adopter myself who bought a Nokia Lumia 900 about 8 days ago I can fully understand the rage that is going through the community. But I still have some common sense left that tries to find explanations for why Microsoft chose to take the decision the way they did.
First of all Windows Phone hasn’t been the top seller many of us would have liked to see it becoming ever since its release in October 2010. WP’s marketshare is still low enough that Microsoft is willingly taking the risk of pissing people off who already bought into their still new ecosystem. But who are those people who feel let down by Microsoft? Is it the average customer that has just jumped on the smartphone bandwagon? Or is it rather the tech savvy geek who is never really satisfied with what he currently owns and is always longing for newer, better hardware and more features? My assumption is that in at least 7 times out of 10 it’s the latter. And I bet that 3 or 4 of these 7 would have bought a newer device anyways when it hits the marketplace. Even if their current devices would have been upgraded to Apollo.
But why did Microsoft take that risk in the first place anyways? From my understand they didn’t even have a choice to take a different path. When they realised that Windows Mobile was going down big time, it was pretty much too late as Apple and Google already had taken control over the mobile market. What Microsoft needed to do was two things:
Come up with something so different from everything else currently available and unique in many ways, that it would be noticed and gain some traction even though it would lack many features commonly available on competing platforms.
They needed to do it as quickly as humanly possible in order to not let the already existing gap between them and their competitors become even bigger.
Besides the fact that hardware that was available when Microsoft began development of Windows Phone wasn’t by far as good as it is today and thus most definitely not even capable of running an NT based kernel, what was Microsoft supposed to do other than taking an existing and as being reliably proven system (aka Windows CE) and give it an overhaul?
From a business point of view it’s the only way that makes sense to me. From a consumer point of view though I have to admit that I’m of course not actually happy with what was announced yesterday. Even though I have to admit that it was a Summit meant for developers which of course unvealed mainly things relevant to these. It has yet to be announced what features both, WP7.8 and WP8 will bring to the consumers. I still believe that WP7.8 will not be all about the redesigned homescreen. Being a bit speculative here I assume that every single feature that Win CE and our single core Snapdragon CPUs are capable of, will be delivered with this update.
To sum things up: am I pissed off? Do I feel screwed by Microsoft (and Nokia)? Certainly. Does this mean I close my eyes before things that were pretty obvious and most definitely inevitable? Heck no! What Microsoft announced yesterday may feel like a slap in the face for many, but they couldn’t really have done it any other way. And as a matter of fact: I enjoyed Windows Phone 7.x and my Lumia 900 before yesterday. How the hell could that Summit have changed that? It didn’t. I still enjoy the experience of WP on my device. And I will continue to do so for as long as it may take until I can get my hands on a dedicated Windows Phone 8 device.
Just a quick last note before I save this post and have it published. Many WP users are pretty much concerned with the marketplace situation that is ahead of us. Sure, Microsoft promised that all existing apps will run just fine on Windows Phone 8. But what will happen to people who use Windows Phone 7.8 then?
Without diving too deep in technical aspects, Windows Phone 8, regardless of the new kernel, still supports XAML and C# (aka managed code) which was, is and will be absolutely sufficient for most apps. All these apps should run without any issues on WP7.x as well and thus certainly be available on this particular marketplace. Apps that make use of WP8’s newer hardware or are natively coded won’t run though. That again is speculation as there’s no WP8 SDK available right now to play around with. Once it’s available will see if there are differences or not.
That’s it, I’m done. Call me a blind fanboy, but I still believe Microsoft took the right decision. As unpopular and fucked up it may seem. Period.
