Microsoft has joined up another piece of its Windows 8/Windows Phone 8 puzzle by launching a SkyDrive app for the Xbox 360 — allowing users of its cloud storage service to view and access content via the Xbox. The move dissolves a rather odd disconnect between Microsoft’s flagship products. The Xbox SkyDrive app is due to live later today. → Read More
The world’s third largest wireless operator, China Unicom, has today announced an alliance with Microsoft’s Windows Phone to help boost sales and provide more innovative Windows Phone devices in the Chinese market, reports the China Daily.
According to Analysys International, a Beijing-based research firm, Windows Phone holds less than 3 percent of the market in China, whereas Android came… → Read More
Windows Phone 8 has made its fair share of headlines lately but there hasn’t been has much official chatter about Windows Phone 7.8, the update intended to bridge the feature gap between older and newer Windows Phones. Well, consider that quiet streak broken — Microsoft confirmed today the the 7.8 update would begin rolling out in the first quarter of 2013, with devices running the revamped… → Read More
Microsoft really seems to enjoy giving users of competing products a few challenges to convince them to switch to its own tools: not only does the company want you to Bing It On, but Microsoft now also wants you to Meet Your Match. This new initiative is the follow-up to the (not always uncontroversial) Smoked by Windows Phone campaign Microsoft started at CES earlier this year. → Read More
Woven, the mobile photo organization app launched out of Litl last year, is now available on Windows Phone, in addition to iPhone and Android. And before the holidays, the company will push out more changes across its platforms, which will introduce new capabilities like social sharing and automatically created photo albums called “Threads.” → Read More
The Nokia Lumia line of Windows Phone devices have reason to crow today, thanks to a new exclusive release featuring Rovio’s wildly popular Angry Birds. The app, called Angry Birds Roost, was announced back in September and while it doesn’t offer any actual gameplay, it does act as the perfect central hub for the Angry Birds completist. → Read More
Windows Phone 8 is coming to European carriers this weekend, coming to the rest of the world in November, with devices from Lumia, HTC and Samsung including the 920, 8X and Ativ S hitting online stores and retail shelves. The mobile OS has been anticipated for a while now, but this is the first we’ve heard of a specific street date, so now you know when you can actually get your hands on Windows… → Read More
Event cancellations aside, today is still shaping up to be a big day for smartphone fans — Google has just officially outed some shiny new (if not entirely unexpected) hardware, and we’re here at the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium to catch up with Microsoft and see what’s new with Windows Phone 8.
If you’ll recall, Microsoft hasn’t been completely forthcoming with its newest mobile operating… → Read More
Nokia has announced its lowest priced Windows Phone to date: the WP7.5 Nokia Lumia 510 replaces the Lumia 610 as the entry level WP handset — with an estimated retail price of $199 (excluding taxes and subsidies). India and China are the initial target markets, starting in November, “followed closely” by other Asia-Pac countries and South America. → Read More
Windows Phone 7, Microsoft’s big return to the smartphone stage after Windows Mobile’s gradual decline and demise, turns two today, according to a tweet by Joel Belfiore, Microsoft’s head of Windows Phone product definition and design. So I thought it would be fitting to take a look back at Windows Phone 7′s life up until now, and what the mobile OS has or hasn’t done for Microsoft so far. → Read More
Best Buy started accepting pre-orders today for the AT&T Nokia Lumia 920 and HTC 8X Windows Phone devices. Pricing details are also now available, with the Lunia 920 available for $149.99 on a new 2-year contract, and $599.99 without commitment. The 8X is $99.99 on contract, and $599.99 without, meaning those interested can get on board with Windows Phone 8 for $50 less with HTC. → Read More
It’s Surfaced again: the rumour that Microsoft is developing its own smartphone hardware in a bid to drive wider adoption of its Windows Phone OS. Ever since Microsoft distressed its desktop Windows OEMs by unveiling its own-brand tablet PC, called Surface, the logical leap required to imagine an own-brand Windows Phone has apparently been shrinking. But just because you can imagine a Surface… → Read More
Microsoft’s rebooted mobile OS, Windows Phone 8, arrives in a matter of weeks — so it’s a case of Windows Phone 7 is dead, long live Windows Phone 8 right? Not so fast. WP8 is certainly Microsoft’s new weapon of choice for competing in the smartphone space — with no further OS updates planned for WP7 beyond the customizable homescreen in the 7.8 release — but the older of the two WP siblings… → Read More
Microsoft is really trying to increase the appeal of Window Phone to developers, and a new tool just released adds a small, but very useful feature: instant translation of user reviews from one language to another. Microsoft is calling this one a “fun surprise,” but it could actually be a very helpful convenience feature in helping developers understand their audience. → Read More
D-Day (that is, device day) for Nokia and Microsoft has kicked off with their press conference in New York. But speaking to analysts in Helsinki beforehand, Nokia revealed a sales number: it said that it sold 7 million devices so far in its Windows Phone Lumia line. The number is not huge, but it points to a global reach: those sales were across 54 markets and 130 operators.
But the challenge… → Read More
Next week Nokia and Microsoft are expected to unveil the first handset(s) running on Microsoft’s Windows Phone 8 platform, and today comes news about the apps they hope will lure in more users to buy them. AppCampus, an $23 million (€18 million) JV between Microsoft, Nokia and Aalto University in Finland, first announced in May, to foster more app development on the platform, said it has doled… → Read More
Local search app AroundMe recently surpassed the 6 million user mark, and is looking to expand its availability even more. The company has just announced a Windows Phone version of the app, which is available now in the Windows Phone Marketplace.
AroundMe’s iPhone app has been out since 2008, and just recently the company revamped the Android app with a new look and feel. As per usual with… → Read More
At least three major research firms believe that Windows Phone will overtake iOS by 2015, but peering that far into the mobile ecosystem’s future is damn near impossible. We can, however, get an idea of what will be happening in the next few months, and StatCounter predicts that Windows Phone will overtake BlackBerry very soon.
According to WMPowerUser, Microsoft’s mobile platform will surpass… → Read More
Nokia’s Chris Weber sure seems to be a feisty mood. The company’s EVP of Sales and Marketing took to his sporadically-used Twitter account presumably in an attempt to build some buzz around Nokia and Microsoft’s upcoming press conference, and this is what he came up with:
“Samsung take note, next generation Lumia coming soon. #nokia”
These are some pretty bold words coming a guy whose… → Read More
PROBABLY NOKIA’S NEW WINDOWS PHONE 8 DEVICES.
But seriously, Microsoft very publicly revealed the future of its Windows Phone platform a few months back. At the time Nokia though, didn’t have much more to announce than some conciliatory apps for all the people whose Lumias wouldn’t work with Windows Phone 8.
Now it looks like Nokia and Microsoft are finally ready to talk hardware. → Read More
About two weeks ago, Microsoft deployed its new Windows Phone Dev Center with a completely rebuilt backend infrastructure. While this transition went smoothly at first, Microsoft encountered an embarrassing bug this week that caused it to put a temporary stop to app publishing to the Windows Phone Marketplace. The bug causes issues with Microsoft’s new digital certificates used to sign apps and… → Read More
The Weather Channel has been working hard to improve its mobile experience, with a new iPad app, a revamped iPhone app, and now a brand new Windows Phone app for Lumia devices. The WP app for Lumia will have features exclusive to Lumia owners for the next three to six months, at which point the same features will be ported over to the old Windows Phone app, available to all.
Along with support… → Read More
Some good news for users of Windows Phone devices and customers of the cloud-based content sharing platform Box. The company has announced a new app for the platform — its first for a Microsoft mobile OS. With the app now available in the Windows Phone Marketplace, the relationship between the two is set to deepen in the months ahead, with Box already preparing Windows 8 support for tablets and… → Read More
Nokia’s Q2 earnings out today reflect the big challenges for the handset maker amid what CEO Stephen Elop calls the “ferocity” of competition from Android and Apple, but here’s a clue to one interesting development: he closed off today’s analyst call with a hint that Nokia might be the first handset maker to produce a smartphone on the much-anticipated Windows Phone 8 platform from… → Read More
Microsoft continues to make a big push with the Windows Phone platform, but figures out today from Strategy Analytics indicate that it’s still barely moving the needle against the Android/iOS juggernaut. In 2012, Microsoft’s Windows Phone will account for only 4.1 percent of the 123 million smartphones that will be sold in the U.S. in the year. That’s a rise, but of less than one percentage point… → Read More
With Windows Phone 8′s launch fast approaching, it not exactly a surprise to hear that Nokia is slaving away on some new hardware. The Nokia Lumia 910 — which some suspect is a Lumia 900 meant for T-Mobile USA — was recently spotted thanks to Nokia’s Remote Device Access service, but that’s not all the Finnish company seems to have in the works.
A new device called the Nokia Lumia 1001 was… → Read More
Microsoft is on a hot streak. The company has never been cooler, pushing out hot new start screens (both desktop and mobile), excluding early-adopters from major upgrades (pulling a Google), and snagging the up-and-coming Yammer enterprise social network for a cool $1.2 billion. But sometimes people can get carried away.
So is the case with this image of an alleged future Windows Phone… → Read More
Microsoft revealed Windows Phone 7.8 last week. The system update got a bit of stage time details were still a bit lite. The Windows Phone team posted the video above and it should clear up some confusion around the new Start Screen. → Read More
Man, does HTC employ some loose-lipped people or what?
Less than a day after Microsoft’s big Windows Phone 8 preview event, The Verge managed to score some details on HTC’s hardware plans for Windows Phone 8. If their source’s information holds true, the Taiwanese company has plans to release a top-tier, mid-range, and an entry-level WP8 device before the year is out.
Starting at the… → Read More
Nokia’s CEO Stephen Elop has had a hard time getting his company to jump off the ‘burning platform’ onto the Windows Phone ship, and in their haste to do something quick they made a crucial compromise.
The first Nokia handsets running Windows Phone would remain stuck on version 7 with no upgrade path to WP8, a fact, according to our sources, that the Finnish handset maker was made aware of when… → Read More
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