Thoughts from a Bafta nominated Podcaster, Blogger, Writer and Commentator.
In a year, we’ve gone from very small to … very small. Like many mobile operating systems, Windows Phone needs a beach-head. Unlike WebOS and RIM though, it’s not just a carrier partner in the US, it’s the global distribution and manufacturing resources of Nokia. Which gives it a better shot than most and should provide many more digital column inches as the new devices arrive. But will it be Gallipoli or Overlord?
We say tinker away with Mango and enjoy the juice… But beware the fine print — unlocking phones may void your warranty. Microsoft’s Bill Cox on All Thing D, showing yet again that the Microsoft Dev Team want people to hack around with Windows Phone to see what it can do. Stories like this are going to help developer adoption, detoxify Microsoft, and help build up trust between Redmond and the hackers. Which is a great thing to do. Oh and if you don’t want to hack, they’ve said every phone will get the mango update in the fullness of
It’s already the online home of Xbox gamers, and as Windows Phone user now, gaming is all focused on a single "tile" in the smartphone operating system labelled Xbox Live. Arguably if the Zune media players were going strong, Games would be relabelled Xbox in the next firmware update. Now the PC side of things is coming under the same banner as Games for Windows Marketplace will be quietly integrated in Xbox on July 11th. From PC Mag: The move appears to be just one more step in Microsoft’s quest to make its Xbox Live platform the single source for
I can’t help thinking what the result would have had Nokia allowed their Symbian apps (Ovi Maps, the Ovi Store, Nokia Internet Radio,N-Gage clients, and various other) to run on smartphones from Samsung, Panasonic, Sharp and other licences?
You can argue the actual number, but even +/- 1% this is great progress for the Windows Phone platform, and the number is going up by roughly 100 apps per day. Other numbers? Around half of these apps are free, and the average retail price is $1.48. If Microsoft can build up momentum in terms of new apps, a pool of developers working on the phones, and attract brand names (such as American Airlines) to the platform, they might just have a shot at being relevant.
It used to be that you could tell when a computing platform had matured because ID Software’s first person shooter, Doom, was running on it – which led to silly things like it running on a Kodak DC290 digital camera. So we needed a new standard. Angry Birds is now running on Windows Phone and available in the Marketplace. We have our new standard.
