Windows Phone 7.8 Archive

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Free W Phone 8 app lets you try out the new start screen

By
Sasu Kemppainen
– July 24, 2012Posted in: Apps, News

If you can’t wait to get your hands on the new start screen of Windows Phone 8 and 7.8, look no further than W Phone 8. The app offers a simple simulation of the upcoming start screen so everyone can get a little bit of “real” hands-on time.

Just remember, this is only to give you the feel for the upcoming features. It’s not actually a fully working start screen, but you can still organize the tiles, resize them, and change the color theme. The tiles just mostly link to the Marketplace.

Get the app here for free, or scan the tag below.

Source: WPCentral

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Nokia cuts price by $50, Lumia not sellling enough?

By
Vlad Micu
– July 18, 2012Posted in: Hardware, News

Is the Lumia 900 really selling that badly?

After all the endless praise the Nokia Lumia 900 has received,  Nokia’s flagship device just got another price cut from $99.99 to $49.99 (included in a 2 year contract). This might be good news for all those potential Lumia fans waiting for that final nudge to invest in the device, but Nokia’s investors are not too fond of the move, reports Reuters. The cut precedes Nokia’s announcement of its second quarter figures, which many assume are below expectations. Depending on how much the average consumer actually knows about software updates, this presumed lack of interest in the device might be caused by the Lumia series not receiving the full Windows 8 OS upgrade later in October this year. The alternative Windows Phone 7.8 update will instead be made available.

Analysts have estimated Nokia to have sold around 10 million smartphone devices during this quarter, Apple getting around 30 million and Samsung bringing home the bacon with 50 million smartphones. Nokia’s shares have also gone down 3 percent yesterday.

We’re very curious if you consider the Lumia 900 to be worth the investment. Would you still go for it, regardless of the lack of a future Windows Phone 8 OS?

Source: Reuters

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Microsoft managers hinting at more features for Windows Phone 7.8

By
Sasu Kemppainen
– July 2, 2012Posted in: News

There’s been a wild debate going on about whether or not the new start screen is the only new feature in Windows Phone 7.8 update. It’s certainly the only thing Microsoft has announced, but they’re being suspiciously non-specific about this.

Windows Phone team member and Senior Product Manager, Larry Lieberman recently talked about Windows Phone development at TechEd2012. He gave an interesting statement to an audience question about 7.8 features:

“Will Windows Phone 7.8 get new features as well that you can access as a developer? Maybe. We haven’t announced it yet.

All we’ve announced is the new Start screen at this point. Sorry, nothing new to announce. You’re asking me stuff I can’t answer.”

It feels like Microsoft is still considering its options at this point. Another Senior Product Manager, Ben Lower seemed much more certain of the additional features in a tweet some time ago.

The update will be available in late 2012, after the actual Windows Phone 8 launch. There’s still a lot of time for them to decide what to actually include in there. We’ll just have to wait and see what Microsoft is cooking up. Which features would you like to see in Windows Phone 7.8?

Source: WPCentral, WMPU

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Microsoft lists Windows Phone 7.8 features, demos the Start screen some more

By
Sasu Kemppainen
– June 26, 2012Posted in: News

Microsoft has put up a new page dedicated to Windows Phone 7.8 and all its upcoming features. The features listed on the page are:

  • A bigger, more flexible Start screen
  • 100,000 apps and counting
  • More love for Lumias

Nothing new here, really, but it still seems that the new Start screen is the only actual updated feature in 7.8. It seems pretty unlikely that this is going to change. Oh well, at least it looks great.

Source: Windows Phone 7.5 news

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Windows Phone 8 Start Screen “Hands On”

By
Scott Chambers
– June 24, 2012Posted in: Guides

It’s come to our attention that not everyone is sold on the new Windows Phone 8 start screen. Some people are claiming it’s to cluttered, or maybe even suffocating. This may come from the fact that its not your start screen, and with that comes some unfamiliarity. Maybe if you could give it a test drive you would change your tune. Here’s a little experiment to help ease your mind. Save one or all of these images to your phone, or SkyDrive, and then view the images on your phone. This gives you a full screen, hands on look at what Windows Phone 8  will look like. Hit the jump for all the images! Read the rest of this entry »

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UPDATED: Windows Phone Summit rolls in with plenty of announcements

By
Sasu Kemppainen
– June 21, 2012Posted in: News

The new, more customisable start screen

UPDATE: You can now catch the recording of the summit here.

A lot has been revealed and here’s our attempt at quickly going through all the most interesting tidbits:

Touted as the big announcement was the Shared Windows Core. This basically means shared Windows kernel between Windows Phone 8 and Windows 8. This makes developing and porting apps and games really easy and highlights the connectivity between these sister platforms.

In addition there were eight different platform feature announcements for Windows Phone 8:

  1. Windows Phone 8 will support the latest and greatest hardware. This includes multi-core chipsets and removable MicroSD support for storage expansion and easy content transfer. The resolutions were also revealed here: 800×480 (15:9), 1280×768 (15:9) and 720p (16:9).
  2. Internet Explorer 10 will be built in. The surfing experience will be identical with the desktop version and the phone version with better HTML5 support and 4x faster Javascript performance.
  3. Native game development platform based on DirectX. Games developers can write the same game for Windows 8 and Windows Phone thanks to the common platform. Gaming middleware from game engines to all sorts of libraries are also available. The middleware partners include Havok, Audiokinetic, FMOD and Autodesk.
    Read the rest of this entry »
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