Lock Screen Timeout flaw - Windows Phone 8

[baumgarc]

I upgraded from a Windows Phone 7 to a Windows Phone 8. 

I noticed immediately that a key feature had been removed or (more likely) mistakenly omitted.  This is the Lock Screen Timeout.

Windows Phone 7 devices have a NEVER timeout enumeration.  This makes it possible to (for instance) drive your car, and view message status (or other app) on the Live Tiles of Windows Phone start screen, Twitter, Stock ticker, traffic conditions etc.

In upgrading to an ATT Lumia 920, this timout setting is MISSING! 

This is a key feature of the OS, and a safety issue. You can't be fumbling about in the car trying to unlock a screen 20x per hour to see why you are getting all the alerts.  You don't want to be on your treadmill and not be able to see what's playing or change the tune.  I have my phone in the charger on my desk all day, and now it is DARK! and worse, LOCKED!

Please investigate this issue on behalf of Windows phone 8 users with both the OEM and Microsoft.  I believe it requires a high level of attention.

Thank-you.

[johninsj ACE - Wizard]

This is a user forum. Microsoft feedback would be via some microsoft forum, perhaps this one:

http://windowsphone.uservoice.com/forums/101801-feature-suggestions

As to the specific feature you mention, it's specific to the use of a password lock. The NEVER option only shows up if you don't have a password lock.

If you still don't have a NEVER option after turning off the password lock, then your device manufactuer has removed that option to avoid screen burn in on purpose, not mistakenly.

What is your current windows phone 8 device, and what was your windows phone 7 device? For example, my HTC Titan running WP7.5, with a password lockscreen, does NOT show a Never timeout option for the lockscreen.

[piaqt]

Nokia Lumia 920, and their website says it's you, not them. #notonthesamepage

[baumgarc]

This is a safety issue.

In the AT&T AND Nokia pre-installed DRIVING apps, provided by you BOTH,  that you use to provide directions WHILE DRIVING, the screen goes dark, and LOCKS if that is how you set it.  Every 5 minutes. 

Talk about bloody stupid.  Just from a customer user point of view this is unacceptable.  Try watching a Netflix and have it go dark.

The NEVER timeout enumeration is missing in both modes, password or no password on MY build.    This is specifically NOT a password lock issue.  Check your code base before you say things like that.

So the carrier is blaming the manufacturer?  And nobody is going to fix anything. Great.

[Edited to comply with Guidelines]

[johninsj ACE - Wizard]

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baumgarc wrote:

This is a safety issue.

In the AT&T AND Nokia pre-installed DRIVING apps, provided by you BOTH,  that you use to provide directions WHILE DRIVING, the screen goes dark, and LOCKS if that is how you set it.  Every 5 minutes. 

Talk about bloody stupid.  Just from a customer user point of view this is unacceptable.  Try watching a Netflix and have it go dark.

The NEVER timeout enumeration is missing in both modes, password or no password on MY build.    This is specifically NOT a password lock issue.  Check your code base before you say things like that.

So the carrier is blaming the manufacturer?  And nobody is going to fix anything. Great.

[Edited to comply with Guidelines]

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nokia drive keeps the screen on - no matter what your screen timeout.

[JohnnyWalkerBlue]

I used Nokia Drive for two hours straight. The screen never shut off.

Netflix does not go dark.

[SloopJohnB]

The phone will not go dark if you are using an app which registers with the OS to keep the screen on.  E.G., Netfix, Nokia Drive, and Navigon are apps which properly do that.

However, not all apps do this (I would daresay most apps don't do this properly).  An example is Slacker.  A big use case for my phone is to dock it, plug the audio into external speakers, and put on Slacker while I work.  But since Slacker does not have an "always keep screen on" setting, the only way I can keep the screen on is to set the phone screen timeout to "Never". 

I was always able to do this with my Titan without an issue. 

I checked with Nokia, and it seems that unlocked 920s have the "Never" screen timeout option enabled.  So that shows that it is neither an Nokia nor Microsoft issue, but rather an AT&T one.  I.E., AT&T asked Nokia to remove the "Never" timeout setting and Nokia complied so that they could sell phones on AT&T.

I am a bit mystified as to why AT&T would make such a request.  Do they really think that their customers (who pay them 100s of dollars a month) are such babies that they cannot handle such a setting??   This is pretty sad behavior (once again, no surprise) from the "Premier Carrier" for WP.

If the "Never" setting could be reenabled I would be most appreciative.  It would go a long way to making my phone fully useful again.

[JohnnyWalkerBlue]

When my Win 8 phone is locked it still alerts to a text email or voicemail.

It will read a text to you and let you respond with a voice recignition text, without touch commands.

When playing music in standby, changing the volume will bring up music controls.

[SloopJohnB]

Yes, but that trick does not work so well for things like hearting/banning songs, which is a big part of the online radio experience. To do that, you have to bring up the screen and then swipe to start unlock and then enter a password and then be finally able to do something which should take less than a second to do if the screen was not timed out. Heaven help you if all you want to do is just see whose singing the sing you are hearing.

Again, the never screen timeout is a standard MS setting. AT&T stripped it for some strange reason. Probably to kneecap in some small way the iPhone's competition like they've done for years... In this case, I do not see why AT&T should care if I set the screen timeout to never. It doesn't affect the network in any way; it just makes my battery die sooner if I forget to plug the phone and then forget to turn the phone off. I.E, since the consequences of a bad decision are all on me in this case, how about letting me be an adult and let me make my own decision if I want to disable the auto lock or not?

[johninsj ACE - Wizard]

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SloopJohnB wrote:

Again, the never screen timeout is a standard MS setting. AT&T stripped it for some strange reason.

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It's an option, not a required feature. OEMs can disable it - this is a capability Microsoft provided to OEMs who create phones that can burn in - in those cases you don't want the screen on all the time. Carriers don't control this setting, the OEM does. This means Nokia disabled it, at least for the 920 SKU they shipped to AT&T.

Your beef is with Nokia.

[SloopJohnB]

No my beef isn't with Nokia, but rather with AT&T.  I even gave them the benefit of the doubt this time, and started investigating from MS, to Nokia, and and down the chain.  I found:

1.  The unlocked 920 has the Never option.  Why would the AT&T phone not have the option then??  Think about it.

2.  On the Nokia forums, it is is stated quite explicitly that AT&T is responsible for the removal of the option.  I.E.,Nokia did remove the option from the AT&T SKU, but only because AT&T asked them to.

http://discussions.nokia.com/t5/Nokia-Lumia/920-is-missing-Screen-Timeout-Never-option/m-p/1656280/h...

And it is quite common for phone carriers to request changes from the default setups for whatever reason.  Remember the Backflip being forced to have Yahoo instead of Google search, etc.?

[johninsj ACE - Wizard]

My *guess* is that this is a support issue. For every 1 person out of 100 who would need this feature, 99 would set it to never and then complain about poor battery life, or screen burn in, or both. Unlocked/unbranded phones aren't supported by any carrier, only by Nokia directly.

Note also that unless you have official word from Nokia, referring to Nokia's user forum isn't authoritative. It's just users speculating. Not unlike here.

So we are back to where we started. Nokia removed the Never timeout on the AT&T SKU. If you want to find out if its not just AT&T, post a poll over on wpforums for other carrier locked 920 owners to see if that's common for carrier locked 920s on other carriers or not.

[SloopJohnB]

This shows Rogers-branded 920s have the Never option:

http://forums.wpcentral.com/windows-phone-8/209329-2.htm

I supsect that you are right about AT&T support not wanting to field complaints about battery life or even compaints that they butt-dialed calls (because their phone was on) and ran up their bills.  But screen burn-in?? That is so 80s; LCD screens shouldn't suffer burn in at all.

And AT&T isn't shy about blocking features on their phones for whatever reason.  I had a Backflip, which was like the most Frankenstin version of Android ever, with Yahoo replacing Google as the search provider (!), and AT&T also had Moto remove the ability to install apps from sources other than the Google app støre.  And as a proud owner of a Titan, I watched my keyboard constantly vanish because AT&T refused to allow any updates to be released on their network which actually fixed the issue, even though every other Titan outside of AT&T (i.e., unbranded and all other carriers)   released said updates.  Not to mention that AT&T had certain features they didn't want to support (like Visual Voicemail) removed (and this is fine because AT&T would have to support such a feature.)

Again, all I am asking in this case is that the powers that be treat their customers like growups who can handle configuring their phones, so long as the setting do affect the network unduly.  The 99 customers who make this choice and don't know what they are doing (like, what is the power/lock button?) suffer the consequences as their batteries die quickly; it isn't is if all these phones are going to pull down Netflix continually while the screens are on and kill the network for everybody else.  And if it doesn't affect the network then I say let to each their own.

[johninsj ACE - Wizard]

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SloopJohnB wrote:

The 99 customers who make this choice and don't know what they are doing (like, what is the power/lock button?) suffer the consequences

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And call 611, and exchange their phones, and complain about AT&T.

Yeah. Doesn't sound worthwhile to save 1 out of 100 the trouble of sliding up to thumbs up a song, does it?

[SloopJohnB]

It's more than just sliding up a lockscreen and you know it.

1. You actually have to turn on the phone.  This is sometimes not as easy as it sounds, as it can be a bit slippery.
2. If you have a password enabled, then you have to enter it.  You do protect your phone with a password, don't you?

And while all of this is not very hard, it does break the train of thought if you are doing something else, since the task is now not nearly as seemless as it could be.

And, yes, you do have a point about people possibly returning the phone, compaining about AT&T, etc. over the consequences of the "Never" setting.  But I can't possibly believe that it is that many people that do that.  I.E., most people tend to stick to the default, which should certainly not be "Never".    So the people who make the setting change are most likely people who know the consequences of such a change.

Now I would be curious to see if other current-generation AT&T phones have such a restriction built in, or if it is just Windows Phones that have this issue.

[bjkolo]

It is absolutely ridiculous that this is not an available setting on Lumia 920s on AT&T's network. Does AT&T think that we are all too incompetent to understand that this drains our battery life? Do they think this is the first smartphone? Get your act together AT&T, if you know how to open the settings app and specifically change your screen lock option to never, chances are you've probably owned a smartphone before and know what you're getting yourself into. It may not seem like a big deal, but when I'm at work sitting at my desk with my phone on my wireless charging stand, listening to Nokia Music and a song comes on I don't know, I want to be able to just look at my phone to see what it is. Even though it only takes me 5 seconds to pick up my phone and see what it playing, it completely disrupts my workflow. In addition to music, I want to be able to glance at my phone and see if I have new messages or notifications. I understand that when you get a notification the phone screen will turn on, but if you are in the middle of something or miss it because the phone is on silent you wouldn't know anything happened unless you turn on the screen. What's the point of having a wireless charging STAND (not plate) without the "never lock screen" feature? If Microsoft or Nokia are serious about capturing the enterprise market (at least in the US), they need to get on AT&T's case about this. Even if each person wasted only a minute a day (which is modest, because it doesn't account for time lost trying to get back into your workflow), for an enterprise with 10,000 employees it adds up to over 166 HOURS wasted a day. Wasted time translates into wasted dollars, and no enterprise wants that. I'll say it again, get your act together AT&T.

[johninsj ACE - Wizard]

Honestly, I have been using smartphones with 8+ digit pins going back to Windows CE 5.0 (yay, party like it's 2001) and lockscreens that never time out really isn't a huge deal.

Even on platforms where it is an option, it's not an option for anyone who wants to protect their data.

ESPECIALLY in the enterprise market, no enterprise would allow their user to access company data on a device without remote wipe, strong passwords, and maximum 30 minute (or less) timeout lockscreen.

[SloopJohnB]

While I do feel strongly that consumer Lumias should have the No Lock option enabled, I do agree with johninsj that Enterprises would not want that setting:

"Oh, so you left your company phone in the cab, and you think it was on?   Oh, and you didn't have a password set up either??"  Yeah that would work well...

The more I think about it, the real problem is that the OS itself (that's you, Microsoft) doesn't support different screen lock settings for charging vs battery.  I.E., in an ideal world, I would want:

1.  Phone screen to never power off automatically while charging.  Chances are it is in a dock-like situation (I personally use a $4 index card holder to prop the phone up), and one might want to be able to glance over and see if there is anything new, what song is playing, etc.  without having to reach over and turn on the phone (and boy does my Nokie slide around on my holder).  That is the point of such a setup.

2.  Phone autolock turns phone off after set time when on battery.  That's when I have to worry about battery life (not in the dock), and I certainly would want the phone to lock automatically if I left it in the cab, and I don't want to butt-dial people by mistake because I forgot to turn the phone off before putting it in my pocket.  Again all situations when the phone is on battery, not plugged in.