WindowsObserver.com

Windows Phone Marketplace Continues to Expand

Richard Hay — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 23:40:00 +0000

Another sign that the Windows Phone platform is continuing to grow is its continued expansion into more countries world wide.

According to an announcement earlier today from Todd Brix on the Windows Phone Developer Blog the new locales are Argentina, Indonesia, Malaysia, Peru, and the Philippines. This expansion means that developers in those nations will soon be able to start developing Windows Phone apps and get them submitted and certified for inclusion in the marketplace.

Todd also reminds everyone with existing apps already in the marketplace that if you want to expand your apps to these five new areas you must log into the App Hub and either add them individually or select worldwide.

This brings the total number of markets that can access the Windows Phone Marketplace to 41.

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If You Are Fed Up With Facebook Changes then Check Out FriendIO

Richard Hay — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 22:22:00 +0000

FriendIO is a new alternative social media site that has been developed by a group of former Facebook users who grew tired of the constant changes to the social media giants website and services.

This new rival offers people classic social networking with strong privacy and popular features. "Friendio does not modify privacy settings, nor do we force people to create a scrapbook of their life," said Doug Freitag, the company’s President. The site’s slogan, "It’s all about you!" really sums it up. People can customize profile layouts, change the site’s theme to their liking, add music, insert Places, add company Pages and create their own circle of friends through custom lists. It’s simple, easy to use, and makes sense. It’s a way for people to further express their personal style, and share more about who they are.

The site already has an API for developers to take advantage of and create apps plus there is also a Like Button which can be embedded on websites and blogs.

I am a huge fan of having choices and letting people make their pick however, I think this fledgling company is going to run into some issues with the social media service they intend to replace.

It starts with things like apps, chat windows, like buttons and the layout of the site – especially if you use the Throwback Blue (FB) theme.

Here is a screenshot:

I am just guessing here but I think the FB in the themes title stands for Facebook – the color scheme certainly makes it look very familiar.

Now it is just a matter of how long it takes FB to chat with them about their social media site. What do you think?

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Want A Years Worth of Free Zune Pass? Buy a Windows Phone

Richard Hay — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 21:26:00 +0000

There is a catch however. The purchase must be made in a Microsoft Store and it must be made by 14 February 2012. The catch on that part is that you of course need to be near one of the 14 open Microsoft Stores around the US.

Curious where they are to see if you’re close enough?

Scottsdale, AZ – Scottsdale Fashion Square
Costa Mesa, CA – South Coast Plaza\
Los Angeles, CA – Westfield Century City
Mission Viejo, CA – The Shops at Mission Viejo
San Diego, CA – Fashion Valley Mall
Santa Clara, CA – Westfield Valley Fair
Lone Tree, CO – Park Meadows Mall
Atlanta, GA – Lenox Square Mall
Oak Brook, IL – Oakbrook Center
Bloomington, MN – Mall of America
Houston, TX – Houston Galleria
Tysons Corner, VA – Tysons Corner Center
Bellevue, WA – Bellevue Square Mall
Seattle, WA – University Village

This deal is well worth over $100 in savings for the Zune Pass – plus you will then be on a Windows Phone – WIN WIN situation all around!

(Via WP Central)

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@WinObs Tweeted Links for 02 February 2012

Richard Hay — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 11:50:29 +0000

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Skype Updated To Version 5.8 Now Supports Full HD Video

Richard Hay — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 02:40:00 +0000

An announcement over at the Skype Garage Blog earlier today provided details about the latest update to Microsoft’s Skype video calling software.

Improvements and new features in version 5.8:

Full HD video-calling
Support for Facebook audio and video-calling (beta)
Group screen sharing
Hide offline Facebook contacts
Push to Talk
Skype updater service
Bing Toolbar integration

They have also fixed four separate issues according to the posting and addressed at least one security related issue which was revealed to them privately by Masato Kinugawa.

Get Skype for Windows here.

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Windows Phone App Flow: The Best of SkyDrive

Travis Pope — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 23:20:58 +0000

The Fabric of our lives! It warms us, cools us down, and makes it’s rivals look cheap. I’m of course talking about the wonderful little fabric called Cotton, but there’s also an entity that will do the same for Microsoft’s entertainment consumer portfolio: Microsoft Skydrive. As it turns out cloud computing, contrary to what I might have told you more than a year ago, is where the consumer markets are making their next big plays. There are all sorts of applications that allow you to stream music, or store your goodies to enjoy from any device.

Cheese, cheddar, quid. There are many different names for what I affectionately refer to as “skrilla”, but whatever you call it, we all want to save it. Frankie’s MoneyManagerPro helps you keep track of your green with built in support for charting your expenses, scheduling for recurring income, bank account and credit card tracking, and more importantly SkyDrive powered encrypted storage. The app also features international currency modes for those of you outside the of the United States and the European Union. MoneyManagerPro is available for $1.99 with a free trial.

Money may make you cool and cotton may keep you warm but music it what keeps us all engaged in new experiences and ideas. Since external storage in Windows Phone is a non-starter you are pretty limited on how much of your MP3 collection you can carry with you at any given time. It’s true that Zune Music +Video solves this problem for $10.99 a month, but the service does nothing to let you collect the stuff you like streaming often except for pinning it to your homescreen. Enter CelltracSoftware’s Cloud Music application. Simply move all of your favorite music to the ‘Music’ folder in your SkyDrive account and you can stream them wherever you have an internet connection. The application can stream or store MP3 and AAC files, make custom playlist, use the Windows Phone media controls, and play audio in the background. It also features Music + Video hub integration and live tile pinning. It’s one of my new favorite applications, and for $1.29 you can’t beat it with a stick.

We end this week’s Windows Phone App Flow with my favorite Windows Phone application of all time. Early on I mentioned my love for television and asked for recommendations on how to best keep track of my guilty pleasures. Rudy Huyn’s TVShow consistently delivered the features users have requested including customizable live tiles and built in support for sharing information on your favorite shows via Twitter and Facebook. Why am I bringing it up now? In the new 2.7 version, there is now support for multiple live tile pinning and SkyDrive integration so you can back up your progress when you switch devices or reset your phone. Once again I highly recommend TVShow and at $1.99 it’s a steal.

That’s a wrap for this week’s cloud powered edition of Windows Phone App Flow. If you’ve got any recommendations hit me up on Twitter, username @harlemS. Until next week, America!

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@WinObs Tweeted Links for 01 February 2012

Richard Hay — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 12:15:48 +0000

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Vimeo Releases Official Windows Phone App

Richard Hay — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 17:45:00 +0000

It has been a busy week for the popular video based website Vimeo. Last week they unveiled their year long renovations for Vimeo.com and this week they release an official Vimeo app for the Windows Phone.

This app has been optimized for Windows Phone 7.5 (Mango) and brings you the following features:

Watch and manage all your existing Vimeo videos
Watch videos from your Vimeo inbox, Watch Later queue, or videos you have liked
Easily like, comment on, and add videos to your Watch Later queue
Discover new and fascinating featured videos
Quickly search for videos on Vimeo
Easily upload your footage in HD
Pause and resume uploads
Replace existing videos
Edit titles, descriptions, tags, privacy settings, and credits
Share via Facebook, Twitter, email, or SMS
Add videos to your Groups, Channels, and Albums
Get stats on plays, likes, and comments

To try out the app I played the Project Yosemite video which I wrote about last week on my LG Quantum Windows Phone to see how the video would look compared to the full HD experience on a desktop machine and it was very impressive. Smooth video with no stuttering and I was not aware of any buffering either.

It is very encouraging to see such a big player come to the Windows Phone platform with their service. I hope other big companies and name brands see the value in the Windows Phone marketplace and do the same.

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Microsoft Offers Alternatives to Google and Their New Privacy Policies

Richard Hay — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 16:07:00 +0000

When Google announced significant changes to their privacy policies last week Microsoft countered with blog posts on how to easily switch from Hotmail to Gmail in three easy steps and how Hotmail is on over 15 million mobile devices and counting.

Well today they have stepped things up a notch by taking advantage of a very non-tech method of reaching the masses – full page newspaper ads in several major papers throughout the week.

According to a post by Frank Shaw, the Corporate Vice President of Corporate Communications at Microsoft, on the official Microsoft Blog the ads are intended to remind people of the alternatives to Google’s products and their new privacy policies which allow them to connect together all of your activities across their entire portfolio of services.

The changes Google announced make it harder, not easier, for people to stay in control of their own information. We take a different approach – we work to keep you safe and secure online, to give you control over your data, and to offer you the choice of saving your information on your hard drive, in the cloud, or on both.

Will these changes impact your decision to use Google services?

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Kinect For Windows Hardware and SDK Now Available

Richard Hay — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 15:41:00 +0000

The Kinect Sensor for Windows is now officially available. The February 1st release date was announced during the Microsoft Keynote at CES 2012 in Las Vegas about three weeks ago. As expected the hardware will retail for $249.99 from Amazon.com. The increased price for this hardware, compared to the Kinect for Xbox 360, is because the Xbox 360 peripheral is subsidized when games are also purchased for the device.

As well as the hardware now being available the Kinect for Windows Software Development (SDK) Kit Version 1.0 is also available for download from the Microsoft Download Center.

According to the download page the SDK includes:

Drivers for using Kinect sensor devices on a computer running Windows 7 or Windows 8 developer preview (desktop apps only)
Application programming interfaces (APIs) and device interfaces, along with technical documentation
Source code samples

This will be the first time that enthusiasts and commercial companies will have official hardware and software to develop tools that take advantage of the Kinect Sensor’s audio, video and motion control abilities. Previously most of the creations you have seen consisted of hacking the Kinect for Xbox 360 sensor and software to take advantage of its features and capabilities.

The Kinect Effect was highlighted last October in an official video from Microsoft which showed the device had already been taking to newer levels of use and that there was more to come. I think we are about to see a tremendous wave of creativity with this release now being official.

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@WinObs Tweeted Links for 30 January 2012

Richard Hay — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 11:45:00 +0000

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Crackle Joins the Xbox 360 Entertainment App Lineup

Richard Hay — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 03:24:00 +0000

Today Sony Pictures Entertainment announced the immediate availability of the Crackle App for the Xbox 360 Console.

The Crackle App allows you to watch full length Hollywood movies for free and is available in the U.S., U.K., Canada and Australia. There is no charge or membership fees related to this service however, the movies are ad supported to offset those costs.

“Our partnership with Crackle marks a significant milestone in our vision to bring you all the film and TV entertainment you want, shared with the people you care about, made easy,” said Pete Thompson, General Manager, Xbox LIVE. “By bringing Crackle to the Xbox LIVE service and adding the magic of Kinect, we are transforming the way consumers experience entertainment forever.”

According to the press release all Crackle content, which includes more than 200 films from studios including Columbia Pictures, TriStar Pictures, Screen Gems, Sony Pictures Classics and more, is now available to watch for free with an Xbox LIVE Gold membership. In addition, the Crackle service offers over 1,500 full-length television episodes in genres its audience loves best: action, comedy, crime, horror, thriller and sci-fi.

If you have a Kinect hands free controller on your Xbox 360 console the app allows full voice and motion control and results for Crackle based movies and shows will show up in the Bing Search on the console. Of course you must have the December Xbox 360 Console Update installed to take advantage of all the new entertainment based enhancements.

I just tried to use the app as I was preparing this story but unfortunately the service is experiencing some issues. I get an error related to the authentication server being unavailable. The service disruption is confirmed on the Xbox Live Status page.

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SlingPlayer App Now Available For Kindle Fire

Richard Hay — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 02:39:00 +0000

Sling Media, the folks who make the SlingBox, have announced the launch of the SlingPlayer application for the Kindle Fire .

If you have been keeping up with the news over the last several weeks you know that Amazon sold somewhere in the ballpark of 6 million Kindle Fire devices over the holidays and I am guessing that Sling Media feels there are either a lot of folks with a Kindle Fire who already own a SlingBox or might make that jump with this app being available.

The SlingBox is an Internet connected device which allows you to log in remotely and view all the channels on your television service to watch live television or even shows you have recorded on your DVR.

Today is the official release date of the app and it can be purchased in the Amazon Appstore for Android at a cost of $29.99. It is already ranked at #72 in the Amazon Paid Android Appstore and #7 in the Entertainment section itself.

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Insects, Flora and Terra Windows 7 Dynamic Theme Updates for 27 January 2012

Richard Hay — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 18:33:00 +0000

I am especially excited about this set of updates to the three newest community based dynamic Windows 7 themes. These themes are taking photos submitted for Microsoft’s open call for images and using them to populate the themes.

The reason I am personally excited about this set of updates is because of the first photo you see below in the Insects Dynamic Theme – that is one of my submissions to the open call!

I was notified just after the new year that a few of my shots were selected to be in some of the community based themes and the community desktop wallpaper collection at the Windows Personalization Gallery and this is the first image to appear on the site.

Enjoy!

Insects Dynamic theme

Flora (Flowers)

Terra (Landscapes)

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@WinObs Tweeted Links for 27 January 2012

Richard Hay — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 11:28:55 +0000

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Windows Phone App Flow: The State of the Marketplace

Travis Pope — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 23:15:17 +0000

Rich’s Note: Travis brings up some points here that have impacted every app store out there and continues to do so. With the sheer number of apps being submitted the quality control in the approval process has to be working well across the board. Things will still slip through as we have seen in the past and this type of App Spam has been talked about before especially relating to Windows Phone. I have no doubt that the process evolves every single day but I certainly understand Travis’s frustration.

I’ve now spent a solid ten weeks giving you the lowdown on the applications I find useful during my own day to day usage of Windows Phone. We’ve shared tales of how to get the best audio and video entertainment. We’ve explored the depths of the Windows Phone Marketplace for the best ringtone applications. Indeed we’ve risked our lives and searched for Silverlight and XNA gold and lived to tell the tale.

On this, the eleventh week of Windows Phone App Flow we’re going to do exactly the opposite.

A platform’s number of applications has become something of an identifier as of late. If you’re creating a platform the first thing users want to know is ”how many applications are there?”. Windows Phone has lived up to our greatest expectations as far as development is concerned. Applications are based on languages that are fairly easy to understand. The Windows Phone developer tools are so well documented and easy to use that a Travis can do it. All of these factors have created a platform that’s easy to develop for and sadly easy to exploit.

Take “alarm_app” developed by windows phone app (no I’m not joking). It’s a simple enough application. Set the time you want to wake up, alarm goes off. That’s great except for one thing. The application is actually in the Windows Phone Marketplace, twice, and with the same name. Since it’s free and that applications contain no ads, this is less of a scam and more of a “what happened during the approval process?”.

While we all would like to hold Microsoft’s feet to the flame on not approving what we believe to be bogus applications, there’s another irresponsible party who is just as much to blame for the amount of bloat that the Windows Phone Marketplace is currently saddled with – developers. Take developer Yalla apps for example. The outfit has a number of apps including “The Time”, “News”, “Okaz”, “Game News”, “Huffington Post”, “Fox News”, “AlArabiya English”, “CNN”, “Rueters”, and “Tech News”. All of them use the same RSS template. All of them use ads to generate revenue from other’s content. All of them were uploaded within the last week.

We all know that I could go on and on and while I’m not sure of my position on developers mass producing applications to take advantage of open RSS feeds, I am sure of one thing. These practices are hurting the Windows Phone Marketplace. What good is having 60,000 applications if a great deal of them are a poorly executed excuse for showing you an advertisement? Why can’t we expect that Microsoft contain The Flood like parasitic rise of half-efforts currently making their way to our beloved platform?

On this week’s App Flow, I’ve not recommended a single application. Not because there aren’t any decent ones out there, but because they are drowning in the sea of nothingness. We’ll return to our regular hunt for amazing Windows Phone applications next week.

Until then send me your app recommendations, I’m on Twitter username: @harlemS.

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Observed Tech PODCAST Episode 39

Richard Hay — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 20:40:00 +0000

Welcome to Episode 39 of the Observed Tech PODCAST.

In this show we talk about a million comments on Facebook; over a million Nokia Windows Phone sales; Bill Gates last visit with Steve Jobs; encrypted hard drives and the law; Hotmail on a lot of mobile devices; move from Gmail to Hotmail in three easy steps; Google and its new privacy policies; Facebook Timeline is here ready or not and sensors and mobile networks in Windows 8.

As usual we wrap up with a look at the past week on WindowsObserver.com

Check out the notes below for links to all the sources.

Enjoy and as always thanks for listening!

Show Links:

This woman got over 1 million comments on a Facebook post. But not for the reasons you think (The Next Web)
Analysts Estimate Nokia Sold Around 1.3 Million Lumia Phones (Mashable)
Video: Bill Gates on his last visit with Steve Jobs (Geek Wire)
Hotmail, already powering over 15 million phones and growing, comes to Kindle Fire (Inside Windows Live Blog)
Turn over a new leaf and switch from Gmail to Hotmail in 3 easy steps (Inside Windows Live)
Updating our privacy policies and terms of service (Google)
Ready or Not, You’re Getting Facebook Timeline (Mashable)
Supporting sensors in Windows 8 (Building Windows 8 Blog)
Engineering Windows 8 for mobile networks (Building Windows 8 Blog)
Windows 8: Why the coming beta is likely to be labeled the “consumer preview” (All About Microsoft)
Judge: Americans can be forced to decrypt their laptops (cNet)

WindowsObserver.com Week in Review:

Date Produced: 27 January 2012

Length: 33:18

Format: MP3, 128KBPS

Size: 30.5MB

This PODCAST is a member of the TechPodcast Network.

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Day 44: Life From A Touch Perspective With Windows 8

Richard Hay — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 17:21:00 +0000

In my last post at the end of December I was two weeks into my touch experience on Windows 8 with my Acer Iconia Tab W500 and that post focused on issues with web based interfaces that depend on mouse hover to bring up menu’s and other interactive items on the page.

Since then one of the system features I tried on the Windows 8 Developer Preview was the Refresh and Reset options. You can read in depth at the Building Windows 8 Blog about this feature but the condensed version looks like this:

Refresh: Maintains your personal data, Metro style apps and settings from your system and reinstalls Windows.
Reset: Takes off all personal data, apps and settings and then reinstalls Windows.

As you will learn in the Building Windows 8 post desktop apps are not saved during a refresh but a nice html based file is stored on the desktop to summarize all of the desktop apps that were previously installed. In a Reset they are taken off the system just like Metro style apps are.

I decided to try both of these processes by doing the Refresh first and then running through a system Reset. I plugged in my USB flash drive which contained the Windows 8 Developer Preview installation files and each process went without a hitch.

There is a lot of value to be had in both of these features although I would leave a Refresh as a final troubleshooting step after attempting a System Restore to correct a system issue. Main reason for that is the removal of all desktop apps. On the other hand a Reset is a great step prior to donating, selling or recycling a machine as it removes all personal data, settings, programs, etc.

The next area is one where my frustration is growing in the touch world and that is the ability to manipulate items on the screen. I am talking about being able to drag and drop either text or graphical elements.

I have searched high and low and have not yet to come up with the exact method to do these things. I came across this document at the Microsoft MSDN website which goes into detail about how a touch interface should function and also provides info on touch gestures for Windows.

Unfortunately, I am not able to make most of those gestures work in the Windows 8 Developer Preview. I hope it is either me missing something in the translation from screen instructions to action or maybe these things will be cleaned up when we see the Windows 8 Beta next month.

Until then I will continue to use my Windows 8 Developer Preview tablet on a daily basis as I do now and keep on heading down this touch based road.

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@WinObs Tweeted Links for 26 January 2012

Richard Hay — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 12:13:48 +0000

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WindowsObserver.com

Windows Phone Marketplace Continues to Expand

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Want A Years Worth of Free Zune Pass? Buy a Windows Phone

Top 10 Microsoft Fix It Solutions

@WinObs Tweeted Links for 02 February 2012

Skype Updated To Version 5.8 Now Supports Full HD Video

Windows Phone App Flow: The Best of SkyDrive

@WinObs Tweeted Links for 01 February 2012

Vimeo Releases Official Windows Phone App

Microsoft Offers Alternatives to Google and Their New Privacy Policies

Kinect For Windows Hardware and SDK Now Available

@WinObs Tweeted Links for 30 January 2012

Crackle Joins the Xbox 360 Entertainment App Lineup

SlingPlayer App Now Available For Kindle Fire

Insects, Flora and Terra Windows 7 Dynamic Theme Updates for 27 January 2012

@WinObs Tweeted Links for 27 January 2012

Windows Phone App Flow: The State of the Marketplace

Observed Tech PODCAST Episode 39

Day 44: Life From A Touch Perspective With Windows 8

@WinObs Tweeted Links for 26 January 2012