One of the recent things I’ve started doing of late is flash fiction. That is writing short stories with strict theme, word or time limits; sometimes all three together. One of the problems I had last time I switched to the Nokia was logging into http://sixminutestory.com/ because Twitter authorisation (that site’s standard IDing process) failed (and still does) for the WP7 implementation of Internet Explorer. However, this time I managed to get the browser to use a simple login instead, so I can now do #6minutestory flash fiction directly in the browser.
Other forms of flash fiction, such as #flashfridayfic, etc, can be written offline, but while it is tricky getting iPhones to show Word Count – there are Apps, including Pages, if you turn on that feature – it is stupidly hard on WP7; there are two options (both free but ad supported):
Word Count – allows you to cut and paste text in go get a word count. Very clunky!
Word Counter – allows you to type into the App itself, giving a running tally of words (much more useful), but the lack of decent multitasking means you have go save your writing somewhere ‘safe’ if you want to stop and come back to it, which is just silly.
So, there aren’t any good flash fiction Apps for the Nokia. A compromise I should be used to by now.
The Word Press App I am typing this post into is also flawed compared to the iPhone version, which is much slicker I think. For example, typing in this much text has me frequently having to jump out then into edit mode to be able to see what I’m typing because the text window doesn’t scroll go keep up.
The official Twitter App is rather poor, and Carbon, the 3rd party client I used to use is now broken and no longer on the Windows Marketplace. In fact, quite a few WP7 Apps have just disappeared now WP8 is all the rage. None of the extended tail of support that Apple’s iTunes AppStore exhibits.
Audio oo is another Social Media stalwart of mine, but the WP7 Audio oo client has disappeared from the Marketplace, replaced by a “Get a better phone” message. Fortunately, I still have Voice Memo Lite, which on a good day with a favourable tail wind can export to AudioBoo’s web site. However, users.ust ensure they don’t exceed the 5 minute limit, as the App doesn’t impose this restriction itself.
On the whole, the Nokia experience is sub par cor what I’ve grown used yo doing easily on my Apple phone. A current example is the new Ticckle video service, which doesn’t have a WP7 version. So, I will have to use the broken iPhone for some of my Social Media duties, damning me to carrying multiple devices and tethering the two together.
Oh and did I mention the awful battery life?
