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back to article Windows Phone 8 INFLATED by Microsoft ... to satisfy lonely phablets

Microsoft has revealed a third update for Windows Phone 8 that is supposed to make the mobile operating system easier to use on beefy smartphones with six-inch screens. Windows Phone 8 Update 3, which will be rolled out over the next few months, will have a larger start screen with sizable tiles suitable for five and six-inch …

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        1. M Gale
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          Re: Title is too long

          Wifi and bluetooth access point functionality (and USB tethering) is standard on any Android device with 2.3 or greater. Whether your carrier charges you twice for using it is another matter, and not dependant on your device or its OS.

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  2. A Non e-mouse Silver badge

    Driver mode

    The Phone 8 update will also include a driver mode

    All my mobile phones have had a dedicated button to enable driver mode. It's called the off button.

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    1. Anonymous Coward
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      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Driver mode

      If your phone is your sat nav, its not very useful, if switched off.

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      1. Anonymous Custard
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        Re: Driver mode

        But flight mode ain't just for use on airplanes...

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        1. Anonymous Coward
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          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Driver mode

          Yes, but flight mode doesn't stop reminders popping up, which would be distracting when driving. It also doesn't allow for automatic "I'm driving at the moment, but will get back to you as soon as I can." SMS messages to be sent to the caller.

          This is a good idea and it seems that people are desperate to rubbish it because it's not been thought up by Apple or Google.

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          1. Moosh
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            Re: Driver mode

            My girlfriend's father has an iPhone 4 and has this feature. It's not new at all.

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            1. Matt_payne666
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              Re: Driver mode

              Does it? My iPhone 3, 3gs, 4, girlfriends 4s and 5 are unable to automatically suppress or read aloud incoming messages, switch the start screen to a locked down selection of giant shortcuts when you place it in a cradle... my Lumina 920 can... maybe your girlfriends father has a windows phone....

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    2. Anonymous Coward
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      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Driver mode

      "It's called the off button."

      It can't be off if it's charging though - e.g. in a car mount. As soon as you connect it to the charger, it turns on...

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      1. M Gale
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        Re: Driver mode

        None of my droid devices have ever fully booted when you plug the charger in. The most that will happen is a few seconds while some kind of bare-bones bootstrap gets it into a state to display a battery charge level on the screen, which then switches off again with only an LED letting you know there is any life in the beast.

        Unless of course the reason it switched off last is because the battery ran flat. In that case the device might come (fully) back on again after a percent or two of battery charge. This is how iPhones work too. This isn't plugging the charger in after switching the device off though, is it?

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  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "Microsoft also says it will be easier to allow handsets to act as wireless hotspots with Windows 8.1 devices via Bluetooth."

    So the speeds will be slow then! Even the BT SIG knows that BT is not designed for high speed transfers so a connection can be setup via BT but the WLAN is used. Microsoft would be better off just allowing the handset to allow WLAN to be used so more than one device could use the hotspot rather than using BT.

    Microsoft, at the bleeding edge of technology from the last decade.

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    1. Anonymous Coward
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      Anonymous Coward

      It already does allow WiFi hot spots and has done since something like v7.1

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    2. Anonymous Coward
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      Anonymous Coward

      "So the speeds will be slow then"

      Bluetooth / NFC just initiates and manages the connection. The transport is still WiFi...

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    3. M Gale
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      Bluetooth may be slow, but it consumes less power than running a full wifi hotspot.

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  4. Nick Ryan Silver badge

    screen-orientation lock button

    Finally. Anybody who's ever tried using a device like these to read e-books knows the absolute necessity of this functionality. And to stop the bloody screen rotating when being jostled...

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  5. Duke2010

    Hmm

    I have WP8. I like everything about it except for the music player. Its terrible! I mean really terrible. Its totally basic and the sync doesn't work. Very disappointed that the sync is so useless. I have a Win8 desktop so you would think that it would sync perfectly well and easily with a Win8 phone wouldn't you? Well it doesn't, my Android tablet works more seamlessly.

    I was hoping the update would include a better music player but it looks like it doesn't. Back to Android and PowerAmp for me!

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    1. Matt_payne666
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      Re: Hmm

      I'm with you there, the phone is pretty good, but the sync is dreadful! What I would love would be a full phone backup and restore like the iPhone... I managed to break a phone and was quite disappointed to find sync reinstalled my apps, but with no data... and there is no way to backup in app data unless the dev builds it in... so my high scores on the couple of games I played all went to pot....

      Will make life a sod if I replace my phone with a new one at contract end...

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    2. RyokuMas
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      Re: Hmm

      Better that than the "must use Zune" method on the WP7!

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      1. Phoenix50
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        Re: Hmm

        What are you people smoking?

        Install the Windows Phone Desktop App > point it at your Music library > sync the songs you want.

        It even does iTunes library sync, which is where I get all of mine.

        Failing that, open the Phone in Explorer and drag-and-drop the albums you want - everything comes with it (including Album art). It will even convert music on the fly if it detects an audio format it doesn't like.

        Honestly. Amateur dramatics.

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        1. Matt_payne666
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          Re: Hmm

          That moves music, but doesn't backup applications and their associated data... the skydrive sync copies most phone settings, but if you just not to swap one phone for another your bang out of luck...

          When upgrading my old iPhones, I just did a full backup in iTunes, plugged in a new phone and hit restore... done and dusted in the time it takes to copy the data over... the new phone was a carbon copy of the old...

          When I did my Lumina, I had to spend ages putting my start screen back, resetting locations in weather and news apps, popping passwords back into tvguide and other apps, etc... a few days before everything felt normal again... even after I still found the odd app devoid of data or setting that needed setting....

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  6. e8hffff

    Does anybody care about Microsoft any more. Like who's going to burn their fingers messing around with bloatware and pushing it to a mobile phone when they can get Linux variants, like Android.

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    1. Anonymous Coward
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      Anonymous Coward

      You should probably do a little more research or actually use a device before making comments like this. There is less "bloatware" on windows phones than many android devices and said "bloatware" can be quickly and easily uninstalled.

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  7. st4yr4d

    i wish they could build a feature into RT so that if your running win 8 on your home PC/Laptop linked to your outlook/microsoft account you can use your windows RT tablet as a wireless display running pro either by personal hotspot/wifi. This would mean that the limited compatibility + apps issue would essentially be voided as when out and people dont want the fully built pro apps. they mainly use browser, office apps or games. It would create the best of both worlds and mean that you can have a 50/50 windows 8 experience rather than the limited version you will be getting for such a high priced piece of kit.

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    1. Brian
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      It can do that, it's call Remote Desktop.

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      1. M Gale
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        I really wouldn't want to try playing video over MS-RDP. Well. In fact I have tried playing video over MS-RDP, I just wouldn't want to repeat the experience.

        The various Splashtop apps for Android, iOS and even that Windows Phone thing on the other hand, will stream the screen from your Windows, OS X or Linux box (courtesy of a no-charge Splashtop streaming server) right down to your tablet or smartphone. Works quite well over wifi, sort of like having your own OnLive server.

        It's proprietary, but no moreso than MS-RDP, and a damn sight more useful for anything that involves more than GUI widgets and the tiniest amount of screen changing between frames.

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