On May 17th (this Friday), Microsoft will be closing down the Marketplace for Windows Mobile 6.x. This was a pretty short-lived endeavor that made app purchasing and downloading a bit easier on the old Windows Mobile compared to having to manually download installation files, copy them to your device, and install them from there. You could easily access the Windows Mobile Marketplace both from the on-device app as well as the web browser. If you’re still using a good old Windows Mobile classic device or think you may want to go back and use one someday, you may want to archive [...]
Before we dive too deep (after all, love is such a strong word) people like Android.
About 51% of smartphone users are running Android on their device. By February 2012 there were over 300 million Android phones (not including tablets) in the hands of consumers, with an additional 850,000 phones and tablets being activated every day.
Obviously Android is doing something right.
But that’s just people who like Android. Some of them may not even know they’re running Android, but it gets the job done and they’re not at all worried about the nuts and [...]
10 years ago today, we published our first smartphone review ever which marked the beginning of the smartphone revolution. Pocketnow had been around longer than that, of course, but we had mostly covered Pocket PCs back then. In the spring of 2002 we got our hands on the first device that tried to combine the power of a Pocket PC hand held computer with the always-on communications of a mobile phone. The GSM/GPRS expansion pack was actually an attachment for the most powerful Pocket PC of the time; the Compaq iPAQ H3600. The iPAQ H3600 was actually one of the first products that was [...]
It’s been a long and good ride for Windows Mobile. Some of us still love it and keep at least one of these true power houses just for old times sake. Sad news for all of us 14 people that still own one since Microsoft has just begun to distribute emails regarding the final closure of the Windows Mobile 6.x Marketplace as of May 9th.
Things actually got quite rocky since June of last year because even if the Marketplace still worked, it was pretty much useless. You could still install apps the old-fashioned way, but it just proved how Microsoft wasn’t willing to put [...]
Watch this week’s Windows Phone View as we wrap up all that was good and bad inside the world of Microsoft’s Windows Phone platform. In today’s show we begin by talking about all the Nokia devices that have been leaked during the week, and which ones we consider fake. We later talk about the LG Miracle, which sadly doesn’t seem to be such a miraculous solution for LG. We then go through our week’s coverage and end the Good section talking about Windows Phone Tango, even though it fit best in the Bad section.
In the Bad section we talk about [...]
Raise your hands if you remember Windows Mobile 6.1! More than a year ago Windows Phone 7 was ported to a Windows Mobile legacy device — the HTC HD2 — and it looks like the tables have turned. Windows Mobile is now running on a legacy Windows Phone 7 device: the HTC HD7.
It is emulated alright but it seems to have every working bit inside there, from the Start Menu to setting, video playback and even gameplay. Because it’s running on top of Windows Phone 7 in an emulator, hitting the Back button will take you to your Start screen but you can easily jump back to [...]
Since the days of gray scale LCD screens on PDAs, the stylus has been the invaluable tool which allowed you to precisely navigate the small screen. With killer applications like the venerable PhatWare Calligrapher, which converts hand writing to text, you can use the stylus to mimic the analog world of pen and paper. Along, with integration of cell phone technology, the hope of a converged hand held device for your mobile life was starting to become a reality. As cellular data and push email where implemented, the world was starting to be at one’s stylus tip. Microsoft along with [...]
A recent Checkpoint research that surveyed 768 IT professionals from the U.S., Canada, United Kingdom, Germany, and Japan demonstrates that Apple’s iOS is the preferred mobile platform when it comes to corporations.
89% of the questioned have smartphones or tablets connected to their corporate networks but “Apple iOS is the most common mobile platform used to connect in corporate environments”. Cupertino’s mobile platform accounts for 30% of the devices connected, followed by BlackBerry with its 29% and Android’s 21%. The Windows Mobile / Windows [...]
In this episode of the Windows Phone 7 App Roundup we demonstrate five applications in 30 seconds each. These apps will keep you entertained, allow you to use your Windows Phone 7 smartphone as a business card, and give you shortcuts to your most used settings. To download these apps directly to your WP7 device, just click on the title of the application and the Zune software will automatically launch to the app in Marketplace. If you have the free Microsoft Tag app installed on your WP7 smartphone just snap a picture of the Tag image and the mobile Marketplace will navigate to that [...]
Watch this week’s Windows Phone View as we wrap-up everything that’s Good and Bad inside the world of Microsoft’s Windows Phone platform. In today’s show we begin by talking about the Nokia-Microsoft partnership and their device releases planned for 2012. We later go through the positive sales results that the Nokia Lumia 800 has gotten recently in the UK. We cover our full review of the device and what you should expect if you make it your next handset. We then go through the release of the AT&T Variant of the HTC Titan, the European launch of the LG E906 [...]
This past summer, popular music service Spotify finally became available to fans in the US. With all the licensing agreements worked-out with the labels, Spotify was officially open for business on this side of the Atlantic. In fact, things worked out quite nicely for US users, despite the wait, because they’re able to get an account that supports smartphones for a lower monthly cost than European users. So far, though, if you just wanted to casually check out the free version of the service in the US, you’d need an invitation. That’s all about to change, with plans [...]
With all the success that Amazon has found with the Kindle, and Apple with iBooks, you’d think that Microsoft would stand up and dust off their old Microsoft Reader software to compete with them in Windows Phone 7 and Windows, but sadly that’s not the story. Microsoft has just shared the sad news that their Microsoft Reader project is currently on life support.
Starting November 8th 2011, you won’t be able to purchase any new ebook in the .lit format, and as of August 30th 2012 no more Reader software will be available for download. If you currently own .lit [...]
While being frustrated by all of the various instant messaging clients available for mobile devices and PCs, I noticed that the majority of the people I know were often available on Facebook chat. I had been thinking about this for a while and recently I noticed the same thoughts expressed by Zack Wittaker over at Zdnet. There’s no need for Blackberry Messenger anymore, everybody you know is on Facebook and Facebook chat is supported by all major operating systems on smartphones, tablets, laptops and desktop computers.
Blackberry Messenger only ever worked on [...]
You might remember the Toshiba TG-01 Windows Mobile-powered phone from two years ago which was also spotted running Windows Phone 7. With its 1GHz processor and 256MB of RAM it seems to cope well with Redmond’s new mobile platform.
It’s really not known why some TG-01s were updated to Windows Phone — some say people used them internally for testing purposes — but if you would like to have one for your personal collection, there’s one for sale. Follow the source link to place your offer but be cautious as always when purchasing online, especially if [...]
Unofficial word came late yesterday evening that Spotify would begin offering service to users in the United States as of today. Sure enough, the news has now gone official, with the company revealing details of its subscription plans.
While you’re still going to have to pay up in order to access Spotify from a smartphone, the good news is that subscribers in the US will have the chance to do so at the lowest rate yet. The premium subscription tier needed for mobile use will cost just over $10 in the US. We were expecting something more around the $15 mark, since users in [...]
Earlier this month, Spotify confirmed that it would finally be bringing its popular music streaming service to users in the United States, so far disqualified due to the requisite licensing deals not yet being in place. It didn’t give a date for when the service would be available at the time of the announcement, and we’ve still yet to see official word, but the company’s chief content officer Ken Parks has revealed that Spotify in the US will be going live sometime tomorrow.
Obviously, our chief concern is the Spotify experience on mobile devices, so [...]
Last month, we learned that Spotify was very interested in launching its music service in the United States, a market it had yet to secure the licensing agreements to operate in. The company was supposedly well on its way to making that dream a reality, and was working out the final issues it would need to take care of before being able to start State-side service. Sure enough, Spotify has now made an official announcement that it will soon be coming to the US, along with its apps for Android, iOS, and Windows Mobile.
The streaming music service is a huge hit in Europe, where [...]
With Windows Phone 7 firmly established as Microsoft’s new smartphone platform, the days of legacy Windows Mobile 6.x devices have long been numbered. While models like HTC’s HD2 continue to perform, developers are concentrating their efforts on apps for current platforms. We heard a few weeks ago that Microsoft might be planning to finally start wrapping up the Windows Mobile Marketplace, no longer accepting submissions of new apps after mid-July. Now the company has confirmed more details of its plan, including the dissolution of the Windows Mobile Marketplace web [...]
Windows Mobile — later renamed to Windows Phone as of version 6.5 — was for a long time, since early versions to the latest, the preferred platform for smartphone enthusiasts even after Apple and Google entered the game with iOS and Android. With version 6.5 of Windows Mobile came the brand new Windows Mobile Marketplace which Microsoft seems to abandon or even shut down.
According to an App Hub forum post by a developer called EdgeWay Software, also confirmed by Wieser Software Ltd, e-mails are hitting dev inboxes letting people know that the Marketplace is no [...]
Some really strange things going on in downtown Smallville! Last week we saw an HTC Hero Android smartphone running Windows Phone 7 and today we get a chance to look at another Frankenstein monster: LG Quantum running Windows Phone 6.5
The LG Quantum is also known as the LG Optimus 7Q and together with the LG Optimus 7 is an LG Windows Phone running Windows Phone 7. Episode 18 of Season 10 from Smallville shows the above marketing aberration — or just another super-secret prototype like the one last week which we’ll never see in stores. It’s good to see a [...]
It’s been a while since the 2009 HTC Touch Pro2 slide-out Windows Mobile smartphone received an official update from the manufacturer but it looks like the Taiwanese smartphone maker just outed an official system stability refresh for the slide-out QWERTY classic.
As we’ve got used to by now from HTC, there’s no change-log to accompany the patch. The description is pretty basic: “This update enhances the system stability”. Given the rather low weight of the file (159,744 bytes) we suspect it to be a minor patch but still recommended if you are [...]
