back to article Windows Phone 7 gets cut'n'paste, other tweaks in update

Windows Phone 7 users can finally cut and paste text, thanks to the "NoDo" update which is gradually being rolled out now. The long-awaited update improves searching in the Windows Marketplace, provides various performance tweeks (most notably the faster suspend/resume) and finally allows the user to cut text from one place …

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  1. l3v5y

    It doesn't really matter

    As WM6.X shows, functionality doesn't actually matter in the mobile space.

    Absolutely everything you can do on an iPhone could be done on WM6.X, and very little changed between 2003 and 6.X (the interface a little).

    What matters is how the function (or lack of) is presented, and WP7 does a much better job of that than WM6.X, even if it can't multitask (and as far as I know, WM6 is still the only platform to do it both properly and well, android stutters and falls over running itself, let alone with other things going on).

    1. treboR

      Cut & Paste and Multitasking

      .. both things that symbian could do well.

      Shame the interface is a dog's dinner

      1. Wize

        @trebor

        There were many good things about symbian and nokia long ago.

        But its all gone down hill.

        3 months till my contract runs out and I won't be Nokia, after almost 10 years with their various handsets.

    2. Jim Coleman
      Jobs Horns

      Well...

      The thing is, Apple are a marketing company first and foremost, and a technology company second. What Apple brought to the table with the iPhone was marketing. I.E. they made smartphones "marketable" (initially at least, at the expense of "functional"). That means shiny and wow. It's true that WM6 had just about all the functionality you could ever want, but zero marketing pizzazz.

      People are taken in by marketing. By shiny. By wow. And since the launch of the iPhone, the smartphone has been dragged by Apple from the Functional world into the Marketable world.

      The death of WM6.x and the birth of WP7 shows the transition from functionality to marketability in a very stark and obvious way.

      The functionality will come, as it did for the iPhone, but the marketability will always take priority from now on.

  2. Jim Coleman
    Thumb Up

    Yay

    There are some bug fixes in there too, as well as new OEM firmware, so that should iron out a few teething issues I've been having with my HD7.

    Hopefully MS will roll out one or two more juicy nuggets between this and Mango towards the end of the year.

    It's nice to finally see an OS vendor that can keep all the many different types of phone up to date with the same version of the OS. Android doesn't do this at all, and the iPhone doesn't even have multiple hardware types.

    Best of both worlds - hardware choice + consistent OS updates! Yuss!

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Troll

      re: different types of phone ... with the same version of the OS

      I'm just waiting (eagerly) for the first reports of bricked phones to start popping up.

      1. Bear Features

        well...

        keep waiting lol

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          lots of waiting involved

          "O2 UK customers will get first WP7 update “NoDo” early April"

          1. Jim Coleman
            Thumb Down

            Yep

            That's right, and while I'm waiting a few more days I'm on antidepressants and suffering nightmares due to the lack of cut and paste.

            Wait.....no, I'm not.

      2. Jim Coleman
        Flame

        Eagerly?

        You actually *want* people to suffer bricked phones? Are you on day release?

  3. MikeyD85

    @Jim

    Wait 'til Nokia get in on the act. That's when WP7 will get on the fragmentation bandwagon.

    1. Jim Coleman
      Thumb Up

      OK.....

      I can wait. TBH I doubt MS will let Nokia derail the update strategy but it will be interesting to see what happens.

      For now though, I'm happy.

  4. Paul Boocock (UK)
    Thumb Up

    Good news!

    Its nice to see MS rolling out the update to all handsets at the same time, a problem which has plagued Android and leaves a lot of users frustrated, however its still a shame that it relies so heavily on operators to actually release the update to our phones. Thats one thing Apple have got right.

    Still, I'll take what I can get whenever I can get it. The marketplace bugs are the biggest issue for me at the moment and NoDo seems to fix those. So I'll be happy once Orange get around to rolling it out.

    1. l3v5y

      Apple=Control

      I have a feeling the reason Apple don't seem to have this issue with carriers is that they start certification a lot earlier than they announce release dates, so the updates are already pretty much ready when they start to announce when they'll hit devices. MS don't have this luxury, as people are clamouring/demanding updates far more than Apple users.

      I also suspect Apple have a lot more control over carriers than Microsoft, the pricings, roaming, tethering etc, are mostly Apples choice, with carriers just doing as the Lord Jobs commands.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        title

        "I have a feeling the reason Apple don't seem to have this issue with carriers is that they start certification a lot earlier than they announce release dates, so the updates are already pretty much ready when they start to announce when they'll hit devices"

        I'm not sure what you're saying here but I was under the impression that carriers have precisely diddly-squat to do with iPhone software? Apple build the OS, Apple release the OS, there aren't any carrier customisations to wait for.

        I believe this is also how the N1/NS work, as they are Google phones and receive updates from Google irrespective of the carrier.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        @l3v5y

        Also, don't forget, there is the classic Apple/Microsoft trade-off here - Apple have very few different pieces of hardware running their OS and they are all controled from design to delivery by Apple. MS have many different providers of hardware and while they do have more control over the hardware than they do with PCs, still have a lot to deal with.

      3. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        @l3v5y

        Apple doesn't need to start "certification" early because they don't allow any operator branding on their phones. So there's nothing else needed other that compliance with industry-wide standards such as GSM and WCDMA.

        Why all phones are not like this I'll never understand. It's probably some vestigial DNA from when the phone companies rented their terminals. Would we buy PC branded by the ISPs, where the ISP would "certify" and resend Microsoft patches? I think anyone suggesting that would be quickly looking for a new job.

        On the topic of your list of "controls" Apple supposedly has, only one is true: price.

        Roaming (seriously, why did you add this?), tethering , etc decisions are of course set by the operators.

      4. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Apple ≠ Control

        One carrier rejected an update from Apple and the carrier listed what was wrong with the update. Apple contacted the carrier and asked them to not be so harsh as Apple didn't want the development staff to be depressed.

  5. Jim Coleman
    Thumb Up

    Heh...

    I wonder how long it'll take the Apple and Google shills to go "Cut & Paste! We've had that for, like, EVAH!" and completely miss the point that this is the first time, like, EVAH that a consistent OS update has rolled out to multiple hardware types and multiple OEMs of smartphones.

    1. Adam Foxton
      Gates Halo

      It's an odd one, that

      Because Windows Mobile has had cut-and-paste since at least it's days as PocketPC. I know; I've been using the devices since then (right up until the HTC Hero arrived...)

      Windows Mobile has (apart from Windows 7 until now, apparently) had had cut-and-paste since well before Google joined of the stock market and when Apple was plodding along trying to pretend it was of any relevance (i.e. before it launched the iPod).

      And I'm all but certain that WinMo had a consistent OS update rollout years ago. About 2006ish, I think- before the iPhone was even launched.

      1. Jim Coleman
        Thumb Down

        Eh

        Winmo didn't even have a touch-based interface, let alone touch-based cut-n-paste. It was all stylus-based, and let's face it, stylus-based cut-n-paste is a no-brainer to implement.

        Incidentally, Winmo never had a consistent OS update. The update functionality of Winmo was never even used. If you were really lucky, you could download an updated ROM from your OEM, but more often than not you would need to buy a new phone to get the new version of the OS.

  6. Ryan Clark
    Jobs Horns

    But given how rarely one wants to use cut and paste on a phone this is probably not a big deal

    As I actually use my phone to work on documents, I used to use cut and paste quite frequently on wm6.1.

    I have had a htc 7 pro two weeks now and I am pretty happy so far with win7pho apart from no additional storage (8Gb is too small for a decent amount of music, let alone any videos) and having to use zune to sync. These seem like real steps backward and are the two parts of the iphone model I wish they hadn't copied.

    1. Jim Coleman
      Thumb Up

      Zune Sync

      Zune Sync actually has a number of advantages over copying files to the phone manually;

      1. It can compress your music, videos and photos on the fly

      2. By creating sync groups (e.g. a particular band, genre, album etc), Zune can keep your phone up to date with any changes or additions to your media collections automatically. Got a new album by a band you're syncing? BAM! It's on your phone already.

      3. It works over Wifi

      4. Zune can convert your video formats on the fly as well

      1. l3v5y

        is good, but

        Zune is excellent, but having the option of not having to have it run wouldn't be a bad thing...

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Black Helicopters

    Astroturffing/social relationship management

    How nice that the "social relationship managers" all got the same message "rolling out the update to all handsets at the same time". Looks like the same press kit given to the ones that on slashdot always post the telltale line "heads and shoulders above iphone" and "android fragmentation" in the middle of a rant praising WP7 even if the article has just exposed one of its shortcomings.

    Astroturfing has become professional indeed...

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Jobs Horns

      Astroturffing

      Even Astroturffing, should it exist, is preferable to Apple's Uphillgardening.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Or could it be

      Aside from paranoia that some people are generally pretty pleased with their choices, like I am?

  8. Herer

    re: l3v5y

    You've got it bang on in your first posting in that functionality seems to be assessed only by how shiny it's been presented. This measure has condemned Symbian, with it's multi tasking and clipboard action the moment the first Iphone (with neither tasking or clipboard) landed.

  9. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    Not hopeful

    I'm still waiting for the first bloody update to turn up, let alone this one... I'm rapidly loosing faith that giving MS the benefit of the doubt was a good plan.

    And I fail to understand why MS has found it so difficult to come up with a copy-n-paste implentation. It's already possible to select text in Word so you can format it for crying out loud.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      you needed a brick?

      Apparently you were lucky that you didn't get the first update, and the second.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        FAIL

        Grrrr....

        If you read the details the problem was confined to one handset (which I happen to own) and a particular carrie who had done something to the OS. My Omnia updated fine and has had no issues. As always it was blown out of all proportion.

        I own an iPhone 4 and an Omnia 7, the Omnia is now the mail phone I use, I much prefer it and I think it is a much better OS.

        Plus Zune pass means I can get pretty much any music I want, across my Phone, Xbox and PC. Much better than paying Jobs every time I want to listen to something new.

        1. D@v3
          Thumb Down

          Music

          "Much better than paying Jobs every time I want to listen to something new"

          really?

          If I want new music, I don't go anywhere near Mr Jobs. I go to a shop (or more likely Amazon) and buy a CD

          I have been using ipods/iphones for the last 10 years or so, and have some how managed to accumulate 80,000 odd tracks. The only ones that came via MR Jobs, were ones i brought using an iTunes giftcard i got for chirstmas.

  10. Alan Denman

    No cut and paste - FAIL

    You really have to admire the intellectual capacity of the neer sayers.

    There must be something satisfyingly safe about being in a herd of brainless sheep.

  11. Little Poppet
    Thumb Up

    Not bad...

    Too much emphasis on C&P - IMO it's a meh-issue, i'm more interested in the performance improvements, especially loading apps and games, which MS have actually delivered on this update.

    Also impressed that they are rolling out the update to multiple carriers/manufacturers - all in all, they've done a good job.

  12. Raithmir

    Custom ringtones?

    So they've added cut and paste, but does this add support for you to use your own ring tones yet?

    1. Jim Coleman
      Flame

      Ringtones

      Ah, I see the haters, who can no longer shriek about a lack of Cut-n-paste, have now moved on to the amazingly important issue of "can I make my phone play a fart noise when someone calls?" which is of course NEED IT NEED IT NEED IT functionality of the highest order.

      And once that has happened, they'll move onto "Ah but when will it be able to squeak like a mouse whenever I sit on it"?

      *coughcough*

  13. swanny78
    Thumb Up

    Got Mine HTC HD7 O2 UK (unbranded)

    I got mine yesterday (although I unbraded my phone tx to the guys at XDA) and it works treat, a lot faster and copy and paste is nothing to get excited about its nice. I also have voice search in Bing which the UK did not have before....not sure if that's because my phone is unbranded. It was the UK ROM however.

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