Windows Phone 7 Launch Thread

evolutionqy7

chrislad wrote: »

They really need to disable the search button if an app or game doesn't use it. I have lost track of the amount of times I have had a game restart because I accidently touched the button.

isnt that up to the developers to block the key out? its left out open because its handy for marking a word on some apps and then you can press search and it searches the word for you

chrislad

Playing Puzzle Quest 2 when I accidently hit it. Lost my progress and the game had to reload from start. Devs should be disabling it if its not being used by the app. I know it has uses, like in the marketplace, but if all it does is reset the app, fairly big oversight.

wheresmybeaver

chrislad wrote: »

Playing Puzzle Quest 2 when I accidently hit it. Lost my progress and the game had to reload from start. Devs should be disabling it if its not being used by the app. I know it has uses, like in the marketplace, but if all it does is reset the app, fairly big oversight.

It's easy to hit when using the camera as well, although in that case you can just hit Back and you're back into the camera.

Unfortunately I think I read somewhere that developers don't currently have access to the Search button in their apps. At the moment, alternative uses for the Search button are restricted to Microsoft apps or OEM apps (Samsung or HTC apps). I believe the ability for an app to map the Search button will come in one of the next 2 updates, along with access to the compass, camera etc. App updates for games and such will amost certainly disable the button at that stage.

By Jaysus there are a lot of little things people are expecting to be fixed / updated in the next update, hope they are actually included!

gizmo

Meh, to hell with access to the Search button in the API, how about a sockets interface in the API so we can get some SSH/IRC apps.

liamog

App developers need to handle the user exiting in a better way. I've played Monopoly and Tetris. Monopoly does it well by pausing the game and letting you resume when you go back in. Tetris just restarts the level which is a little frustrating.

markpb

I finally got my Omnia 7 this morning (Santa was good to me ) but it can't connect to the Meteor data network. I rang them but they said they don't have config files available for the Win7 phones yet and I should enter data.mymeteor.ie as the APN. I've tried that but it's still not working. Has anyone any ideas before I call them again??

evolutionqy7

markpb wrote: »

I finally got my Omnia 7 this morning (Santa was good to me ) but it can't connect to the Meteor data network. I rang them but they said they don't have config files available for the Win7 phones yet and I should enter data.mymeteor.ie as the APN. I've tried that but it's still not working. Has anyone any ideas before I call them again??

does it not pick up and select apn auto? maybe u got no credit

markpb

Got it working, turns out there was a problem with the data settings on my meteor account. Now to start playing :-)

ChristIsMurph

Anyone having any problems with the GPS on the Omnia 7? I just cant seem to get it to work at all.

Undead

spark1976 wrote: »

Got myself a HTC HD 7 and so far i'm well impressed with it.

The first thing that strikes you when you handle the phone is the size of it.. its huge, really lovely. There are no physical buttons on the phone at all other than the on/off switch, camera switch and volume control. Phone is very sturdy, not as tough as the iphone id say so anyone that buys it dont go dropping it!!

Windows 7 is fantastic, coming from an iphone 4, its a bit confusing at first. Everything of importance is on the first screen, the second screen that you access by scrolling to the right holds all the other apps.

The tiles themselves are pretty cool, the people tile i think is one of the best things i've seen on a phone, you can sycronise all your facebook, hotmail, gmail, twitter, outlook contacts.. it turns the people section into one big phonebook full of information...it works really well for me. For example, if you select a person on your contacts it will then show all the latest posts from them on facebook, twitter etc, you smart link various contacts together...its just done right.. the title itself is animated which i thought was pretty cool..

I have only tried a few apps, apparently there are about 3000k plus apps, very very small compared to the iphone apps, but its a new phone and it will eventually get there, installing the apps was painless.. no issues at all. I must say i'm well impressed with the facebook app. Its a must for anyone thats into social stuff..

Xbox live is great, you can see all you achievements, gamerscore, change your avatar details, view your friends etc.. all works great. This i'm expecting to expand over time. MS has a hit on their hands if they really drive the xbox section, it could end up being the xbox handheld if done right. Played one or two games,The Harvest is one of them... i'm not that far into it but so far its pretty solid, great graphics.. that was unexpected..

I got to end with Zune. Disapointingly the Zune pass ive been hearing so much about is not available to ireland at this time. A friend of mine had it and raved about it. I really like the Zune interface, much much better than the itunes one, its great for music and films. Really easy to set it up and transfer my albums to the phone

Great phone and fantastic effort from MS, it can only get better with updates. I really hope they support the phone, i thought i'd miss my iphone but i'm glad i did the switch!!

Hmmm I've got an iPhone 4 since June myself and I'm seriously looking to switch to WP7, the Omnia 7 to be precise!
Is there anything you miss from IOS?

I'm just about ready to swap but I'm worried I'll miss my iPhone 4, just curious to hear more about how you feel about that?

chrislad

All I miss is Angry Birds but that is coming to Xbox Live though no date is set.

Undead

chrislad wrote: »

All I miss is Angry Birds but that is coming to Xbox Live though no date is set.

Haha if thats the only thing you miss, I think I'll be fine so!

evolutionqy7

Undead wrote: »

Haha if thats the only thing you miss, I think I'll be fine so!

Quite funny that alot of iPhone users are migrating. Lately alot of people are saying that iP4 UI and needed something new. Since android UI is similar think (especially if its a Samsung phone) hence why people are moving to WP cause its new and different for a change.

gizmo

Has anyone tried the registry hack to enable the use of the phone as a mass storage device? While Zune syncing is one thing, having to run a local webserver so I can transfer documents over to it is taking the piss a bit.

wheresmybeaver

gizmo wrote: »

Has anyone tried the registry hack to enable the use of the phone as a mass storage device? While Zune syncing is one thing, having to run a local webserver so I can transfer documents over to it is taking the piss a bit.

It works, as in you can add and remove files, but it messes with the zune integration for photos, music and video. For now I would only use it in a situation where you want to regularly transfer files between two or three of your own computers.

Where it may be handy in future is adding non-zune files, such as MKV or whatever for sideloaded media players (I'm hoping VLC player or something similar will eventually make an authorised appearance on WP7 for us power users).

Anyway, using your WP7 phone as a mass storage device is missing the point a tiny bit; MS wants you to have everything either synced through Zune or the cloud, so you don't have to worry about manually copying things and creating folders and the like. This seems to be their ultimate goal, and future WP& updates will push this further and further (Skydrive integration and the like). They don't want to stop you from having a File Manager, they don't want you to need one :rolleyes:

gizmo

wheresmybeaver wrote: »

It works, as in you can add and remove files, but it messes with the zune integration for photos, music and video. For now I would only use it in a situation where you want to regularly transfer files between two or three of your own computers.

Aye, I'd only be using it for non-Zune files alright. I'll see how things progress with the updates in the new year before messing with stuff.

wheresmybeaver wrote: »

Anyway, using your WP7 phone as a mass storage device is missing the point a tiny bit; MS wants you to have everything either synced through Zune or the cloud, so you don't have to worry about manually copying things and creating folders and the like. This seems to be their ultimate goal, and future WP& updates will push this further and further (Skydrive integration and the like). They don't want to stop you from having a File Manager, they don't want you to need one :rolleyes:

I read something similar which was being said by one of the MS WP7 team members and the same thing sprung to mind - give people the choice to drag and drop files over, let Zune pick up the changes to the file system thus keeping things all nicely tacked and stop being as ****ing bad as Apple.

evolutionqy7

wheresmybeaver wrote: »

It works, as in you can add and remove files, but it messes with the zune integration for photos, music and video. For now I would only use it in a situation where you want to regularly transfer files between two or three of your own computers.

Where it may be handy in future is adding non-zune files, such as MKV or whatever for sideloaded media players (I'm hoping VLC player or something similar will eventually make an authorised appearance on WP7 for us power users).

Anyway, using your WP7 phone as a mass storage device is missing the point a tiny bit; MS wants you to have everything either synced through Zune or the cloud, so you don't have to worry about manually copying things and creating folders and the like. This seems to be their ultimate goal, and future WP& updates will push this further and further (Skydrive integration and the like). They don't want to stop you from having a File Manager, they don't want you to need one :rolleyes:

Your forgetting the main reason. To stop piracy.

Foxhole Norman

Just got my HD7 yesterday and am loving every bit of it now i must say. My only gripe about WP7 and the Zune player is how long it takes to convert videos to play on the phone. Other than that its all good.

gizmo

Foxhole Norman wrote: »

Just got my HD7 yesterday and am loving every bit of it now i must say. My only gripe about WP7 and the Zune player is how long it takes to convert videos to play on the phone. Other than that its all good.

I'm in the same boat at the moment, loving the phone and OS however the video playback issue is incredibly frustrating. MS really do need to take the finger out and support AVI and XviD like they do on the normal ZuneHD models. Even then, it had better not be like the H.264 support which is so specific that even files in that format are being re-encoded by Zune because they're not the correct res or bit rate.

Foxhole Norman

yeah hopefully they'll fix this in the new update due in january isn't it?

hightower1

Just found the IGN free app, if your into games its great.
Nice UI , responsive and updated regularly.
Has preview, reviews,daily vid round up, news and top stories. Previews and reviews have vids too but thats not enabled yet.

markpb

Can anyone use the Maps app to find places or directions? When I click the search icon at the bottom, it opens Bing search which then does a normal web search.

gizmo

markpb wrote: »

Can anyone use the Maps app to find places or directions? When I click the search icon at the bottom, it opens Bing search which then does a normal web search.

Are you talking about the Search icon in the bottom of the Maps app or the main Search button on the phone? The one at the app allows me to search for a location whereas the phone Search does indeed bring up the Bing search. That's rather unusual actually as I was under the impression that the phone Search button functionality was meant to be customised for each of the apps.

markpb

I've tried both the in-app button and the hw button, both bring me to Bing and give me a choice of web or news results.

chrislad

hightower1 wrote: »

Just found the IGN free app, if your into games its great.
Nice UI , responsive and updated regularly.
Has preview, reviews,daily vid round up, news and top stories. Previews and reviews have vids too but thats not enabled yet.

I loved that app on the iPhone/iPad. There was no Android version, so it's surprising that there is a WP7 version. Downloading now!

wheresmybeaver

markpb wrote: »

I've tried both the in-app button and the hw button, both bring me to Bing and give me a choice of web or news results.

Same for everyone unfortunately. Local search only works for a few markets at the moment (US and UK and some others I think). When we do a search with Bing here we don't get the "local" tab (we only get "web" and "news").

Microsoft have got a lot of criticism over it. In fairness my old 6.5 handset with Google Maps was better featured. So unless Google release maps for WP7 (seems unlikely) we'll be waiting on Microsoft to flip the switch and let us get local results.

Actually I still have my old 6.5 handset in the car specifically for the purpose of using iGo8 on it to find my way around for work; it's still not possible to navigate with WP7.

Undead

Hey, my Samsung Omnia 7 should arrive in the morning and I was just wondering if anyone knew if it takes micro sim or normal "big" sim.
I'm moving from an iPhone 4 so I need to know.
If it takes the normal "big" sim I gotta head over to Meteor first thing!

Cheers.

Foxhole Norman

As far as i know its the same as the iPhone 4 I.e large sim. I think

evolutionqy7

Foxhole Norman wrote: »

As far as i know its the same as the iPhone 4 I.e large sim. I think

It depends on the manufacturer but as far as I remember iPhone is the only one that uses micro sims

gizmo

Undead wrote: »

Hey, my Samsung Omnia 7 should arrive in the morning and I was just wondering if anyone knew if it takes micro sim or normal "big" sim.
I'm moving from an iPhone 4 so I need to know.
If it takes the normal "big" sim I gotta head over to Meteor first thing!

Cheers.

The Omnia 7 takes the normal sized big SIM.

wheresmybeaver wrote: »

Same for everyone unfortunately. Local search only works for a few markets at the moment (US and UK and some others I think). When we do a search with Bing here we don't get the "local" tab (we only get "web" and "news").

Well that's odd, I get the Local tab alright but so far every time I've searched for something it comes up as "No local results for X".