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Microsoft Looking Into Windows Phone 7's 'Excessive' Data Use
phands writes "A few users are complaining that Windows Phone 7 is eating data plans alive. One user estimates idle data usage at 3-5 Mb per hour. Not good for a phone which seems to be struggling against Android and iPhone."
Seriously, does no one do field testing anymore?
It's the normal tracking mechanisms of any cell phone: maps, GPS, app updates.
Windows 7 Phone just sends it in powerpoint format.
damn viruses...
Wasn't the whole point of these new phones all the little windows constantly being updated with the latest Twitter, etc data?
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
At the recent Microsoft TechEd, pretty much all of the Windows 7 talks and tutorials were about how cloudy Phone 7 was and how it just used Facebook and all that other stuff directly and so on and so forth.
I asked a couple of different people whether this would mean it would chew a bunch of bandwidth, and the impression I got was that (to paraphrase) "Pretty much everyone is going to have decent data plans these days anyway, so we don't think it's a problem".
The Windows 7 phone is chatty by design, I think they just expect data plans to catch up with it's usage until it's not a problem any more.
Its just MS's Genuine Advantage Validation Tool making sure you do not use any illegal apps.
That Windows Genuine Advantage isn't going to validate itself....
If it's anything like a Windows desktop, then it's probably a boatload of security fixes.
Table-ized A.I.
It's called Windows Phone 7 because it uses 7GB of data per month in standby mode.
- midtoad
Umwelt schützen, Fahrrad benützen
Try applying a variation of purpose for an idea I have already implemented on ANDROID:
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1930156&cid=34713952
Except this time, on this MS product, instead.
(That is, provided their IP stack is BSD derived, which it most likely is, & that dev. tools like ANDROID's ADB exist for the MS unit)...
APK
P.S.=> I mean, hey - First of all: It's YOUR MONEY & online speed + security, after all! Secondly/For example, & a single one only (because there's a lot more you can use this for)?
Using HOSTS to block out adbanners & such alone would cut a huge hunk out of the bandwidth usage!
(Let alone security ideas like the one I noted above that HOSTS files are also good for. THUS? Well - You can "Cut the Chatter" to ANYTHING YOU LIKE, using that technique!)... apk
I don't have control over which DVD drive goes in my xbox, so I'll keep blaming the company I bought it from TYVM.
"We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
I noticed the line at the end of the BBC article and couldn't believe what I was reading - does WP7 actually lack copy-n-paste capabilities? Apple took some justified shit for waiting years to include that capability in iPhoneOS. If that's for real, then WP7 deserves its unpopularity.
I had a chance to play with a WP7 device at a big box tech retailer on NYE (oddly, mere moments before getting an iPhone after a spontaneous discussion with my partner about my former piece-o-junk phone[0]). The interface was snappy, but it was pretty obvious why - solid colours, simple text. I have to wonder how well a WP7 device would operate under load with some third-party software installed.
[0] An LG Neon TE365F. Go ahead and laugh, I deserve it for purchasing such a turd.
Someday, you're going to die. Get over it.
It doesn't surprise me that a problem like this has surfaced. As several posters have already pointed out, it's almost impossible to tell what kind of problems a prototype is going to have in the field under live conditions. None of us know what the exact Microsoft (or Apple, or Google, or whoever) testing conditions are before they release a product. To be sure, a wide, varied testing protocol would ensure the best outcomes, however, these are giant corporations with lots of money, but who also have to ensure a significant return on investment. It's likely that the testing methods are at some balance point (possibly arbitrary) between cost and sample size. The flip side of this is that Microsoft's huge market share in terms of home PC users (I still call them IBM-compatibles, but that has started drawing weird looks in public) may tend to make them a bit blind in terms of quality assurance. Maybe they'll learn their lesson over time, but I wouldn't hold my breath. They are a giant steel behemoth doing whatever they are going to do. Vote with your wallets and take whatever evil you think is least.
So most smart phones have a 1ghz chip (just a guess) and windows XP ran well on a1ghz chip, why invent a new crappy W OS like 7?
Captain Obvious says: Because no-one wants to run Windows XP on their phone.
If you put your name on a product, you are responsible. I don't care if they contracted stuff out to third parties - someone at Microsoft is signing the cheques. Since they bought it, it's their baby. If they cared about their product, they wouldn't allow it to be made from inferior parts.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
It shows how much the world has changed when you start to feel pity for MS
yeah yeah they're still huge and all that...but it's easy to argue that they are bewildered and in decline. They haven't had a _real_ success is about a decade. Win7 is doing well but not 'off the charts' and they seem as surprised as anyone at the consumer interest the Kinect in generating.
Wow, that actually makes sense.
My experience with Windows started at 3.1. I was an NT early adopter but had to support Windows 95/98/ME. About the time I noticed that the Plus! pack for Windows XP was bigger than the entire OS and Plus! distribution for 98, I realized that every release was bigger, in some cases a LOT bigger, and slower. In some cases, a LOT slower.
It seemed like Microsoft was betting HEAVILY that computer speed and storage prices would continue to keep up with the bloat. It's possible that when Vista came out and initially had poor performance on the hardware at the time, the issue wasn't really that Vista was too slow but that the hardware that users had on their desk did not progress as much as Microsoft had been betting it would. Eventually the hardware did catch up and Vista runs fine now.
I had similar experiences (although not for as long a time) with Windows Mobile. I had a Windows Mobile 5 phone and it was a pig. I had to reboot it regularly and doing any operation beyond initiating or answering calls was an exercise in patience.
When Mobile 6 became available, I jumped on it.
And it was *worse*. I now realize that this is probably because I had not jumped the gap to the next generation hardware.
And so, I'm not surprised at all that the design process for Mobile 7 probably included the assumption that we would have significantly faster hardware, on networks of significantly higher capacity *and* speed (which are two different things) and that they may have been a little too optimistic in that regard.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
I think Apple's antenna testing problems may be due to the fact that the iPhone 4 was always encased in a plastic disguise while outside the lab, so the tester's hand never actually came into contact with the antenna.
It didn't come out of its disguise until it was in mass production, and actual users couldn't wrap their hands around it, triggering the antenna problem, until it was available.
So, extreme secrecy is to blame for this. Maybe next time they'll find a way to test it naked outside the lab. :P
Does it make you happy you're so strange?
There are a few of us here, though none from Windows Phone team that I know of. Still, if you want to throw tomatoes, this way is okay.
Feh. I pick up the phone and ask Ethel to connect me.
Makes for fun times when I call the phone sex numbers.
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
Optical drives you or I purchase from LG, Toshiba, BenQ and LiteOn have a bumper to prevent disc damage. The drives found in retail beige boxes all have them too. Somebody directed the manufacturers to leave it out of Xbox drives. If Microsoft put their name to it, they wear the blame.
I don't know about consumer sites, but regarding slashdot let me paint you a picture:
Consider if you will, Fox News. They have a clear tilt. Their viewership is skewed based on that tilt. To maintain their viewership they have to maintain or increase their tilt. It's a closed, positive feedback loop. Fox can't change its tilt. Substitute, say, Huffington Post in place of Fox and you get the same result.
Slashdot works a little differently -- but it's the same result. More potent in fact, because the feedback loop is much more immediate and direct.
Example of said tilt -- barely anyone in this thread has anything to say about the issue mentioned in TFA. Not one single piece of insight, or information. Nada. The only discussion is about how bad MS is, and how bad they've been, and how they will continue to be bad, etc. Why even have a topic if that's the case? Why not just have a weekly "discuss how MS sucks" thread? At least that would be honest.
Another example of said tilt -- any thread involving DRM.
Also -- any comment by Miguel De Icaza.
Slashdot has chosen its sides a long time ago. There are voices of dissent or voices of reason from time to time, but they always get drowned out, and suppressed (modded down) by the groupthinkers/lemmings.
So finally, coming back to your question:
And they don't even bother with Slashdot or any consumer site that says their product is crap?
Why would anyone who is disliked by slashdot bother to read it then? What insight can they gain from it? What will they come away with, other than the opinion that they cannot get any useful criticism from this site, and they cannot ever 'win' over this crowd, so why even try?
The title of their page is Windows Phone home.
My UID is prime. Hah!
Why would anyone who is disliked by slashdot bother to read it then? What insight can they gain from it? What will they come away with, other than the opinion that they cannot get any useful criticism from this site, and they cannot ever 'win' over this crowd, so why even try?
You obviously have never explored the history of the comp.os.os2.* newsgroups. Microsoft used to pay people to post FUD in those newsgroups, and outside of that, there were plenty of people who just wanted to troll.