Database Develop

[Q] Apps for VNC and Myphoneexploerer Alternative

Hey,
i´m currently wondering if i should go for the Lumia 920 or the Note 2.
There is the everlasting app question that´s holding me back, so, if anybody could give me a headsup if the following is available ...well, it would be nice:
1. An app/tool like myphonexplorer (http://www.fjsoft.at) to a) write sms on pc b) backup these c) sync
2. is there a vnc server available (did not find anything) for winphone? or is this possible with winphone8?
3. I´m aware that there´s no real notification center - but what if you have a news app installed (say cnn for example) and some breaking news is coming in. is there something like a popup on ios/iphone?
thanks in advance

1.) There is no local sync functionality with Windows Phone. All PIM data has to go through ExchangeActiveSync which means GMail/Outlook.com or another MailServer like Exchange. SMS can be backed up to the Cloud although there is no export functionality (Apps can't access a users SMS in WP8).
2.) There is no VNC server as Apps can't access other Apps visual state. I don't know why you would need a server on the phone anyway. Looking through the Marketplace brings up several VNC Clients, I didn't test any of them though.
3.) There are Toast-notifications that pop down from the top of the screen. Those are displayed for a set amount of time (some seconds) and then vanish (or you can swipe them away to make them disappear before that or tap on them to be taken to the App). Aside from that there are tile-notifications that display info on the Live Tiles. Which of those features an App uses and how information is displayed on the tile is up to the App's developer.

Thanks for your answers, which lead me to one more question:
Is it safe to assume that (sadly) such a tool like Airdroid (http://airdroid.com/) will never see the light of the day on wp8?
I´m asking all this because i don´t always have my phone in my hands and accessing most of it functions via a browser was a *huge* plus in the past for me (especially with the mentioned aidroid).

With the current official APIs it's not possible. Perhaps someone could hack something like this in the future but as always I would not count on this. It didn't happen for WP7 for sure.
So in the end I guess that's a no.

Coming from an android note to a HTC 8x

Thinking of trying out windows phone, have opportunity to swap my note for an 8x, how will I find WP, can I still use my google calendar, mail etc....not to bothered about games.

No chance at a nokia 920 instead of the 8x? Nokia has far superiour extra apps.
Gmail support used to be good but i'm not sure with Google dropping activesync how well it is. Hotmail / outlook push works really well though.

If you configure it before July it will continue to work (GMail Sync via ActiveSync). Everything after that point depends on the next WP8 Update (GDR2) and Microsoft's implementation of CardDAV and CalDAV. What you will lose if reconfiguring to CalDAV/CardDAV will be Push Mail as WP does not support Push via IMAP. Until now there has been no indication that Microsoft would implement it.

If it's not too late I wouldn't recommend it unless you've had a chance to use the phone personally. I'm going back to android asap. Firstly a few little grievances with my Lumia 720.
The notification bar that you're used to in android in automatically hidden with no chance of changing it not to. You'll have to minimize whatever app you're using just to check the time etc.
No forward button in the browser.
It just took me 20 attempts to move the cursor to the start of the sentence after '720' so as I could hit the enter button without highlighting the word 'The' (if I didn't it would have overwritten it.
That's just the start. I understand it is a very new operating system and that it will get better with time but I'm not going to wait for months for things that shouldn't be happening in the first place.

Sounds like a case of PEBTAWIBY (Problem Exists Between Touchscreen And Whatever Is Behind You). Even in apps that hide the notification bar (most don't), you can press-and-hold Back to bring up the task switcher; it has the bar. You can also tap Power twice to go back to the lock screen, it has the bar (and the time in great big numbers). The lack of a Forward button I'll grant you (although Histroy does well enough at some times) but it's trivially easy to add back though bookmarklets; check my sig (also things like View Source). As for moving the cursor, did it never occur to you to tap-and-hold on the text and bring up the cursor mode (same as on both Android and iOS, incidentally)? Single taps are generally intended to select words.
With all that said, anybody making a multi-hundred-dollar purchase without knowing what to expect is making a big mistake. You definitely should try out WP8 before buying.

1- I think all google services will work with no major problems except for google maps navigation which you can replace with HERE Drive, there are also alot of Google maps clients available but no turn by turn navigation AFAIK
2- It is confirmed that the GDR2 update coming in June/July will bring CalDAV/CardDAV support
3- UC brower it is a bit more customizable than IE

[Q] WP8 Noob Thinking about switching from android

I am a hardcore Google user. I have an android phone and tablet and lots of google stuff online. My phone is getting old, and I was thinking of trying out something new.
Couple questions:
1. Whats the equivalent of "rooting" on wp8, if any?
2. How would you go about "rooting" your phone.
3. Are there any recommend phones for general use+development?

Julian90090 said:
I am a hardcore Google user. I have an android phone and tablet and lots of google stuff online. My phone is getting old, and I was thinking of trying out something new.
Couple questions:
1. Whats the equivalent of "rooting" on wp8, if any?
2. How would you go about "rooting" your phone.
3. Are there any recommend phones for general use+development?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
1. There is no equivalent of rooting at this time, as Windows Phone is much more locked down than Android (comparable to iOS) and there aren't as many devs working on it
2. Nothing yet, but its very easy to developer unlock it to side load custom made apps
3. You are probably best off getting a Nokia, either a cheap (~$100) Lumia 520 or a higher end like the Lumia 920/925/928 (I'd go with the 1020 if you can afford it). Windows Phone is very efficient, and runs almost as well on lower end hardware like the 520 as it does on higher end.
If you are really a hardcore Google user you are likely to find Windows Phone lacking as Google is intentionally keeping their programs and services off the platform (at least first party, nearly everything can be accessed through third party apps).
I made the switch, and I love it, but Windows Phone is not for people that want to constantly tweak everything because it is locked down. I used to love to tinker, now I love that I can't.

Yeah... WP7 was eventually broken wide open, but WP8's lockdown has been harder to bypass. There's a few devices (Huawei W1?) for which people have reported being able to edit the stock ROM somewhat, which is probably usable for "rooting" the phone, but none of the high-end devices have a known working exploit yet.
Developer-unlock, which will allow sideloading low-permission (no special capabilities, just the standard public ones) apps, is available for free, but you have to use PC tools to do it. Get the WP8 SDK from Microsoft (free, but a big download) and run the Windows Phone Developer Registration tool. Unless you pay for a developer account, there will be a very low limit on the number of apps you can sideload.
I'm actually personally pretty happy with the Samsung ATIV S phones; they have the best hardware in many ways (biggest battery, biggest and nearly highest-resolution displays, biggest internal storage that also has an SD card slot, best currently-available-in-WP8 CPUs) and you can install many of the Nokia apps anyhow (you can also install the Samsung apps on Nokia phones, same for HTC, etc.) using a proxy to modify the store requests. However, for a budget phone, the Nokia Lumia 52x line is hard to beat, and for camera quality, the Lumia 1020 is the best smartphone available, bar none.
There's plenty to do if you like to tinker with the phone... the problem is, you have to find it all yourself. There's not that much, aside from things like using a proxy to get apps intended for different OEMs' phones, that we've found to work so far. I've written a neat app that lets you browse the visible parts of the WP8 file system and registry from your PC (see my signature, it's the webserver app) which I hope will help people find something exploitable to get full Admin privileges on the phone, but so far, that hasn't happened. There's lots of other potential exploit vectors too; people just need to find them and make them usable!

Like GoodDayToDie said, it's NOT rootable. End of story.
As an experience goes, though, I switched iOS -> Android earlier this year because I was firmly in camp Google. I seemed to have problems that most other users did not, but all in all it was a miserable experience. After about 4mo switched to WP8.
For reference, on the phone; I use Google Maps, Google Voice, GMail, Contacts, Calendar, and search.
Contacts, Calendar, and mail all sync smoothly with built-in stuff. Search is an app, and it can't take Bing's place on the search button.
There's not an official Google Maps app, but there are apps in the Store that offer it. After about 6w now, I'm mostly using Nokia's Here stuff for mapping though.
Google Voice is available as a third party app. I was using Metrotalk. It was better than GV on iOS but inferior to GV on Android.
For what it's worth.

Except, you know, the part where it's nothing at all like a desktop OS.
No support for arbitrary applications or running as Admin. No file browser or registry editor. No command prompt or built-in scripting engine. No third-party background services (officially, at least; unofficially it's possible if you can work with the low permissions) or multiple windows at once. No task manager or management console. No device manager or third-party drivers. No user installer or recovery tools. No way to uninstall updates or make disk backups. No way to pass a file directly to another application (it must go through a registered extension handler, which the other app must be selected as the handler for). No multi-user support. None of the standard Windows power management tools. No OpenGL support, or ability to manually update the drivers. No support for external mice (or really for any mice, properly speaking). No support for USB host mode (that I can see, at least not in the base OS). No support for Windows networking or VPNs. No (built-in) support for remote desktop. No printing. The included version of Office is very limited compared to the full thing. No way to change the default web browser, email client, or several other such things. No support for installing new system media codecs or fonts. No way to choose what store a certificate is saved into, to export a saved cert, or to delete a saved cert.Browser has a limit of six tabs, no Flashplayer, and no Tracking Protection [Lists] feature.
Windows Phone 8 has about as much to do with Windows 8 as Android has to do with Ubuntu. In fact, it has significantly less, from the user's perspective.

some Noob's experience with WP8/ Nokia 928
Some other problemsthat i have stumbled on while trying WP8 for past 2 days, Nokia 928.
1. Ringtones and txt messages are changeable but notifications sounds for other programs are not (i.e. metrotalk - client)
2. Using public wifi that requires a comfirmatory click on their acceptable use page - Broken - works first time for me, then every time after it constantly loads up "w w w.msftncsi.com/nsci.txt" and the phone is constantly asking if I want to continue connecting to that wifi hotspot - Annoying.
3. Internet explorer is the builtin browser ( with some 3rd party UC browser, Surfcube 3D browser) but NO chrome nor firefox, - some pages load weird, especially if you choose desktop mode.
Images that appears in the browser search in IE 10 or UC browser, using bing or google comes back blurry, until you choose to open that one pic in full size image , but then you can't scroll through the result of images until you go back, at which time the images will sometimes not load, mind you this is on wifi.
4. No native Google voice apps - Metrotalk is good but you have to go through some hoops to setup push notification (ie having the app be able to notify you of txt and voicemail without actually having that app open), and you can't change the notification sound of Metrotalk as stated above
5. No file browsers
As I said, this is my experience with the phone and WP8 for the last 2 days, YMMV

Very 1st Things to do After Activation?

Hi everyone, just got my N3 last night and I am pretty excited about it.
I am a long time Mac Rumors member and my past phones have been ...... JB 3g, JB 3gs, JB 4, JB 4s
I am very upset with the tiny screens on my iphones and I refuse to wait another year for the 6 to come out.
So now I am a 1st time Android user and what to really check out the Android scene.
What are the first things I should do with the phone, what should I install right away? (different keyboards, apps, etc)
Is there a thread around here with tutes instructing how to transfer my contacts etc?
I surely will appreciate all replies, so thanks in advance. I really wanna get the very MOST out of this device.
edit: does Google Play offer any rebates/coupons/freebies for newly purchased devices?

Hey I would use smart switch to get your things from iPhone to your new phone but that is after you have it activated
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-N900A using xda app-developers app

XiphoneUzer said:
Hi everyone, just got my N3 last night and I am pretty excited about it.
I am a long time Mac Rumors member and my past phones have been ...... JB 3g, JB 3gs, JB 4, JB 4s
I am very upset with the tiny screens on my iphones and I refuse to wait another year for the 6 to come out.
So now I am a 1st time Android user and what to really check out the Android scene.
My N3 arrived Wednesday evening, and it's STILL not activated, (and its killing me).
The reason being, I wanna know if there is anything I should do BEFORE I call ATT and activate it.
(I do NOT want to close any windows, so is there is anything you folks recommend I do before I activate it)?
Once activated, what are the first things I should do with the phone, what should I install right away?
Is there a thread around here with tutes instructing how to transfer my contacts etc?
I surely will appreciate all replies, so thanks in advance. I really wanna get the very MOST out of this device.
edit: does Google Play offer any rebates/coupons/freebies for newly purchased devices?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What do you mean by call ATT and activate it? All you have to do is put your SIM card in and it is ready to go with a few account setups. After that it is up to you except for rooting and modding. Cant be done right now without voiding your warranty.

First thing you do is scratch off the att emblem since they locked the bootloader
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-N900A using XDA Premium 4 mobile app

XiphoneUzer said:
Once activated, what are the first things I should do with the phone, what should I install right away?
Is there a thread around here with tutes instructing how to transfer my contacts etc?
I surely will appreciate all replies, so thanks in advance. I really wanna get the very MOST out of this device.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hello?
Looking for some help here. This keyboard is way different than iphone, is it something you get used to, or should I install something else?
Please tell me what are some of the things I should change/install right away, (there's got to be some "must haves" no?)

XiphoneUzer said:
Hello?
Looking for some help here. This keyboard is way different than iphone, is it something you get used to, or should I install something else?
Please tell me what are some of the things I should change/install right away, (there's got to be some "must haves" no?)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
For the keyboard, i prefer the google keyboard over the samsung one. It provides functionality similar to the iphone and is easy to switch between the iphone and android if you use them both in daily life.
As for apps, here is a small list of apps i like to have on all of my devices.
GOOGLE CHROME. Its much better than the built in browser and is able to synchronize with my desktop browsers favorites, etc.
Skype: Perfect for if you are travelling over seas at all with your device.
Google Hangouts: A good replacement for the built in SMS app.
Facebook & Twitter: If you need an explanation, you shouldn't be useing these apps.
Battery Doctor by KS Mobile: Simple app, but is helpful to save battery life and know exactly how much you have left.
Google Music: I have most of my library stored on google so it makes my life easy to have this.
Google Books: The book equivalent of my music library. Syncronizes what i have read across devices and browsers.
Kindle for Android: For the ebooks you buy on amazon.
Google Keep: Great for taking quick notes and having them on all your devices.
Dropbox: Great cloud file storage. Comes with free storage and you can pay to get more.
Google Drive: Google version of dropbox.
MX Player: This video player will play any video format you throw at it.
Google Maps: A must have for all smartphone users.
Zedge: While its quality has gone down a fair bit from what it once was, its still a great place to find ringtones and notification sounds for your android device.
GPS Status: Great for calibrating your devices sensors and ensuring that it works properly.
Now for the ROOT ONLY apps.
Titanium backup
SuperSU
Triangle Away
Hopefully this is a useful list to get you started. I have all these plus many more installed on my devices, and I find I use them all fairly regularly.

djdelusional said:
Skype: Perfect for if you are travelling over seas at all with your device.
Google Hangouts: A good replacement for the built in SMS app.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I prefer Hangouts to Skype because Hangouts features free video multi-chat.
But I use Google Voice for SMS because it provides free unlimited texting. Hangouts insists on using the phone's native number rather than your Google Voice number, so you have to pay extra for a text plan or for individual messages.

Doesn't anyone else have any advice for a first time Android user?

XiphoneUzer said:
Doesn't anyone else have any advice for a first time Android user?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If your new to android I'd stay away from root for a while.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I467 using Tapatalk 4

XiphoneUzer said:
Hello?
Looking for some help here. This keyboard is way different than iphone, is it something you get used to, or should I install something else?
Please tell me what are some of the things I should change/install right away, (there's got to be some "must haves" no?)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I feel like for every-day typical phone use cases, there aren't that many gaps that stand out as needing to be filled by a third party app. You'll probably need a new music player, the defaults are crapola - but I can't be much help here; I keep my music as folders full of MP3 files (like God intended!) and play with Music Folder Player, and shun the dirty S&M ("sync and manage") apps.
There's a big list of stuff that I did when I first got the phone to get it to where I'm happy with it, but all of this was root required stuff. There are apps that come pre-loaded on android devices and can't be removed or disabled without root. Also, customizing stuff that can't be customized without root. I couldn't abide by some of the not-changable-without-root defaults. Getting rid of the "screen turns on so you can unlock it when you hit the home key" behavior is probably the most glaring example for me; my ass* was unlocking it constantly - but coming from iPhone, you probably view that as the Right Thing for home button to do.
I think most people use a custom keyboard. Swiftkey and Swype are the most popular. The phone comes with Swype, but it's an ancient version with limited support for changing the dictionary, you want the newest one.
I use Hangouts for gchat, but not for SMS. I actually prefer default app for SMS..
Settings:
Pull down status bar, long press on wifi, WiFi -> menu -> advanced settings, uncheck auto connect to AT&T hotspots (unless they don't suck where you are. Around here, they often don't have internet behind them, and just break your connectivity for the 30 seconds or so it takes for the phone to connect to them, determine that the wifi is no good, and fall back to 4G. At least this phone does that; Original note would just sit there like a fool trying to use non-functional wifi... I've also yet to find a hotspot that performs better than the 4G does. But I live in a city, so the situation may be different elsewhere).
Pull down status bar, long press on GPS. Uncheck "Use wireless networks" - on newer versions of android, this drains battery while idle; the damned thing wakes the phone periodically to check the networks around it - if the phone is nearly idle, this can halve battery life (!!!)
Pull down status bar, swipe to the left along the options at the top (woah, did you know you could do that?), tap multiwindow to enable multiwindow (this was a headline feature for the note 3, but comes disabled by default). If I long-press back button, that makes the multiwindow tab hide or unhide (once it's enabled), but I don't remember if I had to do something to get this behavior.
General must-have things:
AppOps Starter (to kill permissions from apps that request permissions you don't want to give them)
Battery Monitor Widget (gives you a realtime readout of battery usage)
ES File Explorer
If you want to pretty-ize clock + weather widgets:
DigiClock
Eye in Sky
If you work in IT or have need of these (if you aren't sure what these mean, you don't need them ):
ConnectBot (telnet/ssh client)
AndFTP (ftp/sftp client, supports scp if you pay)
RDP Client (remote desktop and VNC client)
FEAT VPN (OpenVPN client)
Hacker's Keyboard (you'll tear your hair out trying to use swype/swiftkey for terminal sessions or RDP)
If you want to root the phone:
Root it, then immediately install titanium backup and "freeze" AT&T software update, so it won't update your phone (breaking root) while you're not looking
Titanium Backup - freeze all the useless bloatware that AT&T and Samsung included (there's a list of what apps you can freeze here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AmzC8GFarItSdGpOZzBfWlR4MC03aDMyZ1BDUFNqU0E - not my work)
Root Explorer
Pen Window Manager for adding apps to the pen window feature
Xposed Framework
Wanam - general huge amount of customization, including selecting apps for multiwindow.
Keyboard Manager (almost a necessity if you use ConnectBot/RDP frequently - keyboards designed for messaging and such are garbage for doing administration of non-phone systems, while hacker's keyboard is garbage for messaging and everyday phone stuff)
Terminal Emulator (gives you a command prompt on phone. Doesn't require root, but there are very few use cases for terminal on android that don't also need root)
*Well, I keep it in my front pocket, so technically it wasn't my /ass/ unlocking the phone....

First week with Windows

Hello
And happy new year to everyone!
This is my first week on Lumia 735 after being 6 years with Android.
I like very much it's desktop, but there are some simple things that I thought until now I would figure out but I cannot find a solution....
1. How can I download a PDF from an email and then attach it to another email?
2. Is there a way to have a shortcut on notification bar for data connection?
3. Is there a way to remove Bing and get Google as default engine?
4. Is there a way to tide up settings? I feel that are randomly scattered...
5. Is there a way to open a new tab in internet explorer, but open in background? Cause we are always transferred to the new tab.
Thanks!

I'm on the same phone since about 4-5 days, so I have not yet answers for you, but another question to add:
- why on some apps the keyboard doesn't turn in landscape mode when I flip the phone? I found it working on some apps only, but in Bing search (just an example) it remains in portrait
EDIT: a bit of googling partially answers to 3: I'm a newbie so I don't know if I can link external sites here, but it seems you can change the default search engine in Internet Explorer in the browser settings (so when you type words in the address bar, it uses Google instead of Bing). Regarding the phone search button, maybe the trick is not so easy...

1. did you see download in email message? click on that link to download file to your phone.
2. with latest WP OS 8.10.14219.341 you can add mobile data shortcut in action center
or use Quick Launch app from store
3. settings - applications - internet explorer, select advanced settings and change to google
4. no... latest updated is always at end of list...
5. not exactly... try UC Browser 8.1, maybe you like it better than IE

Download a app named File attacher,it can help you to attach any files into outlook client.
Sent from my AT&T Nokia Lumia 920 using Tapatalk for Windows Phone

1) Download the file to your phone. You can then open it from the email (which will let you choose what PDF viewer to open it with, if you have more than one installed; some of them directly support sharing) or you can then switch to a file manager app (Files, Pocket File Manager, Aerize Explorer, etc.), go to the Downloads directory, and share the file from there. When "sharing" the file, one option will be to use email; this will attach the file to the email. This approach also works for other file types, by the way.
2) As dxdy says, you need to be on a new OS version (you may need to be using the "Preview for Developers" app) to get the ability to add mobile data specifically to the Action Center (swipe-from-top notification area thing) but there are lots of other ways (tons of free apps, for example) to pin a link to it on your Start screen. You can also have both WiFi and Airplane Mode toggles on the Action Center, even in less-than-newest versions.
3) Not unless you're in Russia, I think? You may be able to change the IE default search engine using the method dxdy posted above, but if you want to change the search button behavior, that's trickier. I think in Russia (or possibly just tell your phone you are), if you have the Google app installed, it may run that... haven't tried, though.
4) Settings are, unfortunately, not directly orderable. The default order for Microsoft-provided settings is basically "what MS has found people use most often", thus things like visual and audio customization are at the top, WiFi is on the first page, and stuff like Backup requires scrolling down a bunch. There's also OEM customizations, which are technically just Store apps that are pre-installed and use the Settings hub instead of the normal app list; those are always listed underneath all the Microsoft settings, and (as dxdy says), the one that was most recently installed/updated is at the top of that section ('top of the bottom of the list' if you will).
5) Doesn't seem to be any such way in IE, but there's lots of other browsers. Most of them just wrap the IE rendering engine, so pages will look the same as on IE but the UI can be totally different. This includes changes to tab management. They won't sync with your other devices, at least not by default, though. There's also a beta of Opera for WP8; it still has some bugs but mostly works and has a very different UI from IE. Annoyingly, though, Microsoft doesn't allow any of those apps to be set as the default browser (you can't change the URI association for http:/https: for example).
@axxel84: It depends on whether the app supports landscape mode. That requires work from the developer, since they have to change the layout of everything, so a lot of apps don't support it. If the app doesn't support it, then it will be locked in one orientation no matter how you turn it, keyboard included. Some apps (mostly games) are also locked in landscape mode only, and don't support portrait.

Hi guys, thanks for the help but I am still finding difficult to compose with windows after coming from fully updated Android phones.
- pdf attachments, not possible. You can see that you download files but no where to be seen in order to attach them in another email! What????
- the option to change Bing to Google was in the past, but they don't have it on new phones. And this is the company that wants to increase market share? With these kind of acts I don't think they will last many years...
- I found a way to have a shortcut on desktop that takes me to settings and there to click on for data. But why don't they include this in notification option? How difficult is this?????
- the other frustrating thing I am feeling, is that most other times when resuming an app when I go out and then in, it starts the"resuming" screen and takes 5 seconds to load... For example viber, I can't chat instantly with someone, I have to leave the program on continuously to do this
- no led notification. I should have known earlier by reading reviews, but there is no led notification!!
- no major apps as official pinterest, dropbox, instagram, sms backup to gmail. My biggest disappointment is Dropbox... I am thinking of selling the phone now and going back to Android. Having two small twins, I take continuously videos and photos, and I don't want to think about backup. I found another application but doesn't sync videos automatically. And also the backup app of windows doesn't do automatically the job... If I was windows I would hire people to help these companies develop the "big" apps...
- notification center doesn't always work. for example when a new app is downloaded, nothing comes app on notification. Or in viber you might get 10 messages on notification, if you click one and then in viber you read all, they remain on notification

Nobody seems to have emailed me a PDF recently, but I can download them from the web and they show up in my Downloads folder (on my SD card, since that's where I told Storage Sense to put new downloads). From there, I can see it in Aerize Explorer, select it, Share it, and choose an email account; a new message is created with the file attached.
Some new phones have the option for Google search, but it's not in all regions.
As you have ALREADY been told, the option to toggle data service from the Action Center is available in the latest version. It's also largely un-needed; Data Sense and related settings should give you enough control over your data usage to make it fairly unimportant. Mind you, I agree that it should have been there from the start, but asking rhetorical questions isn't actually helpful.
The "Resuming..." screen can come up for two reasons (or a combo thereof):
1) Badly-coded app that does a bunch of stuff immediately on resume, before it lets you use the app.
2) Your phone ran low on RAM and removed the app from background execution ("tombstoned" it, sort of like hibernating a laptop), so it needs to be restored from the Flash storage and then resumed.
Lots of phones don't have notification LEDs. That's not a WP8 thing, that's a "if this feature is important to you then you ought to buy a phone with that feature" thing. My HTC has a notification LED, my Samsung did not. Both are/were WP8 devices.
Automatic backup of photos and videos is included in the OS, has been included since WP7 actually, but it goes to OneDrive (formerly SkyDrive) instead of Dropbox. Microsoft software uses Microsoft services; this isn't really surprising.
SMS is automatically backed up as well, just not to Google. Why would Microsoft include a feature to back up your messages to a competitor's service?
Lack of official apps is somewhat annoying/disappointing, but you could have easily enough checked that before buying, and the apps will come in time. In the meanwhile, there's usually third-party versions of those apps.
App downloads are fast, and you know when you started them. Why would you need a notification for that? As for the thing with Viber, it's not the OS' fault that the app doesn't report when a message is read. Notifications are really easy to clear though, just swipe them to the right and all notifications for that app will clear (or hit the "clear all" button to get rid of all of them at once).