The Live Tile fail.
I am a huge fan of Live Tiles. But I am regularly reminded that they are flawed. Where Android and iOS are often heralded as modern operating systems, both still extensively used a grid of icons. iOS basically has this as its only launch mechanism and Android has some others, but fundamentally has this same paradigm in the most important parts of its OS. And that paradigm is getting up to 30 years old. So don't waste my time calling it modern.
Live Tiles aren't revolutionary, but they are a substantial evolution. Much more evolutionary than numeric badges.
But they are still flawed. They work great for things like email and social networks where I probably have a view where I can look at everything that is new in a nice curated location. And since I probably have multiple notifications it doesn't always make sense to do anything other than dive straight into the application.
Where it falls flat on its face is news. There are other similar examples. But where I notice it a lot is in the standard news app. I'll see a headline and/or picture and be interested in that article. Click on the tile, get into the app, and then have no way in hell of actually finding the article easily. In other words, some times I want the live tile to bring me to the content it is advertising and not just into the landing page of the app. This isn't a problem secondary tiles can solve either, secondary tiles would be the result of me having already found the section of the app I liked and then pinning that for easy access later.
Perhaps a secondary tile of sorts could accomplish this... if the secondary tile were aware of its content when I clicked it, it could drill into the appropriate article. But that requires me to setup 2 tiles if I want to sometimes access the main app page or advertised content. Not sure what the solution is. But if someone from MS reads this... think about!
Live Tiles aren't revolutionary, but they are a substantial evolution. Much more evolutionary than numeric badges.
But they are still flawed. They work great for things like email and social networks where I probably have a view where I can look at everything that is new in a nice curated location. And since I probably have multiple notifications it doesn't always make sense to do anything other than dive straight into the application.
Where it falls flat on its face is news. There are other similar examples. But where I notice it a lot is in the standard news app. I'll see a headline and/or picture and be interested in that article. Click on the tile, get into the app, and then have no way in hell of actually finding the article easily. In other words, some times I want the live tile to bring me to the content it is advertising and not just into the landing page of the app. This isn't a problem secondary tiles can solve either, secondary tiles would be the result of me having already found the section of the app I liked and then pinning that for easy access later.
Perhaps a secondary tile of sorts could accomplish this... if the secondary tile were aware of its content when I clicked it, it could drill into the appropriate article. But that requires me to setup 2 tiles if I want to sometimes access the main app page or advertised content. Not sure what the solution is. But if someone from MS reads this... think about!
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