Windows Phone 8.1 "Consent Needed"

So I just started using a Nokia 930 and I've been presented with the following dialog when checking for updates to the pre-installed applications;

You'll notice an absence of exactly what "Consent needed" means.

When you touch "retry all" Lumia Storyteller now presents the following dialog;

So "Consent needed" in this case is to grant Lumia Storyteller access to location data. Of course tapping "Cancel" works and prevents the app from installing - it doesn't remove it from the list though so you'll be prompted for as long as you own the device to install it. You just need to "allow" once (which anyone can do, no password required) so better make sure you never give the device to anyone else. Once you've allowed the app there doesn't seem to be a way (other than uninstalling the application) to revoke the granted permission.

I'm sure all that will follow in Windows 10.

Windows Phone 8: Vodafone Still Blocking UK Updates

And this is Microsoft's biggest problem - despite everything they've said about wanting to get "as many devices as possible onto 8.1" they seem to have made the mobile networks gatekeepers for the process and Vodafone doesn't seem to be co-operating.

Here's the screen shot from my Windows 8 phone;

It's very disappointing - I suspect both for me and Microsoft.

Needless to say "last checked about 6 months ago" isn't accurate!

Let's hope whatever the issue is that's preventing Microsoft and Vodafone rolling out the update to my Nokia 925 it gets resolved soon, but as Nokia/Microsoft are no longer selling the 925 I don't think I'll be holding my breath!

Nokia 930 (UK) Pre-Installed Applications

I've been testing a Nokia 930 and I thought it might be useful to give you a list of all the applications that come pre-installed on the device.

This is particularly useful if you're thinking of deploying this device in an Enterprise environment as MobileIron (for example) won't let you remove these pre-installed applications.

Here's the list (followed by screenshots from the device);

• Alarms
• App Social (*)
• Battery Saver
• Calculator
• Calendar
• Camera
• Cortana
• Data Sense
• Facebook (*)
• FM Radio
• Food & Drink (*)
• Games
• Health & Fitness (*)
• HERE Drive+ (*)
• HERE Maps (*)
• Internet Explorer
• LINE (*)
• Lumia Beamer (*)
• Lumia Creative Studio (*)
• Lumia Help + Tips (*)
• Maps
• Messaging
• MixRadio (*)
• Money (*)
• motion data (*)
• Music
• News (*)
• Nokia Camera (*)
• Nokia Storyteller (*)
• Office
• OneDrive
• OneNote
• People
• Phone
• Photos
• Podcasts
• Settings
• Skype (*)
• Sport (*)
• Storage Sense
• Store
• Transfer My Data (*)
• Travel (*)
• Video
• Vine (*)
• Wallet
• Weather (*)

The applications marked with (*) can be uninstalled and removed (manually).

Google Apps in Windows Phone Store ... Apparently

So over the weekend I was browsing the Windows Phone store and I found this;

This is a screenshot from a Nokia 925 phone. Now I've got some experience with Mobile and I'm pretty sure that if Google had decided to rollout it's apps to Windows Phone I'd have noticed a press release, review, or something so I was curious.

Here's the next page;

So the publisher of "Google Maps" on Windows Phone is "Free Unlimited Downloader". Yes. That seems likely doesn't it? Well Google must have licensed the maps to them as under Microsoft's app approval policy (see here);

"3.1 All content in your app and associated metadata must be either originally created by the application provider, appropriately licensed from the third-party rights holder, used as permitted by the rights holder, or used as otherwise permitted by law."

And the application was approved so therefore Microsoft must have seen the license they held right? I mean Google has clearly licensed "Free Unlimited Downloader" to use its name, logo, and Maps. Right? I mean it's not like Microsoft can point to a misplaced comma this time;

Microsoft pulls fake Google apps from the Windows Phone Store, but doesn’t fix larger approval process problem (courtesy thenextweb.com)

As of 9th September these apps are still available (despite me reporting them a few days ago) via this web store;

http://www.windowsphone.com/en-gb/store/app/google-maps/7c0e17e7-349c-4a4a-abb5-9aaf30b145a0

Here's a screen capture;

I wonder how long it will take Microsoft to pull these (and how quickly the inevitable replacements will take to appear)? I wonder if the 1000+ people who have given this app favourable reviews (and their user data) will be compensated?

One thing is for sure this costs Microsoft *nothing*. In fact being able to show Google apps on their devices may even have made them some money.

I wonder if Microsoft would be quite so cavalier with it's own intellectual property.



As a side note; What I really like is the list of what this application requires;

"Phone identity; owner identity; location services; maps; photos library; microphone; data services; phone dialer; movement and directional sensor; web browser component"

On the plus side "phone identity" and "owner identity" don't seem to be as bad as they appear - they are just unique identifiers for the user/ device (see here). However "phone dialer" is a bit more worrying - will this device be able to dial the phone by itself? There's no clue on Microsoft's website;

http://www.windowsphone.com/en-gb/How-to/wp8/apps/how-can-i-tell-if-an-app-has-requirements

So how can the users make an informed decision? Oh that's right, they can't.

UPDATE: As of 28th October (I'll be honest -I've not been checking every day) these apps are no longer available. I hope the authors got the data they wanted ...

Safari Punch-out (And A Possible Solution!) with Web Applications in MobileIron 7.0.3

So about 4 hours after an enthusiastic post welcoming it I'm back to report the first (major) issue. Unfortunately it's a bit of a showstopper.

When you deploy a web application via MobileIron rather than opening that web application in Safari it instead opens the application in a browser of MobileIrons own making. For 90% of things this isn't an issue and the screen layout, not having a tonne of tabs visible, shortcuts, menu bar, etc is certainly a visual improvement that the somewhat cluttered view you get in Apps@Work which uses Safari.

This screenshot from within the MobileIron browser looking at the html5test.com website shows that it's basically wrapping Safari;

This is the same number Safari (iOS) scored when I ran the test. You'll notice how clean the top of the image is - maximum space for the web application.

However the issue is that as it's not Safari it's possible that links within the Web Apps will punch out into Safari when the users touch them. Where the system requires a login they will then have to authenticate again.

It's not easy to create a link which punches out ... I would suspect 99% of links will be unaffected. However when the users hit that 1% the effect - to say the least - is jarring.

So how do you solve this? Well the bad news is there is no real solution other than re-writing your application. We do, however, have a workaround: why not just punch out to Safari at the beginning?

Here's the code you'll need to host on a website to punch out (both in the body of a HTML page);

(div id="foz" data-href="http://www.google.com">

(script>
document.getElementById("foz").addEventListener("click", function(evt) {
    var a = document.createElement('a');
    a.setAttribute("href", this.getAttribute("data-href"));
    a.setAttribute("target", "_blank");

    var dispatch = document.createEvent("HTMLEvents");
    dispatch.initEvent("click", true, true);
    a.dispatchEvent(dispatch);
}, false);
(/script>

You'll need to replace ( with the proper bracket - I can't get Blogger to render the tags!

This code comes courtesy of stackoverflow.com (follow the link).

I tried a large number of ways to punch out from the MobileIron app and this was the first one I found that worked. There might be others but I tried all the common ones I could think of/ find!

Deploying A Web Application Using MobileIron 7.0.3

A fairly simple post to highlight how incredibly easy MobileIron have made it to deploy a web application with their latest update to the server.

The first step is to login as a user with permissions to add application;

Click on the "APPS" tab, then click on "App Distribution Library".

A drop down will then appear showing the available platforms for applications (in Alphabetical order, usually Android first). Using the drop down select "Web Application";

Click on the "Add App" button to bring up the popup window;

Now you can enter the details for your application. The most important point (obviously!) is the "App URL".

You can then pick your categories and whether or not the app appears in the store front - just as you do with other applications.

Unfortunately (in this version) what you can't do is choose the web browser that opens the application (for example Chrome) or apply a per-application VPN (which would just be incredibly useful!). And, while you can select a Windows 8 (note 8, not 8.1 - which I can't test) label it does not appear to rollout the application to the device which is a little frustrating.

On the device itself the application appears as a touchable icon to launch (in exactly the same way as other applications).

I'm sure you'll agree an incredibly useful new feature!

Poor Design: Apple "New Episode Available For Download" Emails

So this is the first of a new series I'm going to start which is centred on instances of less-than-ideal design. Not always bad, just less than ideal (or poor) design.

This example is just like when someone sends you an email saying they've got a message for you. It would have been just as hard to send you an email giving you the actual message but they want you to do something first ... An unnecessary step.

Here's the example from Apple;

What I find infuriating about this is that it doesn't tell me what the new episode *is*. Is it an actual new episode or is it another "making of" documentary of some description? The only way to know is to take a look in iTunes or on the Apple TV.

There's plenty of space. Why not include it?

What adds to the frustrating is that I've been an Apple customer for quite a while and I could have sworn they used to. A little digging around in Gmail (thanks Google!) unearthed this old emails from 2012;

This just makes it more annoying. Apple "Series Pass Notifications" used to include this information.  I wonder what made them stop?

Either way they've taken a once fairly useful email and turned it, not into something useless, but into something of less use for no discernible reason.