Jules_Wombat

A users Home screen Apps launch page, is probably the most intimate and viewed 2 x 5 inch pixel space used by smartphone consumers. Obviously this is all a bit of a personal preference.

What do users recommend as being their favourite and most compelling Apps launchers ? 

Ideally a Home , Apps Launcher experience that is consistent with the use of Microsoft Services and Apos and synchronised with use of Windows 10 PCs desktops. That is what Microsoft keeps promising an seamless Windows PC to Android/ iOS experience.

I have been stalling on making the miserable transition from the superior Windows Mobile Live Tile User Experience to Android.  Since I really cannot contemplate using the very dated ten year old icon(widget) centric default experience. The Microsoft Launcher is rather half baked. So I have been looking at the Square Home Launcher. So far it is looking to be a really really pretty and a highly customisable Tile based experience. The Core UI customisation options are much better than on Windows Mobile and the Photo Live Tile is simply awesome.

However I am having problems getting a personalised Live Tiles experience, and in particular synchronising from a Microsoft Applications/ Services, to provide a seamless Android (Square Home) ó Windows 10 PC experience.  In particular the following Live Tiles are not supported (or at least I haven’t found a way to set these up, if anyone has any suggestions):

a)     The Calendar App, is obviously synched to Google Calendar.  [ I have been unable to sync, or ingest Microsoft Outlook Calendar with Google Calendar, and hence this Live Tile.

b)     Similarly I have not found a way to sync the email Live Tile notifications to Outlook, instead of Gmail (Or to get Gmail to read my Outlook/Hotmail accounts.)

c)      Surprisingly there is no News Live Tile. I would be happy enough with Google News Notifications.

d)     There is no Google Assist Live Tile [Notifications]. (As an obvious replacement to Cortana Live Tile)

e)     There is no Weather Live Tile.

f)      It would be highly desirable for a partially animated peoples/ Contacts Live Tile against Microsoft Accounts, or Google.

g)     It would be highly desirable for a Music Live Tile, as per the Original Zune Player Live Tile, inviting music play, with scrolling Album art images  (Configured to Google Music Player, or Groove, another, Album Art etc)  

h)     It would be highly desirable for a health Live Tile. Synchronised Step, Calorie counts against mainstream health Apps.

Apart from that its sort of OK as a pretty launcher, but does not yet provide that 'One Glance' animated Windows Phone experience.

Square Home developers should support a wider range of Live Tiles, to recover the True Windows Phone Experience. If Microsoft wants to remain relevant in Mobile, it should really partner and support Square Home, in recovering the Windows Phone Live Tile Experience, and ensuring its Own Applications are supported in Square One Live Tiles. That would promote a Microsoft User experience, use of its services and coherence with Windows Desktop.

Failure to engage, will see most of drift more into Google Services. (e.g. I have configured my  Square Home Swipe Left to Invoke the stunning Google Assist.)    

The Foldable (Surface) Phone is what Microsoft should have done years ago, if they wanted to stay relewvant in mobile. A hinge will look a bit silly now.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/nov/08/samsung-unveils-foldable-phone-as-it-tries-to-regain-edge-on-apple

It would appear (from a European) that Americans work much too hard. Apparently only getting something like 12 holiday days a year, compared to our French neighbours who take whole of August off !

Why is that, when the dream from the sixties was that technology would give us more leisure time, not less. Do we all want to end up like Elon Musk ?

Now that Groove Music seems to be broken/ un supported on some of my Windows 10 Machines. (Unable to repair installations, via Powershell, sfc scans ect) I now have to look for another Windows 10 Music Player, to play my ripped CDs and OneDrive music.

I can still use Media Player, and I guess VLC. I would really like an attractive music player like the superior looking Zune player, but that no longer installs on W10 reliably (like Groove).

So does anyone have any Suggestions on a Free, Non Subscription Music Player for Windows 10? Spotify is a none starter as it posts Ads on my own music !

And where is Joe Belaforie, so I can give him a slap !

There seems to be a lot of confident talk about an Andromeda device, without any basis in fact or annoucement from Microsoft.

Yesterday on Windows Weekly it was suggested Andromeda as being a small mobile Windows based Note taking device.

But surely any mobile device, will require an mobile Apps ecosystem, and that excludes Windows as a platform. A mobile device without Apps, will not be acceptable to the buisness or consumer market. The only solution woud be an Android based device that would host OneNote and Android Apps the user wanted.

For Interest BBC4 at 9 pm (UK Time)

Notwithstanding the predictable lazy narrative suggesting that Nokia are now in a poor business position. Hey Ho

In previous years Microosft has posted all its Build develoiper sessions on Channel 9 for viewing. This year it seems you have to sign in to Channel 9 with a MS account to view. (Fair enough) But they are still not available, instead "Video Added to your Queue" so where and how do these videos become available ?

Anyone know how to access and view the Build 2018 videos ?

The future compute and information exploitation will be in the Cloud and Cloud services. That requires a step change in compute, which is why the investment in Quantum compute is so critical to their future.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-43580972

Obviously Microsoft are behind IBM and Google on this next wave, but they appear to be betting on a different Particle.

All this makes discussions on client platforms rather moot. The client has be commoditised, we need to move on. Hoping we will hear a bit more at Build about how they intend to make this future available to us developers, since we know Google are so close to announcing their 50 Qubit compute.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/mar/13/microsoft-sexual-harassment-lawsuit-lacklustre-response

Oh Dear, it seems that Satya still doesn't get it.

We have had ask Brad for a couple years every Friday, now we can ask Paul. Which is best ?

So I get paranoid, and have run Steve Gibson tool as advised on Windows Weekly. (All Clear on my two year old SurFace Pro 4 on both Meltdown and Spectre, which is kinda impressive) But on my two desktops, I have Spectre Warning, Hardware BIOS not Updated on both machines. This is on a 3 month old MSI X99 A modern Motherboard, as well as as on a 5 year old ASUS Motherboard. The ASUS site is not very helpful on anything related to the supporting motherboard BIOS, let alone supporting my legacy Motherboards. And the MSI site suggests a Bios update may be available, but is too arcane to understand. The MSI LiveUpdate desktop tool, only suggests driver updates, no BIOS.

Basically I would think there is going to be a lot of vulnerable motherboards/BIOS out there to spectre,. Especially as Steve Gibson tool has told us. But none of these BIOS updates instructions are clear and obvious. No simple desktop utility that can be executed by normal people. So how are we to advise all the normal people about protecting their systems against this Spectre ?

I don't many people, including myself, can afford to simply replace all their machines just cos Intel screwed up and Motherboard manufacturers not able to update 5 year old motherboard bios..

So there is lots of stuff at CES 2018, but do we really need any of this stuff, or is it really a lot of clever fluff, that we [conusmers] don’t really need or will be soon discarded/ irrelevant in a couple of years ?

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/jan/10/consumer-electonrics-show-ces-2018-lack-of-innovation

Should our Technology companies be trying to solver more relevant/ important causes ? – I guess its a Consumer Show, so thats what we expect. (Noting that Microsoft has moved on/ away from supporting CES)

So built a new machine, to run Python Machine learning scripts. Don’t really want the Visual Studio behemoth installed. So was thinking about trying Visual Studio Code.

Go to the VS Code site, nice and pretty and seemingly straightforward to download and install. Download VS Code setup.

Nope Blocked by Windows Defender. Urggh. Save As,. Nope all Blocked. Not obvious how to allow download. No instructions for avoiding MS Firewall block. And there are no other obvious sites to download the editor.

Microsoft really want us to enjoy their products don’t they.

Any suggestions, and or links, on downloading the latest VS Code editor for Windows would be appreciated. <Had to go to FileHippo to successfully download installer through MS Defender. FileHippo obviously more trustworthy than Microsoft>

As WW shows we cannot trust cats. And the new fabric covered Google Home Mini, was ripe for a cat attack. How could Google be so stupid to make the device so appealing to cats, in the cats vs technology war.

I have an off contract Lumia 650, which still does not recognise any W10 1709 Fall ctreators update (unlike all my PCs) Does anyone know if Microsoft intend to update any of thre remaining Windows 10 phones with a 1709 Release.

Or are remaining users expected to get it via subscribing to the Insiders Progarm ?

Microsoft Windows 10 is supposed to be about Creators and AR Environments development, but it lacks tools for the development of 3D Games and AR environments. The 3D Builder tool is a pitiful tool for 3D modelling, and the 3D Assset store is worse than the Windows Store.

Many Indies use the Unity Game development, including VR, which is where Microsoft is supposed to be interested in. So why doens’t Mictosoft invest if good 3D Game/ AR development tools, or simply buy out Unity, along with access to its vast 3D Asset Store ? It is cross platform and well estblished. If Microsoft is serious about 3D it needs to up its game in developer tools big time.

Satya gave an Interview today in the UK to BBC: Newsnight. See it at:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r0TvE9PCRFE

All about values of Microsoft, working as a Global Company, and their Tax responsibilities in various sovereign states. No Mention of Windows Phone.

Satya obviously took a trip to the Lords cricket ground to promote his book

With Deep learning being the next great wave in applied computation, NVidia are leading the way on democratising Nueral Net training on their GPUs with CuDNN API. So Surely Microsoft needs to provide the means to open up the XBox graphics processing to Nueral Net developers and trainer practitioners   and integrate the Xbox GPUs with their CNTK Deep learning API. Otherwise they will again be left behind by Google who have a considerable head start with their TensorFlow technology.

Maybe Perhaps Nvidia GPUs are more powerful and universally integrated with PCs than XBox. Whatever, the next generation of computation will be dominated by integrated NN Co Processing elements. Microsoft needs to be on this wave to remain relevant in local computation and AI.

With everyone now pulling their Apps from the Store, when will Microsoft finally admit Windows Mobile and UWP is dead as the DoDo

I had to rebuild Windows over the weekend, (Just to get Edge and Cortana working again !) so had to rebuild many of my legacy programs, including Zune, so I can rip my CD collection etc.

So Zune Installs OK, and offers to run.

What a pleasant audio and visual experience, showing many images of my artists. Really Great compared to the dull and dreary (unsynchronised) Groove Experience.

Zune may not be cloud based etc, but it demonstrates that at one Microsoft knew how to write compelling consumer software. Even on WP7 Zune was better than teh current groove experience.

The only way to get developers interested in Cortana is it give away Harman Kardon speakers at Build.

Is that likely ?

Really impressive weight loss, Perhaps he got a Microsoft Band 3?

My [self built] desktop machine recognised the CU update last Saturday, all seemed to be OK, reasonably seamless, and fairly robust update. No apparent problems for a week.

Now a week later Edge opens, but crashes every time. Reboot no effect. Google search suggest a some other users also having problems with Edge since CU update. The suggested fix, being to creatte and use a new Microsoft Account. Seriously ? Also Cortana has stopped recognising my Profile, and the OneDrive App crashes on startup with a Qt error… Great ! < Not as if I am on any RS3 fast Ring >

Edge and Cortana working OK on my SP4 device with CU updated [So far anyway]

I guess this problem is only me and a few others. So we are stuck with this broken situation, as User Feedback, offers no support. So much for Insiders Preview, or any Microsoft Quality testing. I guess because No One actually uses Edge. So why does Microsoft ‘recommend swapping to Edge’, if it now less stable than before, keeps crashing. Edge is a major embarassment, which I thought they would have sorted in Creators Update. I guess I have to wait for Redstone 3, as Microsoft only seem capable of updating their browser, with an OS updates !

So the XBox One S, may be really great priced product, but its a bit dull, and not compelling without any Kinnect Voice control. Meanwhile Amazon Fre Stick, comes with Alexa, home entertainment hub and Home assitance support at a great price.

Amazon are eating up the home entertainment and AI assistance market. Microsoft are nowhere, with Cortana stuck on desktops, which no ones uses.

Thursday evening flight from Edinburgh to London, three strangers on the same row, each using a Windows Phone, and two of us sporting a Microsoft Band 2.

Awesome. Well at least Some of us still appreciate the best phone user experience.  

In the real world of Business and Enterprise, where Microsoft(still) holds sway, Bosses expect fast( Matter of days/weeks for banks), robust software development and deployment to remain competitive.

UWP (C#/XAML) has failed in this arena.  Compared to 15 year old Windows Forms, UWP is not the right, or effective, tool for this arena. (This arena is NOT interested in mobile/ scaled Apps, it just wants business software deployed to its desktops)

Some Developer perspectives on why UWP [C#/XAML based] Failed:

a) The UWP Platform is narrow, does not offer the deep API to exploit the Windows client side platform

b) UWP is feature incomplete, and relies upon Third party to develop basic Business capability (Aka No basic Charts available in the core ToolBox)  its a NuGet Hell to recover base capability with all the associated Third Party Support and Reliability Risks

c) The XAML developer experience is still a bag of pooh, with Visual Studio XAML designer banging out on obscure poorly defined errors, and over complex styling code (There is a good reason why CSS is separate to HTML)

When LOB Business developers can be more than twice as productive/effective coding in Windows Forms than UWP, then business will never take up UWP seriously.

Basically Microsoft has let the Line of Business community down, in depreciating classic .NET for the inferior UWP technology.  Of course for mobile and commercial Apps UWP makes sense.      

We can all see where Microsoft is going on the Client side, they suggest we should be writing our Client side code in JavaScript/ HTML (in UWP compatible) !  FFS Javascript for LOB Business Applications. What planet are they on ? JS code is unreliable, reliant upon third parties, low productivity, low reliability, difficult to maintain etc etc.

So much for ‘One Windows’ , Microsoft owned Mojang is now suggesting it will no longer support the W10 mobile version of Minecraft. If reports from SlashGear are to be believed.

Microsoft should just about declare the Windows 10 Mobile platform as dead, if it cannot persuade its own developers to be interested.

A rather nice little puzzle game, in the Store, which only appears to be available on x86 tablets.

Albeit a bit clumsy to play on my industrial SP4, really needs an 8" Windows Tablet.

One of the main advantages of Windows Phone user experience is the beautiful home screen with Live Tiles, So its embarassing that Microsoft own Outlook Live tiles are so broken. live updates stalled, Old emails, unread notification count stuck,  not up to date with latest notifications.  And this is on the standard consumer build.  

Despite all the User Voice feedback, still no fixes. Microsoft simply delete the User Voice feedback subject, as they tend to do, when they want to avoid facing up to the issue. Dona just keeps tweeting about boy bands.  Google searches suggest hard reset, and use of a the recovery tool. Wow, the average user will be impressed by that.

WP8.1 remains a better, more solid experience, than how WM10 is emerging.  Still bug ridden, slow updates.  

Anyone else here having recent problems syncing their mobiles phones to their main MS account ?  

My trusty old Lumia 925 started to lose sync, with my main MS account, Calendar. It refused to sync, and reported 0x850010014 errors.  It was running WP8.1 and out of warranty, so little to now support expected. Hard Resets failed to help sync against my main MS account [not realistic to delete and recreate as some MS support staff seem to have suggested.]

But having got a brand new Lumia 650 WP10, I still cannot sync against my main account, despite it working on my PCs and SP4 etc. None of my phone Outlook Contacts, Calendar appointments will sync, even though Cortana can see upcoming appointments.   Hoping its just a temporary [m.outlook.com] server thing, but its been a couple of weeks now, and as with most things with WP these days, its left ti the users to flounder around the web searching for clues.  

So now I have two useless Lumia Windows Phones, and little to no Microsoft support (They do not acknowledge any of the problems some of us have been reporting on Windows Phone sync on various forums)

I guess Microsoft isn’t bothered about even supporting 'new' WP consumers now.