windows mobile

Microsoft–you might want to have a word with Rogers

December 30, 2011 | By Surur

rogers

It is easy to forgive European carriers calling Windows Phones Windows Mobile devices, especially since mobile generally means phone in Europe.

Robbers, sorry, Rogers, have no such excuse, and more than a year after Windows Mobile has been discontinued Rogers, who only offers the Samsung Focus, is still selling “Windows Mobile” handsets.

Hopefully a little attention will get Roger’s webmasters to make a few tweaks.

Do our readers have any more examples of wayward carrier branding. Let us know in the comments below.

Thanks Alec for the tip.

12

Stuck on Windows Mobile? Get the Windows Phone 7 look

August 26, 2011 | By Surur

We still hear reports that Windows Mobile outsell Windows Phone 7, and I am sure there are tens of millions of Windows Mobile users out there.

Filipe from lolfactory has created this free Windows Mobile today screen plugin which emulates the Windows Phone 7 start screen. The app uses .NET Compact Framework 3.5. and is still under active development, with Felipe planning to add jump lists and other mango features.

Follow his progress in this XDA-Dev thread here, or download the app at FreewarePocketpc.net here.

Via WindowsPhonethoughts.com

9

HTC HD2 gets USB Host

August 19, 2011 | By Surur

The Dark Forces Team, famous HTC hackers, have been working for some time on adding USB Host, which allows USB periferals to be added to phones, to the HTC HD2.

Their effort has not been without success, but they want to move on to other things, and have decided to release what they have achieved so far.

The current solution supports the Human Interface Devices profile, meaning mice and keyboards can be added, and also USB Mass Storage, meaning hard drives and pen drives are supported. They warn that the implementation is still expirimental and a self-powered USB Hub or special cable may still be required.

If you are still sporting an old-style Windows Mobile 6.5 HTC HD2 and you like hacking, read more in the XDA-Dev thread here.

Via HDblog.it.

Thanks ele for the tip.

1

WMPU Reader attending Microsoft’s UK Windows Phone 7 focus group–what message do you want to send

August 1, 2011 | By Surur

Regular reader Raf will be attending Microsoft’s UK research panel on the 10th August 2011.

The panel’s mission is:

Own a Windows Phone? Want to tell us what you love, what you don’t love, what’s your favourite feature? We’re looking for 24 enthusiastic UK fans to attend a research panel in central London, on the evenings of 10th/11th August at 6:15pm or 8pm.

Now I know we have many other enthusiastic users with ideas they would like to share with Microsoft. Raf is asking what message the WMPoweruser.com community would like to send.

If you have any ideas you wish to convey let us know in the comments below, and Raf will be sure to take note.

65

Microsoft Research Working On Smartphone Multiplayer Gaming

June 28, 2011 | By Pradeep

Microsoft Research is working on a project called Switchboard which explores on better way to implement smartphone multiplayer gaming. The cloud service will handle the multiplayer gaming requests, finding opponent, network handoff, etc. MSR will present the paper Switchboard: A Matchmaking System for Multiplayer Mobile Games during MobiSys 2011.

Here is the description of the project,

“Multiplayer gaming on smartphones is a very challenging technical problem,” he says. “Gamers move around, the wireless channel is hostile, the bandwidth you need is not always there, disconnections can happen, and smartphones are energy-constrained.

“If you just take a game and put it on a smartphone, it is not going to work.”

The key to Switchboard is that it works as a “matchmaker,” finding potential game players and assigning them to a group most similar for each player’s phone and network connection.

“Let’s say there are 20 candidates for a game,” Bahl says. “You might find that some have very low battery levels—even if they wanted to play the game, they would be able to play for only a few minutes. Others might be moving around so much that lots of handoffs [between cell towers] will happen, resulting in disconnections, and they will not enjoy the game. Or some might be located in highly congested areas where a lot of people are using phones and the available network bandwidth is low.”

Switchboard finds suitable game candidates by “pinging” their phones to estimate latency: the time needed to move a packet of data. Latency is important to gaming because a long lag time—in the hundreds of milliseconds—to move data can affect game play.

During the tests, MSR team used the service with HTC Windows Mobile. However, there is still the possibility of the same coming to Windows Phone if the research pays off. You can read on the research here.

2

My Phone for Windows Mobile shutting down 6th October

June 8, 2011 | By Surur

In its day My Phone for Windows Mobile was a pretty good service, and offered features which we still have not seen in Windows Phone 7.

However all good things must come to an end, and as Microsoft phases out support for Windows Mobile it is also withdrawing services which support it.

On their website Microsoft has announced that back-ups will stop on the 7th August and the website will shut down on the 6th October 2011. Photos, calendar, contacts and text messages will be migrated as files to Sky Drive, while users will need to remove or lose their videos, music, documents, favourites and tasks.

Unfortunately it seems Microsoft will not be making it easy to save your content en masse, with items needing to be saved one at a time. Users will however have until 5th October 2012 to request their content on CD.

The Marketplace for Windows Mobile website will also be shutting down, but will remain available from the phones themselves.

We hope Microsoft take some of the good ideas of My Phone, which includes a near complete back-up of the most important data of your phone in the cloud, and incorporate it into a similar service for Windows Phone 7 also.

Read more about the termination of service at Microsoft here.

Will any of our readers be affected by this shut down? Let us know below.

Thanks Tommy for the tip.

5

Windows Mobile 6.x Marketplace winding down–no more app submissions from July 15th

May 17, 2011 | By Surur

The Windows Mobile 6.5 Marketplace launched in November 2009 and never really caught on, peaking at around 7000 apps and may now only have around 1500 apps in the store.

No wonder then that Microsoft appears intent on winding down the effort and deploying their resources elsewhere.

According to a MSDN forum post by Edgeway software Microsoft has sent an email to developers telling them they will not be accepting any further submissions to the Windows Mobile 6.x marketplace from the 15th July. Apps will still be available to purchase and download by end users, but no new apps will be added.

Of course Windows Mobile is not Windows Phone 7, and the millions of handset owners who still have an older device are of course free to side load to their hearts content, but it is still somewhat sad to see the platform which kept me connected while mobile for so many years slowly slip away.

Do many of our readers still run Windows Mobile handsets? How do you feel about this latest development? Let us know below.

16

Fring also bids au voir to Windows Mobile

March 24, 2011 | By Surur

In a short but succinct blog post, Fring hang up on the call on the Windows Mobile operating system.

They wrote:

As of today, fring for WM, UIQ & J2ME is no longer available for new users. We will continue supporting existing users on these platforms for the foreseeable future.
A big thank you for our users and hope to see you soon on our fully supported platforms including iPhone, Android and Nokia/Symbian.

The fring Team

Fring has always been the Skype alternative offered after Skype itself dropped support for Windows Mobile, so this move is particularly poignant.

Unlike the recent departure of Opera Mobile, fring made no mention of future support of Windows Phone 7, and of course the OS is also otherwise devoid of a proper VOIP solution. Like many other features, it likely awaits both Microsoft delivering OS updates and the actual client itself.

For those we want to save a copy for posterity it can be downloaded here.

Via Mobiputing.com

6

No Opera 11 for Windows Mobile, possibly for Windows Phone “when and where there is a business case for doing so”

March 22, 2011 | By Surur

A sad farewell to a Windows Mobile stalwart

Opera has announced in a forum post that they will no longer be releasing new versions of their browser for Windows Mobile.

Noting that there have not been new devices released with the mobile OS for some time (not really true) and that its market share is rapidly shrinking (certainly true) , they claim “the platform can no longer provide the revenue potential that Opera Software would need to keep investing in it.”

They did not however close the door on all Microsoft mobile operating systems, saying about Windows Phone.

Regarding Microsoft’s new platform, Windows Phone 7, Opera is continuously evaluating that and other platforms and we will make products available when and where there is a business case for doing so.

Opera Mobile 10 and Opera Mini 5.1 for Windows Mobile will continue to be available for download.

The Opera Mobile browser was instrumental in keeping Windows Mobile competitive in its last 3 years, so it is sad to see a pillar of the operating system and user experience on these devices go away. However on Windows Phone 7, I believe rather unexpectedly, the IE browser has been more than adequate, and of course we are expecting even more from an updated IE9 browser some months time.

Via Favbrowser.com

Thanks Andy for the tip.

19

Gune search repertoire expanded

December 14, 2010 | By l3v5y

The Gune mobile search and directory app, by Brazilian developer Handcase, has been updated with an additional 15 searches: Google News, Bing news, Picasa, Friendfeed, Wikipedia, Delicious, YouTube, Flickr, IMDB, Bing images, Scribd, Metajam, Amazon and eBay.

Gune (Basque for “site”), whose main claim to fame is running simultaneous Google and Bing searches and serving the best results from both, can be downloaded for Windows Mobile for free here. There is as yet no version for Windows Phone 7.

0

Bing disabled on non-US Windows Mobile 6.5

December 7, 2010 | By l3v5y

Microsoft has removed support for its Bing client on Windows Mobile 6.5 users outside the United States.

The updated Bing client, released last month, has only been made available to US users, with support withdrawn from earlier versions. While Bing can still be accessed through m.bing.com, Windows Mobile 6.5 users outside the United States will be unable to use the app, which includes a new turn-by-turn navigation feature.

Thanks to Ryan Smith for the tip.

7

What Device Are You Getting Tomorrow?

November 8, 2010 | By WenWP

What device will you be getting tomorrow? In Europe and much of the world, Windows Phone 7 has been out and everyone has had their go at it. Tomorrow the United States and Canada gets a try at the next big thing, and I am personally myself a new HD7. I tell you this because I would like to know what device you are getting come launch day tomorrow.

The T-mobile HD7 seems to be the most anticipated by American’s, and with deals coming from not just T-mobile but Amazon, getting this device should not be too hard. I am getting my device from T-mobile without a contract for $499.99 which means $539.97 with tax included (I should know, I just bought a G2 two weeks ago). Amazon will be pricing this new device at $169.99 with a new contract for T-mobile.

Regardless, please comment below and tell us your device choice and maybe we have something in common.

Image/Amazon info via: W7P

3

Windows Mobile hits 3% market share, Windows Phone 7 expected to do better

November 1, 2010 | By Surur

r2010111 Canalys have released their Q3 2010 smartphone market share numbers, and the latest numbers see Windows Phone 7 market share hitting what is likely to be rock bottom for a Microsoft mobile OS, 3%.

For the 80 million smartphones shipped, that would account for 2.4 million handsets sold, down 600,000 from Q2 2010, when the OS held 5% of the market.

Fortunately for Microsoft Microsoft has already started shipments of their new OS, with early reports indicating a great reception.

Canalys agrees, writing:

Devices running Microsoft’s OS accounted for just 3% of worldwide smart phone shipments in Q3 2010, though with the launch of Windows Phone 7 devices, the outlook for the fourth quarter and beyond is significantly improved.

"Windows Phone 7 is streets ahead of earlier iterations and provides a vastly improved user experience that will pleasantly surprise many people when they come to use it. The integration of Microsoft service assets, such as Xbox Live, Bing, Zune and Office, greatly strengthens the proposition and we are confident that the initial array of products will perform well," said Chris Jones. "But the big challenge will be for handset vendors to differentiate their devices sufficiently given the restrictions Microsoft has placed on customizing the user interface, and its relatively demanding minimum hardware requirements, which will confine devices to the higher end of the market. The market is also awaiting the platform’s availability in non-roman languages to support its expansion into important emerging markets. Failure to deliver this soon will restrict the volume opportunity."

Of particular interest in the numbers is how rapidly Android has moved to replace the iPhone, growing 1,309% YoY from 1.4 million units a year ago to 20 million units in Q3 2010 , now dwarfing the market share of Apple’s operating system in USA (43.6% vs 26.2%), despite the release of the iPhone 4 falling in the same period. While in some ways this may make Google look unassailable, it is actually much more an indication that the market remains volatile. Microsoft of course hopes some of that mojo, including multiple carriers, networks and manufacturers, rubs off on its Windows phone 7 handsets. Apple of course, with only one phone on the market, should be worried.

Read the full report of Canalys here.

Do our readers agree that, like Windows Mobile, the iPhone is heading towards becoming yesterday’s news? Let us know below.

2