Category: Mobile

Windows Phone 8.1 Live Lock Screen

Greg Leave a comment

[sc:mobile-category ]A while ago Microsoft promised a more dynamic lock screen for Windows Phone and they delivered “Live Lock Screen Beta” a few weeks ago.

I installed it and overall I have to say its kind of crappy.

It has several different kinds of lock screen (only one of which I found interesting) and didn’t come with any background for them.

I used it for a couple of days, but found it was unstable, slow and basically a poor replacement for the standard lock screen.

Perhaps they’re get it right in the next few releases, but it really doesn’t bring enough functionality for me to put up with it until then and I’ve removed it (there’s no way to simply disable it).

Windows Phone 8.1 Update 1

Greg Leave a comment

[sc:mobile-category ]Microsoft has released Update 1 to developers for Windows Phone 8.1 and it hasn’t been a smooth ride for me so far 🙁

Installation

The first issue was Microsoft’s, I was one of the limited number of users that the update would not install for and instead received an error (8018830f) after downloading the update and it was being unpacked. It took Microsoft a few days to track down the issue, turned out that it was a packing error on their part and after re-packing it, it installed without further issue. The update is pretty small overall, the two big items that interested me are:

  • Live Folders
  • Cortana activation through the address book

Cortana

I’ve already been using Cortana in Canada by setting my region to the USA and really haven’t found any issues, however in 8.1.1 I’m now able to set the region back to Canada. The part of 8.1.1 was interested in with Cortana was being able to assign an address book entry to her so that you can voice activate her from a hands free device. I had to manually add Cortana to the Address book, she’s supposed to be automatically added but apparently that’s not working in this preview. I have my phone connected to the in-car entertainment system and it works pretty well, but sometimes Cortana will stop listening too soon or miss the initial connection. I’m sure Microsoft is working on it though as this is just the preview.

Live Folders

Live Folders are more interesting, they work well but I’m not sure if I like them yet. For some things they make a lot of sense, like my weather apps. For others, like my e-mail folders, not so much. At the moment I’m using two live folders, one for the above mentioned weather apps and the other for my instant messaging clients. I’m going to play with them a bit more, but I’m not convinced they’ll be used much beyond what I’ve already done with them.

Other Issues

The other issue that came up with 8.1.1 was Twitter and WhatsApp stopped working. Twitter would start to load and just immediately exit back to the Start screen, where as WhatsApp would hang during load. The fix was the same for both, uninstall and re-install from the store. Now both work fine.

Final Thoughts

I think most people are going to like the Live Folders and the other small tweaks seem to be fine as well. Overall it’s been stable, now if only they could fix Xbox Music…

Smart Watches: Moto 360

Greg

[sc:hardware-category ]There hasn’t been a year go by that I haven’t looked at a smart watch of one kind or another and they all have shared a single common theme; rectangular.

The Moto 360 is the first smart watch that I can remember that has tried to break that mold and it looks like it going to succeed quite well.

I’m still not completely convinced of smart watch makes much sense as we all carry our phones with us these days, but the industry is very much behind pushing them so we’re going to see a flood over the next couple of months.  Google is pushing hard, Apple and Microsoft both look to have them coming out later in the summer/fall.

Most people who spend hundreds of dollars on watches (and I’m one of them) look for several things; shape, size, premium materials and features.  The previous generation of smart watches ignored almost all of these categories and failed.  The next generation is looking to have started to learn and the Moto 360 is the best example of this.  Smart watches have never wanted for features, but when talking about watches, features take on a whole new meaning that most tech companies haven’t gotten yet.

It’s not about heart rate monitors or pedometers, it’s about telling time.

I don’t care how many steps I took today and after the novelty of it wears off 99% of the rest of the population won’t either. After that, these “features” just become battery drains.

The single biggest remaining issue is run time.  A smart watch needs to run at least a week on a charge, we’ll see what this generation can do, but I won’t wear a watch I have to charge every day.

Nokia CYAN Update and the release of Windows Phone 8.1

Greg Leave a comment

[sc:mobile-category ]As I’ve mentioned before, I installed the developers preview for Windows Phone 8.1 as soon as it came out.  However that didn’t include Nokia’s CYAN firmware update.

Fortunately CYAN is now available and I’ve installed it.  Well I say fortunately, but what I really mean is unfortunately…

I installed it right away and it turns out that there are some problems going from the developers preview to the full release, Microsoft is actually recommending to uninstall the developers preview before installing CYAN.

The major issue seems to be if your phone has encryption enabled it will become unbootable.

I didn’t have that issue, but I have had a few small glitches.  Music and sounds stopped working until I did a reboot of the phone.  Also mail was flaky for a while, crashing several times.

Things seem to be stable at the moment, but I’ll have to keep an eye one it.

Favicons and Tiles with WordPress

Greg Leave a comment

[sc:wordpress-category ]Running JumbleCat exposes me to some things I general don’t want to deal with, one of those is making sure the site looks right when bookmarked or pinned to the Windows Start page.

Recently I found RealFaviconGenerator.net (via WPTavern) which highlighted some pretty bad results for how the JumbleCat.com favicon looks on some of the modern mobile platforms.  There’s really four areas of concern when it comes to favicons:

  1. The classic desktop favicon.
  2. Apple’s home screen icons.
  3. Android’s home screen icons.
  4. Windows Live Tiles and Task Bar icons.

Searching the WordPress plugin directory for an easy solution turned up a couple of different options for 1 or 2 of the above items but nothing that took in to account all of the above.

This really seems to be something that should be in WordPress core, basic functionality that every WordPress site should have.