Articles about Windows Phone

Five days after its official unveiling, the Nokia Lumia 1020 Windows Phone is now available to pre-order at US mobile operator AT&T. The new smartphone runs for $299.99, on a two-year contract, and will ship on July 23. It goes on sale starting July 26.

By contrast, on a two-year agreement, similar devices like the Apple iPhone 5, HTC One and Samsung Galaxy S4 are available for $199.99, at AT&T. The US mobile operator also offers the Lumia 920, which can be had for $99.99, alongside the same type of contract (24 months).

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Prolific Windows Phone developer Rudy Huyn (known for popular offerings like 9Gag, Fuse and Wikipedia) has finally released the much-awaited, third-party Vine client called 6Sec. The new app arrives in Store after a lengthy development and testing phase and, right from the get-go, is touted to provide complete functionality.

The odds, however, are against Huyn's client -- according to Finnish maker Nokia, an official Vine app will "soon" launch on Windows Phone 8. 6Sec will, therefore, face fierce competition and, in order to gain considerable traction, must offer unquestionable value straight from its first iterations.

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Since Microsoft launched Windows Phone 8 in late-October, last year, the tiled smartphone operating system received two major updates. The first, codenamed "Portico", was revealed nearly seven months ago (and rolled-out in early-2013), introducing a couple of essential features like the option to keep Wi-Fi enabled during sleep or send canned text messages after rejecting calls.

The second, and the latest Windows Phone 8 update, debuted alongside the Nokia Lumia 925 in mid-May (and has yet to roll out to other compatible smartphones). Microsoft has since kept quiet when it comes to the latest slew of improvements, deciding to unveil the new features early this month.

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Today, during its "Zoom. Reinvented" press event, Finnish maker Nokia unveiled a new handset called the Lumia 1020, which is the company's modern, Windows Phone 8 interpretation of the year-old 808 PureView.

Just like the 808 PureView, the Lumia 1020 sports a 41 MP camera with Xenon flash, Zeiss lens and OIS (Optical Image Stabilization), that shoots photos at a massive 7712 by 5360 resolution and is capable of 1080p video recording at 30 FPS. But, that's where the similarities end. The Lumia 1020 packs a larger 4.5-inch AMOLED display with a resolution of 768 by 1280, which is protected by Corning Gorilla Glass 3, similar to the Lumia 925 that was unveiled in mid-May. On the front there is a 1.2 MP wide-angle camera that can shoot 720p video.

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At 11 AM EST, Nokia's highly anticipated press event, called "Zoom. Reinvented", kicks off in New York. Despite the previous "41 million reasons to zoom in" innuendo, official details are scarce ahead of the upcoming keynote.

There, the Finnish maker's followers expect the company to unveil a Windows Phone version of the year-old 808 PureView handset, which features a critically acclaimed 41 MP camera. But, speculation aside, we're are certainly looking forward to what will be revealed during the fast-approaching keynote.

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US mobile operator T-Mobile just announced that the Nokia Lumia 925 will officially join its Windows Phone 8 portfolio starting July 17. The handset goes for $49.99 down coupled with $20 monthly payments over the course of two years.

US is the third major market where the Lumia 925 will be available, following its introduction in Germany and UK. The Nokia-branded Windows Phone will run on T-Mobile 4G LTE network and is among the least expensive high-end devices in the mobile operator's portfolio.

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On Wednesday, Microsoft announced that it will extend the Windows Phone 8 support lifecycle to three years, effectively doubling the previous 18 month time-frame, which was revealed in mid-March.

"Beginning with Windows Phone 8 we'll make updates, including security updates, available for 36 months", says Microsoft's Tony Mestres. "These updates will be incremental, with each update built on the update that preceded it". So far so good. But now here comes the kicker -- your device may or may not receive the future software upgrades.

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In an effort to improve the Facebook experience on the tiled smartphone operating system, Microsoft just released a new update for its homebrew beta app which now finally allows Windows Phone 8 users to unfriend and unlike added folks and pages, respectively.

The latest Facebook Beta version (5.0.2.1) also fixes an issue which prevented the notification counts from updating and comes with the common "stability and performance" enhancements. The latest features will likely make their way to the stable Facebook app in a future update, after the obligatory testing is conducted.

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Finnish maker Nokia announced, on Tuesday, that its HERE Drive, Drive+ and Transit Windows Phone 8 apps will receive an update later this week, which adds new navigation tools and improves the user interface.

HERE Drive and Drive+ get the most noteworthy enhancements, with the latest versions introducing an overview of traffic conditions in surrounding user areas and My Commute, a new feature which allows folks to view the estimated time of arrival to a set destination on the adjacent live tile.

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Yesterday Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer provided the opening remarks at the Worldwide Partner Conference (WPC 2013) day one keynote, taking the opportunity to hype Windows 8.1 and sell the benefits of Windows Phone.

He started the half hour keynote by thanking the 15,000 attendees in the room for their support and for taking care of Microsoft’s customers, before getting on to the subject of the company’s divisive operating system.

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As the Microsoft mobile ecosystem grows, more popular apps are finding their way into the Windows Phone store. The platform now boasts top-notch games like Angry Birds and Temple Run, as well as video services like Hulu. While customers can get their music fix from apps such as Nokia Music (if you have a Nokia phone), competition and options are good.

Now Spotify makes its official debut in the Windows Phone world. Joe Belfiore, corporate vice president and manager for Windows Phone Program Management, tweeted "Hey music lovers... today #Spotify for #WP8 is out of beta! A big update: more languages, offline playlist improvements, track scrubbing".

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Finnish phone maker Nokia is slowly rolling out its new Lumia 925 Windows Phone in major markets across the world. Following Germany and UK, the smartphone will also arrive in Australia later this month.

Nokia's Australian arm revealed the upcoming local availability of the Lumia 925, earlier today, in a Facebook posting. The Windows Phone 8 device will be offered by "all major retailers" starting July 17, with mobile operators Telstra and Optus selling the handset from July 30 and August 1, respectively.

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This weekend, I returned from a nine day cruise of the Caribbean. On this particular cruise, I went to Bermuda, St. Martin, Puerto Rico and Haiti. What I love about cruises, other than the food (yes, I’m a fat guy), is visiting multiple locations in a short time rather than being in one place for the entire trip. This allows me to take very eclectic photos and have memories that will last a lifetime.

I own a fairly nice point-and-shoot camera with the Nikon Coolpix AW100. The Nikon is my go-to camera when I am visiting beaches since it is waterproof. However, while in Puerto Rico, I was to tour El Yunque Rainforest -- a beautiful place to take photos where I would not be going swimming. And so, I decided to use a different camera instead -- the Nokia Lumia 928 on Verizon. Yup, I was trusting my vacation memories with a camera-phone!

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"Many features, most of which are available everywhere" is the tagline Microsoft should use for Windows Phone 8. Why? Well, because the complete functionality provided by the tiled smartphone operating system is not offered or fully working in all markets. For instance, until two months ago the complete photo and video backup feature was available in just a limited number of regions and, only yesterday, did the software giant expand Bing Audio support to a larger number of countries.

"Bing Audio is one of those Windows Phone features that, once you know it's there, you find yourself using all the time", says Microsoft's Michael Stroh. It allows users to identify tunes, similar to Shazam and SoundHound. "The good news is that now more of you will have a chance to try it", adds Stroh. "More" but not all.

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Microsoft has announced that it is releasing an updated version of its Dynamics CRM package in the fall of 2013. The new package is designed to help enterprises engage with their customers and will be available as both cloud and installed systems.

The refreshed version is designed to deliver a fast and fluid user experience, enabling people to access information that’s relevant to their jobs and have deeper insight into customer requirements. It also offers improved social collaboration features as well as the ability to access information on a variety of devices including Windows 8 tablets and iPads. Android, iPhone and Windows Phone 8 versions will be available shortly after the package's release.

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