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Windows Phone 8.1 |OT| Update 1

n64coder

Member
I've seen posts about people raving about Swipe but I didn't check it out until I accidentally used it yesterday. Wow! I'm sold!
 

Funky Papa

FUNK-Y-PPA-4
Testing out the new Lumia 635.

I don't get it.

How can a screen this painfully low-res (seriously, visible pixels is so 2012), simultaneous be this gorgeous? The colors are super vivid on this thing.

8.1 is an OS built to take advantage of lower res screens and it shows. On a lot of the third party apps I've used the low res is obvious (and kinda ugly, in some spots). But all of the OS/native stuff? Simply stunning. I've thought that Metro was easily one of the most eye-catching OS since the damn Zune HD, and I still feel the same way. A LOT of app devs don't understand Metro's design philosophy, and it's fucking gross when I try an app that's clearly trying to force WP to behave like iOS/Android. But again, all the OS/Native shit? In love.

Overall, the Lumia 635 is a little TOO "entry-level" for me to want to make it my main phone, but it's enough to convince me that Windows Phone 8.1 has crazy potential (and is realizing a lot of it). And now I kinda want to import a Lumia 930. Now THAT is some hardware...

Any GAF impressions on the 930?

Lumias tend to have decent screens, even if low res. My 920 outperforms any OLED display under direct sunlight, which is a tremendous advantage in the summer. I can actually use the phone while I walk on the street.

ClearBlack + Sunlight Readability are amah-zing.
 

mrklaw

MrArseFace
Yep, already went back to weather app as my lock screen.

Oh. If it means losing my weather flow wallpaper that is a deal breaker.

What could work is if an app created a wallpaper, then put it in a folder that the lock screen is cycling through? Might be useful and would let you put all sorts of information on the lock screen
 

JaggedSac

Member
Oh. If it means losing my weather flow wallpaper that is a deal breaker.

What could work is if an app created a wallpaper, then put it in a folder that the lock screen is cycling through? Might be useful and would let you put all sorts of information on the lock screen

I thought the idea was that there were more APIs for app devs to use. So the weather apps could create their own Live Wallpaper.
 

KageMaru

Member
Tried the lockscreen app and I don't like it. There sometimes seems to be a slight delay between the screen turning on and the content showing up. Also the screen is unresponsive for a few seconds after unlocking the phone. That's the biggest deal breaker for me.

I want a 930 bad. I've read that battery life isn't great on it though, is that true?

I'd say it's average. I have six email accounts syncing, just about every social media app syncing, a home screen full of live tiles, and the phone will last until night with moderate use. If you're more of a power user who plays a lot of games, watches movies, or spends a lot of time browsing the web, you'll need to charge it once to make it through a full day. IE has consistently been the app that takes the most juice on my phone.
 
I thought the idea was that there were more APIs for app devs to use. So the weather apps could create their own Live Wallpaper.
They haven't released the new lockscreen APIs to anyone other than a few top developers in the store. That said, I wonder what the purpose of it overriding Kids Corner is, its not like any of those custom lockscreens use a horizontal swipe.
 

MCD

Junior Member
Under testing = undergoing final testing with Microsoft, country or operator to achieve approval.

gee

I guess 4 months weren't enough
 

kharma45

Member
Anyone having issues with bing translator? It wouldn't update for me, so I uninstalled it to see if that helped and now it wont reinstall :
 
I want a 930 bad. I've read that battery life isn't great on it though, is that true?
Battery is fine for me. Easily lasts a day while I'm using it. Won't worry too much about it. But I'm not using 3G for much during the day. Does get a bit hot when using that a while though.
 
Love the live lock screen. Unfortunately I needs my weather!!!

Yeah, I remove it because the lack of weather support and the lag when turn on the phone sometimes. It also cause weird hang up. May be when it's a little more stable and tie into Bing weather for lock screen.
 
So, turns out everyone was exaggerating a bit on how bad Xbox music is on WP 8.1. I don't know if it's be caus I babysat the thing during the whole "updating collection" process but haven't really had any problems yet. No live tile and no lock screen for 90% of my collection is absolute bullshit, though.

Also: What the fuck did they do to the cursor when typing? This is horrible.
 
So, turns out everyone was exaggerating a bit on how bad Xbox music is on WP 8.1. I don't know if it's be caus I babysat the thing during the whole "updating collection" process but haven't really had any problems yet. No live tile and no lock screen for 90% of my collection is absolute bullshit, though.

Also: What the fuck did they do to the cursor when typing? This is horrible.
It used to be absolute garbage. It's much better now, but no where near where it should be.
 

stktt

Banned
So, turns out everyone was exaggerating a bit on how bad Xbox music is on WP 8.1. I don't know if it's be caus I babysat the thing during the whole "updating collection" process but haven't really had any problems yet. No live tile and no lock screen for 90% of my collection is absolute bullshit, though.

Also: What the fuck did they do to the cursor when typing? This is horrible.

It was borderline unusable at launch, but it's much better now. With a live tile and improved performance, I would prefer it to the old hubs.

I can barely operate the new cursor.
 

royalan

Member
Main Problems I Have with Xbox Music (or problems that already have solutions that I'm unaware of because I'm still new to WP):

--Inconsistent album art support. For some reason, the album art (and track info) fails to load for any songs I try to play direct from my Onedrive. Only the track plays. I have to actually download the album onto my phone for that info to show up.

--Onedrive integration could be a whole lot better in this regard. I was expecting seamless integration with my phone (like the music I have saved to my Onedrive showing up in my library), but right now having Onedrive is really no better than having a dropbox account.

--Why is there no cursor so I can scroll between places in the track from anywhere in the app? I have to be IN the Music app to do that.
 

maeh2k

Member
I have to say I love the camera of the Lumia 930. Picture quality is great and Nokia's Living Images really add to the experience. Especially in combination with the Storyteller app.
I'm not sure how exactly they've implemented the Living Images. When I transfer the photos to my PC, I suspect it's just the static pictures, right? What if I transferred them to another Nokia phone? Would the Living Images still work?


If I could change one thing, I'd like to have an easily and quickly accessible switch to turn off the Living Images feature of certain pictures. For some static pictures that start with a split second of camera shake, it doesn't really help.
 

KageMaru

Member
I currently have a GS5 and was thinking of trying the 930. How does the camera compare?

IIRC the cameral is slightly better. Colors aren't over saturated like they are on the GS5 and photos contain more detail which is more obvious when zoomed in. Plus the 930 has OIS, which has additional benefits such as clearer pictures, steadier video, and better night time shots. I'd say the only camera phone better than the 930 is the 1020.

Admittedly the video recording capabilities is hit or miss. Sometimes the video is nice and clean while other times it's a tad on the grainy side.

Cool thing though, the phone can record audio in DD 5.1 while recording video.

Also: What the fuck did they do to the cursor when typing? This is horrible.

Yup the new cursor is hot garbage.
 

Ape

Banned
So the lock screen beta turns the lock screen into an "app" and I get the awesome resuming screen upon wake up now. Horrible.
 

MCD

Junior Member
More Windows Phone 8.1 GDR1 changes: Store Live Tile, Start tile layout, Phone Cover app & more

The Store tile, when medium-sized, is now a live tile. It shows both the Store logo and the name

Manufacturers can change start tile layout in some cases

OEMs can introduce Phone cover app like we see for other platforms

Windows Phone 8.1 GDR1 supports entity extraction in the Messaging app (which is also shared with the Email)

By default, when a user calls the voicemail number, the number dialed is displayed below the Voicemail. It can be disable in GDR1.

For phones that support an SD card, OEMs can either allow or block the use of the SD card for phone updates

OEMs can show or hide the “auto scan for updates” setting on the phone.

And Chassis Requirements for WP8.1 GDR1 revealed

One of them is that Windows Phone now supports qHD resolution (960 x 540) scaled from 720P. The OS still does not support the newer super high resolutions however, being limited to Full HD (1080p)

Also interesting is that a proximity sensor is now a hard requirement, surprising given that the Nokia Lumia 630 and 530 does not feature one.

Also unfortunate is that there does not appear to be any support yet for the newer Snapdragon 810 processors.

Microsoft has dropped performance requirements for MicroSD cards in WP8.1, and can compress the OS partition to enable more free space in 4 GB handsets.
 

bedlamite

Member
So the lock screen beta turns the lock screen into an "app" and I get the awesome resuming screen upon wake up now. Horrible.
Yeah the lock screen app isn't very good, I uninstalled it after about 10 minutes of futzing with it. Rudy Huyn has promised to drastically reduce resume times, but that isn't the issue I have with it: the unlock animations are unnecessarily gimmicky and lock screen fonts are fugly.
 
Yeah the lock screen app isn't very good, I uninstalled it after about 10 minutes of futzing with it. Rudy Huyn has promised to drastically reduce resume times, but that isn't the issue I have with it: the unlock animations are unnecessarily gimmicky and lock screen fonts are fugly.

Yeah, the lock screen app is very ugly. I uninstalled it after 10 minutes as well. The fonts are ugly and the animations aren't nice to look at either.
 
So my wife and I both have Lumia 928s, and I am on 8.1. I upgraded her phone to 8.1 last night and she has Cortona installed but my phone doesn't. I went into phone update and it says my phone is up to date, does anyone know what I can do to get Cortona on my phone?
 
So my wife and I both have Lumia 928s, and I am on 8.1. I upgraded her phone to 8.1 last night and she has Cortona installed but my phone doesn't. I went into phone update and it says my phone is up to date, does anyone know what I can do to get Cortona on my phone?

language and region have to be US
 
I wish every app had to offer the options of a live tile with the app brand colour, accent and clear.

Perhaps not a big thing to most people but I just don't know why you wouldn't offer the option.
 

Ape

Banned
Yeah the lock screen app isn't very good, I uninstalled it after about 10 minutes of futzing with it. Rudy Huyn has promised to drastically reduce resume times, but that isn't the issue I have with it: the unlock animations are unnecessarily gimmicky and lock screen fonts are fugly.


I didn't like it either. The biggest problem is that after I've uninstalled it I'm still getting the resume screen. Ugh.
 

Vast.

Banned
The next step is to offer custom fonts for each type of Lock Screen. For example, I like the first diagonal effect, but I want it with the slim font of the last one.

That's presuming that it ever gets to a reasonable state without any lag or startup time.
I didn't like it either. The biggest problem is that after I've uninstalled it I'm still getting the resume screen. Ugh.
Turn kids corner on and off.
 

Ape

Banned
The next step is to offer custom fonts for each type of Lock Screen. For example, I like the first diagonal effect, but I want it with the slim font of the last one.

That's presuming that it ever gets to a reasonable state without any lag or startup time.

Turn kids corner on and off.


I've never used kids corner before
 

MCD

Junior Member
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https://twitter.com/tomwarren/status/493430170326691840
 
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