Although the day is winding down, we’re still going through the leaked Windows Phone 8 SDK from early this morning. We’re finding some smaller nuggets which aren’t ‘wow’ worthy in of themselves but they are certainly worth a mention, especially since they do add some significant new features to the Windows Phone experience. We must stress—these are still not the new ‘consumer’ features...
Nokia have just announced an update on how they are progressing with their Destination Maps product. The aim with the initiative is to provide an additional layer of mapping data where it makes sense. In this case Nokia are essentially aiming for Shopping Malls, Airports and other large scale public spaces. The rate at which they are adding these internal spaces is impressive, now...
Every wonder where you spend most of your time? Track My Life is a Windows Phone app that hopes to tell you just that. The app records your location every thirty minutes and logs which city your are in. Track My Life will map these locations on the map (provided by Bing) with a push pin. From there you can tap on a push pin to see how much time you've been tracked in that city or...
HTC Locations, the GPS app from the manufacturer, has now got a price tag for the app's navigation services. After introducing offline turn-by-turn navigation to combat Nokia's offering with Lumia Windows Phones, it was seen as a smart move by consumers. Unfortunately, now it seems the manufacturer either has other ideas or simply can't afford to keep the "free" label. When running the...
HTC has recently updated their Locations app for Windows Phone, which now sports handy offline navigation. Nokia beat the gun with implementing support for navigation not requiring data connectivity in their Drive app. Now HTC handset owners will be able to enjoy the same functionality as both Lumia and HTC Android owners. HTC Locations enables the user to "share your favorite locations...
It was only late last year that we covered the news of Chaos Created, a UK based studio, asking for volunteers in and around London to dress up as zombies and act out in footage for their upcoming Windows Phone title, Zombies Ate My City. The game has now been released onto the Marketplace and is available for... wait for it... absolutely nothing ($0 / £0). So what is Zombies Ate My...
Microsoft has updated the how-to section of the official Windows Phone website to include a small tip regarding when location based services are currently active. A small indicator (see above image) will be included in a future update, which be displayed with the other disappearing status indicators that will alert the user as to when apps are using the phone's location. Microsoft...
If you've ever had trouble remember where you saw something you need Save My Spot! for your Windows Phone. Save My Spot! allows you to record the GPS coordinates of the spot you need help remembering, add tons of descriptive information on the spot, and helps track you back when the need arises. Save My Spot! is a simple, effective way to tag favorite locations or spots. It is a handy...
If you've downloaded an app from the Marketplace in the last few hours, you may have received the above pop-up screen before being allowed to continue. The "accept" part is for a new end-user licensing agreements (EULA) that seems to address the user-location tracking controversy that erupted a few weeks ago with a lawsuit. In that filing, it was alleged Microsoft was collecting user...
Ever forget where you parked your car? How about where your hotel is? Radar is a Windows Phone app that is designed to help you find your way back to locations such as where you parked your car. The app taps into your Windows Phone compass and GPS to tag these locations and track you back to them. No data connection is required. Radar's layout is simple with a page for the radar...
Microsoft is reporting that they have discovered unintended behavior with its Windows Phone location services. Following a Federal Lawsuit that claims Microsoft was doing such, Microsoft said they'd look into the claims and sure enough, they found a bug. In a statement released earlier on Wednesday, Microsoft revealed, "We have identified an unintended behavior in the Windows Phone 7...
Facebook has finally killed Places, the seemingly dead check in service that's remained fairly inactive for sometime. It's available in the Facebook for Windows Phone app so what happens to users? Well, we have Foursquare of course, but if you don't use the service or another competitor there might be another option. We recently covered Microsoft's We're In service which resembles...
Microsoft has recently made changes to its geographic location service, which we reported on not so long ago as having a lack of safeguards and a privacy flaw. Elie Bursztein, a researcher at Stanford University, created a web page that allowed visitors to search the database at Live.com for locations using device MAC addresses. Reid Kuhn, a Partner Group Program Manager on the Windows...
Update: App is already out, look at that! You can grab it here in the Marketplace. (Thanks, @hellboy552000 & Oli, for the correction) Wait, we didn't say the stream of official apps was over did we? Good, because it seems Qype is in line to come to Windows Phone 7 too, scoring a deal with Microsoft. A huge brand in Europe, being the largest consumer review website, and is an...
We reported a few weeks ago about the whole "location tracking" issue, which was started by the iPhone, proceeded by concerns on Android and finally Windows Phone, which was mostly exonerated from the controversy. Regardless of the lack of tracking, Microsoft is looking to be more transparent on the matter than some other companies and in turn has directly responded to the U.S....
Earlier yesterday, PC Magazine managed to get Microsoft on record about the whole "location-data storage" controversy (see related coverage on the iPhone here and on Android here via our sister sites). Strictly speaking, in regards to storing location data on the phone, Microsoft is in the clear, at least comparatively: Microsoft told PCMag unequivocally that phones running Windows...
We have witnessed the sheer depth of Microsoft’s budget when it comes to advertising and marketing campaigns, but who would have guessed they would be providing Nokia $1 billion for them to further promote and develop Windows Phone 7? The partnership between the two giants could prove to be what the platform needs to combat Google and Apple with competition. “Nokia will pay Microsoft a...
Ever since the Nokia-Microsoft partnership was announced and Nokia CEO's Elop mentioned that this was a "special relationship" where Nokia had the right to manipulate the UI and go deeper on the phone than other OEMs, developers, users and analysts had been concerned with what that would mean to the Windows Phone ecosystem in terms of "build once, build for all". On Wednesday in...
We told you last week that Crackdown 2: Project Sunburst was due for release on this day and sure enough, here it is. Fetching for a very reasonable $2.99, the Xbox Live app looks to bring geolocation and asynchronous gaming (aka turn-based multiplayer) to Windows Phone. Very exciting, indeed. (See a video discussion with the developers + footage here) Overall, we like what we see and...
The long awaited and highly innovative Crackdown 2: Project Sunburst, which utilizes Bing maps, geolocation and asynchronous multiplayer support for some good old tower defense, is finally coming to our phones this month. Specifically, December 15th, according to Karl Stricker who works for Microsoft on Xbox LIVE for Windows Phone7. For many, this game should really show off some...