02/13, 4:25pm
Mozilla Firefox with Metro support due in 2012
Mozilla, makers of the Firefox Internet browser, will release a version of its signature software that will resemble Microsoft's Metro user interface. A concept version will be out sometime in the spring, according to Mozilla's 2012 strategy, followed by an alpha and beta version later on, in the second half of the year. Metro uses tiles instead of the traditional Start button and menu in Windows, and Mozilla hopes to integrate its new Gecko-based browser with the Metro environment.
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02/13, 3:10pm
Lumia 610, 808, three Ashas coming to MWC?
Exactly which handsets Nokia will reveal at the upcoming Mobile World Congress show and its February 27 press conference may have been leaked to PocketNow. There will reportedly be six new phones unveiled, including three smartphones and three feature phones. The Windows Phone-powered devices would be the Lumia 900 and Lumia 610, while the 808 PureView would still use Symbian. The 808 is expected to be a replacement for the N8.
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02/13, 1:40pm
Lumia 800 with CDMA due in China in March?
Nokia is working on a CDMA variant of its Lumia 800 smartphone, the 800c. The phone is due to launch on China Telecom sometime in March, WPCentral learned. It will be available in cyan, white, and black, though pricing is yet to be announced.
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02/13, 10:20am
Nokia expected to announce Lumia 730 at MWC
A new rumor originating from WPDang has Nokia announcing the Lumia 730 phone. It would slot in between the existing Lumia 710 and Lumia 800 and run on the unreleased Windows Phone Tango. It would have similar specs to the 710, but would forego the ClearBlack display and polycarbonate casing.
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02/10, 3:50pm
USA Today breaks down mobile app ratios
An escaped USA Today presentation has uncovered some of the real results of mobile news app downloads. GeekWire's copy showed a wide gap between downloads for the iPad and Android tablets: at over 2.9 million downloads, the iPad version had more than seven times the downloads of Android, which had 390,000 combined. The ratio on Android was heavily skewed by the Kindle Fire, which at 260,000 downloads had managed twice as much interest as every other Android tablet combined.
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02/10, 2:55pm
LG Miracle given full look before MWC
LG's Miracle was given its first fully outlined look Friday after it was spotted in live photos. Briefly popping up on a Romanian auction site, the Windows Phone seen by GSMArena lined up with descriptions of a device with a four-inch screen. The device, clearly an escaped prototype, also verified the five-megapixel rear camera and what looked to be a front camera.
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02/09, 6:25pm
Motorola says Android too linked to hardware
Motorola was unusually critical of its likely future acquirer Google late Wednesday in an interview. Senior enterprise business VP Christy Wyatt claimed to PCMag that Google made timely Android OS updates difficult because of its tendency to target each major release against a reference phone like the Galaxy Nexus. Since the initial release only supported that hardware, no other Android partner could get started on drivers and other code they needed to get moving.
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02/08, 9:30pm
Company focusing on Microsoft's mobile OS
Nokia may be putting all of its weight into Microsoft's Windows Phone platform, according to the company's European manager, Victor Saeijs. The executive told the Swedish news outlet Dagens Industri that the handset maker's Windows Phone investments must prove successful, as there is no "plan B."
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02/08, 7:15pm
Pricing and launch date expected soon
Microsoft has quickly terminated its pre-order program for Nokia's Lumia 900 handset, after taking deposits for a week. The company has yet to disclose full details surrounding the move, however it has ignited speculation that the flagship Windows Phone 7 smartphone may be nearing its ship date.
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02/08, 8:30am
Nokia moves smartphones to Asia to cut costs
Nokia showed the toughening conditions of the smartphone field on Wednesday after it detailed plans to cut 4,000 manufacturing jobs. Positions both in its home territory factory in Salo, Finland, as well as in Komarom, Hungary and Reynosa, Mexico, would be eliminated by the end of 2012. Smartphone production would be moving more towards Asia, where it wouldn't just be cheaper to make devices, but faster.
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02/07, 6:55pm
Falsely indicated call hasn't ended on display
Nokia has acknowledged that it has a problem with its Lumia 710 smartphone. Users are finding that the phone indicates that they are still staying connected even after the call has ended. Nokia has reassured owners that the problem is a display issue and is working to resolve it.
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02/07, 4:20pm
Lumia 900 likely to be Nokia's big reveal at MWC
Nokia will bring out at least one new flagship smartphone at the MWC show at the end of this month, Forbes reported. Currently, the device is likely an international version of the Lumia 900, which was accidentally revealed by the Finnish phonemaker this morning. A US version is expected to arrive at AT&T sometime in March.
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02/07, 2:20pm
LG Miracle to carry Nova display, base specs
LG's plans to relaunch into Windows Phones became more definitive Tuesday after a sighting caught more definitive plans. The Miracle, seen by PocketNow in a press render, was previously known as the Fantasy and shows LG hoping to catch the relative low end. Its highlight should be a four-inch, extra-bright Nova LCD, although it's rumored to come with NFC that could demand the Tango update coming to the OS later this year.
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02/07, 10:35am
Nokia Lumia 800 to come in special US pack
A scoop Tuesday had the Nokia Lumia 800 reaching the US in an official capacity, but with conditions. A source for The Verge had Nokia's first Windows Phone coming to the US through Microsoft Stores as part of a bundle. The pack would include both an unlocked Lumia 800 as well as a Play 360 Bluetooth speaker and a Purity HD stereo headphone set.
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02/07, 10:05am
Windows 8 preview to have handful of ported games
The Windows 8 public preview when it ships will have a handful of available games that mostly come from familiar sources in the Microsoft universe, according to new tips on Tuesday. Some of the games seen by The Verge will be direct ports of Xbox 360 downloadable titles, such as Ms. Splosion Man and Toy Soldiers. Others would be titles that are better known on mobile even with a big-screen version, such as the seminal Angry Birds and ilomilo.
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02/06, 1:10pm
Interface should avoid web limitations
Microsoft is at work on several mobile app versions of its Dynamics CRM platform, a preview (PDF) reveals. This includes an app for iOS devices, which will require iOS 5, but have access to native iPad and iPhone interfaces. Other apps are planned for Microsoft's own Windows Phone platform, as well as Android and BlackBerry.
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02/06, 10:35am
NPD Q4 2011 results show iPhone bounce back
The iPhone is now the top-selling cellphone of any kind in the US, the NPD Group determined on Monday. As of the fall, the iPhone 4S was the bestselling device in the field. Apple also managed a clean sweep of the top three, with the iPhone 4 and iPhone 3GS at second and third places.
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02/06, 7:35am
Nokia and Samsung have white phones this month
Two flagship smartphones got white edition treatments on Monday. The Samsung Galaxy Nexus is now confirmed to be shipping to the UK in white on February 13. It carries the same features as the Android 4.0 flagship and shrouds the back in a white hue of the textured back.
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02/04, 10:30pm
Dashwire phases out service February 15
Dashwire gave warning late this week that its mobile sync service was ending February 15. The Windows Mobile-oriented service was recommending that users download and otherwise back up any content they had in cloud storage before servers were shut down and wiped. Despite active updates to the service having stopped years earlier, some users were still online, the company said in an e-mail.
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02/04, 4:05pm
Windows Phone Tango and Apollo dated
Microsoft's roadmap for Windows Phone was given a possible outline in a rumor Saturday. Tango, the first minor update, was pegged by Digitimes contacts as going live in March or April if Microsoft clinged to its roadmap. The rumored second Tango update would arrive in mid-year.
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02/03, 5:55pm
Brandon Watson goes from WP7 to Android
Microsoft took a symbolic blow Friday after its Windows Phone Developer Experience lead Brandon Watson confirmed he was leaving for Amazon. The often outspoken advocate of WP7 told ZDNet he would now direct the Kindle Cross Platform team, which develops the e-reading app both for Windows Phone as well as for Android, iOS, and competing platforms. He explained it as a virtue of a tempting offer, but whether it was the work itself, the pay, or both wasn't apparent.
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02/03, 4:30pm
Windows Phone Marketplace expands to 41 markets
The Windows Phone Marketplace has gone live in five new countries on Friday, the company announced. This includes Argentina, Indonesia, Malaysia, Peru, and the Philippines. Users in those regions will need to have their devices updated to Windows Phone 7.5 before they can access the store, however.
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02/03, 4:30pm
Canalys Q4 and year-end 2011 shows change of guard
A Canalys wrap-up of 2011 smartphone share painted an overall picture that kept Apple and Google in front, but also provided clearer pictures of Windows Phone. Android was just short of an absolute majority at 48.8 percent, while the iPhone held 19.1 percent. Nokia's Symbian and RIM's BlackBerry still held on to the double digits at 16.4 percent and 10.5 percent each.
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02/03, 12:30pm
Nokia may see market dropping Symbian faster
A potentially major rumor has Nokia accelerating the death of Symbian as a smartphone platform. The company has officially planned for a transition through 2013, but the Register heard only one new model, a sequel to the N8, was still in the works. Existing owners would get the Belle update, but every other project on the OS had supposedly been cancelled.
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02/03, 12:15pm
Skype Windows Phone app in employee testing stage
Microsoft has made a version of Skype available for download from the Windows Phone Marketplace, though it's only for employees, The Verge reported. The app is still undergoing testing, and will reportedly be customized to resemble the Metro interface, with a two-column grid for contacts, similar to the photo here. The app won't integrate Windows Phone's People Hub, however, as that's due later in 2012 as part of Windows Phone 8.
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02/02, 5:35pm
Lumia 900 up for advance in-store orders
Microsoft's retail stores have started taking pre-orders for the Nokia Lumia 900. Those willing to put down a $25 deposit can reserve either the black or cyan blue versions. Stores aren't saying when the device ships or how much it costs, although it may cost $100 on contract.
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02/02, 3:55pm
comScore Q4 2011 has Android at 47pc, iPhone 30
The sustained effect of the iPhone 4S launch has kept the iPhone growing at the same pace as Android in the US. Google's platform grew a collective 2.5 points over the fall to 47.3 percent, but Apple nearly matched it with a 2.2 percent hike to 29.6 percent. As with much of the past year, the two were only really drawing from other platforms, with the BlackBerry down nearly three points to 16 percent.
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02/02, 3:30pm
Windows Phone 8 spoiled in leaked video
An escaped internal video for Nokia staff intercepted on Thursday has shown that Windows Phone 8 should be a massive leap, most of all in hardware. The PocketNow view of the clip, which was hosted by senior Windows Phone VP Joe Belfiore, revealed that the update nicknamed Apollo will add multi-core processor support and catch up to Android and iOS. It should also address a longstanding gripe about the lack of easily removable microSD card storage and bring in four new screen resolutions, greatly improving the diversity of phones
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02/01, 6:05pm
Chairman warns of continued difficulties
Nokia chairman Jorma Ollila has warned that the company's ongoing strategy shift will cut into its 2012 financial results. The executive remains optimistic that the decision to transition to Microsoft's Windows Phone platform will enable the company to better compete with the iPhone and Android smartphones, however he cautions that the process will take more time.
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01/31, 3:25pm
Nokia designer talks about even more minimalism
Nokia's newly promoted executive design VP, Marko Ahtisaari, has hinted in a interview that he'd like Nokia's phones to go even more minimalist than today. He noted to the Guardian that designs like the Lumia 900 were showing where Nokia was going, where it had dropped the USB door cover to produce a direct port. He could imagine at one point going without any connectors, although the newspaper overreached in presuming this meant definite plans for wireless charging.
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01/30, 7:55pm
HTC may be subject to renewed lawsuit in US
HTC saw a further setback in its attempts to survive patent conflicts on Monday after a US Court of Appeals in Washington ruled (PDF) that an earlier decision invalidating an IPCom patent in a lawsuit couldn't be upheld. The judge who had overseen the original case, where HTC had sued IPCom to negate its patent, would have to listen to arguments from IPCom as to why the patent was still valid. It would revive a lawsuit HTC had initiated in 2008 and thought it had resolved with its victory in 2010.
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01/29, 10:00pm
Windows Phone Tango may catch up in speed, reach
Microsoft may have inadvertently spoiled many of its plans for Windows Phone's Tango update after an Indian developer presentation was recounted (since pulled at Microsoft's request) this weekend. During the event, WPSauce heard from attendee Karthik Ragubathy that "the next release," possibly Tango, would support truly native apps for the first time. The approach would let apps optimize for performance without having to be written using XNA code intended for games.
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01/29, 7:55pm
Nokia Lumia 800 to get audio, camera fixes
Nokia has acknowledged that the second large Lumia 800 update itself doesn't touch on every issue. The focus was on the most common battery issues with under-reported battery capacities and not audio and camera quality issues that others were having. Those were coming in a subsequent fix, Nokia said, although it wouldn't say when these were coming.
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01/29, 1:55pm
Store tries to lure buyers with Lumia 910 mention
Talk of a Nokia Lumia 910 with upgraded hardware may have gained support after Dutch retailer Typhone put up a listing for the device. Its definition would mostly match that of rumors, giving it a 12-megapixel camera while keeping the 4.3-inch screen, 1.4GHz Snapdragon, and front camera of the Lumia 900. Instead of AT&T's LTE-based 4G, the Windows Phone would upgrade slightly from the 800 with 21Mbps HSPA+ 3G.
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01/27, 1:05pm
Google Sync adds mutliple calendars to WP 7.5
Google has just added support for syncing multiple Google accounts on Windows Phone 7.5 and up. Up to 25 different calendars can be synced from the mobile sync page. Through these calendars, users can create events and edit their details, respond to meeting requests and update attendee status and create reminders ahead of the event.
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01/27, 7:50am
IHS iSuppli and Strat Analytics show Apple shift
Separate IHS iSuppli and Strategy Analytics studies Friday have backed Apple's rapid return to the top of the smartphone space in the fall. Determining that Samsung had shipped 36 million smartphones, slightly higher than Samsung's preliminary estimates, IHS iSuppli put Apple's 37 million iPhones just on top. Although Samsung nearly quadrupled the amount of smartphones it shipped and moved more year-long, Apple's higher starting point meant it could just double its yearly shipments to stay competitive.
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01/26, 9:25am
Nokia takes MS cash as Ahtisaari becomes Exec VP
Nokia in sidenotes to its tough fall quarter has revealed some of the inside workings of its deal with Microsoft as well as its shift in design direction. The Finnish company acknowledged being paid a $250 million installment from Microsoft as a "platform support payment." Neither side has fully disclosed how much the deal is worth, but the initial sum supports allusions to Microsoft paying billions and implies that Nokia has made a multi-year deal.
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01/26, 7:10am
Nokia beats market consensus, but profit down
Nokia has posted its financial results (pdf) revealing better than expected results. The Finnish company reports that it has sold ‘well over’ 1 million Windows Phone-based smartphones in combined sales of the Lumia 710 and the Lumia 800. However, while its core earnings beat market consensus, they were still down 73 percent as it sold less Symbian-based smartphones than it had forecast.
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01/25, 10:35pm
App controlled using Windows Phone device
Developers have demonstrated an unofficial feature for Microsoft's Kinect system that mimics holographic effects. The Programming4fun team used the Kinect beta SDK and Windows Phone to create the illusion of a holographic scene, using the Kinect sensors to track a user's position and change the perspective of the scene projected on a flat surface.
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01/25, 7:15pm
Briefly posted videos show local challenges
At the recent CES show, Microsoft held a "Smoked By Windows Phone" event to demonstrate the speed of its latest OS for mobile devices. During the event, the company challenged participants to see if they could use their Android or iOS device and beat a Windows Phone at taking a photo and uploading it. It now appears from videos spotted by WPCentral that Microsoft may be taking the challenge from the show floor to stores.
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01/25, 2:40pm
ATT roadmap carries Sony slate and solidifies plan
More details from AT&T's escaped roadmap have shown in two leaks Wednesday afternoon. The new BGR tips point to a new, $410 Sony tablet known as the Crystal. While it could be something new, it's most likely to be the long-delayed Tablet P (S2), a dual-screened Android tablet with HSPA+ 3G.
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01/25, 12:45pm
Nokia Lumia 900 leak hints low price
Nokia's launch of the Lumia 900 in the US may compete fiercely on price. A leak at BGR, corroborated by previously accurate Windows writer Paul Thurrott, has the 4G Windows Phone costing just $100 on an AT&T contract. The same tip likewise supports earlier talk of a March 18 ship date.
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01/24, 2:40pm
Nokia may have runaway success in one country
New reports from Danish carriers have suggested that the Nokia Lumia 800 may be experiencing iPhone-like demand. Talking to Mobilesiden, local telecom leader TDC's Morten Steen Jensen claimed to have seen the same kind of demand as for the iPhone 4S. While it's not clear which phone was next, the Windows Phone sold three times as many as its next-closest counterpart. Telia had the Lumia 800 second only to the iPhone.
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01/24, 1:35pm
Microsoft MIX 2012 gone for now
Microsoft platform evangelism GM Tim O'Brien in a blog post said his company was dropping another major event, MIX. At least the 2012 developer show would be cancelled in favor of one, monolithic developer event "sometime in the coming year." The notion of separating the web and native apps was no longer needed, O'Brien said, but Microsoft was also getting backlash from an excess of events.
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01/24, 12:05pm
Nokia Lumia 910 with 12MP camera due in May?
Eldar Murtazin, who has sometimes slipped out the arrival of several Nokia devices in the past, is now tweeting with purported knowledge about Nokia's Windows Phone expansion plans for 2012. The Lumia 910, he wrote, will arrive in May, or roughly in line with talk of an international Lumia 900 arriving in Europe during the spring. It could also sport a 12-megapixel camera rather than the 900's eight-megapixel shooter, Murtazin claimed.
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01/23, 8:20pm
Microsoft Points may be droped by end 2012
A potentially impactful rumor on Monday claimed that Microsoft will drop its Microsoft Points system. As of the end of 2012, the Windows Phone, Xbox Live, and Zune Marketplace stores would all rely on real currency, Inside Mobile Apps had heard. Developers being published by Microsoft were reportedly being told to prepare any downloadable extras to adapt to the change.
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01/23, 7:20pm
Powered by Lumia 800, grabs 45-percent share
Although Nokia is a relatively new entrant into the Windows Phone smartphone market, the company has already captured significant market share. Recently gathered statistics indicate that the phone-maker may already have achieved a 45 percent share of the second generation Windows Phone market, based on data collected from OccasionalGamer. This is in spite of only shipping second-generation phones starting with the Lumia 800 late last year and the Lumia 710 in the US just two weeks ago.
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01/23, 3:15pm
Nokia Lumia 900 to ship in Europe this June
European retailer Carphone Warehouse has said it will begin offering the Nokia Lumia 900 for pre-order, with an on-sale date set for June. There are no prices listed for the phone yet, which will be Nokia's flagship Windows Phone 7.5 device for much of 2012. In the US, the phone will be an exclusive offering at AT&T, starting in March.
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01/23, 3:15pm
Bundled KDDI au app ads without much choice
Japanese carrier KDDI has underscored some of the problems of Android by pushing ads into Android itself, customers have found for themselves. A bundled, unremovable app for the company's own app store, au one Market, pushes ads into the notification bar whether or not the app is running, Asiajin said. While there appears to be an opt-out clause, one subscriber reports that it's downplayed and has seen it appear twice with app updates.
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01/23, 11:10am
Analysis claims Android may take top dev spot
Ovum on Monday predicted based on a developer survey that Android would become more important to developers than iOS by the start of 2013. While Apple would still be the other major platform creator to write for, the research firm saw the momentum in hardware leading to Google taking the edge. Ovum didn't give ratios for how much of a lead it expected.
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