The Pain of Getting WinPhone 7.8

Yes, I still have my Lumia 800.

No, I still don't have Windows Phone 7.8.

What I do have, is Windows phone 7.5, build  7.10.8779.8, which apparently is only the first update file on the way to WP 7.8 (7.10.8858.136) and supposed to be part of a batch that gets installed without the user knowing that the update is actually a set of updates, according to an article in International Business Times.

So how the h*ll, pardon my French, did I end up being one third of the way up to WP7.8?

It's not that long ago that my iPad informed me, that iOs 6.1 update was available. I got the notice pretty much approximately at the same time as any other iPad user, as far as I know. Now, for more than a week already, I have been reading (tweets, obviously, what else) and hearing my friends and aquaintaces,
 right here in this same country, talk about WP7.8 on their Lumia 800.

I am one impatient geek, ok. I get my iOs updates at the same time with the rest of the world, and I want my Win Phone updates that way too!

A complaint in Twitter, and I got an answer: "you need to do the Zune disconnect trick". What is that, now? Sounds funky, don't it? So I googled it and found the instructions. Basically:

1. turn of the network connenctions on your phone
2. open Zune
3. connect phone to computer
4. search for update; if the newest one isn't readily available -> 
5. check for updates again but this time
6. disconnect the computer from the Internet within 3seconds
7. and the newest update should appear
8. --> reconnect computer to the Internet and update the phone

When this didn't work for me, I complained it Twitter a bit more and got the instruction to keep on doing this (repeating steps 5-6 until the update appears) for about 30 minutes and eventually it would work. Crazy? Yes. Works? Yes. And no. 

Doing this, maybe not for a half an hour, but some time anyway, Zune eventually, quite reluctantly, offered me that 8779 update, and I thought that it would've then nicely continued to the truly latest update, the actual WP7.8. But nooo. My phone, as well as Zune, was happy with that update. I wasn't.

So I tried that trick some more, to get the rest of the updates, but the ony result I got was my laptop disabling the wifi adapter internally. I seriously sometimes think these devices have a will of their own! It was as if my laptop had grown weary of switching the wireless on again, off again. So it shut the wireless altogether. And for once, also fixed itself when I told it to.

This was the point where I decided to force patience on myself and wait for my phone to announce the update itself, no matter how frustrating it is to wait for it (there is some mostly unrecognizable self-sarcasm hidden in this statement). With an almost 7.8 windows phone. Yeah.

But, pretty pretty please, would it be possible to at least opt the update to anybody checking with Zune, even if the update is availble notfications are rolled out in batches?

P.S. If you want it bad enough, you can do it manually too, but that was like too much ado for me for now.

My Lumia and Internet Sharing

Some time ago I finally noticed that my Lumia could indeed be used as a wifi hotspot. I vaguely recall trying it out successfully with my laptop, but didn't really have the need for it after that. Except for with my iPad in the bus, and that didn't work. I thought the problem was somehow related to iPad being unable to use the network via Lumia or something.

This Monday I realised that the problem was something deeper than that. I needed, truly needed, to use my Lumia 800 as Internet connection for my work laptop. And it didn't work. I got a connection, but could not open any web pages or connect to Exchange. I tried to use our office VPN connection, but it would not connect either. As my last resort, I tried our home VPN. And that actually worked! And started tunneling requests so I could access web sites and my email, too.

Turns out for some reason Lumia did not provide any DNS service to my laptop, or iPad either, and that was the reason for nonworking networking. Our home VPN is confugerd with an IP address on my laptop as well as iPad, that's why it functions when using my Lumia for Internet connection.

Whether the problem is caused by Lumia or my mobile provider (or the combination of those two), I don't know. But at least I do know how to work around the problem. An IP address configured VPN connection does the trick.

Wi-Fi and When There Is None

Talk about first world problems. As a Finn, I am quite used to having a fast wireless internet connection not only at home, but at hotels, coffee shops and other public spots for a quite affordable fee or completely for free (not usually at home, of course). And when there is no otherwise provided internet connection, I can always connect to the internet via mobile data services (by the way - I completely missed the important Lumia update late June, bringing the Wi-Fi hotspot to the phone!).

But what about when the Internet connection is not a given? Like when the connection at home is not working? Or when the hotel does not provide Wi-Fi while you're tarveling? When you cannot even use the data connection of the phone because it would be such a big cost when you're traveling abroad? [By the way, I sincerely believe that mobile data connections at least within the EU shuold be made affordable!]

The feeling of helplessness is pathetic. It's not like I would need to be posting my every move in Facebook or anything, but I constantly run into little things I'm customed to, that I cannot use when the mobile data is turned off. Like opening the maps app on my phone to check where exactly I am and where my hotel is. Paper map, info maps, duh! My flight details? I cannot open the pdf attachment from my (pre-loaded) email. Or check the details from my OneNote app since that too wants to sync from the Internet. What if I forgot to print these out, just because I'm so used to having the Internet action.

Or like when sitting in a seminar, I take a photo of the presentation on my cell phone. And then on my laptop I open Windows Explorer and navigate to the Skydrive folder. But, uups! My photo is not there! The mobile data is turned off so no pics get uploaded, and most probably the Wi-Fi is not even working as so easily happens in seminars where tens or hundreds of people try to connect at the same time. And I cannot help that either for my part by using mobile data connection.

In the evening I would like to surf the Internet, read the news a bit, post an entry in my blog etc. while idling alone in my hotel room. But whereas in Finland most hotels have free Wi-Fi, it generally is not so in most other countries, to my experience. If it is reasonably priced, I may consider buying some Internet time for myself (if it even is available that way), but even I am not that huge of an addict that I couldn't go for a couple days - even weeks, even deliberately when on vacation - without an Internet connection.

You don't even notice it when the connection just is availbale. Our lives intertwine, the things we use and do intertwine with Internet services in so many ways! Add free global Internet connection to basic human rights! ;)

The Ancient Feel

My Galaxy Tab is only 18 months old. It should, by standards of a time already apparently long gone, still be in its prime, a perfectly modern device. But as technology in this stuff goes, it has already started to feel ancient. It's not the size of the screen, nor any sort of bulkiness of physical design. It's the touch experience, the pre-Win7-like-symptoms of the system, the UI deficiensies. It is, de facto, a first generation tablet.

The last real update the Galaxy Tab got, was the Gingerbread. I can sort of understand, that if the technology of a device is insufficient, there is no mind in pushing the newer versions of the operating systems to it. It would only result in even more user frustration, when things only get worse. In some ways, I feel like even updating to the Gingerbread was a mistake. My Tab used to be quite smooth and trustworthy - nowadays it crashes quite frequently and feels somehow tacky to use.

Not only that, but I am quite disappointed by the browsers for the device. The built-in one? I ditched it long ago. I tried Skyfire, Opera Mini, Firefox mobile and latest and currently the Dolphin browser. Dolphin is my favorite one, and so far has been more or less the one to fullfill my needs. But even so, the browsing experience is nowhere near the built-in browser of the iPad, the Safari, of course.

Before buying my iPad I scouted out the other options, i.e. the newer Android based tablets since that was what I'd been using already for a year or so, and there still is no Windows tablet available. Even though they definitely were more sleek than my poor Tab, and - at least in the store ;) - not at all tacky, I still got myself an iPad, and felt defeated. I don't have anything against iPads per se, as I have stated before. My problem is the hype around it, and the loads of sh*t Apple gets away with, simply by being Apple (and, as for now, the maker of the undeniably best tablet so far).

I have high hopes for Win8 tablets. Android as a UI is like Windows in its XP's. Gives you a lot of modification options and enables you to arrange your icons as you like etc. But in the long run, it gets tiresome. In the end, even I just want my apps available with as low maintenance as possible. The iOS does this - but it is high time they get a worthy competitor. So does WinPhone7. And I myself, after using the WinPhone7 UI on my Lumia for these past months, really hope Microsoft in Win8 tablets will redeem their promises. For I like the UI even better than the iOS which I admit to liking quite a lot!

As for my Galaxy Tab? Is it at the end of its lifecycle already then? For sure no! Ok, it's not as sleek and cool anymore as it used to at least feel, but it is still a good device. My iPad is not 3G, but I can insert my second SIM in my Tab. The Tab is more lightweight and slips easily into my purse. I like it as a Kindle device much better than the iPad (holding it leaves dents on my palms...). It's got some cool apps like the Cartoon Camera, that you don't get on iPads. It's got some games my daughters like to play, that you don't get on iPads.

No, time has not flown by my "age old" Android device just yet. But it is a good reminder of how fast the technology is advancing now. And I don't even have a "new" iPad, I have the iPad2. We'll see how old that feels in a year or so.

Facebook Mobiles

Finally, a mobile Facebook client that I really like! Filpboard doesn't count, since it's not a real FB client, only displaying the news feed. Ah, which one? you ask. I'll tell you. The absolute winner is the Win phone FB app!

On my Android devices and on my iPad, 99% off the times when I open Facebook (which is several times in a day), I use the web page instead of the mobile app. With the Lumia, I was already so disappointed by the mobile apps - plus, Win phone has the People news feed, combining FB and Twitter feeds - that I didn't even think to install the actual WP7 Facebook app.

Until today, when I couldn't access my FB messages any other way, the full web page not functioning properly on the phone for some reason. And it was love at first sight. There is something to be said about the metro UI of the WP7 apps. It simply rocks!






The iPad version is more or less ok too, at least an unquestionable second place.

OneNote Mobile Apps Review

OneNote is undeniably and without question my all time favorite software application. Especially when combined with Skydrive. Even though there are some slight glitches, or maybe I should say user experience defects, when it comes to the cloud usage; I had a real hard time trying to share my work notebooks via SharePoint and finally resigned to simply store them all in my Skydrive, where my personal one already existed. I even tried Dropbox, but while that is convenient enough on PCs, it doesn't really work on mobile devices.

Hands up, who's not familiar with OneNote and is wondering what the heck am I writing about? Ah, probably those of you didn't even read this far. Ok, hands up, who's wondering what all the fuss is about, it's just a notepad, isn't it? Nope, not just a notepad. It is the most efficient and effortless way I know to make notes on this and that and add images and screenshots and documents and whatnot! to the notebook. Read more on Microsoft's OneNote page.

So, I have my work project information in OneNote, my kids' school schedules and info notes, my travel documents, and all sorts of this and that in OneNote. Already before it was available on any mobile platform, I stored my personal notebook in Skydrive, which enabled me to access it on any laptop I happened to be using (3, on a regular basis; two personal ones and the work laptop). As for last autumn, I had no mobile device on which I could access the notebook. Now I've got three. Oh, rejoice!

Windows phone

The first one, the one with the built-in OneNote app (i.e. Office Hub), was of course my Lumia 800 Windows Mango phone. I didn't really even think of it beforehand, but when I logged in with my WinLive account, as the phone asked me to do, the notebook appeared in my Office Hub. And this further inspired me to share the work notebooks to, as it provided an easy access to different kinds of data without the need to open the laptop.

Naturally the Win phone natively integrated OneNote mobile version is the best one. It allows you to pin notebooks or pages to tiles. It allows you to create and edit notes (pages in notebook sections). You can add to do -lists, numbered and bulleted lists, pictures (either from camera roll or take a new photo) and even audio to the pages. And you can copy-paste text t from e.g. a website to the pages. Pages can also be emailed.

Unfortunately, the phone screen is kinda small for any major note taking and such, so here's one more reason to look forward to the Win8 tablets!

iPad

Then came the iPad. The OneNote app for iPad was released in December last year, and I got my iPad conveniently about a month later. So it was, in fact, among the first applications I installed on the iPad, along with Lync. Out of the three mobile OneNotes, it also holds the second place in features and overall usability - and as for now, the first place in non-OneNote-related usability what with the biggest screen and all.

Like in the Win phone, you can create and edit notebook pages, add pictures from camera roll or take a new photo, add to do -lists and bulleted lists, copy-paste text, and email pages. Numbered lists don't seem to be present, nor audio.

The features that I don't like in the iPad OneNote are that the notebooks are displayed in an apple way as a pop-out sidebar instead of e.g. the starting page. The last viewed page remains open when the app is closed, and the app opens to that page when launched again. I would like to leave the application in the notebook list, not with a page open.

Android

The OneNote Android app was released only today, I could say finally. Since I also have a Galaxy Tab, which I still do use somewhat even while owning an iPad, I jumped at the release and installed the OneNote on my Galaxy Tab. The free version allows up to 500 pages, after which you need to get the full version for a few euros. Only the synced pages count.

The OneNote experience on Android was quite pleasant, the UI resembling the Win phone version more than the iPad one, editing was easy enough with the same possibilities offered as on the other mobile OneNote apps - to do -lists, bullets, numbered list too, the pics from either camera roll or a new photo, and copy-pasting. There is no email page command available though.

The only thing that was a letdown, really, was creating new pages. No matter where I am when creating a new page, it always creates it in Unfiled notes section of the Personal (Web) notebook - which I don't even use, since I already had a personal Skydrive-stored notebook, long before the mobile devices came along. And I can't seem to get rid of this annoying unnecessary and unwanted notebook if I tried - obviously, since the mobile apps want to use it when I don't.

All-in-all

None of the mobile OneNote apps enable moving or copying the pages or sections around. But all-in-all, the basic functions are there, my data from different notebooks is available and easily synced, I can edit the note pages too. Hurray for mobile OneNote - my notetaking in seminars etc. took a huge leap forward with the release of iOs and Android OneNote apps :)

Missing the WiFi hotspot

With my cellphone and my Galaxy Tab (or iPad, but here where I am, the Tab is easier to carry around and hold in hands for a long time), one would think that I'm fully equipped for the 1-2 hours wait while my daughter tends to horses and has her riding lesson. But the cellphone being Lumia 800, unfortunately am not. I am lacking an internet connection (which of course means that this entry is posted when I'm already at home).

The WiFi hotspot is maybe the only single thing that I truly miss on Lumia. The HTC Desire had it, and I used it here and there, frequently. I have a USB mobile WiFi too, but of course, it's of no use when using these mobile devices. Except with this Tab, actually, if I remove the sim from the stick and insert it to the Tab and reboot the tab and...

Be as it may, I miss the easy-to-flip-on WiFi hotspot. Personally, I don't miss Skype, let alone Google+ (see rumors of the upcoming Tango update) nearly as much as I miss the WiFi hotspot on my otherwise oh so nice Lumia. Pretty please?

UI highlights and letdowns

Overall UI and screens
Got to say, I like the Win tiles best. There's the list of applications, and there's the tiles. And I can add more than just apps as tiles. The tile can be a contact person, the live tile showing the person's picture and latest social media updates. It can be a specific "page" or folder or part in an app. Some tiles are live, others not. What I do miss a bit on the WinPhone, is the multiple screens, like Galaxy Tab and iPad have.

On Android, I can add shortcut icons to both applications and parts of applications, and then there's the widgets that I like, too. And I can arrange and drag and drop the icons on each screen page as I wish. On iPad, the icons are apps only, and always auto-organized. But then again, I could, if I would like to, group them inside folders. But no live nothing.

Keyboard
The Galaxy Tab, or rather Android, has the functionally best keyboard, in my opinion. I really like the smart possibility to press and hold in order to type special characters and numbers. And the possibility to not use it, for of course it also has the toggle button for the special characters keyboard, just like iPad and Lumia the Winphone that both lack the press abd hold feature.

As for the iPad, I personally like the split keyboard (came with iOs5), even though the layout isn't perfect in all applications, causing the keyboard to float on top of the field instead of below it. But the best feature in iPad is the possibility to connect the nice small and lightweight wireless Apple keyboard to it, is a definite advantage. How much easier would it be for me too now to be typing this with such a keyboard than typ(o)ing on this touch kb.

Text cursor
Here too, the feature most to my liking is on Galaxy Tab, i.e. Android. First of all, it is possible to simply tap the cursor in the middle of a word, and then select the whole word if needed, or move the cursor to a different spot by dragging a tool.

I don't really like it that by tapping I can place the cursor only at the end or beginning of a word, even though I finally am starting to get used to the press and hold and then place the cursor way of doing it. The select with a double tap is nice though.

E-mail clients
With my Lumia, I love it that I can combine several Outlook accounts into one list view. Of course I could add even the gmail to the same list, but I like to keep the private and work emails separated. And let's emphasize: I like the list view, also on the Androids.

That as opposite to the UI of the iOs email client, that combines all email accounts to the same app without asking, and the list view isn't even the main view (at least not on iPad), but a side bar. I sincerely don't like it that the app opens to an email, the last one I read, instead of showing the email list of a selected mail folder!

OneNote
Same goes for the OneNote app (and actually also Dropbox app and some other similar ones too) for iPad. Otherwise it serves its purpose well enough; I can easily access my cloud shared OneNote notebooks, add notes and such. But, for obvious reasons, the OneNote client for WinPhone is better.

Battery charge level display
The iPad, the iOs, has it natively, the battery charge level percentage is always displayed by the battery. For the Android, you can get a free app to add the percentage display in the status bar. For WinPhone, there apparently is no way to even build such an app. When I want to check the exact battery life time, I need to go to the setting - but at least it's there.

The Pointy Thingy

I got myself a Bamboo pointer pen for the tablets. Mainly with a thought of using it for sketching some work-related designs - which I'm not at all sure I will ever do - but primarily just to have one. It's quite rare for me to but these sort of things for that sort of flimsy reason, but it's been known to happen. At least with the less expensive stuff.

Anyway, my school age daughters, who love their My Horse and Pet Hotel and My Room My Dog and Wher's My Water and whatnot tablet games (where's Angry Birds? you ask. It's there too, but no novelty anymore) and adopted the pen immesiately! Even with their smaller fingers than an adult has, they found the pointing device more accurate and better to use with the games than the finger.

For games, and definately for drawing and sketching plans it sure is. But for flipping through Flipboard or surfing the internet or writing an email or this blog, I wouldn't say so. And what comes to different tablets, it works perfec with the iPad, but the Galaxy Tab screen is just too, I don't know what, but anyway, can't really say it works well enough with that. And it's perfect with the Lumia800 screen too.

My World of Mobile Devices

I have been asked to blog about my experiences with my mobile devices quite many times. I will be blogging about different apps and features separately, but before I get into those details, a small overview of what I play with, and what I think of them.

As for the devices in my current life, Galaxy Tab is the oldest. It has traveled with me to the other side of the world and back. For a year, it was my primary tablet - my only tablet - the device I relied on when I didn't take a laptop with me, or when I simply didn't want to open one, at home or elsewhere. It fits in my purse, it's easy to hold even with one hand, and I like the Android platform.

In a comparison, Galaxy Tab has a rather small and smudgy screen than the iPad. It is more fun surfing the internet with the iPad because of this. It is also more fun to play games with it, according to my daughters, for I don't really play games. But I like to read books rather on the Tab than iPad, because of the pocket book -like size, which also makes it more lightweight and easier to hold. And, it seems, the Kindle in iPad does not have the Amazon store integrated, so all purchases are also made on my Tab Kindle.

The iPad, the newest of my devices, has been as good as I expected. Not superior to Galaxy Tab, other than in the size and quality of the screen, that is, both are good and have their own purposes and best for usage cases. E.g. for a blogger like me, the keyboard possesses a problem. The full one is too wide for my small hands, so I like the split one, really do. But the split keyboard came with the iOs5, and is in no way taken into consideration by most of the applications: it slides on top of the field where I'm supposed to be writing in.

The again, iPad has the Flipboard. There is nothing like it! Though in a way the People feed of the Windows Phone Mango comes actually close. Flipboard is awesome in the way it makes otherwise streaming data into a nice layout magazine. It is for sitting in my armchair or in my bed, scanning the news and the tweets and the FB shares. It is for reading articles when I've got time to read. The WinPhone People feed is a quickie. It combines the Twitter and FB feeds into one stream, allowing me to easily scan through the highlights when I don't have time for more.

That Windows Phone. I got a Lumia 800 a couple months ago, and loved it at once. Well, ok, the initial sucky battery life was a nuisance, but it improved on the maybe third full charge, when I let it be on the charger for maybe 16 hours overnight plus, without touching it while it was on the charger. Ever since the battery life has been much better than it used to be on my previous phone, the HTC Desire, an Android that I did like a lot too.

I love the Mango, I love the Lumia! The UI is nice, I like the (live) tiles. The screen is bright and sharp and sleek, the touch experience very fluent and easy - as is on the iPad. The Galaxy Tab loses this contest, unfortunately the touch experience on that one (mind you, the original 7" one!) is far behind. Lumia still lacks applications like Skype and Kindle (ok, I'm not even sure I'd like to read a book on the small screen), and it lacks the battery life percentage display and the WiFi hotspot I so loved on Desire. Let's see what improvements the upcoming update brings! Hopefully that hotspot as has been rumored.

To be fair, I like all these devices. They all have their good features and they all lack something. As said, I don't really take sides or discriminate. I don't hype about one over the other either. I'm glad to have all these different ones, they more or less complement each other.

And the cloud? I love the cloud too!

I share my OneNote notebook(s) over the internet, one via SkyDrive, other two via SharePoint, plus I use some community ones. I love it that I can easily access them from my iPad and my Lumia. I store some files in Dropbox and love it that they too are accessible from all of my mobile devices. I can read my gmail on all of them, I can combine my two Outlook accounts on my Lumia. I have my Outlook calendar (which is for private appointments as much as for work, all in one) available on each device.

When I take pictures on Lumia, they are automatically uploaded to Skydrive from where I can easily download them to my laptop. And on iPad, to iCloud from where they even automatically drop down to my Pictures folder on my laptop. Although, this creates a new problem: does it make things easier or more difficult for me for real? I archive my photos on a USB hard drive, in folders in a very old fashioned way. To keep up with all these photo streams can be a task! Maybe I should change something in my photo archiving? But so far, I haven't been at home with Lightrooms and such.