We know you have an Android or iOS device hanging around you somewhere. It might be an iPad Mini or Nexus 7 that you bought just to tide you over till similar sized tablets running Windows 8.1 became available. Or maybe you just really like technology and like to stay up to date. Either way, your Xbox Music collection will now be with you anywhere. The app is available for Android and...
Kantar Worldpanel's latest numbers shows rapid growth for Windows Phone sales in various markets, but slight dips in China and only modest growth in the US Windows Phone is still making steady progress in Europe, according to latest data published by Kantar Worldpanel. The platform has leaped to grab 8.2 percent of sales across Europe in the UK, France, Germany, Italy and Spain....
Some good news today for Windows Phone as the latest numbers, based on device shipments from earlier this year, have revealed a steady increase for the third place operating system. According to the IDC’s latest numbers, Windows Phone has seen a surge of 77% year over year for device shipments (8.7M in 2013 versus 4.9M for 2012). With those numbers, Windows Phone has increased from 3.1...
It’s hard to ignore the tablet category of computing devices. The iPad made them accessible to the mainstream with a relatively easy and familiar interface combined with sensible form factor. Since the first iPad releasing back in early 2010 we’ve seen the tablet segment explode with many platforms and players all wanting a piece of the pie. Nearly a year and a half after the iPad...
Amazon is currently launching its AutoRip service in Europe, which will join the already established US version. Music purchased through the cloud player and those bought on the Amazon websites are stored in the online music storage to be played on multiple devices, including the Kindle Fire family, iPhone and iPad, Android hardware and through a web browser. Native Windows and Windows...
We're back at The Garage - essentially Microsoft's attempt to take Top Gear and spin it with the Office suite of products. Jeremy Chapman, Office Senior Development Lead and Amanda Lefebvre, Senior PMM of Office Web Apps both walk us through the new real-time co-authoring that's feature in the upcoming web version of Office. Sit back, relax and enjoy the ride as we're taking through...
Microsoft has unleashed its popular 365 Office suite onto the iOS platform and is available to iPhone owners who have an active subscription. Those who download the app will be able to view and edit Word, Excel, and PowerPoint documents while on the go. The suite is fairly feature rich with SkyDrive support and more, but there's the absence of Outlook. It's good to see Microsoft...
Today has been an exciting day for both video gamers at E3 and Apple fans at WWDC. Despite what you may think, I actually followed Apple’s event just as closely as Microsoft’s press releases on the Xbox One. As I sat on our sister site, iMore.com, and watched the WWDC Live blog I realized that I absolutely loved the updates to iOS7. Apple decided to go for a “flat” design and get rid of...
Apple has today unveiled that Siri in iOS 7 will be using Bing as its programmed search engine. The friendly voice-controlled assistant will be able to control more elements and functions of the iPhone, but we're pleased to see Apple choose Microsoft over Google for searching and interacting with the Interwebz. As well as Bing, Siri will make full use of services including Wikipedia and...
Kantar Worldpanel has released a new report that shows Android leading in the US, but both iOS and Windows Phone are growing at a faster rate. Both platforms experienced an increase in sales of 2.3 and 1.8 percentage points respectively, while Google's mobile platform was reported at 1.4 (year-on-year). Good news for Microsoft and its continued struggle to establish itself in the...
The BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation) has been accused by Android owners that the corporation is biased against Google's mobile platform with its iPlayer TV catch-up service. If you thought it was just the Windows Phone community battling hard against the BBC to get a worthy iPlayer solution available, you'd be wrong. That said, the BBC Trust has found that the corporation has not...
Latest figures released by Kantar Worldpanel shows that Microsoft is actually starting to perform rather well in the US, one of the more important markets for the company. So much so that the platform is growing at a slightly faster rate than Google's Android. Microsoft still has a tough mountain to climb to tackle both Android and iOS, but it would seem as though the third position is...
By now the narrative that Windows Phone is finally starting to pick up steam with developer should be familiar. It seems as if every few days a few big titles get released to the Store, giving Windows Phone users a semblance of platform parity. The app Countdown+++ is one of the most popular utilities on iOS due to its colorful simplicity. It’s what it sounds like, an app for entering...
Trader Media Group (TMG), parent of UK Auto Trader, is set to replace its iPhone arsenal with Windows Phones. It's said that Android will not be considered as it has too many security vulnerabilities. In an interview with Computing, TMG CIO Tim Jones revealed that the company has operated in an iOS ecosystem for the last five years, because the iPhone was the more mature smartphone...
Gartner has released their data for smartphone sales and market share for the fourth quarter in 2012 and while the data is not conclusive by itself, it does show general trends in where the market is heading. For Microsoft and partners the picture is most certainly better than it was one year ago, which is the good news. The bad news is the hill to climb to global relevancy is still as...
Alright, so Nokia has a good grasp on what the word exclusive means. But Microsoft takes a more liberal stance towards supporting other platforms. We’ve seen the big MS publish previously Xbox Windows Phone exclusive games to iOS before, such as Kinectimals and Tentacles. It always hurt, but we sucked it up and complained only in small doses. Yesterday, another exclusive turned coat and...
Latest figures published by market research group Kantar has revealed that Windows Phone is on the rise across the board, excluding a number of markets where sales remain low. The Nokia Lumia 920, HTC 8X and Samsung ATIV S are all high-end smartphones that will be pushing the platform forward in 2013 with potential marketshare gain in multiple locations, but how has the platform...
In a recent interview Google stated they will not devote any resources to making apps for either Windows 8 or Windows Phone 8. They have also now ceased consumer support for ActiveSync. Some are calling it ‘war’ while others passionately question if Windows Phone can survive without Google products and services. The relationship between Google and Microsoft has always been somewhat...
Probably the toughest problem any new user faces when switching platforms is finding comparable apps on their new OS. Sure, we have the Windows Phone Central forums to help and we try to do what we can here, but Nokia has something even better. Nokia, in conjunction with Xyologic, have teamed up to bring a site called Find your Favorite Apps (www.xyo.net/lumia) that allows you to name...
The Windows Phone Store (previously the Windows Phone Marketplace) has been growing at a fairly steady rate since the platform launched back in 2010. The number of apps and games available to consumers to download (both free and paid) is still increasing, and the platform has passed the 100,000 app milestone. Since Windows Phone is a smaller ecosystem than both iOS and Android, is it...