Windows Phone Summary of the Week: October 10 - 16, 2011

News
By
last updated

We're kicking off this week's summary with Dave Blake listing hot discussions you could be missing out on over at our Windows Phone forum. If you're residing in the UK and are an owner of a Windows Phone, have you heard about the new review section at the official Windows Phone UK website? A small competition is being ran which we're helping to judge! Simply review your experience and be in with a chance to win. Head on past the short break for the full summary.

Starting off is the news of Samsung and HTC to invest more to market Windows Phone, which is what every user has dreamed about for the past year, while Microsoft commits a further £20 million to promote Nokia handsets with Samsung receiving some extra funding. The Nokia ring tone contest has ended with a winner being announced. The new Nokia ring tone is a controversial dub step mix. We've witnessed a few CV (resume) apps making their way onto the Marketplace, yet more rubbish to increase numbers.

India has launched Windows Phone with a bang, sporting the HTC Radar, Samsung Omnia W and Acer Allergo, which ties in nicely with word that 30% of users are now running Mango. Blackberry users were unfortunately struck with downtime to services including email, BBM and more, which opened up an opportunity for some to switch with free Windows Phone handsets being given out. At long last the deal for Microsoft to acquire Skype has been closed. The last highlight is the ChevronWP7 Labs unlocker is only a few weeks away from launch with new details being published.

Everyone should have massive grins on faces with iBlast Mokia being this week's Xbox Live Deal of the Week. Microsoft opened up preview registrations for the new Xbox dashboard refresh that's set to arrive this fall and take the look of Metro UI. We're all more than aware of the recent absence of Xbox Live titles for Windows Phone and Microsoft has provided some insight as to why this is the case. To wrap up our gaming news, Microsoft Game Studios has a new official blog for Xbox Live Arcade and Windows Phone games.

Navigon has landed in the US and European Marketplaces at high prices and massive sized downloads. Updates have hit a number of apps including Netflix, MSN Movies, USA Today, Xbox LIVE Extras and Boards Express. With all the OS updating that has been performed as of late, Engadget ran a poll covering iOS 5 with a Mango option. The results are interesting to say the least.

We put the Internet functionality in Windows Phone to the test and it turns out to perform superbly, as expected. DFT is hard at work to follow up on the first generation ROM, which will bring added features and to be freely unlocked. If this wasn't enough, we take a look at some old videos to remind us of how Microsoft's TellMe is to blow Apple's SIRI out of the water. Finally, Bing Maps receives a new colour scheme along with more legible features.

Andy Lees, has spent some time talking about LTE and dual-core CPUs, defending the decisions made by the team to stick with single core chips. New Nokia 800 advertisements emerge, let us see what happens at the upcoming Nokia World. According to Expansys in Canada, not only are they shipping the HTC Titan and Radar, but the Titan is number two in the top 20 best selling handsets this week. Keeping on good news, Australia is apparently taking to the HTC Mozart in the last 12 weeks.

Windows Phone handsets being sold on eBay are increasing in price, which could be an exciting new trend we're witnessing in the UK for demand. Orange France has alerted customers to a €8 a month tethering option that could be covering Mango too, while LG Germany has confirmed that an update for Internet sharing is coming. Should you be in the dark about tethering, check out a brief list of supported devices and firmware. Sprint favours the iPhone 4S by using the HTC Arrive as a poster prop in their Buyback program.

Fun, fun, fun! UK based film extras were in demand for a new Windows Phone Zombie game, but if that's not your scene then why not enjoy some humorous wallpapers? The Guardian, a British newspaper, has launched an iPad app, which looks like a simplistic Metro approach, but works really well. We'll close this section up with a simple and free app from Microsoft that creates a Live Tile which acts as a status indicator and short-cut to manipulate the 3G connectivity setting.

Unfortunately, the only developer orientated news we have this week is a new Silverlight for Windows Phone Toolkit ebook. Well worth checking out.

Highlights

Gaming

Software

Hardware

Fun

Developers

Rich Edmonds
Rich Edmonds
Senior Editor, PC Build

Rich Edmonds was formerly a Senior Editor of PC hardware at Windows Central, covering everything related to PC components and NAS. He's been involved in technology for more than a decade and knows a thing or two about the magic inside a PC chassis. You can follow him on Twitter at @RichEdmonds.