Zune Boards

Lock Widgets 2.5 available for homebrew users

Locke — Wed, 01 Aug 2012 05:09:00 GMT

It may be a little difficult to run your homebrew apps now, but for those that can, the homebrew scene is still churning out apps to help enhance your Windows Phone experience beyond the vanilla capabilities of the system. If you've got an AppHub account or an unlocked ROM, you can still get the best of what the homebrew community has to offer, such as Lock Widgets.

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Lock Widgets extends the capabilities of the lock screen (though it would seem Microsoft is looking into that too) with such handy extras as weather (complete with effects on the screen to match conditions), a really big battery meter, RAM meter, SMS notifications, and more on the way like RSS. In order to run it, you need either a full unlock or interop unlock running WP7 Root Tools (which you can get here). You can pick up Lock Widgets courtesy of Windows Phone Hacker, the same site that provides Orientation Lock, which we've covered before.

[Windows Phone Hacker]

Nokia Lumia 900 gets a price cut

Locke — Sat, 21 Jul 2012 05:41:00 GMT

Nokia has been working hard to keep their phones affordable, keeping the Lumia line competitive and relevant, like when T-Mobile offered the Lumia 710 for $200 off contract. The Lumia 900 is the next to see its own price drop.

With Windows Phone 8 looming, people are, rightfully so, cautious about buying new hardware that will be outdated in mere months. As phones age, they need to drop in price to keep sales going. And so now, about 3 months since its release, the Lumia 900 is getting its price cut in half to $50 on contract with AT&T, an incredible deal; it's the same as the Lumia 710 on contract from T-Mobile, by all accounts much more of a budget phone than the 900, though looking it up now, it seems the 710 is free on contract if you buy online in what appears to be a permanent sale.

Should you buy the Lumia 900? It really depends. If the hardware improvements Windows Phone 8 promises are important to you, absolutely. If you're a heavy app user, it may be worth the wait as well, as I expect apps to raise in quality to fit the new hardware, games especially, and you may find that you need a more powerful phone in order to run new applications, and gradually people will stop writing apps with older phones in mind. If, however, you just want a good phone that will serve you the two years of your contract and beyond, the Lumia 900 is certainly an excellent and affordable choice. You still get quality hardware and the power of Metro, and Microsoft has a good track record of keeping firmware as up to date as possible, even on older hardware (my Zune 30 is a much greater device now than when I bought it), so you certainly won't be lacking in every new thing to come to WP8. I have a feeling that most of you reading now fall more into the tech enthusiast crowd than the mere tech user, so you'll probably lean towards waiting, but the Lumia 900 certainly does fill a niche for the average person.

[Conversations by Nokia]

Mirror's Edge comes to WP7

Locke — Sun, 15 Jul 2012 05:34:00 GMT

The Windows Phone Marketplace has come a long way since its inception, but there's always room for more quality apps. If you're a Lumia owner, you should be looking at Mirror's Edge.

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Mirror's Edge was a well-loved first person platformer (I know, it's hard to imagine that string of words together) based on the principles of parkour running back in 2008. When the topic is brought up, few familiar with the game would not want to see it receive a proper sequel. Mirror's Edge for portable devices (this is a port of the iOS game) isn't really that sequel, nor does it use the first person perspective that really made the game unique at the time (because in general, trying to run around without being able to see your feet is quite difficult, but Mirror's Edge managed to pull it off).

Instead, the gameplay mechanics are more akin to runners like Dino Run that we all played on sites like Newgrounds back in...well, I guess that would have been in 2008 too, wasn't it? Anyway, the concept is simple; you need to keep moving right and avoid obstacles, usually by jumping, and keep your momentum as best you can. Usually runners will pit some impending death behind you should you fail a jump and end up stopping, but Mirror's Edge seems more lenient in that regard. As far as runners go, it's a competently put together one, so if you're so inclined and have a Lumia phone, you can pick the game up on the Marketplace right now for $3. The exclusivity period for those devices isn't official, as far as I know, but I've heard 60 days thrown around in the rumor bin, so keep your eyes peeled!

[WPCentral]

Windows Phone 8 to have more powerful notifications

Locke — Sat, 14 Jul 2012 05:28:00 GMT

We all love live tiles; they're a powerful notification tool that aren't a drain on your battery and can quickly and easily display relevant information from an app. But what if an app needs to notify you of something and you don't have it on your start screen?

You can only have so many tiles before the screen feels bloated, and though the new size options should help fit more on the screen without it being a chore, if you're a heavy app user and prefer a sparse start screen, you've got to rely on toast notifications; they're less than perfect and if you miss them, they can't be easily viewed again like a live tile can. Microsoft has thus far avoided the traditional notifications center other mobile operating systems have implemented, but it seems they've decided to tackle this issue by using the lock screen in a decidedly minimal fashion.

The list of icons presumably stand for missed calls, texts, and email, or perhaps some more general system notification section. According to WPCentral, this is only the first piece of the new system and there will be something more developers can use in this new lock screen, though they decline to comment further and simply dangle the tantalizing tidbit for us with the promise we'll see more in weeks.

[WPCentral]

The Tale of Pandora, or Why API Support Matters

Locke — Sat, 07 Jul 2012 09:24:00 GMT

Yesterday I made a little mention of Pandora when I was talking about the return of MetroTube to the Marketplace. It's kind of old news by now that Pandora likes to break third party apps, but bear with me for a moment because I'm just using that as a springboard into a wider point that is begging to be made.

Pandora is a popular internet radio service that allows users to make their own stations by putting in the kinds of music they like, providing a more customized experience than tuning into the airwaves in your car. It was a great idea, and I remember signing up fairly early on, and was greatly intrigued by their Music Genome Project. As the years went on I found other ways to discover music and my own collection grew, and I find the tools Zune provides excellent at providing music, but I still remember what a leap it seemed to me when I was younger how great Pandora was at finding music I liked.

With the advent of Windows Phone 7, we wanted support for Pandora on our phones. People do everything on their phones these days, consolidating the PMP functions of old into the ever growing smartphone market. Pandora has continued to refuse to build an official app for the platform, as you can tell by a quick look down this list of articles. That's fine, the market for Windows Phone is only growing, and I think not getting in on it before Windows Phone 8 is a mistake, but committing resources to such a task is entirely their prerogative. What does bother me, and what you'll also notice looking down that list, is the frequent attempt to break anyone else's apps from giving access to the service. In the most recent statement, Pandora had this to say:

Quote:

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!

How can they say this with a straight face? If Pandora provided a client, I'm sure many Windows Phone users would jump on it (I'm aware there's an HTML5 website, but from what I've heard it doesn't run very well in WP7, so that's not a solution); it's certainly not a lack of want that causes people to use third party alternatives. I can understand the security concerns, I can understand that you don't want people to sell access to your service. I get that, in your opinion, Windows Phone isn't worth it. But there's a fairly simple solution to this: work with the people who are only trying to fix your mistakes.

When developers want to fill in the gaps in the Windows Phone lineup, they often run into problems, such as with MetroTube. Metrogram was also hindered by Instagram's lack of API support. In both cases, the developers were rebuffed when appealing to the owners for the support they needed to make their apps work. Google is rapidly becoming a monolithic corporation that eschews their founding "don't be evil" philosophy, and now Instagram is owned by Facebook, another large company that often puts its own interests above that of its customers, but do you really want to put yourself in their company, Pandora? You have fans who would be overjoyed to do all the development work for you. Sure, there's time and cost involved in vetting such applications to ensure that, at the least, they are not malicious, but this is nothing compared to the work you seem so afraid to undertake yourselves, and think of the good will you could garner with Windows Phone users if you stopped dedicating your efforts to stop us from using your service! Pandora, and indeed anyone who provides a service that deserves a place in the Marketplace lineup, should be working with their customers, not against them. So please, all of you service providers out there, if you're not willing to support our platform, will you at least make it possible for us to do it for you? We really want to.

MetroTube is back on the Marketplace!

Locke — Fri, 06 Jul 2012 14:00:00 GMT

You may remember how we applauded MetroTube last year as the best YouTube app available, especially important considering the service's ubiquity and the poor feature set of the official app. Sadly, it was pulled from the Marketplace about a month later by its developers, Lazyworm Apps, but it's now seeing a triumphant return!

MetroTube was originally pulled in the hopes that the issues surrounding API support with YouTube could be resolved, and that the features could be reliably provided into the future and not broken at the whim of Google (much like how Pandora works hard to systematically break third party apps like those on Windows Phone-which has no official client still, and I may touch on that in greater detail in another article). Sadly, it's been more than half a year since MetroTube went dark and no better solution has yet been found, so rather than simply let all their hard work go to waste, Lazyworm Apps has decided to put the app back on the Marketplace for all to enjoy once again. It is still a free app via the trial functionality, with the option to pay the developers if you wish. Why not go reward them for their hard work right now?

[Lazyworm Apps via The Verge]

Camera Extras expands your camera functionality

Locke — Sat, 30 Jun 2012 13:50:00 GMT

Usually once you get past how the screen looks, one of the first questions that comes to mind in evaluating phones these days is "well, how good is the camera?" Nokia, ever committed to increasing the value of their brand, has released a new app with four new improvements for the default camera functionality.

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The app will install as an app, but once installed integrates into the default camera functionality and acts more like an update. It features Smart Group Shot, which will take several photos and put the best faces together into one picture; Action Shot, which takes several photos and lets you pan between them to find which one worked best; Self Timer, a timer if you happen to have a tripod or some other way to keep the phone in place; and Panorama, which does exactly what it sounds and is somewhat simpler than Photosynth if you don't need to get those 360 degree shots.

It installs as an app through the Marketplace, and is available in the US and China now, with global availability in July. If you own a Lumia 900 or 610, you should already be up to date enough to run Camera Extras; Lumia 800 and 710 owners will need to grab the latest update to use it.

[Conversations by Nokia]

Watch the new Windows Phone 7.8 Start Screen in action

Locke — Thu, 28 Jun 2012 04:34:00 GMT

Ben Rudolph-or as you may know him better, Ben the PC Guy-has been the de facto face of Windows Phone ever since CES 2012 with the launch of Smoked by Windows Phone. As the single most recognizable face in Windows Phone media, it's fitting that he put together a video showing off the new Start Screen due for Windows Phone 7.8, as well as some of his thoughts.

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None of this is really new information, but more hands-on videos can't hurt. Something I hadn't noticed during the reveal was that the action of changing size is done with a button, rather than the expected pinch gesture; whether that is currently supported and simply not shown or intended to be supported later on down the line, I don't know. Having that button as it is though is a little bit bulky in use though, as it means you are relegated to changing the size only in this way: medium => small => large. This means, for example, that if you are currently in medium and what to go to large, you need to press this button twice, which will move the second time since the tile is now small. It's a small issue, but it's all those little things put together that makes Windows Phone such a go to use, so hopefully there will be something to make that bump a little smoother, like adding gesture support or a small and large button, the former of which is probably the least cluttersome one. Ben stresses that this is "a VERY early build of Windows Phone 7.8," so there's certainly room to iron out the kinks in the future.

[Windows Phone Blog]

Windows Phone 8 is finally here

Locke — Fri, 22 Jun 2012 06:24:00 GMT

The early rumors of Windows Phone 8 were coming right off the heels of CES this year, such as the leak featuring Joe Belfiore himself. Fittingly, the same man has announced Windows Phone 8 today, and many of the rumors surrounding the upcoming OS have found themselves vindicated. So what exactly does this announcement entail? Let's see!

Before we cover what's new, I'd like to set some minds at rest, specifically, those who currently own Windows Phone 7 phones. There will be no direct upgrade to Windows Phone 8, however, you will receive an upgrade to Windows Phone 7.8. This is much akin to, say, the upgrade the Zune 30 received when the Zune 80 became available; you got everything the older hardware could support, rather than the new firmware straight. For the Zune 30, support for the squircle was useless, just like, say, NFC support won't help your Lumia 900 any. Microsoft's Greg Sullivan says to expect the 7.8 update only to come to current generation phones. Though somewhat disheartening, considering some first gen phones like the Samsung Focus are still prized, the good news is that older phones means you're that much closer to the standard 2 year upgrade cycle, meaning you have the freedom to upgrade and take advantage of the new hardware which is promising indeed. With that out of the way, what do we have to look forward to in new devices?

First off, it's confirmed that Windows Phone 8 will be powered by "the same core technologies that power Windows 8," presumably Windows RT (the ARM variant). Much like how you can resize live tiles in Windows 8 and gain access to different uses, you can change the size of Windows Phone 8 live tiles to small, to the regular size we're all used to, to a larger rectangle to show off snippets of text or larger images. This feature is also confirmed for Windows Phone 7.8. You can see this feature in action in the following video:

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There's also a few much-desired hardware upgrades, such as larger resolution screens, multi-core processors, and wide and simple MicroSD support. NFC is making its way over as well, with an accompanying digital Wallet feature to support it. Internet Explorer 10 is coming along, of course, as well as Nokia's support in the built-in map tools. Speaking of Nokia, you may be happy to know that they're responsible for helping Zynga bring over Words with Friends and Draw Something, two of those must-have games for some people, along with a camera app to add functionality to the default set of features; you can check out those and other apps over at Nokia. Other apps, like official Chase and PayPal apps, are due in the future as well, with the new official Audible app available now on the Marketplace. For future apps, native code support will be improved, as well as improvements to multitasking. In-app payments will be supported, and VoIP programs can interface with the built-in calling function of the device (they're still phones, remember!) and be answered like any other phone call. Future revelations are also promised. And speaking of apps, Microsoft has now officially recognized their 100K barrier breaking and released a video showcasing some of what's out there:

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Microsoft also promises more enterprise features (and further tempt people from the sinking ship that is RIM) such as device encryption and remote management, but for most of you this probably won't affect your daily lives. What will, however, is a further expansion of the Marketplace support, reaching 180 countries and 50 languages, which is quite impressive. Updates should be getting even better (remember how smooth, relatively anyway, Mango went over?) with over-the-air becoming the norm and a promised 18 months of support for every device from the date of its launch. There will also be a program for enthusiasts to sign up for early access, a welcome feature indeed.

And that's it for this round of announcements; it's quite a lot of information, and the results seem promising. New hardware is expected from Nokia, Samsung, and HTC, which makes sense considering they're the largest and most visible hardware manufacturers in Windows Phone devices, but apparently Huawei is also pledged to making a first-gen WP8 device, which is surprising considering they've never made a Windows Phone before. They distinguished themselves with quad core devices like the Ascend D, so it'll be interesting to see what they can bring to the table in Windows Phone 8. And that's it for the news, folks, enjoy!

[Windows Phone Blog]

Microsoft announces their own Windows 8 tablet

Locke — Tue, 19 Jun 2012 05:56:00 GMT

Microsoft has been rumored to be releasing their very own tablet for some time now, and it seems, for once, the rumors have shown themselves true. So, what are the details?

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First off, here's the video showing off the new hardware, full of bouncing Buckeyballs and rotating tablets. True to form, Microsoft has pulled out another good looking piece of hardware (Zune HD, anyone?), this new selection called Microsoft Surface (after the somewhat niche computer-in-a-table product). There's a selection of images you can peruse over here. The spec sheet (sparse as it is this early on) is here.

The first thing that really stands out about the Surface is the cover. Apple's folding Smart Cover doesn't hold a candle to the functionality of the Touch and Type covers, the first being a touch sensitive keyboard complete with multi-touch trackpad. The Type cover offers a more traditional keyboard with buttons, as well as the trackpad. The tablet has a built in kickstand to keep the tablet upright for typing. Unlike your standard Bluetooth keyboard you'd need to lug around with your tablets if you really wanted to do some real typing on it, this is a keyboard that you really want to carry around with you, the Touch adding only 3 mm to the total thickness of 9.3 or 13.5 mm thickness of the Surface itself. Speaking of versions, the first runs on Windows RT (the ARM version of Windows 8), and the second runs on Windows 8 Pro. The x86-based offering has higher capacities, a bigger battery (though it's unknown how long it'll actually run, and x86 eats more power than ARM), some nicer ports (USB 3.0 instead of 2.0), at the cost of slightly greater thickness and weight, 903 grams to 676. Both have a 10.6" screen at 16:9 aspect ratio, though no resolution has been announced. The x86 version also comes with a stylus.

[Microsoft Surface]

Show off your Windows Phone love with some gear!

Locke — Sat, 16 Jun 2012 23:46:00 GMT

Everyone loves swag, right? Depending on where you lived, Zune gear always seemed on the rare side, but Windows Phone devices are becoming more common in the wild, and now we have a plethora of accouterments to adorn ourselves in to show our love of the platform.

The logo rather reminds me of a certain commercial you may remember, and you can get it on everything from shirts to cups to bags to magnets. All of this is provided on CafePress, and the prices are a bit high, but it's important to note that this is the lowest price CafePress allows people to set; Microsoft isn't making any money from selling these products. I must say that the mug is awful appealing, though I wish you could get it in all black (presumably this is a CafePress limitation). Anything you guys have your eye on? If you buy something, make sure to share it with us!

[Windows Phone Blog]

Careful using that eBay app

Locke — Sat, 16 Jun 2012 12:55:00 GMT

Programming is a labor of love, and sometimes that "labor" bit can end up being emphasized more than the "love" part. Missed closing a brace? Iterate that loop one too many times? Those and a host of other mistakes, large and small alike, can sometimes slip through and wreak havoc on your program until you can find the error and correct it. No one is immune to this, from hobbyists to corporations, as eBay has recently shown.

The eBay app is a decent and fully Metro offering, however, you should take care when bidding. Apparently it has a tendency to misplace that all-important decimal point; for instance, one unlucky person had their bid of 211.69€ turn into a bid of 21,169.00€! This happens after it presents your bid for confirmation so you're sure you typed it right, meaning you don't have any opportunity to fix the bid before it is official. No fix appears to have been released since this issue, so you should probably avoid using the app to bid on items until the all-clear is sounded.

[WPCentral]

Marketplace finally reaches 100K apps

Locke — Sat, 09 Jun 2012 07:29:00 GMT

It's been a long road getting here, but the Windows Phone Marketplace has finally broken the barrier of a full 100,000 apps, a major milestone important to any major platform. We did expect this to happen a month or two ago, though this was during CES, so it's understandable that the pace of new apps has slowed down as the hype did. So, with that said, what are the stats?

As usual, and just like how everyone else counts their apps, this number represents the total number of apps published, not the number currently available; this number can vary based on regional availability, as well as when Microsoft or a publisher removes their app. A small number are published but not currently available for one reason or another. The total number of apps across all regions is 88,371, and you can see the breakdown here. The numbers generally correspond to how long the Marketplace has been available in that region. You can hit the source for all the numbers you can handle.

[All About Windows Phone]

Try out the chemical puzzler Atooms to Moolecules!

Locke — Thu, 07 Jun 2012 22:35:00 GMT

Well, as a part of my daily routine I check out Steam to see the new games, what's on sale, and so on. Today I noticed a banner promotion for a series of games from Level Up 2011, an Intel run contest for game demos made by smaller developers, with prizes ranging from one to ten thousand dollars and a spot on Steam guaranteed. There seems to be only one game currently listed as a full game for pre-purchase, Splice, and the winners list doesn't appear to be on Intel's site at the moment, but one of the games still listed as a demo caught my eye immediately, called Atooms to Moolecules. The best thing? It's also a free Windows Phone game!

Ever since SpaceChem I've been primed to notice anywhere "chemistry" and "puzzle game" are put in the same vicinity. But whereas SpaceChem is an advanced and difficult game more akin to programming than gaming (which is a large part of its charm and what makes it a suitable educational aid), Atooms to Moolecules is a fun and casual experience where different "atooms," each with their own unique color and face, will drop down into the screen; a guide on the side tells you which "moolecule" to make, but the order is important and that's for you to figure out. Each atoom will want to form a certain number of bonds, and you need to manipulate them correctly in order to to make sure you have bonds available for every atoom you want to assemble. Adding to the challenge, a little artificially, is how the atooms will begin to pile up, making it hard to get the right atooms to pair, so be ready to break a few bonds here and there!

I must admit, I'd never heard of the developer, BitSits Games, before, and judging by their catalog on the Marketplace, most people haven't either, though Squares Vs Triangles has a respectable four stars from 13 ratings. You can check out Atooms to Moolecules on the Marketplace now. You can also pick up the straight PC download here and the Steam version here.

SkyDrive updated

Locke — Fri, 01 Jun 2012 06:53:00 GMT

As you may know, SkyDrive recently got a major overhauling, from little things like increasing the file size limit, to big ones like the brand-new desktop clients. If you happen to have been using the SkyDrive desktop client you may have noticed the update (currently version 16.4.4111.0525), but there are also some updates service-wide as well.

As expected, general bug fixes are out, but the biggest service-wide change you'll probably notice is that you can now have ten million files stored. Now, even with paid plans this will be quite a challenge to fill, but I'm sure some people will find a way. The previous limit was 150,000. You should also expect file updates to reach all your devices faster, which is definitely great. If you happen to have Windows 8, you'll also notice that the default Photo app will now interface with your SkyDrive to pull images from any of your devices. That's it for the changes, enjoy!

[SuperSite for Windows]