Disclaimer There is nothing new in this post. I'm just bringing this up now because a lot of people seem to not know the facts. It also has nothing to do with Windows Phone specifically, but rather pretty much every platform. The point of this post is not to spread FUD, but to remind people to not take security for granted. OAuth For those that don't know what OAuth is, it is an open...
With both the Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8 launches over we are seeing more and more devices with pricing and dates appearing around the world. Today we've confirmed the release date and pricing of the Nokia Lumia 920 and Nokia Lumia 820 in the Emirates with an official Nokia store. We spoke to Nokia at the Bawadi Mall in Al Ain, United Arab Emirates to get the following details...
Much has been said about Microsoft getting ready to release a whole bunch of new products, but it’s easy to forget that smaller markets often get left out, and don’t get anything close to the US release dates. But here’s some good news for you South African folk. You will be receiving Windows 8, and Windows Phone 8 devices in the very near future! Windows 8 For the duration of today (...
So, as many of you have heard, Microsoft has killed off XNA and every game written in the framework is doomed. Except that isn’t the whole story. If you don’t know, XNA is a game development framework made by Microsoft to aid developers in rapidly creating cross platform games. The name stands for: XNA's Not Acronymed. Writing a game in XNA enables it to run on Windows, XBOX, Windows...
It’s no secret that Windows Phone accessories aren’t exactly flooding the market at the moment. And while there are great places like the WPCentral store, here in South Africa our choices are more limited. You see, many local stores don’t stock anything, and shipping items from the states just isn’t worth it most of the time. I even went to an official Nokia store here to get a cyan...
Long Zheng, the man behind the popular istartedsomething blog and MetroTwit, has teamed up with Andrew Armstrong and Ed Hooper to found 121cast. As described from their website, 121cast is reinventing the radio by creating an online platform that delivers personalised audio for consumption on the go. Our vision is to be the "radio station" of choice for smartphone owners with an...
It is quite a well known fact that smartphones tend to use a lot of data, and this is particularly true with Windows Phones which are very well connected to the world around you. In fact, Microsoft even urges users to get an unlimited/uncapped data package for their phones. That's not a problem in the U.S. as many providers have competitive packages offering just that. For those living...
Well, here's an interesting little tidbit for those that use Dropbox to store or share files. We have all seen documents getting leaked out of large organisations to the public, and invariably said company usually get's the documents removed for legal reasons from wherever they are being hosted. In fact, after the supposed presentation about the XBOX 720 leaking, we saw it being removed...
When PhotoSynth for Windows Phone 7 hit the marketplace last week, we knew there would be discussions over the requirement of a gyroscope - and there was. When users try download the app with a phone that doesn't have a gyroscope, they are presented with an error that reads "Some features in this application might not work because your phone doesn't have..gyroscope" - this does not stop...
![Buddy cloud platform for Windows Phone officially launches [Developers]](https://www.windowscentral.com/sites/wpcentral.com/files/styles/w300h225crop/public/postimages/16032/Buddy-PurpleBG1.png?itok=HT4QbHrM)
If you're a Windows Phone 7 developer, you would probably have heard us talk about this Kirkland, Wash. startup. To recap, it was founded by David McLauchlan (CEO), and Jeff MacDuff (CTO). Both are former Microsoft employees with Dave doing work on the Zune hardware business amongst others, and Jeff working on a range of products including that Windows Phone 7 you're clutching. Although...
![Buddy platform goes free until August [Developers]](https://www.windowscentral.com/sites/wpcentral.com/files/styles/w300h225crop/public/postimages/16032/buddy-wp7.png?itok=dncxZoyl)
In September of last year we wrote about the startup created by two ex-Microsofties called Buddy. Buddy is a cloud platform that has support for all the major mobile Operating Systems (and HTML5), and makes it really easy to integrate web services into your app. With a few lines of code you could add a high score list, or get push notifications and Live-Tile updates out to all of your...
The guys (and gals) over at XDA regularly provide the Windows Phone community with homebrew apps that fill some gap that non-native apps cannot. One of these gaps is screenshots. The Windows Phone Operating System provides no support for taking screenshots, which can cause reviewers like ourselves some hassles. So we previously covered an app called Screen Capturer which took...
Virgin Mobile in South Africa is typically a bit behind the rest of the crowd. In-fact, it's only recently that they have realized that smart-phones should probably be on their offerings. And compared to the other service providers, they have a fraction of the subscribers. So while some countries are celebrating the launch of the Nokia Lumia 900, it's with joyful surprise that we can...
Over this past weekend Nokia hosted a hackathon in Durban, South Africa. Previously they have held similar events at other cities across the country, and are still having one up in Johannesburg soon. So there are many just like it, but this one was mine. For those of you who don't know what a "hackathon" actually is, you might be surprised to hear that it's got nothing to do...
![Metro Studio 1: Thousands of Metro icons, FREE [Developers]](https://www.windowscentral.com/sites/wpcentral.com/files/styles/w300h225crop/public/postimages/16032/syncfusion.png?itok=uFeKlwxy)
Every so often we cover tools that help out developers, but this is in another league. A company called SyncFusion has created a product called Metro Studio 1 which looks to be invaluable to developers and designers alike. The company traditionally develops .NET components for ASP.NET, WPF, WinForms, Silverlight, WP7 and others. Metro Studio 1 comes with 600 unique metro icons that...
Being a developer is tough, and every developer will agree. If they don't, they're in denial. We have long hours, we get no sleep, we spend hours tweaking things that 90% of users will never notice (much like designers), and often get no recognition for any of this. You don't just wake up one day and are suddenly a coder, it takes work. I used to lecture Microsoft technologies at a...
Joe Belfiore has just announced via the Windows Phone Developer Blog that the Windows Phone Marketplace is being enabled in 23 new regions. This won't be effective immediately, but in the coming months the Marketplace will be available to publishers and consumers in the following regions: Bahrain Bulgaria China Costa Rica Croatia Estonia Iceland Iraq Israel...
It feels like it was just yesterday that we ran the story about Nokia stealing the top-spot with regards to Windows Phone market-share. Analytic firms often throw around numbers, and for the most part we just believe them. This does of course make sense, as any reputable firm would much rather keep a good name, than make up random numbers. But it's always good to see actual data backing...
Every now and then we feature apps whose prices are going down for a small promotional period. Obviously, in general people seem to like free stuff. But how much? Well, I have an app called FFFFound in the Windows Phone Marketplace, which has been mentioned here on WPCentral a few times. It's has quite a niche target market, and because of that doesn't have many users. So before...
Update: Sam Williams, GM or Luma Arcade, has posted the following comment clarifying the situation: I'm General Manager and co-owner of Luma Arcade. We have indeed begun the process of winding down operations for our current office in Johannesburg. However, our team and production capacity are alive and well. Closing our Johannesburg office is not a decision taken lightly of course,...