When you run the numbers on Microsoft’s mobile platform, it doesn’t look good. Despite the debut of Windows Phone 7 about a year and a half ago, the company is losing mobile users faster than it can add them.
It was a long time coming, but back in February Skype made it onto Windows Phone… in beta. Now, testing is over, and you can get your hands on the full, official version from the Windows Phone Marketplace.
Earlier this week, a Microsoft spokesman announced that all Windows Phone 7 devices would be getting the upgrade to Windows Phone 8. Today, developer evangelist Nino Silva acknowledged that he, uh, misspoke. Apparently he confusing was application compatibility with device upgrades and cleared things up on his blog today.
If your phone is running Windows Phone 7, you’ll be able to upgrade to Windows Phone 8 when it comes out. Yes, even if your handset was among the first to market. Hey Android, are you listening? That’s how you do upgrades.
We like Nokia’s Lumia range. We even like Windows Phone, even if we do wish it would get its act together. Unlike Europe, which seems to think that Nokia’s latest Windows-based offerings suck.
The Lumia 900 is a hell of a phone. It’s also cheap, but it’s not for lack of quality parts: iSuppli crunched the numbers and determined it costs $US217 to build and manufacture. That’s more than the iPhone.
Nokia’s having an interesting time with its launch of the beautiful Lumia 900. But today it launched the new, NFC-packing Lumia 610 at WIMA, and it’ll have support from Visa and MasterCard.
When we’re out shopping, we’re encouraged to buy “Australian Made” goods, but how do you transfer that concept into the App world? Niall Ginsbourg from Mobilewares.net (who we’ve covered previously in Developers Cubed) and Scott Sheedy of WPDownUnder came up with a great concept to do just that, promoting Aussie-made Windows Phone 7 apps along the way.
We first heard about Qantas developing a Windows Phone app almost a year ago. The app has finally been released this week, offering flight schedules, frequent flyer information and a GPS-based calculator that works out how long it should take to get to the airport from your current destination.
