Anyone actually use Windows Phone 8?

Damn the 'store' is shambolic

Windows phone users,

Last year I got my ageing Dad a Lumia 620 for Fathers day, thinking the simple tiled interface would be easier for him to get to grips with.

I threw the Hotmail tile on the main screen thinking he'd have easy access to any pictures I or my sister fancied emailing to his @Live.com account. However this proved not to be the case, hence the title of this thread.

Two problems.

How on earth can I get this phone / app to show HTML email inline images so that the likes of Tassimo and Shell who regularly send such emails can be read correctly?

and even with non-html emails, I need the app to auto load picture attachments within email?

What solutions have you found, is there an alternative app capable of handling @Live.com accounts?

 

Not answering your question, I find hotmail sh!te on my android phone. I actually use hotmail through the browser to make it work.

 

I'll ask the Win 8 Phone team here to see if they have any ideas about the HTML email thing, could be a setting somewhere.

As for picture display, I believe that what you are seeing is normal, ie; pictures not automatically downloaded, and it's to save on cell data usage, and from what I've read, it's not possible to change it - though I could be wrong, never touched a windows 8 phone.

I'm wondering if you could possibly setup a new gmail account, then edit the settings so it can pick up email from the @live account, then one presumes you can install the gmail app (if there is one) as a home tile and use that instead, as that should in theory work as you want.

 

well chaps, first and foremost, thanks for replies

andy97, yep, so far your suggestion seems the only thing I can do for him that allows the html stuff to display, but in testing you have to scroll right etc or zoom out, not ideal.


Markus, it's a payg and i disabled 3g data so he only has data capabilities over wifi

did think about gmail, but this is what leads me to proclaim Damn the 'store' is shambolic, trying to weed out Official apps from 'havago' crap is difficult, tried a few alleged apps and they appear to just augment the web browser site with an additional navbar and adverts.

 

All of my users use Windows Phones. Can't say I've had any inline image issues. By default, you'll see a 'Download images' message within the message which will load the images when pressed. If you want to override this, in Outlook, just click Settings (...) then 'Always download full message and internet images'.

Make sure it's updated to WP8.1 and Outlook handles Hotmaill.

 

do you mean outlook.com, or an app?

 

When you add a Microsoft account (Hotmail, Outlook.com, Live.com etc) through email+accounts it now uses an Outlook tile app to handle mail. It formerly used a Hotmail tile.

 

OH, ok well, i updated to 8.1 yesterday or the day before, I could attempt removing the account, and re-adding it, as it was on there since around Father's day last year.

 

Certainly worth a go. Email handling is much better in the newer Outlook version. We use Lumia 925s at the moment, but it should be pretty much the same on this one. Just check the 'Always download full message and internet images' setting

 

Mate, thwarted at every opportunity, it gives me no option to remove the original 'Microsoft account' from email+settings, so added one, chose outlook option - logged in and it threw a tile called 'Live' on the screen



No option for 'Always download full message and internet images' in the settings

 

That's it, that's the Outlook tile. When you go into that and press the ... in the bottom right, then settings, do you not have the option at the end?

This is the option you should see:

 

**** out of luck

 

That is odd. You're definitely on 8.1 and not 8? The OS version in About, More Information should be 8.10......something.

 

Can you get whatsapp for Windows phone?

That'd solve all your problems - cross platform (obviously) too.

 

turns out it's still 8.0 even though there was an OTA update applied last week, must have been a Lumia update...

When I check for updates, it says it's up to date

carrier: T-mobile pre-pay

 

You currently have a few options.

1) Try the Lumia Recovery Tool and see if it offers a newer version
2) Update to Preview for Developers. You get all the latest updates quickly (this is what I use)
3) Wait for the official 8.1 update for your phone/carrier.

As mentioned, another method such as WhatsApp or Google+ may be more suitable for sharing photos rather than emailing.

 

i hope 3) arrives soon


whatsapp was installed but unlike on the iPhone, there doesn't seem to be any visible / audible notification of a new message, and my dad isn't on to check on the off chance.

 

thanks again