{"id":13939,"date":"2013-01-03T17:00:28","date_gmt":"2013-01-03T17:00:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/aidanfinn.com\/?p=13939"},"modified":"2013-01-03T17:00:28","modified_gmt":"2013-01-03T17:00:28","slug":"my-first-experience-with-windows-phone-8","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/aidanfinn.com\/?p=13939","title":{"rendered":"My First Experience With Windows Phone 8 \u2026 And It\u2019s A #FAIL"},"content":{"rendered":"

Remember: Independent …<\/em><\/p>\n

I arrived into the office this morning to find that a HTC 8x (Windows Phone 8) had been ordered to replace my HTC HD7 (Windows Phone 7.5).\u00a0 I hated the HD7.\u00a0 It\u2019s my work phone.\u00a0 My personal phone is an iPhone 4 which I\u2019ve had for just over 2 years \u2013 I bought it the weekend before the global GA launch of Windows Phone 7 (in Europe).\u00a0 I\u2019ve like my iPhone.\u00a0 I live on podcasts and audiobooks, transmitted to my car stereo via an FM transmitter dongle.\u00a0 As I said, I hate WP 7.x.\u00a0 While the iPhone runs my life, the WP7 handset gets turned off at the end of every workday \u2013 that\u2019s the nice thing about what I do \u2026 no \u201con call\u201d \"Smile\"<\/p>\n

With my iPhone contract expired, I\u2019ve decided to change network and upgrade my phone.\u00a0 Will it be the obvious iPhone 5, the strong Galaxy S III, or a dark horse WP8 handset?<\/p>\n

On the network side, I\u2019ve decided to switch to 3 Ireland.\u00a0 They give unlimited data, they have great roaming with the UK (free data \u2013 and I\u2019m up North quite a lot), and are cheaper than my plan with Vodafone Ireland (who would force me to \u201cupgrade\u201d to a downgraded plan if I get an upgrade phone).\u00a0 Not to mention that 3 has better data signal nationally.<\/p>\n

I hate iTunes 11.\u00a0 If you haven\u2019t upgraded, then don\u2019t.\u00a0 Cling to iTunes v10.x like it was your last breath in a drowning flood.\u00a0 The awful new experience put me in mind to look at the competition.<\/p>\n

Every time I look at Android it leaves me confused.\u00a0 I just don\u2019t get it.\u00a0 The screens, the lack of continuity, and the wondering if apps will work at all.\u00a0 Plus Android is a security nightmare.\u00a0 And it\u2019s always going to be last to get support from Microsoft because of the Google thing.<\/p>\n

Then there\u2019s Windows Phone 8.\u00a0 I was getting an 8x for work so I could try that before making a decision.\u00a0 The Lumia 920 is a no.\u00a0 Only O2 Ireland will have it.\u00a0 O2 are the most expensive and stingy network in the country.\u00a0 Off-plan, the phone is around \u20ac800, and that\u2019s more expensive than a 3G iPad!\u00a0 Hey Elop \u2013 I\u2019m still no fan of yours<\/a>!\u00a0 The Nokia maybe a flagship but so were the Titanic and the Bismarck.\u00a0 The reviews of the Samsung ATIV S are not flattering.\u00a0 The camera and the sound are said to be bad.<\/p>\n

Today I got the 8x.\u00a0 After getting a mini SIM I switched over from the HD7 and synced up everything easily.\u00a0 All the social and media apps were installed.\u00a0 Actually not all.\u00a0 I was sure I had an NFL app for Gamepass on the WP7 set but I couldn\u2019t get one for this handset and it\u2019s gone from the Marketplace.\u00a0 Huh!\u00a0 I got a tidal app and sunrise\/sunset app for photography.\u00a0 It was all looking good.<\/p>\n

And then it came to the most important thing: Podcasts.<\/p>\n

I found an app called Podcasts!\u00a0 It could search, but not as well as iTunes, sometimes requiring me to get RSS feed URLs, e.g. the Newstalk 106-108 shows that I listen to.\u00a0 And then I found it required manual download and was limited to 2 shows.\u00a0 By paying I could get over that limit \u2026 but no auto-download.\u00a0 I\u2019m sorry, but isn\u2019t the point of Windows Phone that I don\u2019t spend my day with my face pointed at the screen?\u00a0 FAIL!<\/p>\n

I asked on Twitter but the only response was a similar experience.\u00a0 That rules Windows Phone out as my personal device, and the 8x becomes a brick that I use for work calls.\u00a0 It might as well be a \u20ac24.99 pay-as-you-go candy bar phone from Tesco (like Wallmart).\u00a0 I\u2019m not going to invest time in this WP8 phone because it cannot do what I want most from it.<\/p>\n

My search goes on.\u00a0 Odds are, I\u2019ll end up with an iPhone 5 because of how much Android confuses me.\u00a0 That\u2019s a pity, because a decent podcasts app couldn\u2019t be that hard for MSFT to write.<\/p>\n

Please contact me if you do find a decent workable solution for getting podcasts working correctly on WP8 that does not include batteries, a duck\u2019s feather, bailing twine and lemon juice.<\/p>\n

#EDIT1<\/p>\n

So it appears that American, and some other, readers might not have a clue what I\u2019m talking about.\u00a0 Apparently podcasts appear in the market place for some privileged folks.\u00a0 In Ireland, we are limited to apps, games, and music in the Marketplace.\u00a0 Until Microsoft gets this regional lockdown stuff then Windows Phone is a saw without a blade to me.<\/p>\n

#EDIT2<\/p>\n

Alan Byrne contacted me on Twitter with a suggestion, and was quickly followed by Thomas Maurer (MVP) with the same idea.\u00a0 There’s an app called PodCatcher that appears to do what I want.\u00a0 I have installed the trial (that failed to install until I rebooted the handset).\u00a0 The trial is limited to 2 subscriptions but it does have episode auto-download functionality.\u00a0 It’s also sensible enough to not want to do large downloads over mobile networking.<\/p>\n

As for app availability: The Windows Phone Marketplace not as broad as iOS or Android, not having some of the big names. But the core stuff I want is there.\u00a0 Today is the crunch day.\u00a0 We’ll see what I come home with at lunch time, assuming the local stores have any stock \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Remember: Independent … I arrived into the office this morning to find that a HTC 8x (Windows Phone 8) had been ordered to replace my HTC HD7 (Windows Phone 7.5).\u00a0 I hated the HD7.\u00a0 It\u2019s my work phone.\u00a0 My personal phone is an iPhone 4 which I\u2019ve had for just over 2 years \u2013 I … Continue reading “My First Experience With Windows Phone 8 \u2026 And It\u2019s A #FAIL”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13939","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/aidanfinn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13939","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/aidanfinn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/aidanfinn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aidanfinn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aidanfinn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13939"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/aidanfinn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13939\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/aidanfinn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13939"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aidanfinn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13939"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aidanfinn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13939"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}