Windows Phone 8.1 - is it finally mature?

If you are just looking for the answer, don't bother, the answer is no.

If you look at my blog posts, you'll notice that I had tried out all the major phone operating systems, from Android I moved to iOS and then to Microsoft's Windows Phone 8. Of course, I knew exactly what I was getting into before the purchase, but I saw a huge potential in the design of the UI. I got the flagship Nokia Lumia 925, which at that time was the top of the line from the Windows Phone lineup.

I can analyze and write down all the good and bad about that phone, but this blog post is about the WP 8.1 update and place of the WP in the phone market.

Windows Phone 8 is an interesting OS, the look and feel is like from another universe (both good and bad parts), but it has a lot of missing features. Having a Nokia Lumia 925, I was one of the firsts to get the new update. What can I say, it was one of the biggest disappointments ever. Yes, it did fill the big hole of the missing features, but the problem is that the hole is getting deeper and deeper every year, as Google and Apple adds new features to their OS.

If you are thinking switching to Windows Phone, don't get the flagship. Get a Lumia 520, 525 or 560. After you get the hang of it you can decide if it's something for you or not, and if yes than you can move up the product line. Like I said before, Windows Phone is at least 2 years behind its competitors, and it will be.

In conclusion, if you want a phone that has all the features, works flawless and has great support, get an iPhone, if you want a phone that works great, but has a lot of features and apps missing buy a Windows Phone and if you want a phone that can be infected, lose all your data, once a week runs out  of memory and has a terrible support, you guessed it: get an Android.

How to make app folders on Windows Phone 8

After the big launch of iOS7, I decided to switch to Windows Phone 8. I really think that the look of iOS7 is one of the worst designs in history. I really like flat design, but what Apple did is just a big mess, there is no continuity, no beauty, the colors are way off etc.

However, I like flat design. If Apple is on the move to switch to everything over to this new trend, than why shouldn't I switch over to the pioneers of the flat design: Windows Phone 8.

If you are bored with Android or with your iPhone, or just want to see something else, I would recommend giving a try to a Nokia Lumia device. The OS is smooth and fast, but in many cases it feels unfinished or just a beta version. For ex. right until now there was no way to close an app running in the background, or there weren't to many options to organize your apps, you had the start screen and the apps screen where all the apps are in alphabetical order.

So if you wanted to have your apps at a touch of a button you had to pin everything you needed to the start screen and after a while you just a had a long scrolling mess of tiles.

Luckily on the 9th of January 2014 Nokia released the Nokia Black update, and with it came the App Folders, so you can now organize your start screen tiles into folders.

There are a few guides out there how to use them, so I thought why not help out a little bit the Windows Phone community. In order to use folders, you will need an extra application, in my case this wasn't downloaded automatically, so I had to install it from the WP Market.

In order to create a folder find the AppFolders app in your list, open it and create a new folder.

Name the folder and add your apps to it. I created a folder for some apps related to driving and car care.

And there you go, you just created a folder for your apps.

All what is left is to add it to your start screen. This is the same as pinning an app to the start screen, hold your finger on the folder until the menu appears, and then select "pin to start"

And that's it, you got a folder with your apps on the start screen. You can always re-size it to one of the three sizes available.

If you have any questions, please feel free to ask me in the section below.