Verizon apps start showing up in Windows Phone 7′s Marketplace, you figure out the rest
It's an open secret (okay, it's not really a secret at all) that Verizon plans to carry Windows Phone 7 handsets before too long, and in preparation for that grand event, it seems Big Red is populating the platform's Marketplace with a few wares. Verizon versions of Slacker Radio and Netflix are now in there alongside a carrier app -- My Verizon Mobile -- that lets you pull the usual stunts with your account like changing features and paying your bill.
Categories: htc, Mobile Phone Tags: handsets, launch, microsoft, phone, radio, verizon, verizon-mobile, verizon-wireless, windows, windows-phone, wp7
Sharp Mobiflip channels Sidekick LX’s vibes for Mobilicity
Thought the launch of the Kin ONEm and TWOm was strange? Here's another oddity with a Microsoft tie-in: Canadian startup Mobilicity has just announced the "Mobiflip," a phone that the carrier's own press release calls out as being "similar to the Sidekick LX ." It's unclear whether what's left of Danger will be supporting the device -- the Sidekick line basically pioneered mobile cloud computing, after all -- but what we see of the interface certainly rings true to the Sidekicks of days gone by
Categories: Mobile Phone, Other Tags: certainly-rings, doppelganger, heck, interface, microsoft, press, release, result, sidekicklx
Samsung launches improved network config tool for unlocked Windows Phone 7 handsets
Out of the box, many Windows Phone 7 devices aren't really equipped to deal with the reality that you might want to use a network other than the one the phone launched on. The oversight sort of makes sense since Microsoft's launches have been closely tied to carriers so far -- but it's still an oversight that needs to be fixed on the double. Indeed, they're working on a fix -- probably to be included in future firmware revisions, we'd guess -- but in the meantime, Samsung has followed HTC's and LG's suit by releasing an app that keeps your MMS functional when you insert a third-party SIM
Categories: htc, Mobile Phone, Other Tags: microsoft, network profile, networkconfiguration, networkconfigurationtool, networkprofile, result, revisions, Sim, unlocked, windowsphone7
Microsoft: over 1.5 million Windows Phone 7 devices sold to carriers and retailers
Microsoft has decided to finally dish out some sales figures for its new Windows Phone 7 platform, but alas, these are not the sales figures we are looking for. Instead of giving us the juicy number of actual devices sold to end users, the Redmond crew has given us a neatly rounded 1.5 million figure of sales to mobile operators and retailers. That tells us that the mobile industry is buying into Microsoft's new OS, and it'd be foolish not to, but it doesn't really educate us much on the relative success of the platform's launch.
Categories: htc, Mobile Phone Tags: achim, achim berg, breaking-news, breakingnews, entry, microsoft, mobile-industry, relative, sales, windows-phone, windowsphone, windowsphone7
Windows Phone 7′s Marketplace grows faster than Android did at launch, doesn’t mean much
An analyst note released by research firm IDC yesterday points out that in the nearly two months since Windows Phone 7's retail release, the Windows Marketplace has swelled to 4,000 applications -- a number that the Android Market took five months to reach. That's impressive, no doubt, and the analyst behind the numbers notes that he "would not be surprised if Microsoft had the third largest app portfolio in the industry by the middle of next year." Now granted, hitting number three would take very little effort on Microsoft's part -- they'd just have to beat webOS, BlackBerry OS, and Symbian, none of which have sparked iOS- or Android-like levels of developer interest. So beyond that, what does the growth mean?
Categories: Android, BlackBerry, Mobile Phone Tags: apps, doubt, engadget, launch, microsoft, numbers, windows, windowsmarketplace, windowsphone7, wp7
Bing 2.0 brings better Facebook integration and the impressive Streetside to iPhone (video)
Microsoft just released -- or should we say, Apple just approved -- version 2.0 of the Bing search app for iOS devices. In addition to several other new features including integrated Facebook Likes on search results (really!?) and in-app checkins to Facebook and Foursquare, Bing now comes packing Streetside, something that first blew us away as Street Slide when it was still in the labs at Microsoft Research.
Categories: Mobile Phone, Other Tags: amsterdam, app, apple, checkin, engadget, ios, itunes app store, likes-on-search, london, microsoft, search, success
HTC Hub update helps save us from our Windows Phone 7 phones
Remember the Windows Phone 7 ads, the ones that promised to " save us from our phones " by giving us more "glance and go" information? For the most part, these phones haven't delivered on that promise due to the relative dearth of apps taking advantage of Microsoft's live tile concept
Categories: htc, Mobile Phone Tags: htc, htc hub, interface, microsoft, phone, relative, the-relative, tile, windows, windows phone 7
Microsoft: 15-app push notification limit isn’t that big of a deal, could be increased in the future
So Microsoft sounded off this week on the row over the 15-app push notification limit that just recently came to light, and while they've confirmed that the limit is very real, they've done a good job busting some of the FUD, explaining why it's not a huge deal, and how the limit might change in the future. First off, apps that support push but don't have it enabled don't count toward the limit, so that means that you won't necessarily end up with crashy software as long it's all coded correctly to handle errors raised by the operating system. Secondly, built-in live tiles -- Outlook, People, and so on -- don't count toward the limit, so if you include those, you could actually end up with over 20 total live tiles (sounds excessive to us, but we're sure someone's going to want to push the envelope)
Categories: Mobile Phone Tags: bandwidth, count-toward, entry, fud, limit, load, microsoft, Notifications, operating, outlook, server, sliver, windowsphone7
Microsoft said to be planning second Windows Phone 7 update for MWC in February
Coming this February, at a Mobile World Congress near you, from the company that popularized the Service Pack : a second major update to Windows Phone 7 . The observant among you will already be leaping out of their seats to point out that the first WP7 update hasn't even been delivered yet, but it seems like Microsoft's calendar stretches beyond the next month and the company's already churning away on enhancing and improving its rebooted mobile OS. Such is the scuttlebutt coming out of WinRumors , and it's kind of hard to argue with the postulation that Steve Ballmer wouldn't be keynoting MWC in 2011 without something significant to announce
Categories: Mobile Phone Tags: congress, fri, microsoft, mwc, mwc2011, patch, phone, scuttlebutt, Steve, update, windows
Plantronics Voyager PRO UC senses your Bluetooth wants and needs, softly whispers in your ear
We know, that headline makes it seem like the Plantronics Voyager Pro UC is going to seduce you, and well, after spending sometime with the headset yesterday at D: Dive Into Mobile we're thinking it may actually be pretty hard to resist. While it's not as snazzy as the Jawbone Icon or the Jabra Stone , its ear piece and ear hook contain capacitive sensors that know when you've got the device on your ear or in your hand
Categories: Mobile Phone Tags: bluetoothheadset, check, ear, entry, microsoft, mobile, sensors, thinking-it-may