Articles about Windows Phone

The official Twitter app for Windows Phone 8 has received little attention from its maker this year, confirming the operating system's standing as a second-class citizen. Meanwhile, the popular social network released major updates for its Android and iOS counterparts, which continue to have a comfortable lead in the features department.

Today, Twitter tries to narrow that gap with a major update for the Windows Phone 8 app. The latest version reintroduces the dark theme, that was unavailable in the previous release, and adds new features for the user interface. AMOLED panels should benefit most from the dark theme, as the use of darker colors will drive power consumption down. It also seems to match Nokia's display trend, as the maker uses more AMOLED panels in its Lumia lineup (albeit only for the high-end models at the moment).

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Yesterday, Microsoft did what many of us have expected -- the company removed the native YouTube app from Windows Phone Store and replaced it with the all-too-familiar version that links to the mobile site.

The latest update for the native YouTube app was released in mid-August, but it was blocked shortly after by Google on the grounds that the app "violates [YouTube's] Terms of Service". As a result, Microsoft had no other option but to remove the latest native version from Windows Phone Store because the app was practically rendered useless. I have reached out to Microsoft for a comment on the matter and here is the software giant's response.

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This has been a week with a lot of news about operating systems. As we near the official release OS X Mavericks went GM and was made available to developers, while in the world of Linux Red Hat Enterprise 5.10 was also unveiled. Windows 8.1 was made available for pre-order, but a study of sales figures revealed that Windows 7 continues to grow faster than Windows 8. Ahead of his retirement sometime in the next twelve months, Microsoft's Steve Ballmer was punished for poor performance with a bonus reduction, with first generation Surface sales partly to blame.

Things look better for Surface 2 and Surface Pro 2, with reports of the tablets selling out -- this is perhaps not surprising when Delta Airlines has bought 11,000 of the devices for its pilots. As well as looking forward, Microsoft also came over a little nostalgic, choosing to show off the capabilities of Internet Explorer 11 with a revived version of the classic Windows 95 game Hover.

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In a blog post that looks forwards as well as backwards, Skype lays out details of planned improvements for the desktop and mobile versions of the app. Mark Gillett applauds the technological improvements that have been made over the past year and also gives a glimpse of the changes we can expect to see in the year to come. The post acknowledges that a large proportion of Skype usage is on mobile devices, and a number of mobile-friendly changes are revealed.

One particularly noteworthy feature specific to mobile users is the promise that chat synchronization across devices will be improved. This is something that anyone who used Skype on multiple devices will have noticed can be a problem. Send a large number of text based messages from the desktop version of Skype and when you launch Skype on another computer or a phone, you'll currently find that there can be quite a delay as message history is downloaded. While no details are provided, Gillet says:

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My first contact with Microsoft's homebrew Facebook app for Windows Phone 8 revealed one of the least desirable social experiences that a smartphone user can have on any modern mobile platform. The first iterations of the company's offering were terrible, but luckily things started to pick up after the beta version that arrived in late-April.

Microsoft released a couple of major updates since then, bringing the Facebook experience on Windows Phone 8 to a decent level of usability. Some oversights can still be pointed out, such as the lack of a built-in security code generator but, generally speaking, all the important bits are there. And, today, Microsoft issued another update which brings the version number to 5.1. Let's take a look at what's new.

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According to a new report by Bloomberg, Microsoft last month reached out to HTC to see if the Taiwanese smartphone manufacturer would be interested in adding Windows Phone as a second OS to its Android handsets.

The story claims Terry Myerson, head of Microsoft’s operating systems unit, suggested "cutting or eliminating the [Windows Phone] license fee to make the idea more attractive" to HTC. The Taiwanese firm makes the Windows Phone 8X and 8S, but reportedly has no plans for further devices running the tiled OS.

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Developer Rudy Huyn has steadily improved his popular 6tag Windows Phone 8 app up to the point where an official Instagram client would struggle to compete with the former's feature set. The app has received frequent updates since its release, the latest of which just arrived sporting a couple of major new features.

Using geolocation, 6tag, which reached version 1.5, can now display a list of posts created in nearby locations. Users can select the covered distance (presumably the radius) through a slider -- the default value is two kilometers -- and see a map with the places where fellow Instagrammers have created the nearby posts.

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Windows Phone 8 developers looking to increase their app revenues through the use of ads can now take advantage of Google's AdMob, as the search giant just released the first official build that is compatible with Microsoft's latest smartphone operating system.

The new AdMob SDK (Software Development Kit) arrives close to one year after Microsoft released the OS. It is currently available in beta trim, and allows developers to tap into the search giant's popular mobile advertising network, but without the same perks that Android and iOS developers receive.

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Just last week, I wrote an article based on a report by Pfeiffer Consulting which suggested that Windows Phone 8 is, in its current state, the least user-friendly mobile operating system available. The article stirred up some feelings, and there were some quite heated exchanges in the comments.

For this follow-up piece, I spoke with Andreas Pfeiffer, the author of the report, to address some of the points, complaints and concerns you raised.

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Microsoft is going after Apple's number two spot in the European smartphone OS market as Windows Phone is steadily approaching iOS across five major local markets, according to a new report from research firm Kantar Worldpanel. Unsurprisingly, the dominant player is Google's Android, that has yet to show any noticeable signs of weakness against its less popular rivals.

In the five major European markets -- France, Germany, Italy, Spain and UK -- Android handsets accounted for 70.1 percent of all smartphones sold between June and August 2013. In second place is iOS with 16.1 percent market share, followed by Windows Phone with 9.2 percent market share. Compared to the same period, last year, iOS and Windows Phone grew by 14.18 and 80.39 percent, respectively. The latter of the two is growing much faster than its main rival, which could lead to a different hierarchy in little over a year, assuming the same growth rate is maintained.

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If you are a Windows Phone and/or Windows 8/RT user who loves RSS feed reader apps then I am sure the name Nextgen Reader rings a bell. It is one of the best-rated and most popular pieces of software currently available on Microsoft's latest consumer operating systems, and probably one of the best built mobile apps that smartphone and tablet users can get today.

To learn more about Nextgen Reader and Windows Phone and Windows 8/RT development, I chatted with the person responsible for all the code behind the app, Gaurav Kalra. The man, alongside his brother Sorabh, is the co-founder of Next Matters, the company that develops Nextgen Reader.

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Microsoft held an event in NYC to launch the Surface 2 and Brian was live-blogging. The full video of the launch is available to view online as are advertisements that show off the tablets' versatility. Microsoft is pinning a lot on the updated product after the first generation suffered from poor sales. There were no great new features, but there is a redesigned kickstand, a healthy speed boost, new dock and updated covers -- Brian was particularly impressed by the Blades.

Anyone buying a Surface 2 or Surface Pro 2 earns themselves a SkyDrive upgrade. Purchase a new device and your online storage gets upgraded to 200GB, but the same amount of space is available for $100 per year. Moving away from Surface-related news, Microsoft turned its guns on Google Docs, highlighting user complaints to demonstrate the superiority of Office 365.

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Microsoft continues the push to make its latest platforms more appealing to a rather skeptical audience, this time teaming with Crackle, the streaming video service launched by Sony. Exclusive shows are fast becoming a hallmark of these video services, with Amazon and Netflix already in on the act, and now Crackle is taking its first shot.

Cleaners, the service's new exclusive show, will premiere on October 3rd, but customers with Windows 8, Windows Phone 8 and Xbox 360 can all get a sneak peek. "Starting today and running through to October 2nd in advance of the world premiere on October 3rd – you can watch all 6 episodes of Crackle’s new series 'Cleaners' on Windows 8, Windows Phone 8, and Xbox 360", says Microsoft's Brandon LeBlanc.

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I am a big fan of thunder and lightning storms. There is nothing else in nature that is simultaneously fun, romantic and scary (depending on the situation and company). However, there is a very serious side to these storms -- death or injury by lightning. Yes, an electrical storm can end your life if you aren't careful.

Nokia does not seem too concerned though, as it announces it has charged a Windows Phone with the power of lightning. The company says, "wireless charging, in and of itself, is pretty darn cool. But imagine if you could charge your phone using lightning! Nokia has been working with the University of Southampton to do just that, and the results are nothing short of brilliant".

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The Office of Fair Trading (OFT) is calling on the games industry to avoid pressuring children into making in-app purchases in games and potentially running up large bills. Back in April, an investigation began into the ways in which children are pressured into making in-app purchases. 38 web and app-based games thought to appeal to children were looked at, and the results of the investigation are available in the Children's Online Games report.

The OFT aimed to determine whether the way in-app purchases were presented could be considered "misleading, aggressive or otherwise unfair". As a result of the investigation, the OFT has drawn up a set of eight proposed principles that apps and games should follow. The principles include clearly and prominently informing app users about the potential for costs to be incurred through the app. It is suggested that users should be able to fully understand the current and future costs associated with any app they download.

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