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Official LinkedIn app for Windows Phone finally released

LinkedIn alongside Facebook and Twitter were all neatly integrated into Windows Phone 7.5 with the Mango update late last year. Unfortunately contrary to the last two social platforms, LinkedIn still wasn’t present in the Windows Phone Marketplace with an official application. This is now a thing of the past thanks to the release of the official LinkedIn application today. The app features most of the features you can expect to find in a AAA piece of software and is described as follows:

Get on-the-go access to your professional network with LinkedIn for Windows Phone. Find and connect with more than 150M members worldwide, read the latest industry news, keep up-to-date with your groups, explore jobs you might be interested in, and share content with your network from anywhere.

You can download directly from here.

Continue reading Official LinkedIn app for Windows Phone finally released →

Nokia branded Windows Phone Marketplace has always been in the works

In case you have missed it; Most of the latest Nokia Tango ROMs for the Nokia Lumia 610, Lumia 710, Nokia Lumia 800 and Lumia 900 have traded the regular Makretplace Tile with a new Nokia branded one. This may come as a surprise to most people but those of you who have been following me know that Nokia and Microsoft have been working on a Nokia Branded Marketplace ever since the partnership was put in place more than a year ago. I actually made a post about it when I found out some interesting words in the partnership press release and several job offerings which described the existence to two unified application stores.

The Icon change is probably only the begging so it remains to be seen if others items or section of the Marketplace will offer Nokia specific features exclusive to the Lumia handset. It should also be noted that the Nokia Collection section has strangely vanished from by Nokia Lumia 800 (running Mango) just yesterday so there must be something going on in the background right about now.

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Nokia announces Exclusive applications and games for Lumia handsets and other Windows Phones: Angry Birds Space, EA Mobile games, Groupon, Paypal,

Nokia is all in with Windows Phone and today’s software partnership announcement is one more proof of this. The company has announced several partnership that will net Nokia Lumia owners with exclusive applications in the coming weeks and months plus the birth of a new development team at Rovio in Finland (makers of Angry Birds) to develop and port all of theirs games to Nokia Lumia handsets and even other Windows Phone devices. Nice isn’t it? Here’s a list of what coming:

PGA TOUR – The PGA TOUR app will be available exclusively to Nokia Lumia owners from June 2012. Developed in partnership with Nokia, the app provides scores and player information and also interactive, augmented coverage of the action from the events on a hole-by-hole basis.

ESPN – The exclusive ESPN Sports Hub will receive a number of updates over current months, bringing greater personalisation options, such as panoramas dedicated to your favourite teams. A Windows Phone version of the ESPN Fantasy Football app will launch exclusively on Lumia this autumn.

EA Mobile: FIFA, Madden, NBA Jam, Tiger Woods, Mirror’s Edge and Yahtzee coming to the Windows Phone platform (not exclusive to Lumias apparently)

Rovio – The company is building a dedicated development team to create titles for Nokia Lumia and the wider Windows Phone ecosystem, with the goal of publishing all future Rovio titles – including Angry Birds Space – on the platform as quickly as possible.

“Nokia is one of our longest-standing partners, and Windows Phone and Lumia are of strategic importance to Rovio. We are very committed to bring our games to Lumia devices, and are looking forward to delighting our fans on the Windows Phone platform,” said Mikael Hed, CEO of Rovio.

Groupon – Groupon is working on an extensive upgrade of its Windows Phone app, bringing a new augmented reality deal-finder function. It will be exclusive to Lumia owners for six months following its launch in Summer 2012.

TripDots – This is a an app that helps motorists optimise their fuel efficiency, awarding achievements as well as cost-savings in a wider social game while maintaining people’s privacy.

PayPal – Nokia and PayPal are working together to create a Windows Phone app to allow secure, fast and easy payments through PayPal wherever you may be.

AOL Entertainment Hub – Exclusive to Nokia Lumia owners for six months from launch, this AOL app brings the cream of AOL’s content to Nokia Lumia owners. That includes the ability to play any of its 55,000 SHOUTcast radio stations, streaming albums with Listening Party. movie trailers and more.

TIME – the world’s largest weekly circulation magazine comes to Windows Phone. The app will deliver content from Time.com to mobile making full use of the UI’s possibilities, such as alerts for breaking news, the ability to share news items with your contacts in the People Hub and Live Tiles.

NewsWeek – NewsWeek is creating a Windows Phone version of The Daily Beast, its digital content partner. Designed for consuming the latest news while you’re on the move, the app allows you to access the latest stories in seconds. It also includes access to The Cheat Sheet – a one-stop shop for leading stories across the globe.

Continue reading Nokia announces Exclusive applications and games for Lumia handsets and other Windows Phones: Angry Birds Space, EA Mobile games, Groupon, Paypal, →

Nokia City Lens Augmented Reality browser released for Lumia phones

Nokia has just release the beta version of the Nokia City Lens Augmented Reality browser exclusively for the Lumia line of Windows Phones (the app is already available on the Symbian). If you don’t know what City Lens is then the simple answer would be to say that it’s Nokia’s own versions of Wikitude or Layar (or even ScanSeach on the LG Optimus 7 / Quantum Windows Phones). Nothing really groundbreaking here but the upside here is the software polish that we have come to expect from Nokia’s latest software and services. It simply works (even though it’s still in Beta) and nicely integrates with Nokia Maps to give you walking, driving or transport directions to the places you are looking at (similar to Nokia Transport / Transit). You can download directly to you Lumia handset by scanning the QR Code after the break and also checking out the video introduction of the app below:

Continue reading Nokia City Lens Augmented Reality browser released for Lumia phones →

Nokia Lumia 800 1750.805.8773.12140 Tango update coming soon

Photo courtesy of MJ Foley

Quick word of advise to all the Nokia Lumia 800 users out there who are eagerly waiting for the Tango update to reach their handset and finally bring Internet Sharing and improved camera settings: please be patient. The Chinese variant 1750.805.8773.12140 firmware has finally reached Nokia Care’s servers a few ours ago but shouldn’t be of any use to most users outside of China given that it lacks Facebook and Twitter integration in the People Hub and includes several features and customization specifically aimed at the Asian market. This update does indeed enabled internet sharing and also include the new camera settings that have been missing from the previous updates (~~panorama, smart group shot etc~~ video quality settings and improved still shot quality..) and a Nokia Branded Marketplace Icon/tile.

The international / European variant of the 1750.805.8773.12140 update shouldn’t be to far off so don’t rush waste our time flashing you perfectly functional handset right now ans simply wait a little for the real deal. If you are really bothered by the Audio Volume bug simply flash the 12072 FW for now.

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Samsung launches the Samsung Focus 2 Windows Phone with LTE support. World still wonders why

Still trying to figure out if there’s any logic behind Microsoft’s Windows Phone endeavor? Well, today’s launch of the Samsung Focus 2 isn’t going to make things clearer to the masses. The Samsung Focus 2 Windows Phone handset is launching on AT&T’s network in the US later this month on May 20th for the relatively interesting price of $49.99 with the 2year contract. Nice, right? Unfortunately not very much given that the Focus 2 is nothing more than a Samsung Focus / Omnia 7 with 1.4GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon APQ8055 + MDM9200 LTE modem instead of the older QSD8250. That’s right folks…nothing interesting to see here especially when you take into account that the Nokia Lumia 900 with its better hardware is priced exactly the same on the same network and with double the amount of on-board storage (16Gb on Lumia 900 vs 8Gb on the Focus 2).

Once again this doesn’t make much sense at all in this day and age when Windows Phone 8 is getting close to release and may or probably may not be offered as an update to the current Windows Phone 7 handsets on the market. The only good thing to come out if this announcement is the fact that it squashes the ridiculous rumors that have been flying around about a the Samsung Focus 2 being the Windows Phone variant of the Samsung Galaxy S III. Nothing to see here folks….

Continue reading Samsung launches the Samsung Focus 2 Windows Phone with LTE support. World still wonders why →

LG temporarily abandons Windows Phone

Quick! Everybody abandon ship! The Windows Phone ship is sinking…or maybe not. LG (Windows Phone’s premiere OEM partner..)has simply announced during its latest earnings conferences call that it has no immediate plans to manufacture or ship a new Windows Phone based smartphone. Nothing really shocking here given that the south Korean manufacturer was totally absent from the Windows Phone 7.5 Mango launch last year and hasn’t done anything meaningful to the Windows Phone ecosystem since the initial platform launch in 2010.

LG isn’t totally abandoning Windows Phone and will continue research and development efforts in hopes of a brighter future. The company’s mobile division has been in the crapper for a little while now even with the launch of several high-end Android smartphones plagued by atrocious firmware issues (everything isn’t to blame on Windows Phone..). The LG Fantasy E740 with it’s NFC chipset will remain a prototype for ever.

Continue reading LG temporarily abandons Windows Phone →

Nokia Lumia 800 1600.2487.8107.12072 Firmware released, fixes volume bug: Install it now

The latest major Firmware update for the Nokia Lumia 800 may have fixed the most important issue; namely the buggy power management, but it unfortunately also introduced an annoying audio volume bug than made playing games in particular a real pain alongside other oddities like a super loud ringer volume the first second when a call arrives. Anyway, Nokia has finally put an end to all of this via a new Firmware update: 1600.2487.8107.12072 which has already started to roll out in some regions and that you can manually apply to your handset by following the instructions below (at your own risk):

Continue reading Nokia Lumia 800 1600.2487.8107.12072 Firmware released, fixes volume bug: Install it now →

Skype for Windows Phone is out of beta and publicly available now

Skype for Windows Phone 7 is finally out of beta and publicly available in the Marketplace for everybody to download. This new V1.0 version now includes the ability to search and add contacts, call landlines, ,video calling in portrait mode, friend management capabilities including invite, accept invitations, block, unblock contacts and several other improvements on top of what was already possible in the beta. Only major downside is the fact that application still doesn’t support background notifications so user simply can’t receive a call unless the application is open (unlike all the other Skype version on other platforms or even Tango on Windows Phone) but Skype as already announced that “This is the first of many releases to come for Windows Phone, so stay tuned for even more capabilities in the future“. You can download the Skype app directly from the marketplace here or by simply scanning the tags after the break:

Continue reading Skype for Windows Phone is out of beta and publicly available now →

Windows Phone 8 may or may not come to current handsets. Won’t stop them from working if it doesn’t

Windows Phone 8 will be available as an update to current Windows Phone 7 handsets….or not. Nobody, I repeat, nobody really knows the answer for certain. So everything you have been reading in the past few days, hours should be filed under the rumor tag. At the day of the day the question is: Does it really matter? Well, in terms of PR, Marketing and overall user trust, not releasing a Windows Phone 8 update (or a subset of it) for, at the very least, the second generation of Windows Phone 7 handsets (especially Nokia’s) would be one of the dumbest move Microsoft will have ever done. Remember, we are talking about the same company that launched the horrendous Kin handsets. Sadly, anything is possible with the boys and girls in Redmond so don’t get your hopes up.

Continue reading Windows Phone 8 may or may not come to current handsets. Won’t stop them from working if it doesn’t →

Windows Phone Translator receives major update: Real-time augmented reality and voice translation

Microsoft’s Windows Phone Translator application has just received a MAJOR update today with the introduction of the following new features:

- Point, Scan and Translate: This is a beefed up augmented reality version of the Bing vision translate feature already found in Windows Phone 7.5. Users can now use the device’s camera to translate text in real-time on the go. Works fairly good from what I have seen so far.

- Offline Translation: Users can download languages packs to use the app in offline mode.

- Type and Translate: Instant translation using keyboard input

- Speak and translate: Speak in any of the supported languages and the device will then speak back what you just said in the desired language.

There are also several other UI changes and tweaks (the ability to pin the aforementioned methods of translation directly on the start screen for speedy access). All in all this is a really amazing update so make sure to get it right now from here and check out the announcement video after the break:

Continue reading Windows Phone Translator receives major update: Real-time augmented reality and voice translation →

Nokia Lumia 900 Firmware update roll out has begun: Change Log

Several Nokia Lumia 900 users have reported that the much awaited firmware update, which was said to start rolling gout on April 16th, is now being pushed out through the Zune desktop software. Update: The roll out is now official according to Nokia. According to early reports the update fixes the following issues :

- Improved touchscreen sensitivity
- Improved WiFi auto-connection
- Fixed Camera launch bug: The camera now starts every time when the shutter button is long press when the phone is of.
- Overall performance improvements and stability (battery too it seems)
- Fixed lost data connection bug

Fell free to post you experience and findings in the comments below.

Continue reading Nokia Lumia 900 Firmware update roll out has begun: Change Log →

More than 3 Million Nokia Lumia phones sold since launch: Why the hate?

People simply love to hate on anything lately. Nokia decided to lower its Devices & Services Q1 2012 outlook today in the midst of its gigantic structural and economical transition following the arrival of Stephen Elop more than a year ago and the Microsoft partnership. Tucked inside the press release was this important piece of info:

In the first quarter 2012, Nokia sold more than 2 million Lumia devices at an average selling price of approximately EUR 220 (reported within the Smart Devices business unit). Furthermore, Nokia has seen sequential growth in Lumia device activations every month since starting sales of Lumia devices in November 2011.

Add this to the 1 Million Lumia devices already sold between November and December 2011 and we now have a grand total of 3 Million Nokia Lumia Windows Phones out there (the vast majority being Lumia 800s) and sold in less than 4 months. That’s huge in the small world of Windows Phone and further cement the fact that Nokia became the OS’s number one OEM nearly overnight. Although 3 Million obviously isn’t much when compared to other platforms (yes even Nokia’s own S40 and Symbian..as the company sold 10 Million non WP7 “smartphones” in the same quarter) this shouldn’t prevent Nokia from celebrating this small success. The vast majority of the web commentators simply chose to note that Nokia is lowering its forecast and that the company is going the way of the dodo. Sure..the number one mobile phone manufacturer in the orld with billions of $ in cash reserves is going to go bankrupt this year..okay. These people are probably the same ones who thought that Android was going to be a failure 3 years ago or thought that Nokia’s transition will be a matter of weeks instead of years.

Continue reading More than 3 Million Nokia Lumia phones sold since launch: Why the hate? →

Nokia Lumia 610 NFC officially announced: Q3 2012 release

Nokia has officially announced the first NFC enabled Windows Phone handset today; the Nokia Lumia 610 NFC. This may sound surprising given that even the company’s high end Windows Phone model, the Lumia 900, which just launched a few days ago doesn’t have an NFC chip in there. Nokia has apparently added its own software stack on top of Windows Phone 7.5 Tango to get this whole NFC thing going. Remember that LG has apparently done something similar with, the yet to be announced, LG Fantasy handset. The Nokia Lumia 610 NFC will be available in Q3 2012 on Orange. Check out the full press release after the break and a video demo of the handset in action:

Continue reading Nokia Lumia 610 NFC officially announced: Q3 2012 release →

Nokia Lumia 900 Data connection issue confirmed: Fix coming next monday with $100 AT&T credit

Still thinking that Nokia isn’t serious about it? Think again. The company has officially acknowledged that the recently launched Nokia Lumia 900 was suffering from a memory management issue that could, in some cases, lead to loss of data connectivity. The good news here is that fix has already been worked on and will be made available to current Lumia 900 owners next Monday, April 16th via and FW update through Zune. New devices shipping to AT&T stores also already have the fix per-installed so no need to worry anymore. Last but not least Nokia is also announcing that every person who has already purchased a Nokia Lumia 900, or who will purchase one between now and April 21st, will automatically receive a $100 credit to their AT&T bill! Sweet deal right? Well don’t forget that Amazon is still offering the device for only $49.00 so it will essentially be free on contract (well technically it would be -$50!) if you get it via the links below before April 21st!

Continue reading Nokia Lumia 900 Data connection issue confirmed: Fix coming next monday with $100 AT&T credit →

Nokia Lumia 900 still $49 on AT&T, HTC Titan II also launched while the Titan is free on contract

Everybody at AT&T, Nokia and Microsoft’s Windows Phone division is probably looking closely at the early sales numbers of the recently launched Nokia Lumia 900 and its brother from another mother the HTC Titan II (which doesn’t have any marketing push at all unfortunately). According to Amazon Wireless both variants of the Lumia 900 are currently the top selling handsets and tis isn’t really surprising given the buzz and $49.99 price (with a 2y contract). The HTC Titan II with it’s LTE modem (same MDM9200 as on the Lumia 00) and 16Mp camera (currently seems to take better overall shots than the Lumia’s thanks to a more mature camera stack and better white balance/noise algorithm) is currently selling for $149.99 (2y/contract) but the original HTC Titan is now back to being free ($0.01) with a 2 year AT&T contract! Hit the links below if you finally want to jump into the Windows Phone bandwagon.

Continue reading Nokia Lumia 900 still $49 on AT&T, HTC Titan II also launched while the Titan is free on contract →

The Nokia Lumia 900 isn’t going to save Windows Phone or Nokia

Time to put things back into perspective. I’m assuming that you all have already glanced over most of the Nokia Lumia 900 reviews today and noticed that the general consensus is that the device is great but definitely not earth shattering. Well, this was to be expected when you see it for what it really is: an over-sized Lumia 800 (with a Gyro, LTE modem and FF Cam) or more accurately a Samsung Focus S with an LTE Modem (and obviously better materials). Any sane person who isn’t a rabid Microsoft fanboy or hater would agree with this. Unfortunately not much more can be done with the current Windows Phone 7 chassis hardware specifications so Nokia and other OEMS are stuck releasing essentially the same phones until Windows Phone 8 Apollo is finally unleashed. Case in point: the Nokia Lumia 800 / 900 camera is undoubtedly held back by the Qualcomm MSM8x55 ISP. Nokia is known to use it’s own imaging silicon for its handsets but was unfortunately not allowed to do so in the Lumia line of devices (reason why the N9 with the exact same Sensor shoots better photos..). This will have to change soon if the Finnish company plans to pack its future flagship Windows Phone handset with the PureView 41MP camera. Fortunately we have learned that the Camera stack will be fully customizable by the OEMs in Windows Phone 8.

Speaking of WP8, there’s now the update issue looming over the Lumia 900 launch and gigantic marketing blitz. We are now getting close to HTC HD2 levels of insanity in terms of unknown when it comes to the upgrade path to Windows Phone 8 for the 1st Gen and 2nd Gen Windows phone 7 devices. In the case of the HTC HD2 we all knew that it for the most part conformed to the Chassis 1 specs but Microsoft decided that sacrifice its historical Windows Mobile fanbase and start from scratch with the WP7 launch in fall 2010. No big deal I guess as this allowed HTC to milk the same hardware platform with the HTC HD7 and HTC HD7S…meh. Unfortunately not allowing current 2nd Gen WP7 handsets to upgrade to Windows Phone 8 would be pure suicide on Microsoft’s part especially after all the hoopla that AT&T, Nokia are going to do this month. Imagine buying what is supposedly the carrier’s flagship handset and be notified a few weeks/months later that your device won’t be update to the latest OS iteration. This would be worse than the Android situation. The mystery here is that nobody outside of Microsoft and its OEM partners knows if the current handsets are powerful enough to cope with the new software unlike the HTC HD2 situation.

Continue reading The Nokia Lumia 900 isn’t going to save Windows Phone or Nokia →

Nokia Lumia 900 available for free on AT&T

Can’t wait to get your hands on the upcoming flagship Windows Phone from Nokia? Well, the Nokia Lumia 900 is currently available for free ($0.01 actually) with a 2 year contract AT&T is you are a new customer or want to add another line to your current plan (it’s $119 if you only want to re-new your AT&T contract). You can pre-order your Cyan or Black handset right now before it hits the streets in 7 days simply by hitting the links below.

Continue reading Nokia Lumia 900 available for free on AT&T →

AT&T Nokia Lumia 900 release to be the carrier’s biggest product launch ever

Get ready for a huge marketing blitz next week for the Nokia Lumia 900 arrival in the US as AT&T is stating that this will be their biggest product launch ever (yes bigger than the iPhone apparently..). Starting next week and during the whole month of April US citizens will be bombarded by TV ads from AT&T and Nokia, premier in-stores placement for the product which will also supposedly be in the hands of all AT&T stores employes who have been trained to sell the device (Nokia and Microsoft payed AT&T quite a bit of money for this one..).

“At all levels, this is a notch above anything we’ve ever done,” AT&T device head Jeff Bradley[...]“Before you walk in to the store, you know this is our hero phone,”

The $99.99 price will also make the Nokia Lumia 900 the most affordable Flagship product that AT&T has ever introduced and also the cheapest LTE handset. The Lumia 900 will launch on April 8th in Black and Cyan alongside that HTC Titan II ($199.99) followed by the White variant later on April 22th. Now if this device isn’t eligible for a Windows Phone 8 upgrade later this year there’s going to be a whole lot of angry people…

Continue reading AT&T Nokia Lumia 900 release to be the carrier’s biggest product launch ever →

Recent Comments

Official LinkedIn app for Windows Phone finally released

Nokia branded Windows Phone Marketplace has always been in the works

Nokia announces Exclusive applications and games for Lumia handsets and other Windows Phones: Angry Birds Space, EA Mobile games, Groupon, Paypal,

Nokia City Lens Augmented Reality browser released for Lumia phones

Nokia Lumia 800 1750.805.8773.12140 Tango update coming soon

Samsung launches the Samsung Focus 2 Windows Phone with LTE support. World still wonders why

LG temporarily abandons Windows Phone

Nokia Lumia 800 1600.2487.8107.12072 Firmware released, fixes volume bug: Install it now

Skype for Windows Phone is out of beta and publicly available now

Windows Phone 8 may or may not come to current handsets. Won’t stop them from working if it doesn’t

Windows Phone Translator receives major update: Real-time augmented reality and voice translation

Nokia Lumia 900 Firmware update roll out has begun: Change Log

More than 3 Million Nokia Lumia phones sold since launch: Why the hate?

Nokia Lumia 610 NFC officially announced: Q3 2012 release

Nokia Lumia 900 Data connection issue confirmed: Fix coming next monday with $100 AT&T credit

Nokia Lumia 900 still $49 on AT&T, HTC Titan II also launched while the Titan is free on contract

The Nokia Lumia 900 isn’t going to save Windows Phone or Nokia

Nokia Lumia 900 available for free on AT&T

AT&T Nokia Lumia 900 release to be the carrier’s biggest product launch ever

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