Windows Phone 8 - Apollo 11 or 13?

[Vesper]

One thing I wish they'd support though are direct actions on tapping a live tile. As implemented right now, tapping a live tile must open the app the live tile is for. So you can get quick access to disable/enable wi-fi, bluetooth, etc. but it's two taps (one to load the app, one to do something in the app), instead of just one tab right on the start screen.

My coworkers and I were just talking about this early today, after discussing something like a simple counter that increases when tapping a tile. Could you "launch the app" and kill it right away to handle this? I imagine you'd still get the splash screen (or placeholder) though.

[rei]

Ever since WP7 if you just tapped the notification before unlocking, it would immediately take you to the message you just received. Still does it in WP8 - but in WP8 you don't even need to swipe-up after tapping the notification (as long as you don't have a password to enter first)

is there a centralized notification tray/corral for notifications you missed?

[LMN8R]

No. Though it's less of a problem for me now since I can easily pin a whole lot more live tiles without having to scroll for days.

[mono]

Ever since WP7 if you just tapped the notification before unlocking, it would immediately take you to the message you just received. Still does it in WP8 - but in WP8 you don't even need to swipe-up after tapping the notification (as long as you don't have a password to enter first)

Good to hear, but maybe this was after one of the major WP7 updates. On release, I could swipe away the SMS notification to dismiss it, but tapping got me nothing.

[rei]

Microsoft burning up any remaining goodwill by stiffing their early adopters of WinPho7: http://blogs.windows.com/windows_pho...phone-7-8.aspx

I guess their smartphonebetatest.com campaign really meant their own users were the beta testers.

[Kool Moe Dee]

I'm not really sure that anyone will get that angry about this...

[rei]

Well it's an official blog with comments open and there's quite a bit of disappointed posting from WP7 owners.

[mkozlows]

I'm surprised WP7 owners would complain publicly instead of on Microsoft internal mailing lists.

[LMN8R]

I'm surprised WP7 owners would complain publicly instead of on Microsoft internal mailing lists.

holy LOL

[stusser]

Heh.

5

[James Gutierrez]

This http://www.touchdevelop.com is the coolest thing I've seen in a long time, which means it was probably posted here weeks ago, but anyway...

It's a touch-optimized development environment that runs either in a browser or (the really cool part) as an app on your phone. So you can actually write code on the device and run it immediately. I assume the apps (technically 'scripts') are hosted in some kind of runtime, but after poking around a bit I'm impressed by how full-featured it is. You have access to all of the sensors, contact/calendar info, geolocation and mapping, structured data storage, and web requests with json payloads so there are a lot of possibilities. I'm assuming no background processing or live-tile stuff and from what I can tell ui/navigation is pretty much roll-your-own, but otherwise the app behaves like a normal app, pinnable to the start screen, etc. There's even a 'app store'-type ecosystem for scripts that not only hosts apps, but libraries and art assets as well. Evidently you can even box up your app and submit it to the real app store.

Even if you don't have a windows phone or any interest in coding for one, the introductory videos are still worth a watch just to see the UI in action - they have a lot of cool tricks, aided by language design, to make development on a 4.x inch screen possible.

[mono]

I just provisioned a Nokia 822 (Verizon budget WP8) for one of our users. We got it at the cost of zero dollars w/ contract renewal. It's a great phone. 4G, super fast, Activesync support and a great aesthetic, both the OS and the hardware. Personally, I'm too deeply entrenched in the Google Apps infrastructure to migrate, but for this person who's coming from a Blackberry, it's a huge step up.

[rei]

http://bgr.com/2012/12/18/nokia-ceo-...usivity-257854

Elop thinks making Nokia 920s available on fewer carriers will make it more successful.

[biosc1]

http://bgr.com/2012/12/18/nokia-ceo-...usivity-257854

Elop thinks making Nokia 920s available on fewer carriers will make it more successful.

Sounds like a nice spin on "Not every carrier wanted to carry this phone".

Of course...if the Nokia 920 would actually be in stock maybe I wouldn't be so annoyed...