Windows Phone 7 Center

Audible for Windows Phone

Alan Burchill — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 07:00:00 +0000

If you are like me and you enjoy your audio books then like me you have probably been hanging out for an Audible App for Windows Phone. Well Paul Thurrott on Windows Weekly #255 has confirm the app is real and even briefly showed the app running on his Samsung Windows Phone.

He also stated that “It should be coming soon”…

It appears that this is a standalone app that downloads the books directly over the air with the title “My Library” clearly shown.

Hopefully this means I can start to use some of my audible credits and listed to my back catalogue of books i need to listen to like the Steve Jobs biography on my Windows Phone…

Microsoft hinted at Tango memory requirements almost a year ago

Alan Burchill — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 22:41:37 +0000

Recently there have been some rumours about Windows Phone Tango and how it will be a new version of Windows Phone for lower phones with 256mb ram (see http://www.zdnet.com/blog/microsoft/as-more-windows-phone-tango-info-leaks-questions-resurface/11907 ). This reminded me of a MIX11 session back in April 2011 by Jeff Wilcox where he said that

90mb is the magic number

for application memory usage. It would seem that Microsoft has been trying to prep the Windows Phone eco system to use less RAM in their apps presumably to allow them to run on Tango devices. Obviously this is to help avoid the issue of not being able to run them as shown in some of these leaked screen shots Tango OS.

Image Source http://wp7forum.ru/utechka-chto-novenkogo-v-windows-phone-7-tango/

Jump to 19m 25sec on the video where he talks about memory requirements.

Note: Jeff Wilcox is the author of the very popular 4th & Mayor app has just moved from the Windows Phone to the Windows Azure team at Microsoft

Source http://channel9.msdn.com/Events/MIX/MIX11/DVC01

Windows Phone Build 7740 out now for HTC Telstra Phones

Alan Burchill — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 23:47:48 +0000

Telstra branded HTC Phones are now getting the 7740 updated delivered. This update fixes two issues with Windows Phone:

Email threads. Fixes an email issue related to Microsoft Exchange Server 2003. With this fix, when you reply to or forward a message, the original message is now included in your response.

Voicemail. Fixes a voicemail notification display issue that occurs on some European and Asian networks under certain condition.

For more information on the update see http://www.microsoft.com/windowsphone/en-AU/howto/wp7/basics/update-history.aspx

Sign up for Nokia Lumia 800 on Telstra

Alan Burchill — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 22:20:05 +0000

After recent announcements that the Nokia Lumia 800 is coming to all three carriers in Australia Telstra has now put up a page to register your interest at https://www.telstra.com.au/eoi/keep-informed/. However it is yet to be seen how popular this device will be with the just announced Nokia Lumia 900 with 4G and a front facing camera. Certainly many comments on the Official Nokia Australia Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/#!/NokiaAustralia seem to indicate that most people will be holding off for the 900.

More info http://www.nokia.com/au-en/products/phone/lumia800/

Telstra Windows Phone Wi-Fi Hotspot Update is Out Now

Alan Burchill — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 21:39:42 +0000

Microsoft have started to rollout the ~~7740~~ firmware update for the HTC HD7 (Update: and the HTC Mozart ) on the Telstra network. Rather ironically this update is being pushed out a a day after Telstra delisted the phone from being able to be purchased from their web site (see http://madprops.org/blog/windows-phone-7-in-australia/) .

The update will be prompted for installed when you connect the phone to the Zune desktop software.

Microsoft confirms Lync will be out everywhere within 4 weeks

Alan Burchill — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 05:45:19 +0000

A tweet from the Microsoft Australia twitter account @msau has just confirmed that Lync client will be out on all major mobile phone platforms within the next 4 weeks.

Source https://twitter.com/#!/MSAU/status/139169075128573952

How Nokia made the Lumia

Alan Burchill — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 23:05:21 +0000

About two weeks ago Nokia announced the Nokia Lumia 800 (and 710) which are the first two Windows Phones devices they will sell. They have just released a video talking about how to Lumia 800 was designed. Two points I take away from this video are:

1. They make a big point how they chose a material that was “RF Transparent” to give the phone much better receptions. This is a clear dig at Apple and the Antennagate issues with the iPhone 4S.

2. The Nokia Lumia 800 is almost physically identical to the Nokia N9 meaning that a lot of the hardware decisions had already been made and where not specifically for Windows Phone.

That being said the video is well made as it totally worth watching:

Nokia Lumina Windows Phone not coming to Telstra any time soon

Alan Burchill — Wed, 26 Oct 2011 23:10:09 +0000

Nokia just announced their two new Windows Phones called the Lumina 710 and the Lumina 800. These phones are have pretty standard Windows Phone Mango specs with the notable addition of Nokia Maps which will offer turn by turn voice directions app. This makes these device very appealing as this is a feature that is otherwise missing from the Windows Phone platform.

The sad news for Australian’s is that there no information of these phone coming to Australia, making it very unlikely that we will see these phone sold in OZ this year.

Even the Telstra twitter account has no news about the device.

How to force Mango update on your phone, AT YOUR OWN RISK!

Alan Burchill — Tue, 27 Sep 2011 23:04:45 +0000

The people at WPCentral have posted an article Force Mango update early through Zune software and avoid frostbite . This process seems to work as advertised thus enabling the 90% of people still with out Mango to upgrade at their leisure.

Below are the steps from WPCentral to force the update:

AGAIN… AT YOUR OWN RISK!!!

Click on Phone > Settings > Update. Allow the software to tell you whether an update is available. If so, skip this guide. If not continue to the next step.
Click another button (any of the options above or below the word Update). Then click the Update button again, and this time disconnect your computer from the internet after 1-2 seconds. Do this by pulling out the Ethernet cable, disabling Wi-Fi, etc. If it says your phone is already up to date, you didn’t disconnect quickly enough and need to try this step again. This happend the first time for me.
Wait 30 seconds or so and Zune should display a notification that an update is available. This is 7392, the first Mango pre-update.
Now reconnect to the internet and continue with the update process through the Zune software.

All things going well the update process should now automatically do the rest…

Windows Phone Mango for Telstra is “Delivering update”

Alan Burchill — Tue, 27 Sep 2011 22:28:31 +0000

The Microsoft Where’s my phone update? page for International Markets has now been updated to state that the Windows Phone 7.5 (a.k.a. Mango) update is now being delivered to Telstra customers.

This is despite the fact that the update is still not available for both the HTC HD7 and the HDC Mozart phones. Hopefully as a premium launch carrier of Windows Phone Telstra will be getting the update sooner than most carriers… time will tell.

Update: You can force the update for you phone by following these instructions. WPCentral: Force Mango update early through Zune software and avoid frostbite