[Windows Phone 7 General] yipcanjo:
(Note: these are some items that I've noticed on my phone, and may well be due to the fact that I have an unofficial Mango RTM build on my LG Optimus 7. I may be running final code, but the release didn't come from LG themselves, which may or may not be an issue.)

Just wanted to post some "annoyances" that I've noticed with my LG Optimus 7 running the Mango 7720.68 build. Perhaps these issues are unique to my phone? I don't know.

Also, I'm concerned that with some of these "bugs", if in fact they are bugs, they cannot be patched outside of major WP7 releases. Is this still the case, or has this been changed moving forward?

Finally, I'm a *big* fan of WP7, so don't take this list as a bashing. I could post much, much more on the things that I really, truly enjoy about WP7. It's a great OS, and I enjoy it much more than the iPhone 3GS that I owned, or the three Android handsets I had. I've used it all, and I prefer WP7 :)

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In no particular order:

MUSIC GOES "BACK" TO REVIEWS

This is a strange one, but here's what happens: I open the Music+Videos Hub, select Music, choose an artist, choose an album, and finally select a song -- like as if I want to start with track #3, rather than playing the album from the beginning. If I lock my phone and unlock it again, I'll see the song playing (as expected). If I click the Back button, however, it shows me the "Reviews" screen for that artist, rather than the Song listing of Albums listing. Very strange and obnoxious -- plus it creates an extra "Back" press that I shouldn't have to do. Argh.

LOCK SCREEN MUSIC CONTROLS AREN'T IMMEDIATELY RESPONSIVE

If I'm playing music (screen locked) and then hit the Power button to see the lock screen music controls, I usually have to wait a moment before the FWD, BACK or PAUSE/PLAY buttons are truly usable. Even better, sometimes the control itself will move as if it's been properly pressed, but it won't actually perform the action. I have to hit it a second time.

SCREEN OFF > CAMERA BUTTON ON ACTION SOMETIMES ALLOWS OLDER PICTURES TO BE VIEWED

My understanding is that with Mango you can press + hold the camera button (if the screen is off) to launch the camera -- fine, this is expected -- at that you are not supposed to be able to see older (than this current session) pictures you've taken if you slide from the left to the right. I don't like the feature, personally, but I understand the "security" measure behind it. To be honest, I think that feature should be a toggle

Anyhow, I notice that sometimes this process doesn't let me see ANY of my older pictures, other times I can see SOME older pictures (like ones taken today only, and other times -- like right now as I tested it -- I can see ALL of my old photos. In all cases, the screen was off and I held the camera button down to bring up the camera interface. It's just not consistent.

SEARCH BUTTON ALWAYS GOES TO BING SEARCHWith the initial release of WP7 *and* with NoDo, the Search button was context sensitive -- it would bring up Search with the People Hub if you were in the People Hug, or Search with the Marketplace if you were in the Marketplace, etc., but that's changed with Mango. Now the Search button always goes to Bing -- no matter where you are. I guess they think this is more consistent, but I prefer having the context sensitive Search button. Perhaps a long-press of the Search button could go to Bing instead? Personal preference, I suppose.

HITTING VOL WHILE HITTING POWER RESULTS IN AUTO VOLUME DOWN

Difficult one to reproduce, but it's happened to me about four times. Screen is off + music is playing. I'll accidentally hit the volume button while hitting the Power button to turn the screen on, and all of a sudden the volume starts turning down by itself until hitting "0". I can't turn the volume back up again until I turn off the screen and turn it back on. Weird.

PICTURES HUB BACKGROUND PHOTO ONLY SHOWS FAVORITESI love that Mango will change the Pictures Hub background photo automatically. Very cool, and the slight movement of the photo is a nice touch as well. That said, I added a single picture to the Favorites portion of the Pictures Hub, and soon found that the background photo was only that particular picture and wouldn't change to anything else. I finally had to add some other pictures to the Favorites section so that it would change to something else. Strange, if you ask me, and not expected behavior.

MUSIC + VIDEOS "HISTORY" PORTION LINKS TO SINGLE SONG INSTEAD OF ALBUM

File this under personal preference, I suppose, but if I open the Music+Videos Hub, select an artist, select an album, and then choose a track directly (rather than starting the entire album from the top), it is then added to the History pivot within the Music+Videos Hub as a single track, rather than the album. So, if I open the Music Hub again, pivot over to History and scroll down, I see what looks like the album, but when I press on it to play, it plays only that single song -- and the rest of that album isn't even in the list. I have to then click on the artist name, go to that artist, click on the album, and then choose the full album or track that I want to hear.

NO WAY TO GET BACK TO ARTIST/ALBUMS LISTING USING BACK (IN MANY CASES)

Coming from the Zune HD (about a year ago), I liked that I could always get back to the song listing, album listing, or artist listing -- no matter what. This isn't true with WP7. For instance, I'm in my email and then hit the Volume button to bring up the media controls, I can actually click on the artist's name right there (handy trick!) to go to that song or songlist. Unfortunately, if I then wanted to change albums or artists, I can't simply click the Back button. I have to click Home, scroll down (in my case), hit the Music Hub, and dig in from there. I *really* wish there was always a way to go backward in the Music Hub to view the songlist, album list, or artist listing. Not possible in Mango (or previous WP7 versions, to be fair).

RECENT VIEW IN THE PEOPLE HUB SHOULD BE DISPLAYED VERTICALLY

The horizontal pivoting in WP7 is very nice, but with Mango some of those lists became vertical -- a wise move, if you ask me. For instance, in the Music Hub you'll notice that the History and New music pivots are both shown vertically, which is easier to use. Unfortunately, the Recent view pivot in the People Hub is still fully horizontal, rather than a vertical list that you scroll. I'm not sure why this is, and it really appears to have been overlooked. Not consistent.

WIRELESS NETWORK ICON SHOULD BE CLICKABLE

Personal preference, but getting to the wifi networks control takes too long. You should be able to simply press on the icon in the notification bar (when viewable) to get to that control. Some would argue that the other icons should be clickable as well, but I don't (personally) care much about that.

GAPLESS PLAYBACK FOR MUSIC

Why is this missing? Honestly, I don't understand. How difficult is this feature to implement. It should be standard for ALL music devices/players everywhere.

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Thanks for reading,

Yip