Microsoft NL About WP7 Mango Coming Mid-October, Dual-Cores

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Maarten Sonneveld, aka "Mr. Windows Phone, Microsoft Netherlands' Mobile Communications Business Group Lead", has talked to NieuweMobiel about Windows Phone 7 Mango, among other things.

According to Sonneveld, the next big platform refresh out of Redmond's labs, can be expected to hit roughly around mid-October, which is kind of a bit off from Microsoft's press release telling us about "early autumn". Dutch language support will be included in the menus, software input (and autocorrection) but not for voice recognition -- as in Dictation support.

Microsoft: More Expensive WP7 Apps, Nokia Wants Own Marketplace

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"I'd rather developers sell fewer than a million downloads and get to a million dollars," said Brandon Watson, Director of Developer Experience for Windows Phone 7 with Microsoft at a press briefing in Helsinki. Instead of the free and $0.99 model other app stores apply, Redmond will support higher prices on mobile-phone applications.

"If we can support a higher price point that’s good for developers", he continued. Microsoft wanted to differentiate the Windows Phone Marketplace from the very beginning and is continuously trying to better other platforms' app stores by offering quality instead of quantity. This can't always be controlled and every app store will have plenty of "useless" apps; trying to keep the number as low as possible can be done though.

Windows Phone designer cheat sheet [Developers]

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Should you be new to Windows Phone Metro UI development, coming from either Android or iOS for example, then this well worth checking out. Teppo Kotirinta, Principal Designer at Nordkapp, has just published an article on their blog announcing their designer cheat sheet.

This image which can be printed off or downloaded and opened on a 50" TV and will guide you through each illustration detailing what each screen contains and how the structure and design should be developed for effective deployment. Included are dimensions for live tiles, hex codes for all the WP7 themes and more. It really is a 101 for designing perfect Metro apps without the 1,000 pages worth of reading required.

OccasionalGamer's Elbert Perez brings in nearly $30K in game dev for WP7

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We're not here to judge whether this number is good or bad, but Elbert Perez, who has no less than 12 games on Windows Phone (e.g. Quadra, Impossible Shoota, Nom Nom Worm, Steam Castle, etc.), just posted how much he's brought in so far. See his site here.

Now, a few things to remember abou Perez: he's basically one guy (indie) doing all the developing, which is quite impressive and his games are all free with ad support. It was five months ago he switched from paid games at about $0.99 to making them all free with ads. So is $30k in ad money pretty good? We think it's not bad but it obviously shows that the Windows Phone platform needs to grow in order for him to continue to make and increase revenue.

In many ways for developer's, Perez's model of game development and distribution should be a source of inspiration. We recommend checking out his "Going Full Time Indie" piece on what it's like to not work for a big studio.

Source: wpcentral.com

How Many New Windows Phone 7 Mango Features Are We Up To?

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Eighty-nine down, a whole lot more to go! When Steve Ballmer brought up the claim that Windows Phone 7 Mango would be bringing in excess of five hundred new features to the operating system, it seemed more like hyperbole than anything. But once we started watching Microsoft's presentation at Tuesday's New York City event, it became hard to deny: there is a LOT of new stuff coming to Mango. Now, we've talked about some of the more impressive changes that are in store, and lamented about some that won't make the cut, but when it comes down to it, we've just scraped the tip of the iceberg.

The obsessive minds over at anythingbutiphone have been taking meticulous notes about what Microsoft has revealed about Mango, not just at this most recent event, but in all the teasers leading up to it.

Windows Phone Mango Tethering Fate in the Hands of Carriers?

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We were worried (actually complaining) about Windows Phone Mango and how it still misses tethering support when more and more people are looking at this feature as a must.

On the Windows Phone Developer Blog, Matt Bencke from Microsoft answered a worried reader's comment as follows: "Tethering, in the past was something that we managed independently of the Mobile Operators (e.g. AT&T, Orange, Verizon). In recent years, the Mobile Operators have now taken ownership of this functionality x-all platforms (e.g. our competitors as well as us). We are continually working with them and our OEM partners to enable this functionality for our devices, but at this time there isn't an announcement that we've made in regards to rolling out this feature. Stay Tuned!"

Mango Bringing Windows Phone Marketplace To The Web

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One of the things that Google got really right with the Android Market is the full-featured web presence the store maintains. Even if you're nowhere near your smartphone, you can easily browse, purchase, and send apps to your phone, without the need for any special software on the PC. Microsoft appears to have taken note, as the company has revealed that one of the many changes coming to its Windows Phone 7 platform with the release of Mango will be the addition of a web-based Windows Phone Marketplace.

The Marketplace will complement existing WP7 app discovery tools like Bing's Visual Search, but upon its launch, those search results will direct you to the app's page in the new Marketplace. Much of the functionality will duplicate what you see in the Zune software currently, but there will also be extra room for expanded features, like additional featured, promoted apps.

Nokia's Windows Phones to sport dual-core ST-Ericsson U8500

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We know Qualcomm is currently the only chipset provider for Windows Phone, having invest a lot of time and money to port over their hardware. In fact, even their next gen processors are geared up for Windows Phone 7.5 devices, coming this fall. Still, that's not stopping some companies, including ST-Ericsson from attempting to break that monopoly.

Specifically, in an interview with Forbes, Carlo Bozotti, the Chief Executive of European semiconductor maker STMicroelectronics spilled the beans on a couple of interesting tidbits:

Nokia WP7 phones coming to Russian retailer in 2011?

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In a recent interview, Nokia bigwig, Stephen Elop, said that it is "possible" that we may see the first Nokia-branded WP7 phones this year. And even though Elop and other Nokia execs are gunshy about committing to that possibility, the head of Russian mobile giant Sviaznoj, Denis Liudkovski, is offering up a little more certainty. Nokia and Sviaznoj are in discussions on a possible deal that would create Nokia "shop-in-shop" outlets within the Russian retailer's stores, and after the meeting Liudkovski had this to say:

“We are the key Nokia partner in Russia. Thanks’ to the cooperation agreements on the “shop-in-shop” format, all the newest models show up at Sviaznoj earlier then in competing outlets…. We expect that the first Windows Mobile based Nokia smartphone will show up in our stores before the end of 2011”

1.6 million WP7 devices sold in Q1 2011 says Gartner

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Here we go again folks, more analyst news! This time it's Gartner's turn with an interesting (and exciting) number of reported sales for WP7 in the first quarter of this year. If this number is true (or somewhat accurate) then this will turn skeptics into believers.

Note that this number doesn't reflect handsets sold to carriers, it shows devices sold to end-users. Interesting to note is that Nokia still head the game with the most market share, but dropping still. A lot is riding on the Nokia + Microsoft partnership, from both parties and these tables display that level of requirement.