Surur

Site Admin and Windows Phone enthusiast, he has been using Windows Mobile devices since before they were called PocketPC’s. He is currently sporting a HTC 7 Trophy.

AAWP confirms 90,000 Windows Phone apps, add more details

May 15, 2012 | By Surur

We posted yesterday, as calculated by WP7Applist.com, that Marketplace crossed the 90,000 apps mark.

Today AAWP has has weighted in with their own count, confirming 92,383 Windows Phone apps in Marketplace, being added at the rate of 340 apps per day, 24,371 in the last three months, 7,409 in the last month and from over 22,000 different publishers.

AAWP expects the 100,000 mark to be reached in June 2012.

Entertainment remains the the single biggest category (17,079 items), followed by tools + productivity (13,605), games (11,509) and books + reference (10,821 items). These proportions remained steady over the least few months. 68% of apps are free, with the number slowly increasing over time as more developers turn to ad-supported applications.

Microsoft getting into the Location-based ad game with Local Scout

May 15, 2012 | By Surur

One of the holy grails of advertising is location-based ads, and when combined with search ads it makes for a rather good revenue opportunity for the provider.

Techie-buzz noticed that Microsoft finally got into the game, by offering relevant ads in their local scout app, such as this ad for Olive Garden from the Yellow Pages in the screen shot (from Techie-buzz).

The next step would of course be relevant ads via toast notifications, which would of course require Microsoft to add a location-based notification like in iOS – hopefully coming in Windows Phone 8.

While Windows Phone users would likely prefer an OS without ads, generating an additional revenue stream besides the license fee makes it easier for Microsoft to justify their investment in developing the OS, which is never a bad thing.

Via Techie-buzz.com

9

Now 1.9 million Windows Phone Facebook users, around 12 million devices in the wild

May 15, 2012 | By Surur

The number of monthly active users of the native Windows Phone Facebook integration has taken another tick up, crossing 1.9 million users today.

It took 20 days since 1.8 million, slightly faster than the 21 day average but slower than the 15 days it took from 1.7-1.8 million, which was likely due to the Nokia Lumia 900 launch.

Using our usual ratio, we now estimate that there are around 12.3 million Windows Phones in use in the wild. This number exclude Chinese Tango phones, which lack Facebook integration.

At current rates it appears around 3.2 million Windows Phones will have been sold in Q2, but of course once again this excludes Chinese Tango phones and does not take into account bumps due to the launch of the Nokia Lumia 610 and potentially Samsung’s new lower-end Windows Phones, which may raise this number to slightly above 4 million, for a likely 3% market share.

The vast majority of these 4 million Windows Phones will likely be Nokia Lumia handsets, and it is of note that since the release of the Nokia Lumia 800 in October 2011 the total number of Windows Phones sold have doubled in less than 7 months, after taking a year to reach around 6 million before this.

Hopefully this growth can continue, with a target of between 5-10% market share at the end of the year.

Thanks jp for the tip.

6

Microsoft’s ‘30 to launch’ contest winners announced

May 15, 2012 | By Surur

Microsoft has announced the winners of their ‘30 to launch’ developer contest, which challenged developers to go from picking a concept to publishing a Windows Phone 7 app in less than 30 days.

The 4 grand prize winning apps are Brain Cube Reloaded, Play the Hunt, Social Mints, and Surf Info.

Social Mints is an app that allows you to easily monitor the Web and Social Media for interesting and trending content in real-time. You can track & measure what people are saying about a topic that interests you, get the latest on a celebrity or event and keep tabs on your favorite sports teams.

Play the Hunt is a treasure hunt game played in the real world using your Windows Phone.

In this game, you have to figure out the next location from the given clue. When you arrive at a location, you have to play a mini game on your phone and upload a picture before you can move on to the next clue.

The Surf Info shows the current conditions at various surf spots around the U.S. All of the data backing the score is similarly presented in a concise and colorful form.

Brain Cube Reloaded is a Rubics Cube type game with great graphics.

Their developers will receive a state-of-the-art entertainment package that includes a La-Z-Boy© recliner and a Lenovo^®IdeaPad U300 Ultrabook.

Read more about the apps at 30tolaunch.com here.

Thanks Ran for the tip.

1

Kantar: Windows Phone climbs to 3-4% market share in major markets, may have overtaken Blackberry in USA

May 15, 2012 | By Surur

Market research company Kantar WorldPanel has revealed in the last 12 weeks to mid-April Windows Phone has shown strong growth in the 7 major markets they monitor on the strength of Nokia’s offerings.

In 5 of the 7 markets (Germany, Britain, Italy, France and United States) Windows Phone market share is now in the 3-4% range, up from less than 2% in January 2012. In Germany Windows Phone market share more than doubled year on year to 6%.

In contrast RIM saw its US market share collapse to just 3% from 9% a year earlier, suggesting Windows Phone may have matched or even passed RIM’s market share in USA.

Kantar has predicted in January Windows Phone market share may hit 10% in Europe in the second half of 2012, and it seems to me with more Windows Phones being announced all the time that this may very well be achievable.

Via Reuters.com

18

Want Siri to tell you which is the best smartphone? You just have to ask the right questions!

May 15, 2012 | By Surur

While apple has been plugging the holes in Siri’s Reality Distortion field recently, careful probing can still get Apple’s voice control system to admit that, overall, Windows Phone 7 users love their Nokia Lumia 900’s maybe just a little bit more than Apple users love their iPhones.

So while Siri will no longer admit that the Nokia Lumia 900 is “the best smartphone ever” asking it which is the phone with the best customer satisfaction does produce the now expected results (until Apple changes the script again of course : ) )

Prank your iPhone totting friends while you can!

Thanks Brent3000 and Riven for the tip and screen shot.

5

Photosynth for Windows Phone one step closer, hits version 1.0

May 15, 2012 | By Surur

The lack of a Microsoft Photosynth app for Windows Phone has been a particular sore point for some time now, given that the app has been on the iPhone for more than a year now.

We saw some test pictures in February and now there is some evidence of progress, with a Microsoft account tweeting the above image, which claims to be from Photosynth 1.0.0, with even details in the screen shot suggesting that version 1.0.0 is nearly ready for prime time.

If the app is not released soon, it may form part of an announcement at Microsoft’s June 20th Summit, where details of Windows Phone 8 is expected also.

via WPCentral.com

1

Homebrew Folders updated to version 4.1

May 15, 2012 | By Surur

Jaxbot has announced an update to his homebrew Windows Phone 7 app which brings start screen folders to unlocked Windows Phone 7 handsets.

The update features:

PNG images are now used, meaning the accent colors should always be correct on the start screen
Custom library is used for launching, which should fix conflicts with Battery Status.
WP7 Root Tools SDK 0.2.1 is now used, which should speed things up a bit
Optimizations, code cleanup, etc.

The download can be found at the Folders page, where one can also supply feedback and ask for help with any issues.

Via WindowsPhoneApps.es

0

Pandora confirms they are not working on a Windows Phone client (yet)

May 14, 2012 | By Surur

5 of 6 A WPCentral reader has asked Pandora about their constantly changing API which breaks (unauthorized) third party clients regularly, and received this response:

Thanks for writing and for the feedback. Thanks also for your interest in having Pandora on Windows Phone 7. We are not developing an app at this time, but we will definitely keep it in mind while planning our product priorities for the future.

We know that our recent release has broken most unsupported Pandora clients, and we do apologize for the surprise and inconvenience that undoubtedly caused to your listening experience.

At a basic level, third-party applications are violating our Terms of Use and are obviously not authorized to sell (or give away) something that fundamentally derives its value from our product.

Beyond the boilerplate, though, the fact is that–while the use you are writing in about seems designed mainly to help folks listen to Pandora in their own way–some folks do use third-party unsupported client libraries in a harmful way, and so we make changes when we need to prevent this. Regrettably, we have no way of targeting changes towards some unsupported clients and not others–some are respectful of our business, but unfortunately we can’t tell them from those that are not.

Even disregarding attempts at malicious use, we do of course still have to continue to upgrade our software, and unsupported clients have been broken by these sorts of routine changes many times in the past as well.

We definitely do recognize that our actions limit the options available to well-intentioned listeners who do not want to use any of our endorsed clients, and we’re genuinely sorry for the inconvenience this brings to our enthusiastic listeners like yourself! We really appreciate your support of the service and respect the DIY spirit, but our hand has been forced on this issue.

Thanks so much for your understanding, and thanks again for reaching out.

While the Pandora respondent clearly harboured Windows Phone no ill will, the same can not be said of the company as a whole, who have stubbornly refused to support Windows Phone despite clients for Spotify, Rhapsody, Last.FM, Rdio and others all appearing in Marketplace.

So if you have been holding out for an official version of the Pandora app, stop holding your breath and enjoy all the hacked versions already in Marketplace.

9

Now more than 90,000 apps in Marketplace

May 14, 2012 | By Surur

The Windows Phone 7 Marketplace has continued its sprint to 100,000 apps, crossing the 90,000 app mark recently.

WP7Applist.com has been crawling the 65 worldwide Windows Phone Marketplaces looking for the total number of unique apps, and their count has already crossed 90,327 with a dozen more marketplaces to go. This method is different from their usual survey, which does not count all markets, resulting in the number higher than their usual official result.

The last noted milestone was 82,000 announced by All About Windows Phone on the 3rd April and with more than 300 apps being submitted every day we should be well over the 90,000 mark now.

A number of apps in the 6 digit range should go far negate the argument that Windows Phone has no apps, so we look forward to that major milestone, likely in the next 3-4 weeks.

Thanks Luigi from WP7AppList for the data.

9

Chinese Nokia Lumia 800c "sales have been brisk in all possible channels"

May 14, 2012 | By Surur

The Nokia Lumia 800c launched in early April on China Telecom to long queues and reports of good sales.

A bit late, we have a comment from Nokia regarding the performance of the handset.

According to China Daily, Wang Jingqiu, the company’s Beijing-based spokesperson, said "sales have been brisk in all possible channels".

There is some other evidence that the Lumia range is selling well, with Statcounter showing the market share of the handset rapidly rising from a low of 0.16% at the beginning of the year to 0.4% now, ahead of Blackberry, which never really took of in China.

Nokia recently reinforced their range with the Chinese launch of the low-end Nokia Lumia 610, which should help the company reach for that low end high volume price point which has always been their forte.

Thanks Manuel for the tip.

14

Samsung creating a new CDMA Windows Phone 7.5 handset for China?

May 14, 2012 | By Surur

In what I suspect many would call a bizarre turn of events, on the eve of Windows Phone 8 a whole collection of low end Windows Phone 7.5 handsets are popping up.

Samsung recently joined the party with the lower-end Samsung Omnia M and Samsung Focus 2, and now the company appears to be working on another Windows Phone 7.5 handset with CDMA.

The "SCH-S759" manufactured by Samsung Electronics is a CDMA2000/GSM phone which passed through the Wi-Fi certification group on the 4th May, 2012.

The WIFI b/g/n handset also passed through the Bluetooth SIG with 2.1 + EDR Bluetooth, now unfortunately a hallmark of Windows Phone, given that near everyone else have upgraded to Bluetooth 3.0 and 4.0.

Lastly, as the cherry on the cake, Blog of Mobile found a user agent string (Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; MSIE 9.0; Windows Phone OS 7.5; Trident/5.0; IEMobile/9.0; SAMSUNG; SCH-S759) which definitively identifies the handset as a Windows Phone 7.5 device.

It is unlikely Verizon will be releasing a new Windows Phone 7.5 handset anytime soon, and Blog of Mobile suggests the device may be heading to the CDMA networks in China.

The handset may be the Samsung Minuet rumoured for a June release in China with Tango on board.

Either way, it seems Samsung is not content to let Nokia play in the Windows Phone pen all by itself.

Via unwiredview.com

2

Nokia Lumia 610 pre-orders start in Russia

May 14, 2012 | By Surur

Online store Svyaznoy.ru has opened pre-order for Nokia Lumia 610 .

The handset is starting at somewhat of a high price – at 9990 Rubbles it is only 700 rubbles cheaper than the Nokia Lumia 710, which is of course a more capable handset. WP7Forum.ru expects the price to stabilize at around 7-8000 Rubbles eventually.

The handset will be available in Black, White and Blue. No release date has been announced yet.