Windows Phone Summary of the Week: July 4-10, 2011

News
By Rich Edmonds
last updated

Well this week has been a busy one hasn't it? We've had episode 116 of the WPCentral podcast being published as well as the second Mobile Nations stream, both providing listeners with banter and priceless news coverage.

The Windows Phone platform is on track for Japan, which will see a launch accompanied by a number of localized apps. Microsoft desires to open up a new revenue stream at the expense of Samsung with a royalty fee per-Android device sold of $15. With this battle going on, the EU is ready to fight Microsoft on access to cloud data.

We've had the delight in interviewing Cain Ullah from Red Badger, developers of Birdsong. The WP7 and Nokia partnership displays promise in China with Nokia's continued market share hold of 40%. A development team from Iraq is creating a refugee as app in the US held Imagine Cup.

Onto gaming, we have Twin Blades back in the Marketplace. Be very afraid zombies! Bubble Town 2 is this week's Xbox Live Deal of the Week. Microsoft Research is working on 'Switchboard' for WP7, a potential answer to real-time mobile multiplayer game play. Blizzard has released the Battle.net Mobile Authenticator for WP7 to please WoW fans and the like. Version 2 release notes of Harbor Master have arrived.

AT&T are testing updates for Samsung Focus 1.4 handsets finally. IM+ is bumped to version 1.1, which brings Live Messenger support. Microsoft weren't kidding when they spoke about an array of languages being added to the platform, we take a look in more detail at the plan. Gaming dominates smartphones, according to Nielsen , with WP7 lacking behind iOS and Android with average number of hours per user spent gaming.

Kik Messenger currently doesn't allow .co.uk email address to sign up, we provide a workaround to this issue as well as looking into how to synchronize multiple Google calendars in Mango. Ever found yourself going to a nearby shopping center but you don't know the layout? Soon, your handset will be able to help you there with indoor Bing maps in Mango.

HTC buys stakes in S3 Graphics from VIA, to pursue the patent suits against Apple which S3 currently have ongoing? Perhaps, the smartphone competition seems to be counter-claiming against each other at the moment. There have been reports tha Nokia have broken a promise and are not shipping devices until 2012, we take a good look at the situation and provide our always-correct analysis that Nokia are bringing a single device this year hopefully, but volumes will come in 2012.

Folk at the XDA developer forum have managed to get a Mango ROM for the HTC HD2 with a working Marketplace out into the wild, while the HTC 7 Pro has its price smashed at Play.com to just £229.

We look at another live tile separator tool that has arisen on the net. But the fun is with the ability to track cars in the Rallye International de Bourgogne. A WP7 handset was used in the production of a Kurt Vile music video. XIMAD begins publishing children's books to the Marketplace with their BooksAlive series. Should you not be into that type of reading, why get some guitar tabs on your device?

Fore developers, Microsoft is looking to open up the TellMe service for WP7 development. Telerik shows off their RadControls product with building a ToDo app using the built-in UI controls and finally Tim James, from EMC Consulting, walks us through turning maps to 3D on WP7.

Mango on passed the break for the links and summary. 

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.