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Questions regarding WP7

I'm sure these have been asked multiple times but as a devoted 6.5 user who dabbles in android for gaming I am wondering, what are the benefits of WP7 over 6.5? I know its more locked down and blah blah but I didnt ask for the negatives. I don't expect a phone to be perfect in its first rendition, the original android was lame. I am absolutely in love with the UI so I want to know what kind of cool features it has (other than xbox live of course.)
Also I'm currently heavily theming my phone. If anyone has an image of the little arrow in the circle on the WP home page I'd much appreciate if I could get my hands on it. Thanks again guys.
Just want to know if I should get the venue pro or just grab whatever android phone is top o' the line that week.

The greatest benefit, in my opinion, is the consistency in handling and design.
Even the apps are fitting perfectly because of the design guidelines that MS is giving.
WP7 is all about gorgeous design, fluid animations, exact feedback and easy usage.
I mean, I used WM5 up to WM6.5.3 and it was great but WP7 is awesome -it saves me a lot of time of customising, flashing and bugfixing, so I may concentrate on the important things in life and still don't have the feeling to miss anything.

WP7 is the latest operating system that in my opinion can now take on Android and iOS.
It may be locked down but it does have some really good apps for example Netflix. There will be a big update which will add quite a few features and the UI is smooth and looks amazing.

I enjoy:
People hub - great idea. I synced Facebook, LinkedIn and several other sites on Windows Live and boom, it shows up in my people hub. People hub automatically integrates with all smart links to call/email/sms people and post on their facebook/windowslive or linkedin accounts as well as showing their profile pic when they call.
Zune. Hands down pure win. Some minor bugs with crashes in marketplace right now but other than that the best music experience on the go ever. zunepass ftw
xbox live - great interface, great experience and great games. prices are affordable and games seem to be well designed & thought out and perform great!
Netflix = pure win
apps - Growing app market.. of course in the 1.x days so apps are fluid and missing some features but some have pulled off the UI nicely such as IMDB and others. Foursquare needs a little more functionality but has the basics
office 2010 - it just works.. creating documents is sort of "meh" but being able to see working documents and update them is nice
What i hope gets fixed / feature req:
RIght now "share" context menus aren't consistent - some will let me SMS something, others focus on email. Wouldn't mine "Sharing" the album i'm listening to on twitter or facebook at times so on and so forth.
zune stream to xbox like zune hd does - would be nice
ebook/audio book store in zune
more tightly integrated services in the cloud - filtering, lists, ability to sync skydrive with local content more easily - bookmarks, favorites, docs. "sharepoint light" built into windows live maybe?

I dont really think anything will "bring down" android so to speak but iphones on its way out and its about time that theres a new leader of phones of that nature (locked OS.) I will likely be getting wp7 but yeah umm, does anyone have access to that image? I've been hunting for quite some time now.

blahism said:
zune stream to xbox like zune hd does - would be nice
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You can already do this, you just need XBox Live Gold. There is a trial, try it and see. It works.
ebook/audio book store in zune
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I wish they wouldn't. Just use Amazon. There's tons of books in the Android Market that do nothing but clutter up search results (search for Microsoft, for example).
Leave books to people who deal with books and deal with Apps and Games, IMO.
more tightly integrated services in the cloud - filtering, lists, ability to sync skydrive with local content more easily - bookmarks, favorites, docs. "sharepoint light" built into windows live maybe?
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There is Windows Live SkyDrive. They just need an App to allow you to browse you SkyDrive folders without using a browser, IMO.
Syncing Skydrive with local content is sketchy. Carriers may not like that at all due to data usage, and some users can go over their data limit if they aren't paying strict attention to that.

N8ter said:
I wish they wouldn't. Just use Amazon. There's tons of books in the Android Market that do nothing but clutter up search results (search for Microsoft, for example).
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Amazon is proprietary so i don't consider them an option
Leave books to people who deal with books and deal with Apps and Games, IMO.
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There is no reason they couldn't embrace B&N, Borders or Amazon as an ebook marketplace. They could extend it from zune to bing to the desktop.
There is Windows Live SkyDrive. They just need an App to allow you to browse you SkyDrive folders without using a browser, IMO.
Syncing Skydrive with local content is sketchy. Carriers may not like that at all due to data usage, and some users can go over their data limit if they aren't paying strict attention to that.
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They should have "wifi" only features - such as sync/mesh support. They already have automagic skydrive upload for images - i wish they would allow that to queue up for when wifi is enabled to save bandwidth

Is that true Zune is RESIZING pictures when synced from PC to the phone?
So if I have like 8mpx photo it gets resized to a smaller size??!

doministry said:
Is that true Zune is RESIZING pictures when synced from PC to the phone?
So if I have like 8mpx photo it gets resized to a smaller size??!
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might depend on the size of the photo. Downloaded a pic off of photobucket, it synced to my computer and wasn't compressed or resized at all.

nrfitchett4 said:
might depend on the size of the photo. Downloaded a pic off of photobucket, it synced to my computer and wasn't compressed or resized at all.
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You mean downloaded from the internet?
I was just asking about Zune sync. I mean let's say I have a big photo
I want to put it on my phone through Zune, I've heard it will be resized if it's big.

[Q]-[REQ] PDF Viewer for Musicians

This is something I've been trying to find for quite some time now.
What I am looking for is a PDF viewer that has an adjustable auto-scroll feature to use on an android tablet for reading music. For smaller screens (7"), I am looking to have 3-4 lines of music visible at a time when the device is in landscape mode.
The closest thing to this on android that I've found is the iReader app, but it doesn't read PDF's, and when I convert the PDF sheet music to MOBI or PDB, iReader won't autoscroll because there are images in the document.
What I'm trying to emulate here is something like the ForScore app or the MusicNotes app on the iPad, which has been described as "a PDF viewer with a metronome." Now, obviously, I don't want an iPad because of the way apple runs its devices/software.
If someone is interested in helping me to make this program (I am not a programmer by trade but a musician), there are plenty of other features that I would like to include, but the ones described above are the bare essentials for something that might already be out there. I'd be willing to pay someone for their time as well.

Bump
Sent from my SCH-I500

Anybody?
Sent from my SCH-I500

I was thinking of creating a score app for Android, but haven't had the time yet. Question: is pdf the best format for this? I don't use digital sheet music that much. Just wondering what might be the best format to support.

I don't really know to be honest. I just know that it's quite easy to scan music into PDF. If something else works better, then so be it. The end result needs to be easily rendered and easy to read as well.
Sent from my SCH-I500

xyphan said:
I don't really know to be honest. I just know that it's quite easy to scan music into PDF. If something else works better, then so be it. The end result needs to be easily rendered and easy to read as well.
Sent from my SCH-I500
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Okay. Are the musical symbols recognized and converted by a OCR engine when you scan it into a PDF file? And if so, can one assume that most PDF sheet music will be formatted this way.
(the only thing I know is the sibelius reader, that is used by many digital sheet music shops)

Sadly, you would have to assume that most pdf sheet music (such as the stuff you can find on IMSLP.org) is simply a collection of jpegs in a pdf container. I get a great deal of older baroque/classical music from that site.
I suppose, ideally, you would use something like sharpEye to do the conversion to MusicXML to make the process as universal as possible. That way, you could use anything (even something like musescore) to edit the files.
Now I've never done this, but would it be a messy process to open up the musicxml and use a virtual print driver to "print" it to pdf. Would that essentially make it a jpeg inside a pdf then?
*edit* I meant to say something else here. It would probably be a good idea to support the musicXML format for viewing in a reader. I was just banking on the fact that I usually just see music thrown in a pdf container (I'm assuming for simplicity's sake).

hi guys
joining the crowd here. i could get by for starters with something that could auto-scroll images/PNGs or perhaps even a browser addon could work for that?
i am not allowed to post links, google for "fastest scroll west", lets see if he can come through with an autoscroll web page feature. perhaps if more people pledged the donation...!

So is this dead then?
Sent from my SCH-I500

Interesting....
actually some time ago I thought about developing an app for reading tab/chord-charts to assist me when I play the guitar.
Here we are talking about PDF-files if I have understood it correctly and this may make it a bit more difficult. However, although not now since I am busy with another project, I will look into it and see if it could be possible developing such an app, perhaps both for guitar and piano players.

Bump
Sent from my SCH-I500

I would love to see something where you could just load a bunch of music charts (.pdf, .doc, etc) and create a setlist that you could scroll through or page through. I just bought a Viewsonic G-Tablet and I would love something like this. Right now I am planning on creating one big doc of charts for my weekly gig and just scrolling down through that. I would LOVE to not have to do that.

[app requests]

I've seen a few App Requests posted as threads here, and I thought it would be a good idea to start a thread dedicated to act as a catchall for App Requests. I gather that we have Dev Dudes from major tech corps roaming around these halls, so why not have a list of apps we want as consumers easily available to them!
I'll kick things off with these requests:
-A good, integrated guitar/bass tuner with metronome and practice timer(s)
-Adobe Camera RAW interface
-Adobe Bridge for tablets
-VLC Player for tablets
-DJ mixing software that can use headphone output and HDMI [audio] separately for cue/mix output
Feel free to point us to apps that fill requests as they are developed or if they have existed before the request

Way to develop/compile your own android programs.... (or at least just do the developping/autocomplete, etc would be AWESOME!) and well. an app that could launch a ubuntu distro

sackofnoise said:
Way to develop/compile your own android programs.... (or at least just do the developping/autocomplete, etc would be AWESOME!) and well. an app that could launch a ubuntu distro
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Check this out: http://appinventor.googlelabs.com/about/

I'd like an app that you can instantly take a snapshot of the screen or take a camera snapshot and start to annotate on it right away, e.g you were browsing and came across something of interest and you want to add your own comments and underline or mark a specific area.
I know this can be done using repligo or ezpdf however it will involve a few steps to achieve using the Asus's in built snapshot feature and then converting the document to pdf in order to annotate but I want something instant without having to convert the file first, similar to htc flyers note taking app.

Can't you do this with Evernote? I just downloaded this last night but it seems really slick.
HasC said:
I'd like an app that you can instantly take a snapshot of the screen or take a camera snapshot and start to annotate on it right away, e.g you were browsing and came across something of interest and you want to add your own comments and underline or mark a specific area.
I know this can be done using repligo or ezpdf however it will involve a few steps to achieve using the Asus's in built snapshot feature and then converting the document to pdf in order to annotate but I want something instant without having to convert the file first, similar to htc flyers note taking app.
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I want a great football (soccer that is!) game! Fifa 12 or something! or Sometihng like Sensible Soccer, I tried tiny football but its not that great.

npompei said:
Can't you do this with Evernote? I just downloaded this last night but it seems really slick.
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Unfortunately, you cannot annotate using evernote although it is fantastic for taking notes, i use it at work at meetings. I want to be able to take a snapshot of the meeting agenda which is usually printed and then start to add notes against agenda items.

I'm just going to make a list of the things I think will make this brilliant - I'm a very small time developer, and don't have the skills to do these, unfortunately:
Something similar to Microsoft Onenote - Drawing/notes/annotations all in one
"Phone Sync" where you pick up your tablet, and it also becomes your phone for SMS, MMS, Calls, and you can share clipboards between the two - This would be brilliant!
Decent Twitter and Facebook widgets
Modified Launcher with resizable widgets, folders - ideally, LauncherPro optimised for Honeycomb.

I'd like to see the Monkey Island games and some of the old Cinemaware titles such as Defender Of The Crown on Android.

TonyHarrison said:
I'd like to see the Monkey Island games and some of the old Cinemaware titles such as Defender Of The Crown on Android.
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You can play the monkey island games nicely using ScummVM.
http://www.scummvm.org/

I designed an Android app for tablet which I think would be pretty easy to make, UI, name, logo and all, but... I'm not a programmer. Also I believe this will be an app which would be handy for a lot of people.
Since I designed, thought of and branded the app I really don't just want to give the idea away to anyone, but if any app developer is interested feel free to contact me and I could explain the concept to them.
PS: I don't want a share of the profits or to get paid for it or anything like that, all I would want is to find a developer who could do justice to not only the concept but also to the design since there are so many well functioning but terrible looking android apps.

Excellent posts!
Thanks for the interest and the activity on the thread!
I'm watching a thread where a couple Asus dev dudes have actually weighed in on an issue users are having, so I'm gonna see if I can't point them to this one so we'll have some ears that can make a difference. Hopefully some [all?] of the ideas here will filter thru and become reality!
Kudos to everyone!

I'd like an app that can sync via bluetooth (not via the web/cloud), incoming sms messages/caller id/missed call info, from an android phone directly to the transformer with notifications.
I know there are lots which do it via the web, but this isn't an option for me (pre-pay sim not contract).
EDIT:
Another idea for an app, don't know if possible to implement or not. When browsing google search results it would be nice to have an app that lets you see how many kilobytes or megabytes a website requires you to download, before you accessed the page. So that mobile users can see how much data is required and can manage their free allowance better, or not be charged a fortune.

A media player app that can
1. have gesture controls like moboplayer
2. have good codec support like moboplayer
3. can stream from server
4. and can hide the honeycomb taskbar!!!!

Settlers of Catan map generator
Would be cool to see a Settlers of Catan map generator with support for Seafarers, Cities and Knights, Harbours and a roll counter.

did it ever occur to anyone that now that there is a keyboard and mouse capabilities that someone should port an fps to the transformer?

I would love an app/widget that monitored the battery of both the Transformer and the keyboard dock. It's almost impossible to tell how much juice is left in the keyboard. If someone knows of an app/widget or a built-in way to do that, please let me know.
Edit: I would also love to see a folder app that integrates data from the Market, so if I download a game, it automatically adds it to the Games folder, etc.
Sent from my Transformer TF101 using Tapatalk

Eye-Fi for Android
I'd like to see a version of the EyeFi manager/control center for Android

still hunting for the torrent app to work with private torrents

alternate keyboard
since the dock is still in short supply it would be nice to have the ability to use my android phone as a keyboard/trackpad for my transformer through bluetooth or something. the entire screen could be a landscape keyboard that you could swipe down to access trackpad.

[Q] App Development Help

Thanks for the help!

SMBulls9 said:
Hi,
I am trying to develop an app, with little experience of WP7, on Visual Studio Ultimate 2010, in C#. The app I am trying to develop needs to be able to take your pulse using the flash of the camera to illuminate your finger and then detect the changes in brightness to calculate it. To do this, would I be better off recording a video for like ten seconds in the background (the UI will just be text that says place your finger over the lens) or would I need to use a while loop and have it take a picture like every 40 milliseconds then have will flip through the pictures and see how often a dark spot comes up or something? Any code examples or links would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!
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Well, I didn't caught the idea of the app you want to develop, but if I understood you right and you want to measure pulse by taking photos/videos of a finger, it looks like some kind of science fiction. Just imagine the accuracy needed for such calculations and how will you keep you finger still.
Talking about video: if I am not mistaken all the currently existing background agents are restricted to use Camera API, may be I'm a bit wrong here.
For learning C# for Windows Phone 7 it is good to begin from MSDN and bunch of code samples stored there or a book.
Best regards.

This is actually already being done on other smartphone platforms; hell, people are using smartphone sensors for all kinds of crazy things, including a number of medical applications.
Given that the highest pulse you're ever likely to encounter is about 240 BPM / 4Hz (250ms between beats), 40ms resolution seems more than needed. That said, that's only 25 FPS, while I believe the video camera shots at 30 FPS (33ms). However, taking pictures probably won't work so well because of the need to JPEG-compress the images after taking them (I think the camera API *always* does this, though I might be wrong). Using the video stream API seems like a much better idea.
You shouldn't need the background APIs at all; not sure why the guy above me talked about them. My understanding is that these apps just sample for a few seconds, enough to get an accurate reading.
You may get better info in the App Development sub-section of the WP7 D&H forum. That said, don't expect people to write your code for you, especially for something where there's a reasonable chance of it being a commercially viable Marketplace app. I suggest you start with MSDN, but reading the docs and looking at the examples. You can also go look up tutorials and example code online for using the video APIs.

PhotosphereViewer.net - Easily view Photospheres online

Hey guys,
Hope this is the right place to post this. If not, please move it to the right section. Thx.
Just wanted to draw your attention on a small website for easy Photosphere viewing I created a few days ago:
PhotosphereViewer.net
What is PhotosphereViewer.net?
We provide a service to view one of Android's latest and most exciting features: Photospheres. Photospheres are 360° panoramic photographs which can be viewed interactively on your mobile phone, tablet, Google Plus and Google Maps, whereas the two last-mentioned ways of viewing Photospheres are only available if you upload your photos onto Google's servers.
Personally, I don't like to share everything with Google, especially in times of PRISM. That's one of several reasons why I built this website:
I wanted to be able to view Photospheres regardless of Google's services.
To view them anywhere at any time.
Even without an Android device.
To view other people's Photospheres without copying them on a mobile device.
And to give users running older Android versions the chance to view Photospheres as well.
How does it work?
This website is based on the amazing work of Joe "kennydude" Simpson, who developed a way to display Android Photospheres in your browser with ease. PhotosphereViewer.net is wrapped around his efforts, making it easy for everyone to enjoy fascinating Photospheres within a few seconds. All my thanks go to him, I just made it look a bit nicer and made it available for everyone within a few seconds.
Will my Photospheres be stored on your server?
No! We do not save any of your data. No files, no EXIF data, no porn bookmarks. The Photosphere images are loaded locally in your browser's cache, that's it.
Is this a free service?
Yes, enjoy it and spread the word!
How does it work?
Simply watch this video:
That's it, hope you'll ilke it.
Step by, visit: http://photosphereviewer.net/
--jackennils

Well, I thought this may at least interest somebody.

jackennils said:
Well, I thought this may at least interest somebody.
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: Хорошо:
I tried it, I liked it! Simple, fast and Udabno, thank you! The site address will offer all my friends.

Thanks! I'm glad you like it.

Hey guys,
did some tweaking during the last weeks. Rendering should now look a bit better and should be a bit faster.
Also, some minor design changes and a new tutorial.
If you like it, please give it a +1. Thanks.

:good: I like this very much.

Thanks! Glad to hear that.