Month / February 2017

by programx360

Would the last user of Windows Mobile please turn out the lights? (2/3)

If you haven’t arrived here from what brought me here, you might want to start there.

Without rehashing what came before, in leaving Windows Phone I find myself at odds with my ecosystem and being pulled back in to Google’s data black hole.

Don’t get me wrong, I love Windows and what it was/could have been. UWP and Windows 10 and x86 apps on ARM are exciting. I dislike Android and respect myself too much to buy in to Apple.

Call me old-school. But I can’t be alone. For a phone, I just want it to be fast, good looking, be easy to use (so a physical keyboard) and be reliable and secure. The industry is careering towards exactly the opposite. Apps suck battery power and require Octa-core performance, all phones I can see are just slabs, no phones (bar one) have a physical keyboard instead relying on increasingly “smart” (annoying) autocorrecting on-screen keyboards and the most secure platforms (Windows Mobile, BlackBerry) are essentially dead in the water. Even the respected brands for build quality and security, Nokia and BlackBerry, have failed and are now retooling as façade-brands whilst the same Far-Eastern-manufacturing-factory-drones as everyone is using are charged with trying to maintain the trust, build quality and heritage of former platforms – but cheaper, much cheaper.

So, I switched.

The industry has failed me, producing nothing interesting, differentiating or exciting. It’s all just a bunch of black slabs differentiated only by the marketing wrapped around what is otherwise the same phone.

Except, maybe BlackBerry. BlackBerry have moved to Android (probably a smart move) and they’ve tried to transition the established trust they have developed in their brand (key of which is security) towards what is the most insecure platform available for mobile phones. They’ve sort of succeeded, too. Add on a physical keyboard and you get to the BlackBerry Priv. Alas, it looks like this was the first and last phone users could trust for build quality, as their production is now handled by the same Far-Eastern-manufacturing-factory-drone previously mentioned. But this isn’t a Priv review.

BlackBerry Priv

Image licence: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BlackBerry_Priv#/media/File:BlackBerry-Priv.jpg

But, it’s a struggle.

I don’t know how you people manage on this platform.

  • No Live Tiles. Widgets and tiny overlays on a grid of icons just don’t come close
  • You have to turn your screen on to see the time, no ‘Glance screen’
  • Fussy, inconsistent UI. Notifications about everything, delivered inconsistently. Only sometimes do I get told of my email, more often I get told I unplugged my headphones (yeah, I know, because I just did it with my own hands)
  • I’ve had to reboot every day. Rebooting was almost unheard of with Windows Phone 8.1, though became a regular requirement for Windows 10 – but not daily.
  • Things just stop working. APN settings, my primary email account four BlackBerry Hub. Then, they start working again.
  • Settings, settings, settings, everywhere. With great configurability comes great confusion.

About that Priv …

  • Poor screen in daylight. Almost invisible.
  • The radios (particularly Wifi and Mobile Internet) aren’t that great. I seemed to get better reception for both on my Windows Phones.
  • Headphone socket on the bottom of the phone. Even worse, just to one side. Result is I have to put my phone in my pocket upside down to listen on headphones and can’t expect to extract it without the lining of my pocket.
  • Going back to wired charging is like going back in time. And Micro USB to boot.
  • But, …
    • It is secure. So secure I had to factory reset when I locked myself out after forgetting my unlock pattern!
    • The slide is reminiscent of the old Nokia N95-2 (one of my favourites)
    • The BlackBerry software is neat, particularly the Hub. All the things in one inbox. It’s how I like to work. One app to rule them all, and in the inbox combine them.

Next job, trying to recreate my Microsoft ecosystem comfort zone, in someone else’s world …

by programx360

Would the last user of Windows Mobile please turn out the lights? (3/3)

Where am I? Read about how I got here.

Here I am in someone else’s platform. I need to migrate over to Android from Windows Mobile but retain the Microsoft ecosystem that has served me so well. Windows Central recently wrote their own piece on what is fast becoming a frequent task, but that was for switching to iPhone. This is my version, for Android.

Install the Microsoft apps

Microsoft have been busy building for everyone else’s platform whilst their own platform burned. Often, these apps were even better than the Windows Mobile equivalent. Nice. Kick your users whilst they’re down.

There are a tonne of apps available for Microsoft users, and I’ve focused on Office 365 and some consumer apps:

  • Microsoft Outlook
  • Microsoft Word
  • Microsoft Excel
  • Microsoft PowerPoint
  • Office Lens
  • Microsoft OneDrive
  • Skype
  • Groove (though it can’t read music on your SD card!)
  • XBox

I also included the MSN News apps, but quickly realised that without Live Tiles, I don’t have the same pull in to the app.

There’s actually an app “Microsoft Applications” which lists all Microsoft’s applications that can be installed. Well worth a look.

Reacquaint myself with Cortana

A feature I always used on my Lumias was Cortana. She was awesome. Excellent speech recognition, fast, clutter free and integrated in my ecosystem. Android has a Cortana app (one of my red lines) so I was hoping we could reacquaint with each other fairly fast.

Alas, she’s just not the same. She hasn’t got the same over-lock-screen access, she’s a little less available to my fingers and she doesn’t talk to me anymore. (I miss her “Wa-wa-waa”)

Sharing to other apps

Other than that, she’s been fine with everything I’ve thrown at her. She also notifies me on my Windows 10 desktop, as she used to with my Lumia 950 XL. I am counting on Cortana filling that gap between my phone and my ecosystem. She does still let me send text messages from my Windows 10 desktop, but the first message will likely fail because she needs permission.

How it’s working out …

  • I am really liking the Share contract that lets me select Share from any app and select which app should receive the Share. (Another feature killed from Windows Phone).
  • My weekly shopping trip using OneNote as a live-synced Shopping List still works. With the Recent Notes Home Screen widget, it’s actually easier. But the syncing isn’t as slick as Windows Mobile. There is no feedback to the user to indicate that a sync is in progress or that a sync has finished and what the changes are.
  • Microsoft Outlook doesn’t seem to be able to manage my Contacts, which is disappointing considering my primary repository is my Microsoft Account.
  • I’m really liking the keyboard. Much of this blog was written on a physical mobile phone keyboard. Finally, I have freedom from my desktop to perform equivalent actions. No need for Continuum, either.
  • Android Pay is awesome. I don’t think I’ll every use my card again. It’s so slick you actually doubt that the payment has worked and walking off feels far too like being a thief. Microsoft have Microsoft Wallet, but of course (with many things Microsoft), it’s only available in the US.

 

Ironically, Microsoft have gone to the effort of writing an app, “Switch to Windows Phone“. Perhaps they would have been better creating an app, “Switch from Windows Phone” to try and match what users loved from their own platform but with some degree of confidence in the longevity of the platform.