Author: Greg

[sc:mobile-category ]Today Microsoft release Windows Phone 8.1 to the developers preview program, which basically means anyone can download it by registering as a developer for free.

Microsoft released App Studio a while ago and you can sign up for free.  This gives you access to the Microsoft Preview program, which gets you Windows Phone 8.1.

App Studio is free as long as you don’t need to publish the app to the Store, so effectively anyone can get WP 8.1 today.

Getting the update is a two-step process, first a series of preparatory updates are installed, they’re relatively small and comes down quickly.  It does take a while to install, it goes through the standard data migration, but once complete your ready for WP 8.1.

The WP 8.1 update is much larger, it looks to be over 400 meg and it obviously requires a Wi-Fi connection to download.

Once downloaded it went through the same process as every other update, preparing to install, the gears screen and then data migration.  This was a much longer process and the data migration bar now breaks the process up in to multiple steps so it’s not so opaque.

Once installed, Microsoft prompts you to set some defaults and then your off to the races with the update.

The Start Screen

The first thing I noticed is that the status bar text and icons is no longer black (I use the light theme, so white background with black text) but grey.  It looks fine, just different.

Bringing down the new notification center effectively adds a second row of information to the status bar, the carrier your connected to, the percentage of battery left and the month and day.  It’s a nice touch.

Overall the animations and screen transitions seem faster and have been tweaked in a few different ways as well.  Nothing earth shattering but all improvements.

Another big feature that’s been brought to the Start Screen as an option is the six tiles wide mode.  On my Nokia 925’s 4.5″ display this looked a little small for my preference, but the extra tiles is quite nice.  I’m going to have to think about this for a while and see if I enable it or not.

E-Mail/Calendar/Contacts

E-Mail/Contacts is largely untouched but the big item here is full GMail support has returned using iCal, CardDAV and IMAP.

The Calendar on the other hand is a huge improvement over WP8.  The week view is much more usable and the year view is kind of neat.  I don’t understand why they dropped the Agenda view, but I don’t mind in the slightest, I hated it with a passion 😉

One other little item in the Calendar is Tasks, it’s available my bringing up more options on the button bar, but there’s lots of space left on the bar for it to have its own icon.  Just kind of weird they didn’t add one for it.

Internet Explorer

Most of the changes here are under the hood, IE 11 and other goodies are hard to see at first blush.

However a few items do stand out.

1. The stop/refresh button is now overlaid at the end of the URL.  A nice feature.
2. No limit on the number of tabs!
3. Tabs from your other computers are now available.
4. Password storage!

The Store

Automatic updates!  Nuff Said.

Search

Cortana is not available in Canada yet, though one would expect Microsoft to be enabling it soon enough.

There are a few tweaks to Bing search though and the best one is the ability to search the local phone for information.

Background Applications

Previous version of WP allowed you to block an application from running in the background, this feature has been removed from 8.1.  I would think Microsoft has thought of this and there must be some mitigation in the OS for it, but I haven’t found it yet.

Nokia Glance Screen

After the upgrade Nokia’s Glance screen is partly disabled, the time comes up but you have to go to Glance which will then tell you it needs to do a restart.  After the restart you can enable the rest of your Glance settings and everything works again.

I noticed before I updated the Glance settings that the phone ran a little hot and the battery was running down pretty quickly, afterwards it has been running fine.  I don’t know if this was coincidence or not.

Volume Controls

WP 8.1 also introduces separate volume controls for media and system sounds.  The new controls are a good thing, but I don’t like the interface so far.  By default when you hit the volume button it give you a status line with the current volume, but you have to tap it to bring down the actual volume controls.

There is also no single ‘mute’ button, you have to mute each control separately.

[sc:mobile-category ]Well it’s finally out, WIndows Phone 8.1 was announced last week at //Build/ and while they didn’t spend much time on it they did announce the big items.

First things first… when?  For most users it will be summer before they see it, a few will get it next month with some new hardware and developers will see it in the next couple of weeks.

Second… what phones?  They specifically called out all Nokia Windows Phone 8 devices, but they didn’t mention HTC or Samsung.  However the carriers did announce upgrades to both HTC and Samsung upgrades after the keynote.

Ok, now for the fun stuff, the new features:

• Cortana:  I’m not a big fan of voice control, but I have to say Microsoft made a good move in keeping the Cortana name.  It links two of their major consumer platforms together and let’s face it, it’s probably better than anything the marketing department could have come up with.
• Three Column Start Screen:  It’s been available on the Lumia 1520 for a while, so no surprise there.  Makes sense for larger format displays.
• The Start Background:  Kind of cool, but I think it detracts from the usability of Windows Phone so I won’t be using it.
• Lock Screen:  Now that’s a surprise, the angled text is kind of cool and I think  the API will be interesting as well.
• Action Center:  A sorely missing feature in 8.0, this will definitely be a welcome addition.
• Word Flow Keyboard:  The obvious parallel to Swype is clear and I have to admit I found Swype to be very hard to use.
• Skype Integration:  About time, Skype should be fully integrated with Windows Phone by now.
• Calendar Update:  Of all the calendar apps I’ve used I still believe the HP’s Touchpad WebOS version was the best.  Microsoft has at least started to update some of the core components of WP and hopefully this is just the beginning.
• Music/Video/Podcasts:  I’ve said before that moving most of the “User” applications out of the core OS and instead make them standalone applications made sense.  These are the first but I’d expect over the next few iterations to see other parts of the OS migrate to the Store as well.
• People Hub/Email/Accounts:  Nice to see s/mime and better social integration will be a big selling feature I’m sure.
• Wi-Fi Sense:  Sounds cool and the integration with Cortana to enable and disable Wi-Fi should make it easier to save battery power.
• Storage Sense:  Not much info on this, but hopefully it portends wider support for SD cards in new hardware.
• IE11:  Nice to see Microsoft continues to keep Windows Phone up to date with their core browser.  It looks like they’re also added password saving which will make it much more usable than before.

[sc:mobile-category ]In my spare time I write some code for various reasons.  My next two projects I’m looking at both require some cross-platform support so it’s time to dive in to the big three tablet OS’s and take them for a spin.

Windows

First off is Windows 8.1, I’ve been using it for quite a while now and my current hardware is a Dell Venue Pro 8.  It’s fast and runs everything I need without a complaint.  I’ve written enough about Windows tablets I think so I’ll just say it works and works well.

Android

For my Android tablet I figured I might as well go to the source and ordered a Nexus 7 from the Google Play store.  It arrived exactly when Google said it would and overall the device is a nice little unit.

Android on the other hand is a mess, inconsistent design, many hold overs from the desktop metaphor and it’s almost as if touch was an after thought.  I have to admit I actively avoid using the Nexus for any reason it’s that bad.

I’m still trying to get it to recognize my Exchange server, which I suspect is broken because my Google account and Exchange domain are the same so it looks like I’ve added the same e-mail address twice, even though I haven’t.

Android is a perfect example of a time where it doesn’t take the best technology to win, just to be in the right place at the right time.

iOS

Finally iOS, I have been dreading this for a long time.  I haven’t owned an Apple product since the original Apple II.  I have used them since then, I think the last time I did any serious work on an Apple product was probably the mid 90’s.

I decided on the Retina iPad Mini, completing my trifecta of 8″ or below devices.  No one can argue with the build quality of the device.  It feels solid and professional.  I was a little surprised at how little difference there really was between the iPad Mini and the Venue Pro from a size and weight aspect.

However where the Venue is serviceable, the iPad feels much better made.  Though I really do like the textured back of the Venue over the iPad.

But the big thing with the iPad is the software.  Even with the recent visual update with iOS 7, it feels very much out of date in comparison to Windows 8.  Many of the touch areas are (almost too) small and while not as bad as Android, there’s a lot of hold over from the desktop metaphor as well.

Final Thoughts

On a daily basis there no question for me the Venue Pro wins hands down.  The iPad would probably be ok to work with but in does feel very limiting once you’ve gotten use to having the full Windows desktop available.

And Android?  Only to be used in a last resort.  A terrible experience from start to finish.  I dread having to develop for it, I can only image what the tools are like.