Nokia is once again extending and improving Windows Phone. While Microsoft has implemented Live Tiles across Windows Phone, Nokia is adding a new App Folder interface that allows Windows Phone users to stack apps and settings into a folder Tile on the Start Screen. The new feature is part of Nokia’s Lumia Black software that is being rolled out to Lumia 1020 and and Lumia 925 devices today. Other Lumia models will be updated “in the coming weeks” according to Nokia.
I’m not sure what’s more telling about the state of the Windows Phone platform; the fact that folders on the homescreen is a big thing, or that Nokia, and not Microsoft, implemented it.
http://www.linfo.org/ms-dos.html
Yeah… (c) Horacio
Kochise
I always thought Nokia should handle the UI of Windows Phone. Shame it’s going the other way. Belfiore and the rest of the team give the impression that they seem lost.
I thought this sounded like a great feature, until I saw how it was implemented…
I was expecting an iPhone sort of approach with the folder tile integrated into the frontpage ui, and clicking would provide a zoom overlay for those apps. Instead it has the feel of a 3rd party app being launched. Pretty nasty. Oh and livetiles don’t work at all.
Hopefully Microsoft will pick this up and integrate it into the OS properly.
If they take this optional feature in-house maybe you will be able to choose among 3 folder-types: Britannic, Olympic and Titanic.
Rearrange them while you listen to music to pass the time …
Edited 2014-01-10 02:00 UTC
It IS a 3rd party app for all what it’s worth. Because Microsoft doesn’t allow apps to do basically anything with the main UI, then that’s the only option anyone has got. On one hand it supposedly relieves the customer from carrier bloat, on the other hand it doesn’t enable such useful additions and forces the customers to rely on the glacial pace of the WP team…if they ever get time to do stupid stuff such as development in between the drooling-towards-Apple-sessions.
Glacial pace of WP? Seriously! Windows phone 7 was launched barely 3 years ago, and already they have an experience that is comparible to iOS and Android.
And with Windows Phone 8.1 right around the corner, I’m expecting to see a skew of new features added to fill in the remaining gaps.
It has always been comparable, but the results of comparisons are still “falls short”.
Aren’t you tired to bash a company which is providing great hardware and selling well and a platform which tripled its volumes compared to Xmas period of previous year ? 😉
Installed that app. Could be somewhat useful when you don’t need live tiles. The thing is Start screen IS NOT an app launcher but a notification center. The real big problem about that concept is they need to limit background jobs on live tiles to save battery. That’s something they need to improve since 15 background jobs seem to be enough but they aren’t enough with a concept so powerful like Start Screen.
Given MS owns Nokia now,
I’m not sure of the relevance of whether “Microsoft” implemented this or “Nokia” implemented it,
unless this is something that would be held for usage only by Nokia, i.e. with-held from any other Windows Phone OEMs.
If the latter information is true, that would seem a pretty major development for Windows Phone as platform.
In a sense it would seem a very stupid move, but since I don’t really see other OEMs lining up for Windows Phone,
maybe it doesn’t really matter one way or another .
(although I would still ask “why bother restricting it?”)