Windows Phone 8 : What we want! - Part I

Past few months have been very active in the Tech world. With new technologies and gadgets being announced everyday, it has become very tough for a company to fend off competition. With the launch of iPhone 5, LG's latest android phone series,Samsung Galaxy Note II and the new Nokia Lumia devices, the consumers are flooded with options to choose from this year.One company that has been most active these days is Microsoft. With the introduction of Metro UI (or Modern UI or Windows 8 UI), Microsoft is changing all its products to match the latest look. Microsoft Office 2013, Microsoft Surface tablet,Windows Phone 8,Outlook.com, all these were introduced in a very short span of time so that when Windows 8 is launched, a perfect ecosystem of Metro UI already exists.They even changed their logo to match the new Metro UI. And the product that started this revolution was Windows Phone 7. Windows Phone 7 was the first product that introduced the Metro UI and everything after it! The UI was completely different, based on square boxes called Live Tiles that displayed real time information, it had a clean and simple look which was easy to use and beautiful! Even though it didn't sell in iPhone-ish numbers, but those few who used it, simply loved it! Being a young OS , it had it's faults. Recently Microsoft announced Windows Phone 8 but didn't disclose all the changes that WP8 will bring. So I have prepared my own list of features that WP7 lacks and WP8 should definitely have in order to appeal to a larger audience:

1. Multiple Select Option : This is a very common feature being offered by almost any mobile Operating System available in the market like Android,iOS,Symbian,etc. Even my Java based LG phone has it. This feature allows you to select multiple items at once. I don't know why Microsoft even skipped it in the first place.Currently this feature is only available while using the email app, but if you want to delete 10 pictures from your gallery, you'll have to do it one-by-one.I hope Microsoft includes this feature with top-most priority.
   
2. Individual Volume Control : You are listening to music on your Windows Phone device and you lower the volume to 20 or 15(30 is too loud!) using the volume down button on the side.After a while, you pause your music and go away. Wait! You can't go away because if you go away too far ,and someone calls, you won't be able to hear your phone ring , as your phone's volume is set at 15! What? But that was only for music? Well, that's not the case with Windows Phone. There is only one master volume control, and that controls everything from  ringtone to messages to notifications. Everything. Android on the other hand, offers individual volume control for music,apps,ringtone,etc. Suppose your running an app in Android that has background music in it, and you increase/decrease the volume , then this volume setting will only affect the current app an not the phone's other settings like the ringtone.
3. Shortcuts : Okay now you must be thinking that Windows Phone already has shortcuts in the form of Tiles. If you are, then you are not fully right.While you can pin any app or any in-app features (for eg. nokia maps allows you to pin destinations ,point-of-interest) on your home screen, you still can't pin any system shortcuts like Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, etc. So, if you want to turn on wi-fi, you'll have to :
   1. Swipe to the right
   2. Find settings and click it
   3. Go to wifi
   4. Move the slider to turn-on wifi
   
   Well you can save one step by pinning "Settings" on your home screen but that's still not enough. 3-4 steps just to turn on Wi-Fi? Similarly, you'll have to follow these steps to change the brightness,turn-on bluetooth,etc. But, what if you could pin these system shortcuts? your homescreen will be filled with shortcuts,app tiles,etc. That's not good as well. So what Microsoft can do is go the Android(ish) way. WP7 already has notifications for Sms's or open Wi-Fi hotspots but nothing else. That space can be used to add system shortcuts. So you can simply swipe your finger from top-right to the left side and all your important system shortcuts are there. Using WP7 will become so much easier.

10 Must-Have Android Apps

You have heard so much about Android from your friends and the Internet that you go and buy your own Android phone. Now the first thing you want to do is download an App! So you go to the Android Marketplace and voila! 400000+ Apps await you. Which app should you choose? Confused?? That's why I have made a list of Apps that you should download and use. I am excluding social networking apps like Facebook and Twitter because everyone knows about them and infact so many people test their marketplace by downloading the Facebook app for the first time! So it will be a waste of space if I include them in my list:

1. Viber : This app lets you call and message anyone in the world for free! The person you want to contact should have this app installed and of course should be connected to the Internet at that time. The voice quality is amazing and the UI is also very easy to use. The best part is that you don't have to register anywhere to use this app. You just have to enter your phone number ,so that you can be recognised by your friends using Viber. It automatically reads your contacts and checks if any of your friend is using Viber , and then informs you about it. Currently it is available only on Android and iOS, so you can use it to contact your android and iPhone friends. The only drawback is the absence of video calling. If you want to make video calls ,then you should checkout Skype.
   
2. GPS Essentials : As described on the marketplace , it is the Swiss army knife of GPS navigation! This App has very unique UI and allows you place as many as 45 widgets on it such as Speed,Accuracy,Altitude,Battery level,Satellites,Time,etc. You can use it check the accuracy of your GPS position or use it as Compass. You can also use it to measure distance between two points,create tracks,manage them and also view them on Google Maps. An extremely handy App.