Skype Finally Arrives On Microsoft Phones 151
judgecorp writes "Skype has finally delivered version 1.0 of Skype for Windows Phone, bringing support for its parent Microsoft's mobile platform up to the level of that enjoyed by rivals Android and iPhone. from the article: 'Skype for Windows Phone is available in 18 different languages and will be available on most local Windows Phone Marketplaces within the next 48 hours.
The app features the ability to make free voice and video calls to other Skype users as well as affordable calls to landlines and mobiles using Skype credit over a 4G, 3G or Wi-Fi connection.'"
Free phone calls? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Free phone calls? (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm sure the carriers will just love this and push windows phones even harder in their stores.
Yeah. They will push other phones, without Skype. Oh wait...
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I can honestly say I have never seen you leave your moms basement.
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Bada doesn't have skype? Even symbian has it (and had it longer then any other mobile OS back when skype allowed 3rd party clients). I would imagine there is at least some skype support in bada?
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True, I actually remember a guy with a pocket PC talking on skype once now that you mentioned it.
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So... carriers aren't pushing the iPhone because it has iMessage (bypassing text revenue) and FaceTime (equivalent to Skype), as well as the ability to install Skype?
Did you think for even two seconds before posting that? Or were you just champing at the bit to post a knee-jerk bashing of Windows Phone (if you'll excuse my slightly mixed metaphors)?
Finally arrives? No, not really... still broken. (Score:5, Insightful)
Unfortunately, you still can't receive calls without having the app open in the foreground... sort of defeats the purpose of having Skype on your phone, unless you're the kind of person that only MAKES calls.
Seems WinMo is the only platform with this restriction... works fine on Android and I'm guessing iOS too?
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So, is this a fault of Microsoft's Skype port? Or a limitation of Windows Phone? Like perhaps its not a multitasking O/S.
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fault of microsoft not dealing skype(which they're going to run soon enough anyways) prioritized access and special privileges. windows phone just happens to suck for making apps that extend the phone with voip etc.
do you know who really loves that though? couple of choice carriers.
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do you know who really loves that though? couple of choice carriers.
... so carriers will start pushing it. Users will still lap it up, and only notice too late that the Skype on their new phone is not actually usage.
Quite cunning!
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Even the product the Lumia 900 replaced, the N9 can receive calls in the background (Meego OS)
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Re:Finally arrives? No, not really... still broken (Score:5, Informative)
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The fact this guy called Windows Phone 7 "WinMo" kind of suggests he doesn't know what he's talking about.
Why? Everyone I know calls them WinMo phones, too. Microsoft may call it something else, but they're Windows Mobile phones, therefore, WinMo.
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because on windows mobile phones you could actually have background apps and proper skype... and a lot of other things.
whilst on windows phone you don't. that's why people insist on calling them windows phones, even if it's 7 and windows mobile 6.5 was the last version - but really looking at it from usability point of view in terms of sw support etc, it's rather a totally different line of products(for now).
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You read too much into people using the term "WinMo". It's not necessarily meant to imply disparagement, it's simply a portmanteau. It's a WINdows MObile phone, hence WinMo. When talking about Android phones, I don't say "Honeycomb Android" or "Ice Cream Sandwich Android", I say "Android" and most everyone understands completely well that I mean the OS as a whole, not a particular flavor of it.
We're not in a sales environment, so I guess I really don't see why the distinction is that important. Besides,
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But it does make a difference.. Windows Mobile was/is actually functional.. Windows Phone 7 is not.. sorry but WinMo has always referenced later versions of WinCE. Windows Phone is to WinCE what Dos is to Windows 3.1.. all they share is a parent owner and an hardware architecture.
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no, this is how it is in the mobile applications industry. windows phone is the new shit and windows mobile is the old shit, if you're asking for a windows mobile application to do something you'll be referred to some wm 6.5 apps. if you're marketing yourself as a windows phone coder then you're doing the new shit, in other words .net on "windows phone" phones. it wasn't me who came out with the idea to brand it so but some reason behind it is the fact that windows mobile software will not run on windows ph
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They are NOT "Windows Mobile" phones. The last version of "Windows Mobile" was 6.5.
Win7 is a 'Windows Phone'. It's a completely different animal. Call it "Mango" for short, or "WP7". But calilng it "WinMo" just advertises that you don't know what your'e talking about. WinMo vs. WP7 is apples and oranges. Completely different beasts. And NOBODY I know calls them "WinMo" phones... because they're not.
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I think bitching about it this extensively advertises an irrational need to defend the brand on your part.
It's all just part of Microsoft's death spiral.
Re:Finally arrives? No, not really... still broken (Score:5, Informative)
You're missing the point.
"WinMo" is not just a damanged brand, it legitimately sucks and people avoid it because of its history.
"WP7" is a different beast all together, is very good, and should not in any way be associated with "WinMo". It's NOT the same thing. There is zero app compatibility or UI experience in common between the two.
Your laziness in using correct terminology notwithstanding.
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The "7" comes from Windows 7, which is the success they wanted to associate it with.
No matter how much you protest, these are not "WinMo" phones. Get over it.
My "ferocity" is just a simple matter of being factual. I don't have any vested interest. It's about clarity. When you say "WinMo" people will be thinking about something DIFFERENT than WP7, because they're DIFFERENT.
If you WANT to be misunderstood, inaccurate, and unclear, then by all means, keep saying "WinMo" and sounding ignorant to any listener
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Because technology is different in Windows Phones than in Windows Mobile.
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It's in all the articles :(
http://www.phonearena.com/news/Skype-for-Windows-Phone-goes-out-of-beta-final-version-released_id29363 [phonearena.com]
http://blog.gsmarena.com/skype-for-windows-phone-no-longer-in-beta/ [gsmarena.com]
http://www.technobuffalo.com/companies/microsoft/windows-phone/skype-for-windows-phone-drops-beta-tag-but-still-wont-work-in-background/ [technobuffalo.com]
http://www.theverge.com/2012/4/22/2967087/skype-for-windows-phone-version-1-0-final [theverge.com]
Re:Finally arrives? No, not really... still broken (Score:4, Informative)
The stupid part is Windows 8 is going to implement a similarly retarded scheme for Metro apps. When they're not in the foreground they're suspended. So tough luck if you were using a video conferencing or VOIP app or a multiplayer game and you want to check an email in the middle of it. Because if you do then you'll probably terminate your session when you step away from it. Multitasking is so yesterday.
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Windows Phone 7.5 suspends apps when they leave the foreground. The only background activity that an app may do are periodic background agents which run 30 minutes apart and some streaming functionality through the multimedia framework. If your app falls outside that model (as Skype does) then tough shit you're going to have to gimp it to make it work on Windows Phone.
The stupid part is Windows 8 is going to implement a similarly retarded scheme for Metro apps. When they're not in the foreground they're suspended. So tough luck if you were using a video conferencing or VOIP app or a multiplayer game and you want to check an email in the middle of it. Because if you do then you'll probably terminate your session when you step away from it. Multitasking is so yesterday.
Retarded scheme? Haven't we learned anything from the system trays and toolbars of typical users? From Real Player agent, Quicktime agent and everything constantly running in the background? Now imagine all of those, running on a tablet or phone with a limited battery and with limited RAM. can you imagine the battery life and memory bloat? It has been proved that the apps abuse the privilege that they're granted and it's too much of a chore for non-power users to babysit them so they don't slow down the mac
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Imagine talking to someone on Skype and you want to send them an attachment so you jump to the email app and... oh shit call terminated. Or maybe you want to use VOIP for some smacktalk while playing someone at chess.
Re:Finally arrives? No, not really... still broken (Score:5, Informative)
Just as in iOS, Metro apps can do background tasks via specific APIs to support it (such as music playback). Apps have to be specifically written to support background execution/behaviors, and there are certainly limits on what can be done (but, for instance, downloads can complete, music can play back, etc). By default, Metro apps are suspended when they're no longer foreground... just like iOS.
Android has battery issues from multitasking apps. iOS and WP7 attempt to mitigate the battery problems and provide much longer battery life by limiting background processing to only those things that absolutely need it, and then manaing those things in an intelligent, energy-conserving way.
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And if for whatever reason an app uses too much power, do you know what happens? It gets uninstalled and the store ratings attracts a lot of downratings. It's a self correcting issue.
To work, this relies on an army of power users (no pun intended) gazing at their power monitoring tools and rating apps in enough numbers that their feedback is not lost among "omg teh app haz ponies!"
However, it looks as though Windows Phone targets a user base not so inclined to perform quality control for software vendors, so it's public APIs are designed more restrictively. I guess for Skype they will just wing it and hook it into the system for WP8, while the hoi polloi will still be offered a limited
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But most apps don't need to worry about power consumption at all. The system will suspend the app's process as soon as it is no longer in the foreground.
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WP implements the same scheme as iOS - even if your application is in the background and not running, it can still respond to push notifications. And Skype app on iOS does just that. This can most certainly be done on WP, it just wasn't done for this app for some mysterious reason. There are plenty of other IM and VoIP applications on the same platform that do receive messages & calls in background.
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Sigh. Well, I am already of an opinion that WP7 was an abortion of a release. Hopefully WP8 (or whatever it'll be called) will pick up some of the goodness in Win8. Until then, it's just another reminder for me about why I'm sticking to my Android.
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You should consider playing games that aren't ancient then. Vast majority of windows games produced in last 5-7 years can handle alt-tab just fine. Many of the games released in last couple of years even offer "borderless full screen window mode" where you can use the game as if it was just another application, which is really handy in multiple display environment. I play SC2 like that for example.
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I think you need to update your drivers. It's 2012, not 2007 or so, which was about the last time I remember crashing due to alt tab killing ati or nvidia drivers.
The reason why you want to run windowed is because of alt-tab SPEED, and desire to be able to work in another window at the same time as playing. If the game is in full screen mode, it will by default minimize when focus is lost, and you need to maximize it to interact with the game again. There is no such issue with windowed fullscreen.
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That's more android, they started by basically cloning the iphone but then went with more diverse handsets and more open store. So they're both trying to re-envision windows 3.1 in the phone space. And they sort of orbit around each other with some new features, and some unique features but mostly just copying each other
Microsoft is trying a completely different tactic with a completely different style (live tiles aren't really like anything else, except maybe media centre editions of windows), and they'r
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> That's more android, they started by basically cloning the iphone but then went with more diverse handsets and more open store.
you do realize that Android development started in 2005 and was nearing final stages(*) when iPhone debuted in 2007, don't you?
that "more diverse handsets and more open store" was there since the platform's inception, right?
that more open everything, including the source, was the whole freaking point, the major selling point, the single reason it got adopted so widely?
(*) the b
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you do realize that Android development started in 2005 and was nearing final stages(*) when iPhone debuted in 2007, don't you?
I'm not sure what you are trying to say by comparing when development started on one platform to when another platform was released. Are you trying to say that Android development started before iPhone development started? Or that developing android took longer than iPhone development? Sorry, what was your point?
that more open everything, including the source, was the whole freaking point, the major selling point, the single reason it got adopted so widely?
Silly me, I thought it was Android being superior to the custom crap phone makers were trying to push out, and it was FREE were the reasons it got so adopted so widely. I don't think open had much
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i'm saying that before iPhone came out there was nothing to copy, and when it did, Android's design process was already in the final stages.
i'm not arguing it matters to consumers, but i'm pretty sure that "open source under permissive licence" was (and is) a major factor for the device makers. i'm pretty sure that Google had much easier time putting together the OHA when they said "we'll give you the platform, the source and the right to do anything you want with it". full year before any hardware was due
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As for android being in the final stages, well, I guess that would be valid if you assume that the iPhone was developed on Mars and nothing was leaked. Unfortunately, that isn't the case. Google could have had advance knowledge of the iPhone before it was released, either through tech demos, partners, ex-employees, etc. Not to mention that the a year is a very long time to fit features in, especially the finishing touches that quite often are what is considered to have been copied.
As for the rest of your
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Google could have had advance knowledge of the iPhone before it was released, either through tech demos, partners, ex-employees, etc.
A Mr. Eric Schmidt happened to be on the board of directors of Apple until August 3, 2009, almost a year after Android 1.0 was released. Conflict of interest much?
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Heh. The best part is that Apple has historically been behind in terms of features.
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You realize that Apple copied Windows Phone in allowing access to the camera directly from the lock-screen in iOS5, right?
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Oh, I had thought it was copied from an app for jailbroken iPhones...
Now... how about my Playbook? (Score:3, Insightful)
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Isn't Google world supposed to use Google Talk? :-)
For those users who mostly use Skype to call mom in another country without the good old international call rates, this version is quite OK. Those who really need Skype always on, will have to wait for Apollo, or go for other platforms.
Oh good (Score:2)
I was worried for a minute that the Windows Phone owner wouldn't be able to make calls with his smartphone. Crisis averted!
Why VoIP on a smartphone (Score:2)
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you used smart and windows in the same sentence?
Still behind iOS and Android (Score:5, Informative)
The app still doesn't do basic stuff that the Skype app on Android does fine, like being able to receive calls when the app is not active. From what I read, this is a limitation of the platform. I really don't understand the glowing reviews for the Lumia 900 and the relentless praise for Windows Phone 7, in glowing reviews like this one: http://techcrunch.com/2012/04/15/nokia-lumia-900-review-this-ones-a-no-brainer/ [techcrunch.com]
It seems people can't stop making excuses for WP7, just because it's different to iOS and Android. It doesn't support dual core processors and resolutions higher than 800x480, and now it looks like no current phone will get an upgrade to Windows Phone 8, which is even worse than Android fragmentation issues. And it sounds like a repeat the HTC HD2 story, the HD2 was never upgraded to Windows 7 despite having the hardware to support it. It comes with a childish and uncustomizable homescreen. The applications screen consists of one long scrolling list that becomes a pain once you have a few apps installed. It was clever when it came out, but as Joshua Topolsky said for WP7 it's time we stopped giving it a pass.
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The app still doesn't do basic stuff that the Skype app on Android does fine, like being able to receive calls when the app is not active. From what I read, this is a limitation of the platform. I really don't understand the glowing reviews for the Lumia 900 and the relentless praise for Windows Phone 7, in glowing reviews like this one: http://techcrunch.com/2012/04/15/nokia-lumia-900-review-this-ones-a-no-brainer/ [techcrunch.com]
It seems people can't stop making excuses for WP7, just because it's different to iOS and Android. It doesn't support dual core processors and resolutions higher than 800x480, and now it looks like no current phone will get an upgrade to Windows Phone 8, which is even worse than Android fragmentation issues. And it sounds like a repeat the HTC HD2 story, the HD2 was never upgraded to Windows 7 despite having the hardware to support it. It comes with a childish and uncustomizable homescreen. The applications screen consists of one long scrolling list that becomes a pain once you have a few apps installed. It was clever when it came out, but as Joshua Topolsky said for WP7 it's time we stopped giving it a pass.
It is not a technical limitation of the platform but a rather deliberate one that was put in place so that the battery does not run down because of background tasks.
See Android with it's background services (some that are installed by carriers and that cannot even be uninstalled) and battery life problems. Anyway, this (and other limitations you listed) should be gone in WP8.
Re:Still behind iOS and Android (Score:4, Insightful)
Anyway, this (and other limitations you listed) should be gone in WP8.
Like every problem in every Windows version, it should be gone in the next version.
Keep the faith my friend, some day, Microsoft will get something out the door that won't suck. And I guess it will be a vacuum.
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Like every problem in every Windows version, it should be gone in the next version.
So like every problem in every piece of software since always? Platforms have problems. Android has problems. iOS has problems. OSX has problems. Those problems get fixed and they you can focus on a new batch of problems to fix in the next version.
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WP7 push notifications (toasts) are fairly useless, as there's no notification cache. When you receive one, your phone vibrates and it appears on the screen for 15 seconds..and then disappears, gone forever. If you missed it, too bad, you'll never know about it.
You can use a push notification to update the app tile if you want it to stick around for the user to see later.
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This is one limitation of the background tasks. It's not a hurdle that they cannot overcome, and it's not like they will not overcome it considering that Skype is their subsidiary now.
Unlike your Android phone (leap of faith there), Windows Phones do not yet need a dual core processor, nor do I expect it suddenly to this Fall even though it is expected to have them at that point. The applications run just fine on a single core, as does pretty much everything on iOS (oh no, the iPhone 4 has a single core! On
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It's not a hurdle that they cannot overcome...
Perhaps, but it is a marketing fail that they many not recover from.
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I stopped reading right here. Dual core processors are *NOT* a requirement for Android phones. My 1.5 year old Nexus S has a single core 1Ghz processor with 512MB ram, and it's still extremely fast and responsive. I also recently upgraded from 2.3.6 to 4.0.3 and it's even faster than before. Dual cores are a luxury, not a requirement.
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Unlike your Android phone (leap of faith there), Windows Phones do not yet need a dual core processor, nor do I expect it suddenly to this Fall even though it is expected to have them at that point. The applications run just fine on a single core, as does pretty much everything on iOS (oh no, the iPhone 4 has a single core! Only the iPhone 4S has a dual core). As for the screen resolution, I have yet to see a real problem with 800x480 other than marketing, although I fully expect higher resolutions to appear with WP8.
I think this spec jostling results from a feedback loop between tech-crazy reviewers and geeks, and the manufacturers who are happy to oblige and tune marketing to tout whatever the bestest/biggest characteristic their top-of-the-line device has. What geeks didn't notice is that the race went past the point where it does not matter that much anymore for the users at large. Those who deride the Lumia phones for being two year old tech make a positive point without knowing it: approximately at that time smart
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Skype works well on your Android phone? Just give them a bit of time and they'll "fix" that problem. Remember Skype is now owned by Microsoft.
Out of curiosity, can you still use Skype over WiFi or did they get around to making it 3G only?
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Skype works well on your Android phone? Just give them a bit of time and they'll "fix" that problem. Remember Skype is now owned by Microsoft.
Why would they decide to erode their customer base and hence the ROI from those $8 billion they paid for Skype? It's not like Office for Mac is crippled in any way, besides platform portability issues, is it?
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Then just get a feature phone.
A smartphone is a computer first, phone distant third maybe.
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They aren't setting any sales records, thats for sure. Actually the idea that a smartphone does not need to be a very good phone is very common. Go ask anyone under the age of 45.
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How are WP7 phones "too expensive"? On contract, there somewhere between free and $99... singnificantly cheaper than most Android and all iOS phones on average.
And WP7 has many features the other's lack, helping to make up for some of the features it lacks that others have. It's a trade-off, and individuals can decide what set of functionality is really important to them.
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And how much does the contract cost? It's not free, you know. Personally, I'm on a plan that costs USD ~18/mo with 1 GB data included. From what I can see, AT&T's cheapest plan with data costs USD 59.99 a month (300 MB). Unless I'm mistaken, it looks like they charge extortive amounts for their plans to hide the cost of the phone in the contract.
Too bad if you actually want to receive calls (Score:2)
Microsoft would have to bless the app or add some background service with special privileges that listens for inbound calls. Or better yet they'd fix the WP architecture so any app can run in the background even if has to request a special per
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This is true, but it's naive to think that Microsoft will not expand on their background tasks to allow such behavior (probably not the Viber part though, as I imagine that does not exactly excite the carriers).
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...it's naive to think that Microsoft will not expand on their background tasks...
Too late.
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An important attribute of this app model is that apps are suspended when they are no longer visible to the user. Suspending Metro style apps in the background is a good thing, as it conserves CPU for other apps and ensures that background apps don’t cause activity that can consume resources, thereby improving the battery life and increasing responsiveness.
I have to wonder what
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You misunderstand or misapprehend. There DO exist APIs to perform background tasks as necessary (such as completing a download even though the user switched away, or continuing music playback). It IS the case that the DEFAULT behavior is to suspend. It is ALSO the case that apps may request, via specific APIs, some specific background functionality.
This is really little different from iOS.
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You misunderstand or misapprehend. There DO exist APIs to perform background tasks as necessary (such as completing a download even though the user switched away, or continuing music playback). It IS the case that the DEFAULT behavior is to suspend. It is ALSO the case that apps may request, via specific APIs, some specific background functionality.
This is really little different from iOS.
ah that's the impression only until you try to implement something with them. here, take a look: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh202942(v=vs.92).aspx [microsoft.com]
oh and no xna.* from bg tasks(yes there's a pretty common use case why you would want that..).
sure, there's also a bunch of api's you could use but if you use them you can't publish to market.
it's really different from iOS and totally different from android and just shit way of doing compared to symbian.
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WP8 will run all WP7 apps. That is not an unknown.
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There are no details on what WP8 will support beyond the statement that it will run all existing WP7 apps.
Whether it's possible to write apps that would run across both WP8 and Win8/WinRT (presumably at least a recompile woudl be required) is not currently public knowledge, one way or the other. I'm not even going to speculate.
WP8 and Windows 8 (and WinRT) share a common OS Core... again, that has been publicly stated. What is layered on top is not public knowledge yet.
I seriously doubt (but again, just m
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Won't support low end Tango devices (Score:3)
Even though it's owned by Microsoft, Skype won't support low end Windows Phone Tango devices as it “requires a minimum of 512MB of memory to install and use Skype” [skype.com], and doesn't yet have support for receiving calls in the background -- if the app isn't running [wmpoweruser.com].
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It's like they're trying to skip the "extend" part and just extinguish their new subsidiary Skype forever.
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It's like they're trying to skip the "extend" part and just extinguish their new subsidiary Skype forever.
well at&t would like that.. and telia-sonera...
though it's not like skype is the only name in the voip town, it just happens to be the most popular.
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That legitimately surprises me. I wonder if it actually needs the memory, or if it is an oversight on their listing (as it's listed as a Known Issue)?
It mostly surprises me because the Tango-based phones are destined for China and India where a lot of people use Skype. Being able to sell it as the go-to phone for Skype would have been a smart move on their part, but Microsoft has never been known to have good marketing. Hopefully whomever is to blame wakes up and notices.
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This probably required a new port from scratch to target the Metro APIs.
IIRC, the linux port uses Qt. So no Maemo bloat, as WP7 doesn't include Qt. Which makes me suspicious of the deal Elop signed - MS could have ported the Harmattan version in, more or less, a month if Nokia had been encouraged to port Qt to Metro.
QML-based applications resting on JScript .NET could have become semi-official API in an MS-Nokia partnership, allowing Nokia to save face in targetting Qt on legacy Symbian and Meego devices.
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IIRC, the linux port uses Qt.
If it does, it hides it really well by static linkage.
So no Maemo bloat, as WP7 doesn't include Qt.
What is this supposed to mean? The Skype stack needs some base layer functionality, and depending on the build, "embedded" Skype engines even link their own libc copy statically.
Which makes me suspicious of the deal Elop signed - MS could have ported the Harmattan version in, more or less, a month if Nokia had been encouraged to port Qt to Metro.
This latter task is of course so easy to do in a year, looking from one's armchair. And no, there is no modern Qt-based Skype port to begin with: the Linux client uses old Qt widgets, not QtQuick. Harmattan stock UIs where Skype is used as one of the backends use neither: theirs
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by 'Maemo bloat' I was referring to any potential for non-optimised code leaking in from a port from another platform. The skype port to Metro doesn't use Qt however.
Anyway, I maintain that Qt ought, at some point have a Metro/.net backend- if not for Skype then for the emerging Windows 8 x86 release. If Nokia is committed to see Qt not wither, naturally.
I'm expecting WP8 to be a small niche, forever behind Android and iOS. Thus would it hurt MS to have another toolkit, such as Qt5, available?
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Embedded OSes may use somewhat less RAM than desktops but anything more than the basic tasks still requires 256MB to run *comfortably*. e.g. Firefox on my desktop is currently using 175MB - I'd argue that's not entirely 'bloat' but simply a reality of the modern web experience.
I'm cynical about trying to cram everything into 256MB as a cost saving measure. Do reduced specs actually trickle down to the consumer at low margins? Or is it just an excuse for manufacturers to fleece the developing world by skimpi
Re:Purpose? (Score:4, Insightful)
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Video chat is indeed a useful feature....unless you have a Nokia Lumia Windows phone, which lacks a front-facing camera
According to Wikipedia, the Lumia 900 has one: 1 Megapixel, 1280x720 pixels.
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I stand corrected....shows you how much attention I've been paying to WinPhone (I wonder why that is)
So if you know nothing about a topic why are you posting made up information?
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Did they ever complain about the nausea from seeing your shaky cam feed?
I used video calls from mobile devices, like, a few times for gimmick value. For the regular Sunday chat with gramps, nothing beats a stationary PC with an attached HD camera.
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Its userbase is quite diverse, as such.
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If you make a lot of domestic calls it is useful, too, since obviously it doesn't use up your minutes.
Speaking as a non-Skype user here, but I have a few family members that use Skype as their primary means of communication. I honestly have very few actual voice conversations on my phone these days at all...pretty much everything is SMS, IM, or Email.