Sunday, June 26, 2011

Nokia Sea Ray emulator skin now available


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If you cant wait to see Windows Phone 7 running on the Nokia Sea Ray we may just have the solution for you.

Nanopho.jp has whipped up a Nokia Sea Ray skin for the Windows Phone 7 emulator, based on images of the Nokia N9.

The skin is available in both portrait and landscape mode and in multiple colours and can be downloaded here.

Android phones 50% more likely to break than Windows Phones


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WDS, a wireless service company, has published their results from a a year-long study of more than 600,000 technical support calls and it produced some interesting results.

It appears that Android phones suffered the highest level of hardware breakdown, with hardware issues identified as the cause in 14% of support calls, more than 50% higher than the 9% with Windows Phone 7 handsets.

The cause is not clear, but the wide range of variable quality OEMs making Android handsets, very often at very low price points may very well be to blame.

WP7 to feature Gameboy emulator [Homebrew]


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You could well have Pikachu following Ash around Pallet Town soon enough with the actively developed project Wario's Jewels 7 (WJ7), the first Windows Phone 7 Gameboy emulator. XDA Developers Forum member Badcam3 is collaborating with other developers including Samuel Blanchard to turn this idea into reality.

We know Microsoft doesn't play ball with emulators in the Marketplace (for a good number of reasons), but this is the first sign of light for the homebrew community. To find out more information, check the link below or follow the team on Twitter. The video below shows how you can create your game lists.

Microsoft Outs Cloud Services SDK for Windows Phone 7


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You may have not heard of Project Hawaii before but it's Microsoft's program in which they are investigating how they "can use the cloud to enhance our use of mobile devices". The platform consists of Windows Phone 7 and several cloud services, including Windows Azure, Bing Maps, and Windows Live ID.

Microsoft has released Cloud Services SDK for Windows Phone 7 which allows for Windows Phone application creation. Applications created in such manner "leverage research cloud services not yet available to the public", supporting Project Hawaii being the primary goal. If you're a developer and find this appealing, head over to the source link and download the software-development kit.

High res Nokia Sea Ray mockups based off of N9 show potential


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We've seen the video a few times already today, but in case you wanted a better idea of what the 'Sea Ray' will look like in some professional shots, here's your chance.

Taken from the official Nokia N9 shots, Downright Wireless has re-imagined the device with familiar WP7 start screen (and extra camera button). In addition to the black, we can see the alternate colors would bring to the table as well. That baby blue? Not too shabby of a choice, that's for sure.

Twin Blades Updated, Returns to Windows Phone


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One of the early Xbox Live games to make it to Windows Phone was actually removed from the Marketplace due to its violent nature. "Twin Blades" was never removed from the iPhone App Store even though the Windows Phone version is basically the same game. I've had the original game on my Windows Phone for a while and have been very careful not to do any hard resets since that would mean losing the game. Today, I was suprised to see an update for my Twin Blades that I had bought so long ago. It would appear that the update has made some changes that should hopefully reverse the mature content rating that caused it to get pulled in the first place.

Sliding Keyboard: it's like Swype, but for Windows Phone 7


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In the Android realm, Swype has been life-changing for many; of course, reverting back to the messaging ways of old has been a must when jumping ship to WP7. Now, gesture tracing crosses the aisle, and it's hopping over to Microsoft's turf courtesy of Invoke IT's Sliding Keyboard. With the look of the regular ol' WP7 keyboard, this set of arm floaties records the user tracing out text, just like ex-Android fans are accustomed to. The company goes a bit further by offering a pair of goggles -- in the form of Bing search, text messaging and email options along the bottom of the app.

ChevronWP7 Labs will jailbreak your Windows Phone with Microsoft's approval


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Microsoft just earned itself a boatload of geek-cred and made Apple and Sony look pretty bad in the process. We knew the Windows Phone team was playing nice with the jailbreakers from ChevronWP7, but we didn't realize just how cozy the two were going to get. Today the devs announced that ChevronWP7 Labs would open up soon, with the approval of Redmond, allowing users to load homebrew apps on their handsets. Unlike tools from the iPhone Dev Team, this service won't be free.

Nokia Windows Phones will launch in six European nations first, Finland not among them


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Nokia VP Victor Saeijs has this week disclosed the six launch markets for the vanguard devices born out of the Microsoft-Nokia partnership. France, Germany, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, and the UK will all count themselves as hosts to Nokia's Windows Phone debut, but the company's mother nation of Finland has strangely been left out in the cold. Knowing Nokia, there's no doubt that once the WP7 handsets are ready they'll find themselves swiftly available worldwide, but if you care to be among the very first to own one, you'll be wanting to visit Europe's western shores

Sunday, June 12, 2011

Windows Phone 7 emulator skin shrunk for the vertically disadvantaged


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Tezawaly from nanapho.jp has done anyone who it trying to play with the Windows Phone 7 emulator on a wide-screen machine a favour by shrinking down the rather hefty skin surrounding it.

At the moment it requires nearly 800 vertical pixels to display properly – with this change it is reduced significantly.

He has also added some text to remind us of the shortcut keys that can be used for the hardware keys not visible – one lesser known for example is Page Up to dismiss the software keyboard and to be allowed to use the keyboard of your PC to enter text.

Another Windows Phone 7 in-app purchasing service announced


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Linxter, Inc., provider of message-oriented cloud middleware, today announced the version 2.0 release of CloudMiddleware.com, its cloud integration hub running on the Windows Azure platform. Through integration with PayPal, the Cloud Middleware hub provides credit card payment capabilities, enabling application developers to implement both in-app purchasing and mobile payment solutions.

The Cloud Middleware pre-built integration services hub brings a range of new possibilities to Windows Phone 7 app developers, by eliminating the need to learn the specifics of each Application Programming Interface (API) they wish to utilize.

Microsoft Not Giving Up On Focus Update, Won't Rest Until Done


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Microsoft has officially resumed the updating process for the Samsung Omnia smartphones back in May but unfortunately Samsung Focus owners weren't that lucky. Some of them have still not received the long-waited pop-up informing them of an available update.

In his weekly post over at Windows Phone Blog, Microsoft's Eric Hautala, GM, Customer Experience Engineering, after informing about more updates rolling out, is reassuring Samsung Focus owners that the company will not rest until the update is delivered to everyone left behind. "I want to assure Samsung Focus owners who haven’t received an update notification that there are many people across several companies continuing to work on the solution for your phones.

Microsoft releases Android developer poaching package for Windows Phone 7


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Microsoft's App Guy has quite a job on his baby-soft hands: to boost Windows Phone 7's numerically-challenged Marketplace by encouraging developers to port apps across from other platforms. The little fellow helped iPhone devs out a couple of months ago with an API mapping tool to make it easier to translate iPhone APIs to WP7 code. Now he's extended the mapping tool to work with Android APIs too, and backed it up with a 90-page white paper and a promise to get more involved in developer forums. Will the App Guy's efforts unleash a flood of new apps for Windows Phone? We don't know, but we dig his shorts.

Mango does support IPv6


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A few days ago, it was rumored that IPv6 (see Wikipedia), the upcoming network protocol was currently not supported in Windows Phone 7.0 (evidently started because our browser cannot connect to a IPv6 website).

Fast forward today and now there's information through Microsoft that suggests that this is "fixed" in WP7 Mango. If you head to MSDN, you'll see listed under 'Fields' what appears to be full-support for IPv6 on board in OS v7.1 aka Mango.

Microsoft details SkyDrive integration with Windows Phone Mango


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We already knew Windows Phone Mango would include SkyDrive functionality, but Microsoft has now released a few more details on some of the cloud storage features we can expect to see when the update rolls out, later this year. With the update, SkyDrive users will be able to share their stored photos via text message, e-mail or IM, and to upload their videos to the cloud with the touch of a button. They'll also be able to browse, share and edit uploaded MS Office documents directly from their handhelds, while searching through their entire SkyDrive via the Office Hub.

AT&T's Ralph de la Vega: Windows Phones 'not selling as well' as hoped


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We don't envy AT&T Mobility CEO Ralph de la Vega's job one bit, nor the amount of time he spends on the hotseat. We do, however, admire his willingness to open his mouth and reveal interesting tidbits. Interviewed after his D9 appearance, de la Vega fielded questions about Windows Phone, confirming what we have suspected for quite some time: the platform hasn't been selling as well as AT&T or Microsoft would've liked. He didn't divulge numbers or get any more specific, but he did sound optimistic looking to the future.

Tuesday, June 7, 2011

Microsoft Announces Eight New Xbox Live Games For Windows Phone


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Yesterday wasn't only about Apple and its new iOS 5 mobile platform refresh as Microsoft, taking part at the E3 expo in Los Angeles, California, has announced a total number of eight Windows Phone 7 Xbox Live games arriving in the coming months.

All of them feature Xbox LIVE achievements and leaderboards and they are: Beards and Beaks, Hasta la Muerte, Let's Golf 2, Pac-Man CE DX, Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell Conviction, Tentacles, Top Gun and Z0mb1es. There's something for everyone here and Redmond even put together a teaser video with short clips out of every game so you know what to expect when they start appearing in the Marketplace.

Microsoft Will Hand Out Windows Phone Mango Developer Devices


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Remember the Samsung Taylor, LG Panther and Asus E600? They were all developer devices for Windows Phone Microsoft handed out to devs in order to test their applications on real smartphones. It appears that Microsoft is preparing a similar move with Windows Phone 7 Mango.

According to The Windows Phone Developer Team, "just like last year, when we made developer phones available with the Windows Phone 7 OS, we plan to have developer phones this summer supporting new Mango features like the gyroscope. We don't have any dates to share just yet, so stay tuned". Current developer devices will not be updated to Mango apparently but instead new ones will be handed out.

AT&T CEO comments on WP7


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Ralph de la Vega, CEO of AT&T Mobility and Consumer Markets, has spoken about their support for Microsoft's Windows Phone 7 and how it hasn't been selling as well as both companies had hoped. This is a slightly more accurate picture being painted by the network operator than the previous statement from Jeff Bradley (AT&T senior vice president of mobile devices) of "just fine".

"We actually like that software very, very much. It hasn’t sold as well as Microsoft or us would want it to. I think for the first thing out of the chute it is pretty good. I think they just need to make it better… Giving customers more application choices, having a bigger app store with more functionality on the phone–I think that is all that it needs."

AT&T HTC HD7S now available at Amazon (and elsewhere)


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Well, AT&T made good with their June 5th launch date for the HTC HD7S (see our full review here). Not only is it available at retail stores and AT&T's online store, it is also available over at AmazonWireless.

Through Amazon, the HD7S out of contract, will run you $489.99, as an upgrade $149.99 and as a new phone with contractual discounts $99.99 ($149.99 if it's a part of a Family Account).

Best Buy Offers 4,000 Xbox Live Points With Every Windows Phone


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As you may know, Microsoft Points are the official online currency for Xbox Live and you can, once loaded to your account, also use them with Zune for buying content -- like music for instance, beyond your monthly 10 song credit.

If you plan on purchasing a Windows Phone, you might want to do it at a Best Buy store as the retailer is giving out cards with 4,000 Xbox Live points, worth $49.99. You can then load them up to your account, Xbox Live or Zune, and download Xbox console games, get console game add-ons as well as download songs, albums and music videos (on your Windows Phone from Zune).

Monday, June 6, 2011

Elop: Why Nokia chose Windows Phone over Android


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Nokia CEO Stephen Elop has once again stepped to the forefront to defend and define the Finnish cell phone manufacturer's decision to run Windows Phone 7 as its primary mobile platform.

The most recent in a series of appearances came today at Qualcomm's Uplinq conference in San Diego, Calif. There, Elop described why Nokia chose to avoid the Google Android bandwagon and sided with Microsoft instead.

Ecosystems are where the mobile battle is now, Elop said, instead of simply devices.

Friday, June 3, 2011

Windows Phone 7 Mango will automatically create a family group


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One of the new Windows Phone 7 Mango features is groups, a feature which allows the user to group anyone from their contacts together and send them either text messages or email, and also to monitor their facebook and twitter activity in one location.

In the latest 361 degrees podcast it appears Microsoft has hidden some “delighters” in that feature also. Apparently one of the groups that will be created automatically for the user will be a Family group, with the software automatically not just grouping together anyone with the same surname, but also checking your Facebook relationship status to see who your partner is.

Skydrive to get greater prominence in the future


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It must be pretty hard to work at Microsoft, where often a technology or service is widely available and in use, but the developers never quite get the credit they deserve, with the public often flocking to a later incarnation elsewhere.

Skydrive is a clear example with this, offering a cross platform file storage network for many years now, only to be overtaken in mindshare by Dropbox, despite having been used by more than 100 million people.

It seems the Skydrive team are not taking this sitting down, and are promising to increase the prominence of the service in Wave 5 of Microsoft’s Windows Live services update.

Microsoft responds to 'App spamming' complaints, adds caps


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It was just yesterday that our own Richard Edmonds wrote an editorial here lamenting the sudden influx of many apps in the Marketplace from a single publisher. You may have seen this yourself, where the Marketplace under "New" is suddenly flooded with 50 apps that are all the same but "vary" by region.

We weren't the only blog to complain about it and your comments were unified: this was bad practice on Microsoft's part and it should be addressed sooner than later, otherwise we'll have another Android marketplace on our hands--and no one wants that.

Should Windows Phone 7 also have been dual layer like Windows 8


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One of the surprising elements of Windows 8 was that its new Modern Shell would co-exist with the existing Aero shell, allowing users to easily flip between the two. The new MOSH shell will ship as a default on Windows 8 PCs, even those that are not touch enabled, and will allow developers for this layer to get a front row seat in the billion PC market Microsoft currently dominates.

At the same time users will not have to give up their huge legacy base of applications, making Windows 8 a slot-in for most situations, and giving Microsoft a real fighting chance in the tablet space, where they are certainly coming from behind.

Elop: Why Nokia chose Windows Phone over Android


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Nokia CEO Stephen Elop has once again stepped to the forefront to defend and define the Finnish cell phone manufacturer's decision to run Windows Phone 7 as its primary mobile platform.

The most recent in a series of appearances came today at Qualcomm's Uplinq conference in San Diego, Calif. There, Elop described why Nokia chose to avoid the Google Android bandwagon and sided with Microsoft instead.

Ecosystems are where the mobile battle is now, Elop said, instead of simply devices.

"Our strategic premise at Nokia is that there is an opportunity for a third and competitive ecosystem to emerge, and that is the basis on which we are going forward."

Nokia Has A Working WP7 Prototype; CEO Elop Carries One On Him


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We've heard that Nokia has two Windows Phone 7 smartphones in the works: one standard slate and one with a hardware keyboard. With plans to get them out to customers by the end of the year, we'd expect the deadline to be putting extra pressure on the company's engineers, already having to adapt to developing hardware for an unfamiliar platform. Apparently they're taking to the challenge like fish to water, already churning out a working model that's become a daily-carry phone for CEO Stephen Elop.

Elop mentioned his personal WP7 handset in an interview with Businessweek, saying, "I've got a working Windows Phone in my pocket now, and it's been less than three months since we began working with Microsoft. We're moving at a speed that's faster than Nokia has ever moved before."