“Verizon may finally be preparing to start offering a Windows Phone 7 smartphone, following months of rumors about the launch date.”
Is it finally happening? It appears so. Verizon has launched a discussion forum specifically for Windows Phone. Unfortunately, the exact date that Verizon will be launching their first Windows Phone device still remains up in the air.
So, other than Verizon customers now having a new venue where they could speak to each other about how long Verizon is taking, there isn’t anything definitive.
“Fat fingers and compact smartphone screens just aren’t a good match. Combine a few key misses with a well-meaning auto-correction feature and it’s no wonder that “I ate the hummus” turns into “I ate the humans.” But Windows Phone 7 users find that their keyboards seem to have a better knack for knowing what they intend to type-or even what they intend to say.”
If you have used a Windows Phone 7 device, you will undoubtedly be amazed by the on screen keyboard and its knack of guessing what you want to type. Douglas Gantenbein has posted an article about their concepts and thought process that ultimately resulted in the Windows Phone 7 keyboard.
Can it really be ? Yes, an app which lets you transfer raw files onto your Windows Phone. Hann File Transporter pairs up with the freely available Hann Portable Server to let you upload and download files directly from your computer.
Office files on your computer can also be opened directly from your Windows Phone. Hann File Transporter also includes a media player and an image/text/html viewer for viewing files stored locally and directly off Hann Portable Server.
Links – Hann File Transporter – Zune Link
Full story
Hann File Transporter – Upload and download files to Windows Phone is original content from Coolsmartphone.com
The US launch of Windows Phone 7 is on Monday, and AT&T stores around the country are gearing up for the release. The display seems to showcase not only the operating system, but the Xbox 360 as well. This is great since one of Microsoft’s strengths is the strong ecosystem. Only one more day until users around the country find out for themselves!
“Earning Xbox Live achievements on the toilet? Awesome. Being able to play online multiplayer games with my other Xbox Live friends and earning achievements while on the toilet? That would be even awesomer. Right now, Windows Phone’s link to Xbox Live is only medium satisfying, but the potential for amazing things is eyeball-explodingly obvious. Full-on Xbox Live multiplayer. Xbox Live Arcade games that you start playing on your Xbox and then pick up waiting in line at Starbucks, like Castlevania: Symphony of the Night. Earning items in a Fable Windows Phone game to use in Fable IV. Truly ubiquitous Xbox gaming, so even the most atrophied addicts can leave the house and still get their game on. Windows Phone should be the portable Xbox. (And it should be a remote for your Xbox too.)”
There’s no shortage of ways that Microsoft can improve Windows Phone 7 – despite the version number, it’s really 1.0 software, and has lots of growth required before it’s on even footing with rival platforms that have 3-5 years of growth behind them. There are some interesting things on this list, though some of them are kind of odd – would you really power off your phone in the middle of a game instead of exiting the game, then powering it off? The author of this piece is complaining about how it takes a few seconds to resume a game that’s behind the lock screen when he powers the phone back on – I’ll have to try the same thing on my iPod Touch to see how iOS handles it…
Windows Phone 7 on the HTC HD2 ? Yep, you read that right. It’s ever-so-slightly slower but really, you wouldn’t notice. Everything is here. The sounds, the multi-touch, the whole thing, on an existing Windows Mobile 6.5 device.
Now, after the huge fallout from the unofficial microSD upgrade how long will it be before Microsoft says, “Don’t do this either”? And how much longer before someone asks, “Why can’t I upgrade my existing HTC HD2 to Windows Phone 7 then? Well, start the clock..
Link – Youku.com
Credit – Phil
Read on and add your comments. Follow us on twitter too.
“Dell is shifting 25,000 of its employees, or one-quarter of its work force, from Research in Motion’s BlackBerry to its own Windows Phone 7-powered Venue Pro. The company is still in discussions with T-Mobile USA, the carrier for the Venue Pro, for buying voice and data in bulk.”
Yea yea yea, it’s all nice and good that Dell is switching en masse to Windows Phone 7. However the article contains a line that I’ve been wondering when the heck we’d see for years now: “The company says that the switch will save money (as it will no longer need to pay for RIM’s services)”. Wow, you mean it’s cheaper when you don’t have to pay for RIM’s servers to push mail to you? You mean, actually rely on technology present in Windows Mobile since Windows Mobile 5?!? And you don’t even get the added benefit of periodic worldwide outages due to some server in RIM’s headquarters going crazy?
Needless to say, in my opinion, the real story here is a company waking up and realizing they can get everything they want out of Microsoft’s product lines, without the bloat and extra charges inherent to Blackberry. First doesn’t mean best, and unless RIM realizes that, Blackberry is going to be in trouble over the next few years.
“Dell is shifting 25,000 of its employees, or one-quarter of its work force, from Research in Motion’s BlackBerry to its own Windows Phone 7-powered Venue Pro. The company is still in discussions with T-Mobile USA, the carrier for the Venue Pro, for buying voice and data in bulk.”
Yea yea yea, it’s all nice and good that Dell is switching en masse to Windows Phone 7. However the article contains a line that I’ve been wondering when the heck we’d see for years now: “The company says that the switch will save money (as it will no longer need to pay for RIM’s services)”. Wow, you mean it’s cheaper when you don’t have to pay for RIM’s servers to push mail to you? You mean, actually rely on technology present in Windows Mobile since Windows Mobile 5?!? And you don’t even get the added benefit of periodic worldwide outages due to some server in RIM’s headquarters going crazy?
Needless to say, in my opinion, the real story here is a company waking up and realizing they can get everything they want out of Microsoft’s product lines, without the bloat and extra charges inherent to Blackberry. First doesn’t mean best, and unless RIM realizes that, Blackberry is going to be in trouble over the next few years.
“Dell is shifting 25,000 of its employees, or one-quarter of its work force, from Research in Motion’s BlackBerry to its own Windows Phone 7-powered Venue Pro. The company is still in discussions with T-Mobile USA, the carrier for the Venue Pro, for buying voice and data in bulk.”
Yea yea yea, it’s all nice and good that Dell is switching en masse to Windows Phone 7. However the article contains a line that I’ve been wondering when the heck we’d see for years now: “The company says that the switch will save money (as it will no longer need to pay for RIM’s services)”. Wow, you mean it’s cheaper when you don’t have to pay for RIM’s servers to push mail to you? You mean, actually rely on technology present in Windows Mobile since Windows Mobile 5?!? And you don’t even get the added benefit of periodic worldwide outages due to some server in RIM’s headquarters going crazy?
Needless to say, in my opinion, the real story here is a company waking up and realizing they can get everything they want out of Microsoft’s product lines, without the bloat and extra charges inherent to Blackberry. First doesn’t mean best, and unless RIM realizes that, Blackberry is going to be in trouble over the next few years.
“Dell is shifting 25,000 of its employees, or one-quarter of its work force, from Research in Motion’s BlackBerry to its own Windows Phone 7-powered Venue Pro. The company is still in discussions with T-Mobile USA, the carrier for the Venue Pro, for buying voice and data in bulk.”
Yea yea yea, it’s all nice and good that Dell is switching en masse to Windows Phone 7. However the article contains a line that I’ve been wondering when the heck we’d see for years now: “The company says that the switch will save money (as it will no longer need to pay for RIM’s services)”. Wow, you mean it’s cheaper when you don’t have to pay for RIM’s servers to push mail to you? You mean, actually rely on technology present in Windows Mobile since Windows Mobile 5?!? And you don’t even get the added benefit of periodic worldwide outages due to some server in RIM’s headquarters going crazy?
Needless to say, in my opinion, the real story here is a company waking up and realizing they can get everything they want out of Microsoft’s product lines, without the bloat and extra charges inherent to Blackberry. First doesn’t mean best, and unless RIM realizes that, Blackberry is going to be in trouble over the next few years.
“Dell is shifting 25,000 of its employees, or one-quarter of its work force, from Research in Motion’s BlackBerry to its own Windows Phone 7-powered Venue Pro. The company is still in discussions with T-Mobile USA, the carrier for the Venue Pro, for buying voice and data in bulk.”
Yea yea yea, it’s all nice and good that Dell is switching en masse to Windows Phone 7. However the article contains a line that I’ve been wondering when the heck we’d see for years now: “The company says that the switch will save money (as it will no longer need to pay for RIM’s services)”. Wow, you mean it’s cheaper when you don’t have to pay for RIM’s servers to push mail to you? You mean, actually rely on technology present in Windows Mobile since Windows Mobile 5?!? And you don’t even get the added benefit of periodic worldwide outages due to some server in RIM’s headquarters going crazy?
Needless to say, in my opinion, the real story here is a company waking up and realizing they can get everything they want out of Microsoft’s product lines, without the bloat and extra charges inherent to Blackberry. First doesn’t mean best, and unless RIM realizes that, Blackberry is going to be in trouble over the next few years.
“Windows Phone 7 launched in Europe last month and is launching in North America next week. You’ve seen the commercials. You’ve seen the demos. But have you heard much about the update infrastructure we’ve put in place for the devices? Probably not. It’s isn’t as sexy as the glorious AMOLED screens some of these devices have to show off the “Metro” interface. There has however been some discussion on the update process, especially after it became apparent we’ll be releasing some features after the devices are already in the field. You’ve probably heard about Copy/Paste, right?”
If you’ve already read my article on the new Windows Phone Update process, you’ll know most of this, but it’s an interesting interview nonetheless. What I didn’t realize is that while Microsoft controls the update process, it sounds like the wireless carrier, or the device OEM, can bundle up whatever fixes they want, they hand if off to Microsoft for distribution. Likewise, if Microsoft wants to fix some code with one of their own apps – or the core OS – they put it in the pipeline. Like I said in my original article, this is the update process we’ve been wanting for, oh, a decade now…
Over the last few weeks the HTC HD7 has become my introduction into the all-new Windows Phone 7 OS. The very kind people at o2 have loaned us this and the full review is now online.
This is a 4.3″ device so it’s on the “limits” of size acceptance for some but we found a lot to like. The handset has a kick-stand, stereo speakers, a 5 megapixel camera (with HD video recording), 480×800 WVGA multi-touch screen, 3.5mm audio jack, WiFi, 512MB ROM, 576MB RAM, Bluetooth 2.1 and 1230mAh battery. This o2 version also has 16GB of on-board storage – more than all the Windows Phone 7 devices we’ve seen.
The review contains the usual up-close photos, screenshots and some hands-on videos that you’ve not seen as yet, so dive in on the link below.
Links – HTC HD7 Review – o2.co.uk
Read on and add your comments. Follow us on twitter too.
“Today, Netflix announced that its WP7 app is now live and ready to download. As with the Netflix apps for other platforms, the WP7 version is totally free and will allow you to watch streaming content on your device.”
Well, there you have it. The venerable Netflix movie service is officially ready to stream content right to your new Windows Phone 7 device. The app is free and is available on the Zune Marketplace. Personally, I’m not a movie watcher on these smaller devices. I do enjoy watching short video clips such as those on YouTube, but I have yet to feel the urge to download and watch a full-length movie. I do own an Archos media player (with a 4.3″ screen), that I have watched movies on, and enjoyed that a fair bit, but my current smartphone has a 3.7″ screen and it just seems too small. I’d be interested in your opinion and thoughts. Do you watch movies on your smartphone device? Is this Netflix app something that you’d take advantage of?
“Today, Netflix announced that its WP7 app is now live and ready to download. As with the Netflix apps for other platforms, the WP7 version is totally free and will allow you to watch streaming content on your device.”
Well, there you have it. The venerable Netflix movie service is officially ready to stream content right to your new Windows Phone 7 device. The app is free and is available on the Zune Marketplace. Personally, I’m not a movie watcher on these smaller devices. I do enjoy watching short video clips such as those on YouTube, but I have yet to feel the urge to download and watch a full-length movie. I do own an Archos media player (with a 4.3″ screen), that I have watched movies on, and enjoyed that a fair bit, but my current smartphone has a 3.7″ screen and it just seems too small. I’d be interested in your opinion and thoughts. Do you watch movies on your smartphone device? Is this Netflix app something that you’d take advantage of?
“No doubt, one of the coolest features of Windows Phone 7 and the companion Zune Desktop software is the ability to sync wirelessly. For years we’ve had to endure tethering our devices to our computers, loose USB wires everywhere, etc. (Even more ironic is you remember wireless syncing in ActiveSync before they removed it).”
Microsoft may have taken WiFi synching out of ActiveSync a few years back, but it’s been re-introduced on the back of the Zune desktop service – which is no surprise given that the Zune has been able to do a WiFi sync for a couple of years now. I didn’t get a chance to test this with my Windows Phone 7 device – which, boo hoo, has now been sent back to Microsoft – but with my Zune HD is works really nicely so I’d expect it to be the same with Windows Phone 7. Read on for more on how this feature works, and how to set it up.
Check out the rest of the comic here – funny stuff! No, there’s no Windows Phone user yet, but that’s not surprising right?
“Microsoft has announced that a new batch of Crackdown 2 DLC will be released later this month…Microsoft is also planning to release a Windows Phone 7 tie-in project later this month. Entitled Crackdown: Project Sunburst, the game offers up tower defense gameplay utilizing Bing Maps”
It will be exciting to see the Xbox Live companion type games come to the marketplace. Any Crackdown 2 players out there?
“Microsoft has announced that a new batch of Crackdown 2 DLC will be released later this month…Microsoft is also planning to release a Windows Phone 7 tie-in project later this month. Entitled Crackdown: Project Sunburst, the game offers up tower defense gameplay utilizing Bing Maps”
It will be exciting to see the Xbox Live companion type games come to the marketplace. Any Crackdown 2 players out there?
“Microsoft has announced that a new batch of Crackdown 2 DLC will be released later this month…Microsoft is also planning to release a Windows Phone 7 tie-in project later this month. Entitled Crackdown: Project Sunburst, the game offers up tower defense gameplay utilizing Bing Maps”
It will be exciting to see the Xbox Live companion type games come to the marketplace. Any Crackdown 2 players out there?
