Many users have asked for more customization for the look and feel of the start screen. Skinery Tiles Pro now supports custom themes for live tile apps with notifications and users have asked for stock apps such as Phone, People, Office, Settings, Messaging, Xbox, Calendar, Mail and Store to be included in Skinery.

Skinery knows it is ridiculous and far-fetching to ask Microsoft to work with an indie developer. So even if Microsoft is not interested to link up to Skinery directly, can Microsoft allow stock apps to be launched using uri scheme?

Skinery's dream is to help Windows Phone become a truly personal phone and differentiate it with all other OSes.

Podcast support is poor (at least for those of us outside the US).
1. You can't add a podcast subscription from your phone. This has to be done from the Zune client on PC. Perhaps opening an RSS feed in IE should surface an option to subscribe to it in Music+Videos.
2. You can't tell the phone to update your feeds and fetch new episodes. I'm not sure what logic it uses to determine when to download new episodes. But it's not predictable. If I want to listen to daily shown on my commute to work, this isn't possible, as it probably won't update feeds in the morning before I leave for work. Very frustrating, this one.
3. Enable Marketplace support for more markets.

A few weeks ago I tweeted about the idea of a webOS style notification light for Windows Phone, I received a few tweets back from my followers saying that they like the idea, so I figured I would write up this post explaining the idea.

Inspiration

Everyone has been talking about the idea of Windows Phone having a notification centre, some like the idea, some hate it, I'm not here to voice my opinions on that, but if it does happen, then people will likely want a notification light to go with it. A standard red/green/blue/etc circle of light at the top of the device is quite dull and boring, Windows Phone has always been about a great UI and design, both on the software and hardware. Before getting a HTC Trophy in 2011, I had a Palm Pixi and a Pre 2, both webOS devices. webOS has been praised for it's great implementation of Notifications, and the way it notifies you when the screen is off. For those that don't know, the led light on the gesture area will glow when there is a notification. (I apologize for the angle of the video below, but it is 1080p, so that's kinda good)

(Notifications on webOS http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=25JN_NoU6FE )

Putting it on Windows Phone

Obviously Windows Phone doesn't have a gesture area, but it does have the three buttons, Back; Start and Search, of which have an LED backlight. This can be used as the notification light. This is the idea - Have the Windows key glow in and out when a notification is received when the screen is off (Or, if the hardware doesn't allow just one of the lights to switch on/change brightness, all three of the buttons will glow.).

Since the three buttons are on every device, there's no need to release new hardware for a notification light, the concept can simply be implemented in a future update. Also, as far as I'm aware, the backlight for the buttons are isolated from the screen, so it will work when the screen is off. Since they're LEDs they'll use the same amount of power as a generic notification light would.

Finally some people might not like it, so to keep everyone happy the light should be able to be turned on and off from Settings as the user sees fit. It's also possible to add some form of 'Do Not Disturb' mode for the lights, so they won't interrupt precious sleep for those who like the room completely dark.

Remember this is just a concept, a feature suggestion if you like. Also remember this would be a companion to the notification center if that happens.