All posts tagged Phone

Skype arrives on Windows Phone 7

Microsoft has announced that Windows Phone 7 device owners can now download Skype software directly to their device or from the Windows Marketplace on their PC.

Skype for Windows Phone Beta, launched on Monday, comes with features such as free audio and video calls to other Skype users over 3G, 4G or Wi-Fi, as well as the ability to call landlines or mobile phones for a fee. Group chats and one-to-one instant messaging are also available.

Link – http://blogs.skype.com/en/2012/02/skype_brings_voice_and_video_c.html

Automatic backups coming to Windows Phone

Anyone that’s suffered data loss will know how much of a lifesaver backups are. To the average user, backups can get tedious and intrusive, so modern day systems have been geared towards making the process as simple as possible.

Link – http://wmpoweruser.com/microsoft-is-finally-planning-to-fix-backup-in-windows-phone/

Windows Phone 7 Connector 2.0 for Mac

The next release of Windows Phone 7 Connector landed in the Mac App Store today. The software, which requires OS X 10.6 or later, makes it easy to sync media files from your Mac to your Windows Phone and vice versa. It’s also how Mac users update their Windows Phone software.

Link – http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/windows-phone-7-connector/id415571499?mt=12

Microsoft releases to manufacturing its Mango Phone operating system

On July 26, Microsoft made it official: The “Mango” operating system update for Windows Phones has RTM’d (released to manfucturing).

From a note on the Windows Phone blog:

“This marks the point in the development process where we hand code to our handset and mobile operator partners to optimize Mango for their specific phone and network configurations. Here on the Windows Phone team, we now turn to preparing for the update process.”

I’m prepared to give Microsoft the benefit of the doubt and am counting on Windows Phone team members to have put the squeeze on their mobile operator partners. Hopefully, Microsoft has “convinced” them to sign off on the testing process quicker than they did with “NoDo,” the first Windows Phone operating system update that took months to get into users’ hands.

Link – http://www.zdnet.com/blog/microsoft/microsoft-releases-to-manufacturing-its-mango-windows-phone-operating-system/10184?tag=content;selector-blogs

Windows Phone Connector for Windows Home Server 2011

The Windows Server Solutions Phone Connector add-in enables you to connect to your home, business, or storage server by using your Windows Phone 7 phone. This document provides help for the integration of Windows Phone 7 into Windows Home Server 2011, Windows Small Business Server 2011 Essentials, and Windows Storage Server 2008 R2 Essentials.

Link – http://windowsteamblog.com/windows/b/windowshomeserver/archive/2011/07/15/windows-server-solutions-phone-connector-for-windows-home-server-2011-releases.aspx

Get Ready for a More Beautiful Mobile Web

If you’re a Web developer and want to see what your sites will look like on IE9 Mobile, you can download the Windows Phone developer tools today and try it out for yourself, since we include IE9 Mobile with the default emulator installation.

Link – http://windowsteamblog.com/windows_phone/b/wpdev/archive/2011/06/16/get-ready-for-a-more-beautiful-mobile-web.aspx

IE9 for Windows Phone

This week in New York, Andy Lees introduced Windows Phone “Mango” to the world, which includes IE9 Mobile. IE9 Mobile represents a huge jump forward for us on the mobile platform, effectively unifying our underlying code base for the browser with the desktop version.

Link – http://windowsteamblog.com/windows_phone/b/wpdev/archive/2011/05/31/ie9-for-windows-phone-mango-in-the-spotlight.aspx

Windows Phone Developer Tools 7.1 Beta

The new Windows Phone Developer Tools 7.1 Beta can be used to develop Applications for both 7.0 and 7.1 version of Windows Phone OS releases.

Link – http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=77586864-ab15-40e1-bc38-713a95a56a05

Messenger will be seamlessly built into Windows Phone

Messenger has always been focused on helping you keep in touch with the people who matter most. We believe you should be able to choose the services you want to use and be able to access them from all of your devices, in a seamlessly integrated experience.

Link – http://windowsteamblog.com/windows_live/b/windowslive/archive/2011/05/24/messenger-will-be-seamlessly-built-into-windows-phone-bringing-texting-and-im-together.aspx

Microsoft Previews Next Release of Windows Phone

REDMOND, Wash. — May 24, 2011 — Microsoft Corp. today previewed the next major release of Windows Phone, code-named “Mango,” through a series of media events around the world. “Mango” will deliver more than 500 new features to push the boundaries of the smartphone experience around communications, apps and the Internet.

Link – http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2011/may11/05-24WinPhonePreviewPR.mspx

Windows Phone 7 Connector for Mac

Sync music, photos, videos and podcasts from your existing iTunes and iPhoto libraries to your Windows Phone 7

Windows Phone 7 Connector for Mac is a new software application that enables you to synchronize your favourite music*, videos*, photos* and podcasts* from iTunes and iPhoto.

Link – http://bink.nu/news/windows-phone-7-connector-beta-for-mac-sync-itunes.aspx

Microsoft Announces New Business Features in Windows Phone 7.5

Microsoft announced a handful of new business-oriented features for the next major version of Windows Phone during Monday’s TechEd 2011 keynote address. These features will be included in a release of the mobile OS, codenamed Mango and to be branded as Windows Phone 7.5, that Microsoft hopes to ship by the end of 2011.

Link – http://www.winsupersite.com/article/paul-thurrotts-wininfo/teched-2011-microsoft-announces-business-features-windows-phone-75-136156

All Updated Windows Phones Are Not Alike

Yesterday, Eric announced that there would be a new update for Windows Phone. You can read his post to see what all is included, but I wanted to focus on a specific issue: phones “updated” using any unofficial mechanisms.

Despite the fact that many people have claimed that an unofficial update mechanism worked fine for them, we cautioned that phones which were updated via this method were not going to be able to update past build 7390. Unfortunately for those customers out there who acted on information from sources outside of Microsoft, the rubber meets the road today.

Link – http://windowsteamblog.com/windows_phone/b/wpdev/archive/2011/05/04/all-updated-windows-phones-are-not-alike.aspx

Migrate iPhone applications to Windows Phone

Microsoft released a developer tool on April 29 that is aimed at helping iPhone developers port their applications more easily to Windows Phones.

Microsoft officials described the new API (application programming interface) mapping tool as similar to a translation dictionary. From a new post on the Windows Phone Developer Blog:

Link – http://www.zdnet.com/blog/microsoft/microsoft-tool-aims-to-help-developers-migrate-iphone-applications-to-windows-phone/9322?tag=content;selector-blogs

Windows Phone update—and how to get it

This first update for Windows Phone is designed to improve the software update process itself. So while it might not sound exciting, it’s still important because it’s paving the way for all future goodie-filled updates to your phone, such as copy and paste or improved Marketplace search.

Link – http://windowsteamblog.com/windows_phone/b/windowsphone/archive/2011/02/21/our-first-windows-phone-update-and-how-to-get-it.aspx