Hi all Xperia owners,
As a owner of this hyped phone, it has comed to my greatest astonishment that the Panels cannot be "used" concurrently.
For example:
If I wished to activate the multimedia panel to listen to some MP3 while at the same time do FaceBook panel , there is no way this can happen.
Or, whats the point of just staring at the FM Radio panel when I could be viewing some photos in the photo album while having my favourite FM Station running in the background?
To further add salt to wound, Sony did not bother to put these programs to be executable from the native Windows/Program folder.
Am I missing a point here from Sony as in this multitasking windows environment, they have decided to make their Panel technology run serially? Or maybe i did miss out some important settings ?
I agree with your statement above, panels are not multitask-friendly. My guess is that it was an attempt from SE to make their winmo distro more stable, preventing these processes from overlapping each other and taking up memory. I've noticed that the video playback performance is better on the Sony media experience panel than coreplayer (go ahead flame me) although not as flexible. Something similar happens with the popular iPhone, if you've ever messed around with one you'll notice it's basically unitasking, one app at a time, the only apps you can multitask with are the ipod and phone, but rarely crashes.
Actually, I was thinking about this. I, like many people, thought that the panels would just sit there, with nine different apps running side by side. Obviously this isn't the case. Could it be that this is just the first stage in the panel interface, a kinda test run? What about the next Xperia? X2 or X5 or whatever it's gonna be. Maybe it'll deliver what most people expected from the panels...
I think you guys are missing the point of panels.
If that's the case, you don't need panels, you just need applications running concurrently.
zenkinz said:
I think you guys are missing the point of panels.
If that's the case, you don't need panels, you just need applications running concurrently.
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I personally have found the SE media panel to be the most useful of all. For everything else that I don't demand high system priorities for, just run them as regular apps concurrently.
zenkinz, in your opinion, what's the point of panels? Please read my post above about what I think they are for (stability and performance).
if they were there would be much much less ram and cpu juice left
the arm cpu's are not as powerfull as computer cpu's
so believe me if they were you would suffer
wrong thread... edited out.
Which in actuality proves my point that the Panels are nothing more than fancy graphics or multiple "todays" screen.
Any WinMo/Symbian device today without Panels can definitely do Media browsing and FM Radio/Music and MORE without the slightest sign of sluggishness while Xperia with its powerful processor and available RAM lacks multitasking due to its much talked about "Panels"?
Strip its Panels and a slightly longer (but not wider) display , Xperia does not even come close to the Touch Pro with TF3D, G-Sensor, better sound and built quality
cmloo said:
Which in actuality proves my point that the Panels are nothing more than fancy graphics or multiple "todays" screen.
Any WinMo/Symbian device today without Panels can definitely do Media browsing and FM Radio/Music and MORE without the slightest sign of sluggishness while Xperia with its powerful processor and available RAM lacks multitasking due to its much talked about "Panels"?
Strip its Panels and a slightly longer (but not wider) display , Xperia does not even come close to the Touch Pro with TF3D, G-Sensor, better sound and built quality
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Click to collapse
The Xperia was designed by HTC based on SE's standards. What I did with mine was flash it with one of the cooked roms in the roms section which gave me the TF3D and it's pretty fast. I also added the panels, but for the sole reason of the SE media experience panel which I like for playing smoother video. In the end, it's all software, and it doesn't lack multitasking, only among panels. The rest is all good old winmo.
yeah, panels are a disapointment, the should let do some multitasking or at least run panels as an application (facebook one for example).
anyways, I think we currently have a "beta" rom in our xperias, since it's from august/08... maybe next mont we get a big update... let's hope...
this, or just a cooked rom without problems
The thing about Panels is that they allow you to change the look and feel of your device. On one hand i have a simple Today screen, on another i have the detailed today screen... then i have an SPB screen... and now we have Touch HD's TF3D as a panel too! Soon... we'll have more panels, like a home screen that allows you to navigate with ease (navigation panel). The main point is that regardless of the panel of your choice, you have access to all the windows mobile software along-side it.
I think panels are a really powerful feature of the phone! And as far as multi-tasking is concerned... you can run media player or the more famous core player and write messages, etc. and work with your selected panel of choice without much lag. And this to me is very powerful. not taking into consideration the likes of iPhone, but going straight to Symbian... Symbian too is powerful, but i consider windows mobile to be further ahead. What you can do with symbian, you could do with a simple windows mobile phone without panels or TF3D or gadgets and so on...
In my opinion; Xperia delivers what it set out to do... a powerful experience. Sure there are lags at certain times... but overall it is the perfect windows mobile device!
Sure two panels don't run simultaneously... and it would be awesome if in a future update we do get something like that... but overall it works great!
rpereira said:
I personally have found the SE media panel to be the most useful of all. For everything else that I don't demand high system priorities for, just run them as regular apps concurrently.
zenkinz, in your opinion, what's the point of panels? Please read my post above about what I think they are for (stability and performance).
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the point of panel is to offer different "theme" of Today screen based on your primary usage of your phone at that particular point in time.
It's always good to have quick access to your next appointment, or tasks, but really you probably only do that when you are in meeting, or while you are working. When you are at outside office hours, you probably be spending time listening to music, watching video, or just simply idling. You may get a new email notification, or have to reply an incoming sms, but after taking action for these sporadic events you will be back to the 'Today' screen that offers you the theme you are in..
That's why I came out with the idea of Car navigation panel, where I need not worry about fumbling with new email notification, or having to switch to media player to change albums, as I can always go back to 'Today' screen easily.
In anycase, that's just my view (or maybe how I like to think that way), because if it's meant to be a concurrent active desktops, you might be better off with just running the programs and using taskmanager to switch from process to process.
I'm very happy with the panels too
maybe the real questions is one of expectations
if people belived they were getting 9 pda's they could switch
between it would likely be an disappointment
but it's not likely to be the last with these pda phones
cmloo said:
Which in actuality proves my point that the Panels are nothing more than fancy graphics or multiple "todays" screen.
Any WinMo/Symbian device today without Panels can definitely do Media browsing and FM Radio/Music and MORE without the slightest sign of sluggishness while Xperia with its powerful processor and available RAM lacks multitasking due to its much talked about "Panels"?
Strip its Panels and a slightly longer (but not wider) display , Xperia does not even come close to the Touch Pro with TF3D, G-Sensor, better sound and built quality
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
to each his/her own.
I find Touch Pro no better than my Xperia. TF3D is just a flashy interface that offers limited function. The tabs acts like a panel, but there's so limited you can do within the tab (e.g. music player, stock quote or photo browser, they are just plug-in rather than full blown application)
TP is also nowhere near (imho) to Xperia in terms of performance (Xperia is so much responsive and fast), design (curvy body versus brick design) and keyboard ergonomic (many would disagree, I go for overall experience over total number of keys)
Just my own opinion only
Rudegar said:
I'm very happy with the panels too
maybe the real questions is one of expectations
if people belived they were getting 9 pda's they could switch
between it would likely be an disappointment
but it's not likely to be the last with these pda phones
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
agree, and also, it's one thing about providing 9 active panels with 1 glance (as some folks are frowing over lack of the capability), it's another being able to consume all the information offered by all the 9 panels at one go, not to mention the miniature fonts you have to handle ..
Makes sense. If i were depending on my navigator to show me the way while driving, it would really suck to get random notifications from other programs, so I think your panel idea will be quite useful.
I'm also sideing with the "Panels are good" guys.
I love the versatility that they give me, and am just patiently waiting to see what comes out of the Panel Development Competion, S.E. are supposed to be running.
I have had as many as 5 different UI's set up on different panels, as much to test them out, as to give me different screen "looks" when i felt like a change.
My latest way is to use different panels as "software themes". Like, I can set up a multimedia panel with all my video, and audio players shortcutted into it. A navigation panel, with all my sat nav style apps set up .
etc. etc.
It can only get better, in my opinion.
I do think 50% of people are missing the potential of Panels, tho.
i dont mind the panels too much. however what i am unhappy about is that sony ericsson advertised the panels as being active. therefore theoretically you could press the xpanel button and the 9 panels shown would update in realtime. currently the panels are little more than shortcuts to some fancy apps or homescreens
msalmank said:
The thing about Panels is that they allow you to change the look and feel of your device.
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Click to collapse
Couldn't agree more and I am satisfied w/ the panel too.
One important fact many people forget about is WM as of right now has a max limit of 32 processes (including background that run your phone). Some tricks can be done to workaround this issue but there's still a limit and the OS will close some of the non active processes if you reach that. It doesn't matter how fast your CPU or how many ram you got.
I'm coming to believe that the applications runing on Panels are just on top of another layer instead of running straight on top of the OS.
iPhone and BB have no problem filling the "desktop" with icons that are no more that a call to the program. Functionally they are more efficient to reach any where that even Touchflo 3D
What's the purpose to have a whole panel to run a program. That's stupid. for exmaple FM radio or FaceBook.
The Panels are not more that an ill conceived idea, with some BS marketing ideology behind them. All they did was destroy one one best smartphones ever built.
it would be nice if we could get someone to convert some of the panels available for XPERIA to stand-alone applications. this will have many advantages. namely:
-the panel launcher is slow and uses a lot of memory and does not look optimised very well. having the panels shortcuts from programs or from the programs tab in touchflo is much better.
- will make some of the cool panels available to all phones
- should not be that hard to implement seeing that some of these panels are just modified applications.
-will increase development for these as the user base of these will increase a lot.
-better and faster running device as only the needed panels will be loaded
Hi!
Take a look at Xperia Programs Hacks and Tweaks Thread, there is a tool called PubbaInstaller. It makes possible installing Media and radio panel as standalaone app.
I dont really know, if that works for the other panels as well, but it could be worth a try....
Greetz
Bax
it would be nice if we could get someone to convert some of the panels available for XPERIA to stand-alone applications.
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maybe you should look for whole world of alternative software...dude.
i am amazed by popularity of **** novadays.
you, htc people just need do buy cellphone instead of destroying ppc world.
Thread will be moved to Q&A section
Hello, I've been using WM 6.5 for a few weeks now and am really digging it! Good job to Microsoft, I think good things are in store for the future. Anyhow, there are a few things that would make 6.5 much better for me, (and perhaps many others) so I thought I would turn to the community to see if any of you talented developers can help me out. I have 2 request:
1) Tasks summary panel for Titanium. Perhaps the default pane would show the number of currently active tasks, then swiping through the pages would scroll through the tasks in an order according to the 'sort by' option in the task menu, ie priority, status, start date, due date.
2) MP3 player control from the lock screen. I think ms did a great job with the lock screen. It's wonderfully functional and if we can implement some tweaks and changes to it, that would be awesome! I imagine if this is possible, WMP may be the easiest to run in tandem, though controls for other MP3 players would be preferred, such as S2P or HTC Audio.
Whaddayasay? Is anyone else interested in this?
Thanks!
My idea :
To actually have all the menus, scrollbar, default program backgrounds,the dropdown menu(the 1 on whcih we click when in File-explorer to jump from My Device to Storage Card),the Contacts Background,the Messaging Background..etc.
All of them transparent like Glass..This is just a Personal thought as in to change the feel n look of the OS.
WM6.5 all ready has titanium with the kind of glass panels m talking about.
Due to which it enhances the Wallpaper used i mean u can use almost any wallpaper.
And about the Visibility issue which will occur in almost everyone's mind after reading this post i think we can make it translucent the same way it becomes when we click on start menu..the icons r very much visible even with a complete white background.
So i think the backgrounds in the programs like file-explorer,windows media player-library,my pictures,SMS,Contacts etc. can be made the same.
I Wish some expert graphic designers and Programmers make my imagination come true and give all us Windows users a completely new interface.
I think for this .pngs & .jpgs of the system will have to be altered or replaced with the new ones and program them accordingly.
I am not at all good at programming and neither Graphics and i dont even know whether my idea can actually be implemented or no?
so many views n no single reply..
I am no coder, but Windows Mobile does not support transparencies like that. Only specific applications that are contained in themselves (aka titanium renders over itself so it has transparency. Mobile shell renders over itself so it has it too, etc.) But i could be wrong.
i don know either even m not sure about my concept..but i think .pngs can be useful...lets c..i have just put forward an idea..
Ive always wanted that feature too, part of the reason why I like Titanium so much, but as Shadowline pointed out, I think it's a limitation of the OS itself, even WM 6.5.
Then again, hope someone can prove us wrong.
yaah hoping for the same!!
Let's flood microsoft with this so they put it in wm7.
Windows phone 8 new pretty face
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=25DKXGKblOw&feature=player_embedded
here u can find the whole video:
http://channel9.msdn.com/Events/Windows-Phone/Summit
I did a quick post about the new start screen on my website. Would love it if people could check it out.
http://geekshavelanded.com/windows-phone-8/
i LOVE the new Startcreen <3
Tile colour variations and folders
I watched the video and it didn't go into the options of..
Folders on start screen
nor
Changing colours of each tile
Both these features I would think are a must to keep up with the although shabby highly effective widgets and folders on ICS 4.0.
If I wan't to visually separate work and play on my windows phone, I would think that having a colour code would be the best visual differentiator. Also, if I wanted to place small sized toggles on the start screen which turned gps on and off, torch on off, 3G on off then I would want to have a specific colour set for those buttons so I could find them in even my most dizzy states of mind. Plus, think of the cool patterns you could make... Is anyone thinking 'Ziggy' from Quantum Leap?
Also, with 100 00 apps and growing, unnecessary crowding could be overcome by placing similar apps into customizable folders (which share the live tile display). I know its a legacy term but I still use an 'Accessories' folder on my SGS3 to place things like calculator, voice recorder etc. just the same as Windows 95.
I've heard rumors / requests but I haven't seen anything definitive from MSFT yet, so have I missed something?
I think it's a very different concept, those tiles.. But i still find it confusing.... I'm that kind of person who is obsessed with organization, tagging things and putting them into specific categories, I don't think I'd be OK with a lot of random things mixed in my home screen... But maybe it's just a matter of getting used to it, and probably this UI is more friendly for smartphone beginners.
I am as well. I have my tiles categorised by their purpose. Personally I think being able to resize the tiles as I please will make this easier to do...
nice
win98 said:
here u can find the whole video:
http://channel9.msdn.com/Events/Windows-Phone/Summit
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks., was look for this ...