Supposed Screenshots Reveal WIndows Phone Notification Center & More Done Right
First the caveat that this is all just a rumor and could be a hoax until the screenshots or existence of the device is confirmed. Now on to the juicy stuff.
Despite people cries for Windows Phone to copy Android’s swipe down from the top to access a notification shade it appears Microsoft will instead employ the notification center as a separate app and that users will be able to pin to the start screen. I think having the notification center be a live tile is absolutely the right way to go. Here is why:
Live Tiles Are The Face Of Windows Phone
When you unlock your phone you see a screen of tiles first. Everyone would pin their notification center to the start screen in prime view so that you wouldn’t miss anything. Doing this way means that no immediate action is required to alert the user that they have missed notifications because the live tile will do it. Next you have the granular control that allows the user to control the size of the tile. If you’re just the type that wants to know that there are notifications are waiting and will get to them at your leisure than the smallest tile works. If you need a little more info the medium size works and if you’re the type that just has to know what the last notification is the Large tile will present that information without the user needing to take any action unless you want to dive down into all the notifications. In any case accessing the notification center is just one tap away from the start screen. The Live Tile method is true to Windows Phone’s identity. Users would instantly get the benefits of using such a method. Whining about not being like Android/iOS forget that the lock screen notifications will be available to the Notification center so you can have detailed information on your lock screen and also granular control over that information.
Here’s hoping that Microsoft employs this method and moves on to spend the rest of their valuable time fixing issues like the Xbox Music app and other pressing matters.
Other Promising Signs
Closing Apps-The ability to close apps while in the multitask card window. Efficient and clean way of closing apps that has already been implemented by other mobile platforms.
Calendar Week View-Now users will have the ability to view their Windows Phone calendar by the week. It also looks like Microsoft did a good job in having additional information for each day of the week and includes a month view in the corner for reference.
Sorting Apps By Usage-Some users would find it really useful to have apps sorted by most used to least used. Currently apps are sorted only by alphabet. This would also provide an additional benefit of seeing how much/little each app is actually being used. Knowing this when deciding what apps/games to delete to free up room would make the task a lot easier.
Source: The Verge
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Good stuff indeed. On the Notification Center though, if that’s the kind of notifications I am worried about missing then no thanks. I know I am a minority here, but I am quite happy with tapping a tile with a number and reading the latest thing. Most issues have to do with developers and they apps.
For example, CNN puts out toasts of breaking news. If you tap the toast notification the app opens and the toast appears as a ticker in the app. But if you are two seconds late and open the app, no breaking news ticker is displayed and the lead story does not update. So the alert is a mystery. If they fixed that I wouldn’t need to find those toasts, and then delete them in some Notification center.
Right Jim. Most of the issues people have are the result of how developers implement features. It reminds me of how Microsoft made having your app fast-switch with only a couple lines of code yet tons of developers never bothered to update their code to include it. This also should show Microsoft not to leave things to developers and implement things automatically because they’ll catch the heat for whatever goes wrong just like with PCs.
I like the fact that I can check notifications at any time by simply going into my Notifications Hub. If I want more immediate viewing just resize the Live Tile to the Wide Tile and you’ll be able to see what the latest notification is.
What is this live tile notification app business? Should simply be able to swipe right and voila, notifications.
Or, the only way I’d be good with a notification app is if swiping right gave me another home screen. One reason that I don’t make my email or text msg tiles big is that I don’t want my messages out there for everyone to see when I unlock my phone. But it would be nice to swipe right and see all my latest messages on a second home screen with larger tiles without having to open up each app to read them.