Latest Gadgets, Tablets and Smartphones
Microsoft has launched a new app in the Mac App Store called Windows Phone 7 Connector. The latest update now allows connection of a WP7 smartphone to the Mac so that it can sync with an iTunes library.
As well as being able to sync music, photos can also be syncronised along with video from the iPhoto App on Mac computers. [Read more…]
Rovio Mobile has confirmed that the popular Angry Birds will be arriving on the Windows Phone 7 platform. No specific release dates have been provided for the WP7 version of the game although Rovio confirmed that they are “working on it”.
You might remember that when Windows Phone 7 was launched, a Rovio/Angry birds logo was seen on the home screen of the device. This caused problems for Rovio in that they didn’t authorise the use of it. However, they have confirmed that this is in the past now and that development of the game is running smoothly. [Read more…]
Nokia and Microsoft have confirmed that the Windows Phone 7 platform will be arriving soon on Nokia smartphones.
The Windows Phone 7 operating system will become one of the primary platforms on Nokia smartphones in the coming months and years and this switch over marks a big change in direction for Nokia who were struggling a little with the Symbian operating system. [Read more…]
Microsoft has confirmed that a problem exists with the Yahoo! Mail app on Windows Phone 7. The problem is that the application uses 25 times more data than it should whilst loading up and retrieving emails. For those who often use WiFi, it might not be a huge problem, but for those on 3G, it could be quietly eating away at a lot of your data allowance each month.
The problem was found by Rafael over at Windows Phone Secrets who managed to check IMAP packets being sent. By using a script to strip out encryption, he was able to find that the Yahoo mail server doesn’t respond correctly to FETCH requests which in turn, increases traffic actually needed by a hefty 25 times. He goes on to say that problems also exist separately to this in that the WiFi has a habit of sometimes disconnecting and quietly switching users to 3G when they expect to be on Wireless. [Read more…]
Microsoft has added some instructions to its website which show how to troubleshoot problems while updating Windows Phone 7.
The article covers a bunch of things such as how to work the Zune software and how to connect up a Windows Phone 7 device to your Windows PC. It also covers the Windows Phone 7 connector software that has been designed to run on the Mac. [Read more…]
Amazon has launched Kindle for Windows Phone 7. The download is now available from the Windows Phone 7 Marketplace.
Just like other versions such as the iPhone, Android and iPad variants, the Windows Phone 7 version allows you to download your already purchased eBooks. The app uses the same Whispersync technology so that you can read on the Windows Phone 7 device and then switch to another device and carry on reading from where you left off. [Read more…]
A Windows Phone 7 developer called Vangos Pterneas has created a facial recognition system for WP7 based devices.
The new system uses the Facelight libraries that are open source.
Using Facelight is a piece of cake. You only need two XAML image controls placed in the same position. The upper one (named ImgResult) will contain a red ellipse specifying the recognized face and the other one (named ImgOverlay) will contain the original bitmap source.
A new NES emulator for the Windows Phone 7 platform has been created. However, it wasn’t approved for the Marketplace for the reason quoted below…
If you post a game/image/source that uses unauthorized intellectual property, we will delete it immediately. This includes technologies that are clearly intended to enable unauthorized use of intellectual property, such as game console emulators.
The Windows Phone Marketplace appears to be off to quite a good start. We hear reports today that there are now a total of 5,000 apps in the Market ready for users of WP7 smartphones to download.
To put this in to a bit of perspective, webOS has a similar amount of apps if we understand correctly. The BlackBerry App World has around 15,000 at the moment and Android/iOS each have a huge amount of apps available for download. [Read more…]
Microsoft [MSFT] has finally announced the Windows Phone 7 sales figures although they are not the exact numbers we are looking for. Instead of providing the number of units sold to end users, Microsoft has provided the number of sales to carriers and retailers.
The Windows Phone 7 sales numbers show 1.5 million devices being sold globally. This might sound like quite a lot, but one thing you have to remember here is that 60 carriers in 30 countries are now selling the device which dramatically reduces the amount per country and network. [Read more…]
Although sales are rumoured to be quite low for the new Windows Phone 7 platform and range of smartphones, the Marketplace seems to be doing quite well in terms of how many apps are available now to purchase.
Graphs indicate that the Windows Phone 7 market place is actually doing quite well in that it’s growing faster than Android’s Market and closely mirrors how the iPhone App Store did in the beginning (as indicated by the red line above). [Read more…]
We are hearing reports today that indicate that Nokia could be looking at creating a Nokia Windows Phone 7 device, perhaps next year.
Last time we heard of something like this, it was related to the Android operating system hitting Nokia. At that point, it was basically laughed off by Anssi Vanjoki who was the Mobile VP. [Read more…]
