Today a nice new Nokia Lumia 820 arrived to my desk. I decided that I would try to use it to supplant my iPhone 4 that has run my life since November 2010. That should be … interesting.
As usual, getting Windows Phone 8 setup for personal usage was a breeze. I put in my Live ID and my social networks and contacts were synchronised from the cloud. I added my Office 365 account and my mail/calendar were sorted, quickly followed by disabling Hotmail sync. Facebook and Twitter apps were installed, and I updated the Nokia Drive and photo apps. All very easy. This is where Windows Phone excels. It is designed to be a social phone OS.
The two challenges I’m facing are:
- Finding a working podcast solution – Podcasts are hidden from us (Ireland) in the Marketplace … “licensing” is the excuse from Microsoft which is flat out BS. Such region crippling is inexcusable. One of the paid-for podcasts apps is allegedly written and sold by Windows Phone developers that are employed by Microsoft. Things that make you go Hmmm.
- Finding an audio book solution that allows you to play and keep place for 3rd party content.
As for other apps that I use, I’ve found them before on my work phone (the excellent HTC 8x handset) and I expect no issues there. They’re usually navigation and photography related: Irish Tides, a sunrise/sunset app, etc.
BTW, the Nokia alternative reality app is really cool. Some of the guys in the office loved it. I can see it being useful when in a strange location and seeking somewhere to eat, like a group of us were a month ago in rural Florida.
My FM transmitter will be fine … it’s a Belkin gadget that connects to the phone via a 3.5 mm audio jack. That’s playback in the car sorted. I’ve seen lots of comments about car Bluetooth. Let’s see how my near-new Focus (Ford Sync is still an expensive option here) with a Parrot interface does.
I’ll post more on my progress as time goes by.
EDIT#1:
Somewhere someone is sending a panicked email right now 
*evil laugh*
I have a Lumia 920 and face the same issues… For Podcasts I found a “nice” workaround with the windows phone software and iTunes. You can tell the software to use the podcasts from iTunes.
A good solution for audio books has still to be found, in this case I still use my Ipod classic..
I tied beta 3 of the WP desktop app with iTunes. Quite messy. A real McGuyver solution which I’m not willing to tolerate. That crap is for penguin huggers.
I tried -a lot- of podcast apps last night. The best I found was Podcast Picker. None met my requirements 100%.