Developing A Gaming App: What You Should Do - Off-topic

In order to make a gaming app that takes off, the first thing you should focus on is the gameplay. The more interesting the gameplay, the better the chances. Which is why the first thing many game app developers do is to design the gameplay and then focus on its visual property. Another important thing you should be doing is to carefully pick your niche and the category. The better you understand your game type, the easier it would be for you to develop the application itself. Did you find this helpful?

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This phone is not a graphics device, its a business tool.

OK, rather than hijack a thread, this is what I posted last night in the class action thread:
Steve-C said:
What he said...but I am a little under the influence right now. To be honest, my phone works for GPS, works for email, works for web browsing, sync's via activesync, plays movies just fine (no slider issues when adjusting sound), allows me to read ebooks, works with office mobile (though I would like to be able to save Word documents as .DOC files, not .DOCX). Guess I'm with the 99% because I really don't see any issues with the phone that cause me to get on a soapbox. I really don't care if this makes me unpopular, but I'm so sick of people coming on this forum and moaning about video driver issues. Show me one other device that does all the things that a Kaiser can do? iPhone, no GPS and limited open source unless you want to run the risk of bricking the device, Nokia? Please, I had the 9xxx series of communicators for years. I had the choice between the latest comunicator series or the Kaiser, I went with the Kaiser as Symbian sucked. The N95, QWERTY keyboard???
This phone is not designed as a graphics device, its a business tool. If you want DVD quality movies, buy a portable DVD player, graphic intensive games, get a PSP. I have a Nokia 2110 mobile from 10 years ago that can't handle MID files, a Garmin Sat-Nav the size of a house brick and a digital camera that uses 3.5" floppy discs cause memory cards hadn't been invented when it was launched. HTC have packed an MP3 player, sat-nav, laptop computer, digital camera, mobile phone (...the list goes on) inside a device the size of a packet of cigarettes. Personally I think this is amazing, lets give them a bit of credit for doing this!
[/drunk rant off...]
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Click to collapse
These were the responses:
forcedalias said:
So, are you saying that just because it's business-oriented, its camera should continue to suffer from video driver issues? That it should be slower to process anything with some graphics in it, business-related, entertainment or otherwise?
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Click to collapse
omikr0n said:
GPS, email, office - fine.
Web browsing - not at all - see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7qbaDLzOU_Y
Syncing - fine, except mine disconnects randomly when connected via bluetooth
Movies - I haven't seen a single movie playing fluently on TyTN II
Is this really acceptable for you? Especially for such expensive device? I paid nearly $1000 for device that my 5 (!) year old iPaq h2210 can easily outperform at ANYTHING?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've never understood the driver issues, as I haven't witnessed them. Looking at the YouTube video posted, that is very worrying, but I would like to know how were such poor results achieved?
This is my Kaiser (running the stock o2 ROM). Firstly it shows a video being played on my laptop, second the same section of the same video on my Kaiser. Then a web page in PIE, followed by a bit of surfing on Opera. From my video, it seems to perform just fine. So am I just really lucky, or am I missing something?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mrHwG6xpc-E
Nope I get the same results.
Well, i dont have big issues with movies.
However, i notice a lot of "lag" effects sometimes when scrolling. Of course installed the scrolling fix for IE, which makes it far better, but still, there is interface lag.
This lag is easily noticeable when you try to close an app and need to point your stylus like 3 or 4 times on the top right X before anything appears.
Also noticeable when you scroll in the "programs" window , interface lag, the scrolling is bad, really... The icons in the programs windows look like they disappear (this part of the screen becomes totally blank/white) then half-reappear then disappear etc... It is UGLY. When scrolling in program window, what should be SEEN would be real scrolling icons, fluid and all ! It should be nice, fluid, and shouldnt look like the screen refresh is 1 frame / second.
With such a processor and the included ATI thingy i would have thought of a faster interface avoiding such lag tbh.
The Stargate video that you're showing on your tilt in your video, did you conver that first?
If not, I'd like to know the stats on the video. Whats the resolution, file size, etc.
I've copied music videos to my phone and they play like crap. I had to spend $30 on conversion software and wait for the media to be converted down before I was able to watch anything.
Stargate Atlantis episodes that are 350mb take a long time to convert. To me it's a waste of time. I'd rather have a fully functional device with proper video support. Software rendering makes the screen draw slow and makes the device lag.
So, have you copied any video files at all to your phone and had them not play correctly? Or are you saying that every video you've tried has worked fine?
That has NOT been my experience. I have to convert everything to 320x240 at 640 bitrate before my phone will play video smoothly.
There is no need to argue, the phone is capable of doing more, why not just face the fact.. If it can do more, what's the use on arguing "its already good enough??" No its not, the camera is the worse thing ive ever seen.
Dont get me wrong, the phone is great. I love it. The reception is the best ive ever seen.. But we just want them to correct the video driver issue, that is all. Its not harming you... is it? No need to drunk rant ..
Oh and by the way, technology is supposed to improve, the phone is an upgrade. Did it upgrade? No. I see no improvements..
Oh wait!, we got GPS .. I'll give you that.. Even then the GPS takes like 20 minutes to find a satallite. but it is great once its up and running.
I WOULD like to be able to turn on the eye candy and not destroy the usability of my device... even for business purposes
As the video seems to be really low res (QVGA at most) it should work, (we don't know about the bitrate but I'm assuming it's fairly low too).
Most of us who are complaining want a seamless experience. Ie we want to watch the regular videos we want on our computers on our mobile device.
IE scrolling seems nice enough, that seems to differ a bit between ROMs.
I can just share my experience from strart to "finish":
I read up on what device to get. Kaiser was very much hyped at the time. I took the time to read their webpage where they claim that the phone is "more powerful than any other mobile communicator". The same text says that the device is equally good for business and pleasure. It also reccomends using it for gaming:
http://www.htc.com/product/03-product_tytn_II.htm
"More powerful than any mobile communications device you've seen before"
"perfectly for reading and creating e-mails, using applications, or even just playing games."
"Always ready for business - and pleasure"
I also took the time to check out the MSM7200 processor and what that was all about.
Now my primary focus is business. I wanted Office Mobile and a nice contact manager etc. I have no gripes there.
The problem started showing up when I came to the gaming/pleaasure part.
I tried dragging and dropping some TV shows (700kbps 512x384 res) and the playback is prety lousy.
So I went out and bought CorePlayer for 25 bucks. First result was even worse. So then I figured out that I actually had to turn off the standard Windows Mobile rendering interface called DirectDraw. Seemed strange enough as this is THE standard interface for drawing video on a windows mobile device. With a lot of tweaking I got semi acceptable playback in the end.
A day later I started playing around with the camera. It took me about five seconds to realize that it was utterly flawed. Shutter speed (or rather the processing speed) makes the delay from the point where you click the button to where the picture is taken was so slow that none of my pictures came out right.
It's also exceedingly difficult to use the viewfinder seeing as it runs at less than 5 fps and with extreme blur.
Capturing video was also a downer. Instead of the 30 fps @ VGA resolution that the chipset touts I'm getting 10-15 fps and I might add that to me it looks like it's even less than that. Utterly unwatchable.
So ok, video playback and the camera was pretty awful. But as I said I mainly intended to use this for business so I didn't think much more of it.
So I tried surfing a bit on the web. I run a website and I wanted to check my bak account.
What I noticed was that as soon as I visited a "non-Mobile" website everything slowed down. Scrolling takes forever, and also simply rendering the page takes "too" long.
The mobile pages of my service provider works like a charm, but that's a no brainer seeing as they are meant to work on everything from the cheapest 50 dollar phones and up.
Then came the weekend. I was off to some friends that live out in the country. I had to go there by train.
So "hey, great time to load it up with some games".
Some of the games I've heard of was legend of steel and call of duty 2.
Well call of duty 2 was just as mess, with no open gl support.
legend works pretty well unless you actually try to play the game. As soon as the stylus hits that screen everything start going in slow motion.
I resorted to playing bubble breaker and tetris for the trip.
By this time I was pretty annoyed since my 3 year old Sony Ericsson el cheapo 3G-phone gave me a much better gaming experience than this.
So then I resorted to emulators. I really wanted to try out some nice emulating but again, performance was too low.
I didn't expect the TyTN II to be a Playstation Portable challenger but I didn't expect it to be just a typing machine with a calendar attached to it either.
I found this forum and surely enough I found out about the lack of drivers and everything suddenly made sense.
And the thing that bugs me the most about this is that the drivers are readily available to HTC, they just choose not to provide them to us.
So personally I'm a bit pissed off and I surely won't consider HTC a first hand alternative the next time I go shopping for a new PDA phone.
/Scincerele signed "Business users who expected more"
there you go (actually a true story even though a made it cheesy on purpose. )
oh yeah, PS I'm also pretty irritated by the lag that you get when you put the phone in landscape mode or vice versa. And the slight lag that happens when you start programs (you can actually see how the device renders in approx 10-20 lines at a time) it's not a deal breaker but I certainly expected more, especially since I've used similar phones using both pal, symbian and windows mobile and other OSes (even really cheap ones) that don't exhibit the same symptoms.
Still it's only a minor gripe...
The page you shown doesn't prove anything, it is contains for too less content. Try open forum.xda-developers.com you'll see the huge lag...
undac said:
As the video seems to be really low res (QVGA at most) it should work, (we don't know about the bitrate but I'm assuming it's fairly low too).
Most of us who are complaining want a seamless experience. Ie we want to watch the regular videos we want on our computers on our mobile device.
IE scrolling seems nice enough, that seems to differ a bit between ROMs.
I can just share my experience from strart to "finish":
I read up on what device to get. Kaiser was very much hyped at the time. I took the time to read their webpage where they claim that the phone is "more powerful than any other mobile communicator". The same text says that the device is equally good for business and pleasure. It also reccomends using it for gaming:
http://www.htc.com/product/03-product_tytn_II.htm
"More powerful than any mobile communications device you've seen before"
"perfectly for reading and creating e-mails, using applications, or even just playing games."
"Always ready for business - and pleasure"
I also took the time to check out the MSM7200 processor and what that was all about.
Now my primary focus is business. I wanted Office Mobile and a nice contact manager etc. I have no gripes there.
The problem started showing up when I came to the gaming/pleaasure part.
I tried dragging and dropping some TV shows (700kbps 512x384 res) and the playback is prety lousy.
So I went out and bought CorePlayer for 25 bucks. First result was even worse. So then I figured out that I actually had to turn off the standard Windows Mobile rendering interface called DirectDraw. Seemed strange enough as this is THE standard interface for drawing video on a windows mobile device. With a lot of tweaking I got semi acceptable playback in the end.
A day later I started playing around with the camera. It took me about five seconds to realize that it was utterly flawed. Shutter speed (or rather the processing speed) makes the delay from the point where you click the button to where the picture is taken was so slow that none of my pictures came out right.
It's also exceedingly difficult to use the viewfinder seeing as it runs at less than 5 fps and with extreme blur.
Capturing video was also a downer. Instead of the 30 fps @ VGA resolution that the chipset touts I'm getting 10-15 fps and I might add that to me it looks like it's even less than that. Utterly unwatchable.
So ok, video playback and the camera was pretty awful. But as I said I mainly intended to use this for business so I didn't think much more of it.
Then came the weekend. I was off to some friends that live out in the country. I had to go there by train.
So "hey, great time to load it up with some games".
Some of the games I've heard of was legend of steel and call of duty 2.
Well call of duty 2 was just as mess, with no open gl support.
legend works pretty well unless you actually try to play the game. As soon as the stylus hits that screen everything start going in slow motion.
I resorted to playing bubble breaker and tetris for the trip.
By this time I was pretty annoyed since my 3 year old Sony Ericsson el cheapo 3G-phone gave me a much better gaming experience than this.
So then I resorted to emulators. I really wanted to try out some nice emulating but again, performance was too low.
I didn't expect the TyTN II to be a Playstation Portable challenger but I didn't expect it to be just a typing machine with a calendar attached to it either.
I found this forum and surely enough I found out about the lack of drivers and everything suddenly made sense.
And the thing that bugs me the most about this is that the drivers are readily available to HTC, they just choose not to provide them to us.
So personally I'm a bit pissed off and I surely won't consider HTC a first hand alternative the next time I go shopping for a new PDA phone.
/Scincerele signed "Business users who expected more"
there you go (actually a true story even though a made it cheesy on purpose. )
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What he said!!! This is why I left sprint. I got the Mogul, was advertised GPS when it came out. Well to this date, they are waiting for a "rom update".
woo, we really don't need to go into this because by token of that same logic:
Your computer is a business tool, not an entertainment device.
Your car is a business tool and necessity. You don't need a cd player or radio.
etc. etc.
Now why is this a big issue? Because it was false advertising. Because what we bought wasn't just a big mac and some fries. And because what we bought wasn't worth $15. What we bought was worth more than $500 US. What we bought was a device that could do everything and more. Like a car, you didn't just buy it for business, but for pleasure. And to falsely advertise and prey on the good faith of us consumers isn't just bad. It's criminal.
The point is, even if you consider that the TyTN II a business phone and don't care about it preforming way below it's possibilities, the other HTC devices based on the MSM7200 and MSM7500 chipsets, like the Touch Dual and Touch Cruise, which suffer from the same problems, are certainly meant for 'fun user', not 'business user'. And their PREDECESSORS did all of this fine.
So everything you said is still BS.
The youtube Video demonstrates the Kaiser PIE Scroll bug issue, not the Video driver issue btw. That bug was fixed here. Most cooked ROMs now incorporate the fix.
Yes this will be corrected on the site (the GDI video is way better for demonstration anyway, too bad it's not a comparison).. and the new support reports will be added. But if you ask me this is just a distraction. They know full well what the problem is, this is just to give the illusion they really didn't know, and are trying to figure it out, so they can say it really wasn't their fault. They're just acting out a play.
Really, the responce changing not 24 hours after the sites were launched (and they were informed of this, after all) and only 2 or 3 hours after a fairly large tech site frontpaged it? That is not a coincidence.
I have an ipod touch for entertainment. Kaiser for work/travel. Best of both worlds.
Scott_F said:
I have an ipod touch for entertainment. Kaiser for work/travel. Best of both worlds.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You are an idiot with way too much money and time to spend on two inferior products.
Scott_F said:
I have an ipod touch for entertainment. Kaiser for work/travel. Best of both worlds.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have a Kaiser which has the power to do both. Too bad it doesn't. By the way, since you seem to be such a huge fan of having multiple devices for doing multiple things, you should probably sell that Kaiser to get a flip phone, buy a PDA, get yourself a dedicated GPS receiver, and a Walkman radio, since having an all-in-one would be far too much integration for you.
Nick Collision said:
You are an idiot with way too much money and time to spend on two inferior products.
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Click to collapse
Awesome.
I bout my Tilt for 588 USD, totally ignoring my upgrade date, with the hopes that i would no longer need two devices. Until they fix the issue, making the device into what I thought I was buying, I will continue to be pissed about this.
this phone is not a graphics device? have you ever seen the datasheet of the MSM2700? THAT WAS THE REASON FOR I GOT MY KAISER!! (and the keyboard)
Nick Collision said:
You are an idiot with way too much money and time to spend on two inferior products.
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Click to collapse
Just because he has something made by Apple, doesn't mean it's time to talk ****. I personally don't like apple, but they have created some innovative features for the smart phone world.
Nick Collision said:
You are an idiot with way too much money and time to spend on two inferior products.
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Click to collapse
You dont need to insult people because they have different opinion on something.

Poll: HD7 and WP7 Pros and Cons. Share your thoughts and vote.

About HD7 and WP7, quick review.
Positive HTC HD7:
. The device is awesome, fast, slim, the 4.3” high resolution screen is really epic and it feels really good when holding it in your hands. It makes you wanna have sex with it.
. The device materials quality is over my expectations
. Auto focus and dual LED flash working great
. Gsensor, proximity, and ambient light Sensor fast and reliable
Negative HTC HD7:
. Internal storage: 8 GB (Europe), I just hope we can upgrate it soon
. Battery drains a lot. it seems that battery manufacters are not keeping the pace. I recommend to disable all automatic updates and dont use 3G.
Positive Microsoft WP7:
. Really a clean OS fast and very responsive.
. The Hubs and animated tiles layout is very simple and fun to use.
. Social integration is a awesome feature and well worked by Microsoft (but it may be a little confusing for newbs.
. The boot sequence is the faster I ever seen.
Negative Microsoft WP7:
. Marketplace and Zune not available for all regions (you need to create a windows live account in a Region like UK for example).
. Lack of Customization
Bottom line:
WP7 is a kind of fresh air in the mobile world, a different approach with easy-to-use interface focused in integration of features and social network. Its fast, clean, intuitive, full of people-centric features with memory management like no other OS. Overall is has unbeatable perfomance.
Metro UI it is not just a app launcher, it has live tiles and not that sea of the same old and boring icons. The touch responsiveness is awesome and the short transitions between applications is the best experience I ever had.
The WP7 keyboard is clean , the mail experience is solid, IE9 is fast, the Office integration make WP7 impossible to ignore for serious business users, terrific Zune and Xbox Live integration with beautiful and useful user interface. All of these features are as simple and clean as the rest of the OS.
A kid can use it, a grown up can use it, a elderly can use it.
WP7 its still a work in progress and yes there is a lot of features missing but since it is just one year old, you can wait and live without it. The most important is that what we have now does not break, crash or lag. It works perfectly and smooth. Bottom line, you love it or you hate it.
In my case, I Love Windows Phone.
EDIT:
My Rate so far: 8.5/10
Thats all.
dot
Hm, have not had any issue with the hubs. Agree on battery life, it is pretty weak so far. I've done multiple drains as well.
I'm pretty torn on the HD7 myself. On the one hand it's probably the best-looking handheld device I've ever owned. Hardware is just excellent and feels great in the hand. But the more I look at the screen the more I realize how poor it is. Colors are very washed out. My 1st gen iPod touch has better brightness, contrast and saturation than this screen. HTC could have done better here.
Would you say the battery last longer same or shorter then HD2?
I find the HD7 to be the best looking of all the WP7 phones yet released. I love the black chrome surround and the silver mesh inserts at each end of the front face. I also found ou t those mesh inserts conduct sound from the rear speaker. That is a plus, rather than just being there for looks.I love the high quality kickstand also. The HD7 combines all the best elements of the HD2 and Evo in a much prettier package.
My HD7 works flawlessly...signal and fit and finish as well. The screen is unblemished and the display is colorful and bright. I love the chrome buttons and I especially love the dual level camera button.
WP7 is, to me, the best mobile OS ever released. It is superbly smooth, uncluttered and efficient. It lacks features right now but, similar to the iPhone's lack of features, WP7 will evolve into the most successful mobile OS ever produced...my opinion.
Taking into consideration the nature of the system and how it will evolve, I give WP7 a 9 out of 10. I have experienced some minor bugs. Otherwise I would give it a 10/10
I love my hd7 to , real good build quality and O2 German version has 16 GB in it
I hate sound quality in HD7. There is absolute no bass if you use the included headphones or buildin speaker. As far as I know there is also no other headphones that have compatible control. Also the mic should be at the level of mouth or a little lower, but not at the chest level.
nesher said:
I hate sound quality in HD7. There is absolute no bass if you use the included headphones or buildin speaker. As far as I know there is also no other headphones that have compatible control. Also the mic should be at the level of mouth or a little lower, but not at the chest level.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah, the HD2 included head set also has the mouth piece way low, like they designed it for the indigenous people who stretch out their necks, never made sense to me on that one.
Nice thread, I will wait for more comments before I buy mine.
My HD7
Me and MY HD7 it's a love hate relationship I guess.
A bit of history:
I've owned the HD1 (****ing loved it), The HD2 (was an okay device) Now the HD7 (still testing it). I'm a smartphone FANATIC! I have devices ranging from the Nexus One, to the Blue Angel (favorite phone of all time), to the EVO, G1, MOTO Backflip, Touch Pro1 and 2, even the XDA Flame, and Palm Pre, you name it. So I don't really have a biased to any particular device.
The HD7:
The physical design is AMAZING (though I think it could use more metal on the back, but it still feels way better than the plastic clad EVO). The screen appears to be floating as it's not touching the upper and lower bezel. The kickstand is sturdy.
The camera button is hard to press on the second stage (not the focus stage), if you attempt to use one hand it will probably shake enough of ruin your shot (and I have big hands, I can palm a basket ball). two hand use should be fine
The camera flash is great. It does a good job with adjusting the brightness of the light.
The battery life is absolutely pathetic, worse than than any device I ever owned.
The Audio from the built in speaker is CRAP! Even with HTC sound enhancer. I'ts actually the worst sounding phone I every owned, but it's bearable.
The Audio pushed out through the headphones is AMAZING!
The vibrator. I know who ever's reading this is like WTF? But I've always hated the way the vibrator feels on HTC device. I think it's an important feature on devices nowadays especially with tactile feedback emulations. With that said: On my EVO it's horrible it makes an annoying noise and it only vibrates the lower portion of the phone. But the vibrator on this device is awesome. It feels really natural and vibrates the whole phone. Almost better than the one on the Samsung devices.
The LCD display is actually decent. I don't know what everyone complains about, the device would have cost nearly twice as much with a 4.3 inch SAMOLED like everyone wants, no one has a 4.3 inch AMOLED or SAMOLED so give it a rest people! The display could be brighter in my opinion though.
The sound quality for phone call is the best I had so far, but put it on speaker phone and it's the worst I've heard.
Pocket IE is very fast faster than the Android 2.2 default browser. But the render is kind of weird as they seem to not have have anti aliasing on text when completely zoomed out so it looks horrible sometimes. Over all the browser is good.
Windows 7 in a nutshell
I love it and hate it.
I love: the messaging app, the overall interface, the idea for hubs, the xbox live integration, the live tiles, the lock screen, the Email Hub (beautifu and extremely functional), the picture and video Hub (beautiful and functional) the entire OS is extremely responsive and cohesive.
I hate: Some hubs won't load (and requires a soft reset) less than 5% of the time, Some apps have the tendency to crash (more time than I'm comfortable with) bot 3rd party and built in apps, I hate that the video recorder will not retain settings.
And I ABSOLUTELY HATE when searching for apps you get music result as well; example: if you search in Market Place for "Notes" you'll get some applications like "Voice Notes" and "Light Notes" but you'll also have albums and play lists mixed in like "Notes from the Past" and "Best of the 70s - Play list" WTF!! at the very least they could have grouped them by type "Albums" "Applications" "Play List". Instead they mix them all up randomly so you'll have to search an entire list of music albums so you won't potentially miss a very good app all the way at the bottom. W T F !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I give the device a 7/10
-Frankie
MHO.
HD7 -> compared to other HTC devices -> significant de-evolution.
HD7 -> compared to other devices same class -> not possible.
WM7, "satisfactory" start with possibility to improve fast.
HD7, terrible hardware choice and cant improve anything.
4/10
K
Thanks Dotcomp for the poll ,now thread is sticky....guys be nice,i'll check this thread and i won't see any flame around and in case post and quotes with flame will be deleted.
Thanks all for cooperation.
I rate it a 4/10. Pretty much subpar. I think there is a distinct difference between a fresh new look and quality.
For someone who is new to and Microsoft mobile OS dating back to the Offline pocket Pc's like me then this OS looks half baked.
For someone new to the MS OS then this OS is great with it's flashy graphics and smooth transitions. However there are just too many things that the girst Pocket Pc phone Edition had out the door that this OS lacks. Yes! I'm sure they'll be rectified down the line.
Now I need to make it clear before all the flaming kicks in; I definitely believe in the OS and it's future. There's a lot to come down the line. Heck! Great apps are coming out all the time. i just found FIM in the marketplace this morning.
However; as the saying goes. Call a spade a spade. Windows Phone 7 compared to Windows Mobile 3 or 2 or just plain PPC is subpar.
PROS:
Solid design on the hardware side.
Like the classy look of the hardware
The OS is very polished
Software keyboard works well and the screen size helps.
OS is snappy for anything native.
touch sensitivity is best I have ever seen. Most responsive OS i have ever used.
ZUNE /media capabilities and netflix are all a welcome +
CONS:
Very slow 3rd party apps.
Have to be reloaded every time they launch and takes for ever to just
check simple information like facebook or twitter or local movie times
no multi-tasking is sometimes bothersome as well as the omission of cut/copy/paste
Horrible browser who's acid test is only 5/100
no flash ( not really a deal breaker but just thought i would throw it out their)
no many apps available yet and when they are i think they dont work as optimized/or efficient as they should. (yes i know its early still)
on the hardware side the camera has a pink hue when i use the flash rendering the flash useless basically
cheap shiny metal material which was already chipping and i had only used the handset a week.
All in all I think MS did a great job redirecting the failing division they had
now i believe its time they bring the browser up to speed while adding a lot of industry standard features they need to catch up on. Great inial release and starting point for their revolution. I didnt think they had it in them. By next fall I expect them to be on par with most on the industry in terms of missing features and I think WP& is a great alternative to anything out their while bringing a totally different experience to the market with its unique minimal look. I am a die hard android fanboy but would not mind sticking it out with a WP7 device when 3rd party apps function properly. with that being said I give MS an A-
I like the phone and Microsoft.... but it needs to work just as good if not better than the iPhone 3GS that I had. I like that I can change the battery that is definately better than iPhone. And the microSD card is better too but it needs to be accessible as well. Not behind a cover and 10 screws. I know that is really for system memory, but then there should be a seperate slot for another SD card. I still like to take pictures or create/save documents and take the card and transfer to another computer or phone. Where is that SIM Manager too?? You had it before but now it's not a feature. And please please make the volume much much higher. Even the "speaker phone" volume is way too low.
All in all this phone and OS has lot's of potential. I like the "cloud" concept but as it stands today, my previous iPhone beats this handset. Please HTC and Microsoft... don't make me go back to Apple.... please !
tagging
Hi all, I tell them that I decided to change my htc htc hd2 and then my desire for the new hd7, I love the speed with which I access the most important things in fast, but I feel some omissions such as: When you dial keypad Phone numerical prediction can not find the contacts, I have no possibility of a browser like igo gps, garmin, etc. And as already mentioned missing file browser. If anyone knows how to put the prediction of contacts or a good gps software please send an email to this fledgling community in windows phone 7.
poor battery life.
poor screen.
poor camera.
great OS just needs a few more features. And I know they are coming.
Come on HTC I know you have better cameras and screens,What were you thinking?
Why not have a higher capacity battery as well?
After two weeks Im going to return my phone. I cant really pinpoint one thing why I dont like it, but I miss using Android. I know Ive gotten beat up about this before but If you have a cell phone number listed in the home field of the contact, they arent searchable in "Messaging" . I understand how everyone feels about that but my argument is the person is listed in the contacts so the information is there, but it wont even display the persons name when searched. Fixable but "to me" annoying. I also dont like that the tiles on the home screen are basically all the same color. For me It makes glancing at the screen difficult to quickly search the tile Im looking for.
Battery life is terrible and makes the phone unusable for media if you are also relying on it all day long for other stuff.
Volume is way to low.
Not having LED notifications for SMS and Email is just insane. All day long I have to turn the phone on and off to see if I missed something. Just stupid.
Its beautiful and runs great but there just isnt a reason to switch to it if you have used any other modern smartphone.
Just my two cents.
The Marketplace really needs a dedicated app search area. As it is, you put in a search term for an app and it brings up music results as well. Sort of annoying searching for the Twitter app and having a bunch of mixtapes and singles mixed in with the apps.
Maybe it's there and I'm missing it?
manlisten said:
The Marketplace really needs a dedicated app search area. As it is, you put in a search term for an app and it brings up music results as well. Sort of annoying searching for the Twitter app and having a bunch of mixtapes and singles mixed in with the apps.
Maybe it's there and I'm missing it?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I find this EXTREMELY ANNOYING too!!!!!
One good thing I would like to add to the positives is the maps app. To me its the best Ive ever used.

[Request] FPS modification, and Best look ICON's ...

Hi every one..
I do a lot of searches for this type of icons sets.
I want any set of icons that drop soft shadow as iphone icons.
most of icons for android is coming with sharp shadow as edge or with no shadow.
if there is any way or modification in the android system should to change to enhance the softness of icon shadow, that will erase big imagination of iphone shape.
talking about android system, is there any way to enhance the FPS of complete system to be 60fps for example?
Dev's, any pro engineer can get the point of FPS?
As I thought, this is over our developers,
Apple with lower power in hardware, but they play it very good in software because of this frame rate game, and for that they won the war of smooth movement between applications and in app designing, against any competitor company including Google, Microsoft..
8 days of posting this, it back with no one replay,
I'm discussed of you our Dev's.
I love Android more than any OS,
I hope one can reach to apple's developers imagination level and powerful to take android to new high level of smoothy movement.

guide or advice on how to take a better photo?

so, when i got the galaxy camera 2 part of my reason, a big part, was to take better pics than my old point and shoot. while pics are a bit better its pretty clear i am no wiz at taking good looking photos. in fact i would say im pretty useless. i pretty much have the thing set to "macro" and thats it. anytime i have tried to make use of the manual controls i end up producing utter crap.
so has anyone found a guide or soemthing that would help me to better make use of the camera and teach me how to make it take the photos i want to.
To make use of manual mode you need to understand how the camera handles light. A good basic guide is the book Understanding Exposure by Bryan Peterson. Whenever someone is interested in going beyond the cameras automatic setting, this is the book I suggest.
...hmmm, judging by the plea for help this seems more of a request towards artistic, rather than technical, guidance.
See, personally I bought a refurbed SGC2 to avoid all the manual settings and have the luxury of having a glorified Android tablet with a 16+MP point-n'-shooter. If I wanted to be more technically proficient a photobug, I would've shelled out more for an SLR, lenses, bags, stands, lighting gear, a high-end PC / Mac workstation, Photoshop, etc., Ugh!
I think you should Google, Youtube, or Khan Academy something on good shot composition and techniques, rather than tinkering with settings.
"Rule of thirds" is a great start and was a creative credo in my cinematography class in video production. I still suck at lighting, but I've taken that rule of thumb almost to an unconscious level.
Now I'm hoping your SGC2 is the one with Android on it because I bought it specifically for use with the Vignette photo app. (There's a free demo in Google Play.)
Run what you consider "crap" through this, mess with some presets and tinker around with some tweaks, add frames, and you'll look like an absolute genius.
I swear by this app and have yet to use the built in camera.
(I'm sure I'm limiting myself with the camera's capabilities, but I'm stubborn that way.)
The beauty of digital (as opposed to film) photography is that you can practically shoot forever within storage and power consumption limits.
Go nuts and experiment! Find your artistic niche!
Who knows, you just might actually step up to that SLR and go pro!
Happy shooting!
(I adore this camera, BTW and I'm still wondering if there's any reason for me to root it.
I honestly haven't found one, yet. I use it more as a camera, rather than a tablet.
We'll see.)
P.S., ...by the way, my avatar was shot on Vignette on my old-ass, rooted & ROM-ed, T-Mobile LG G2X with the Vignette app. I took the photo in it, square framed (with rounded corners) it, used the Ilford (B&W) preset, clicked the 'underexposed' customize, and voila! Otherwise, it would've been an average, run-of-the-mill photo of my GF and the cat.

Best VR experiences? apps? for Samsung Gear VR?

Hopping onto the VR train again. Tried it out on a Samsung S7 Edge and it would overheat... a couple years later, I now have the Samsung Note 8 and giving it another whirl. Just curious what you guys think of must-have apps and/or must-see experiences for Samsung Gear VR.
I'll share some of my experiences:
- All the animated movies. They're all good and have the same formula of cute that just works, like how Pixar does. Rose, Invasion!, Crow: The Legend, Asteroids! are all pretty good and I recommend them highly.
- Gala VIP Shows. It's really just a collaboration of videos with artists... some free, but most you'll have to pay for. Great way to get into VR and see how good it can be.
- Epic Roller Coasters. It was cool at first but is kind of meh now IMO. Graphics are okay but you still get the fun of going on a virtual roller coaster.
- Angest. Highly recommended. Controls are easy and the game has a great psychologically-eerie feel to it but no jump scares. Graphics were pretty good and although there's not too much you can do with just a touchpad, it was just enough to keep you entertained.
- SpaceWalk VR. The gameplay is very limited, and the graphics aren't top notch, but this is still a pretty darn good intro to space VR. Very nifty!
- Shooting Showdown 2. There's not much here, but it is still a guilty pleasure of mine to fiddle with a VR shooting game. Very simple and works with the touchpad. I feel like I'm going to give myself whiplash each time I have to reload quickly, but it's still a lot of fun to play.
- Minecraft. It is worth buying and is the first VR app I purchased. There are two modes: one is just a classic view of being in a room with a "TV" that you play MC on (so what's the point?), but the real money is when you can stomach being IN Minecraft in a first-person view. I admit, the "classic" controls are a little nauseating but it is still a very, very awesome application of VR: placing yourself IN a game. With the nature of it being a sandbox game and Creative mode, you can do anything.
- Blade Runner 2020. Not bad, but not great. It's basically just a short experience and the graphics aren't fantastic. I wish they did more with this.
- Tomb Raider VR. Another short experience, but this one felt so much cooler. I wish it was longer.
- Conflict0. A short game, but being able to put yourself in a mech is pretty cool.
- Notes on Blindness. A unique way to show the world from the perspective of a blind man's point of view. It's kind of a short documentary but even if you're not interested in documentaries, I highly recommend at least giving it a bit of your time.
If you've noticed, most of these are free, and that's because I'm cheap. However, it would be nice to know what's worth buying. I heard "Virtual Virtual Reality" may be fun thanks to its cheeky humor.
This is cool! I like to play in VR games. I know that there is a lot of intimate games on SLR, https://www.sexlikereal.com. What do you think about this site? I know that this can become an obsession, so I look only occasionally. There are passionate videogames, you must register to confirm your age and get an account.
Nature Trek is a must have for me, totally absorbing, now on an s10+ and noticed much better graphics over the s8(+), even better than the quest. Netflix is good, keep wanting to put my feet on the damn coffee table! Bait is fun and therapeutic, would never fish in the real world, but enjoy this. Dead and buried is a good zombie shooter, Rush is great fun and also enjoy Ocean Rift.

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