Perhaps users of Windows Phone devices don’t understand that the “marketplace” is where you go to buy apps? For some inexplicable reason, Microsoft is appearing going through the process of rebranding its Windows Phone Marketplace into Windows Phone Store. I guess this is falling in line with what Google did too, shifting from an Android Market to a Google Play Store too.

It’s also possible that this is simply Microsoft’s latest attempt to bring everything under the same over-arching umbrella, which is fundamentally the same thing that they’ve started doing with certain Xbox, Zune and Windows-branded offerings. After all, there is a “Windows Store” that’ll come along with Windows 8… but this is still the Windows Phone Store, so it’s not like the two are intricately intertwined either.

At this point, Microsoft is neither confirming nor denying the name change, but the “Windows Phone Store” naming scheme has started to appear in a few places, like on the Windows Phone Dev Center where it says you can “create great apps and add them to the Windows Phone Store for the world to see, try, and buy.”

[Source]

The post Windows Phone Marketplace Becoming Windows Phone Store? appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

Remember in the 1990s and early into 2000s when Nokia was riding high? It was at the top of the mobile phone world, selling more devices than any other company. Then, something changed and somehow we find ourselves here today with Nokia revealing an operating loss of 826 million Euro. That’s right around $1 billion US. What happened?

Well, the good news is that the operating loss is offset by licensing royalties and a regular cheque from Microsoft, getting them to a net cash rise of 102 million Euro (about US$125 million). You have to keep in mind, though, that Nokia enjoyed an operating profit of 344 million Euro just one year earlier. To make matters worse, Nokia announced its Q2 results today and it’s nothing but gloom; only 4 million Lumia’s sold worldwide, and 600,000 handsets sold in the USA.

You know Nokia was once the number one cell phone company in the world? It lost that throne too. Samsung now sells more mobile phones than its Finnish competitor. Nokia is also losing on the low-end from other competitors, mostly in emerging markets. Back in 2007, Nokia had a 40.4% market share. That dropped to 27% last year and 21% in the first quarter of this year. It’s a slow and painful bleed.

It’s not like Nokia isn’t trying to innovate. It has spent $40 billion in R&D–roughly four times what Apple has spent–in the last decade working on new devices, but there’s a problem. Many of these never made it past R&D. Frank Nuovo is a former designer at Nokia and he already envisioned a smartphone with a color touchscreen above a single button seven years before the iPhone. In the late 90s, Nokia also had an iPad-esque tablet in the works that never materialized. As Nuovo put it, “We had it completely nailed.” The company culture encouraged research, “but squandered opportunities to bring the innovations it produced to market.”

Yes, Nokia spent a lot of money on innovation, but it didn’t really produce “winning devices or software.” Instead, it now has at least two abandoned operating systems and a bunch of patents. In fact, the patents, worth about $6 billion, are said to make up the bulk of Nokia’s overall value. Even Stephen Elop agrees that if they had “been landed in products…I think Nokia would have been in a different place.” They spent too much time selling to the low-end and not enough time pushing the higher-end devices to market. And the iPhone arrived and gobbled it all up.

[Source]

The post Understanding How Nokia Lost Over $1 Billion in Q1 2012 appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

Of course, that $50 price isn’t for an outright purchase. You will have to sign up for a qualifying contract. That said, at least you’ll be getting upgraded to Windows Phone 7.8, complete with the updated Start screen. Tiles can get resized, for instance, but it is going to bug you this fall when the first batch of Windows Phone 8 devices start hitting shelves.

What do you think? Is the price slash enough to make the Nokia Lumia 900 enticing for folks considering a new smartphone? Or are they still more inclined to get a new Android device or iPhone? Does the pink version persuade or dissuade you?

[Source]

The post AT&T Nokia Lumia 900 Halved to $50 on Contract, No Windows 8 appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

The Nokia Lumia 800 has been officially listed on the Telus Mobility website, coming with an official launch date of March 2. The product page is also saying that the Lumia 800 will be offered “only from Telus,” snatching up the exclusive away from Bell and Rogers. Quick highlights include the 3.7-inch ClearBlack AMOLED display, 16GB internal memory, and 8MP Carl Zeiss camera with LED flash.

No word on pricing just yet, but we can see that Telus will have the Lumia 800 in your choice of black, blue, or pink. And yes, it’ll take advantage of that 4G HSPA network too.

The post Telus Illuminates March 2 for Nokia Lumia 800 appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

The ASUS Eee Slate EP121 is not your usual tablet with all those low-powered and low-performance ARM chips inside. Eee Slate has a mighty Intel i5 CPU inside, plus an Intel HD graphics chip to drive a beautiful and roomy 12.1″ screen that is not only capacitive, but also has a pressure-sensitive Wacom layer that takes precise input from a Wacom digitizer pen. Running Microsoft Windows 7 64-bit with 2 GB of RAM,  it’s every bit a Windows machine than that one sitting on your desk. Check below for overdone marketing videos by Asus on their newly unveiled Windows tablet.

1. Stay connected to the wider world with the ASUS Eee Slate:

For regular visiting and browsing flea markets, the ASUS Eee Slate is definitely better than bulky, full-sized laptops.

2. Get creative with the ASUS Eee Slate

Artists can really gain in their creativity and productivity when using Eee Slate. What’s not to love in full Photoshop?

3. Make your business more mobile with the ASUS Eee Slate

Being mobile when running a restaurant is important. This particular restaurant also boasts a mobile kitchen on top of that, so being mobile with Eee Slate is twice important. Just don’t spill your sauces on the Slate grill.

4. My powerful work and play companion

One thing is looking for a perfect pair of shoes at the local flea market, another thing is using a tablet PC in serious business environment. ASUS Eee Pad EP121 can do both.

The post ASUS Eee Slate EP121: Where And How To Use It? appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

With the touch-optimized Windows 8 soon on its way, you would think that every hardware maker out there would have a big “On Hold” sign over any possible plans for Windows tablets until late-2012.

Of course you’d be wrong, as Viewsonic announced at CES that it is releasing the new ViewPad 10i.

The 10i runs on the latest Intel Oak Trail Atom Z670 processor, and uses Windows 7 Professional as its OS of choice.

The ViewPad 10i manages to wiegh only 1.77 pounds, features a super high-res IPS display (1280×800), has 64GB of storage, 2GB of RAM, dual cameras, 4 hours of battery life, and pre-loaded customized apps and software with touch in mind.

So why is Viewsonic releasing a Windows 7 tablet now when 8 is coming in late 2012? I suppose part of the reason could be to try and attract users that what to test Windows 8 beta out on the latest tablet hardware around.

Nonetheless, I wouldn’t expect the 10i to fly off store shelves anytime soon. As for Viewsonic’s new $170 ICS tablet, that’s another story.

[ source ]

The post Viewsonic’s Windows 7 Oak Trail Tablet appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

We already know that Microsoft wants to tie together its various services. That’s why the recent Xbox 360 dashboard update lets us search Bing with our voices (via Kinect). And that’s also why there is the Xbox Companion App for Windows Phone devices. As it turns out, though, Microsoft wants to expand beyond WP7 with its mobile ambitions. It wants iOS and Android too.

At least, that’s what a new job posting leads us to believe. They’re looking for a senior development engineer to work on the Xbox Live Mobile team. The kicker is that they say they want to “bring the latest and greatest gaming and entertainment experience to mobile platforms including Windows Phone, iOS, and other mobile platforms.”

While the “big plus” of having experience developing for Windows Phone, iOS and Android could simply mean that the successful candidate is a good, well-rounded developer, it could also mean that Microsoft wants him or her to develop for these other platforms too. There’s already the My Xbox LIVE app fro iOS, for example.

Why the sudden interest in playing friendly with other platforms? Well, there’s word going around that Sony is approaching the other Android device manufacturers for PlayStation Suite certification. If they’re able to get the PlayStation brand as the brand for mobile gaming, the Xbox brand could be left in the dust. One thing’s pretty much for certain though: Nintendo wants no part of this, at least for now.

The post Xbox Live Gaming Enroute to iOS and Android Platforms Too? appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

This big marketing push will take on many approaches, including everything from simple awareness campaigns to incentives for retailers to push Windows Phone devices. There are reports that sales guys could get as much as $10 to $15 per handset sold. The money comes from Microsoft, as well as partners like Nokia and Samsung, and it’s reportedly going to all be spent in “early 2012.” The Nokia Ace from AT&T, in particular, will be getting a “concerted advertising push.”

It’s clear that Android and iOS are the elephants in the room when it comes to smartphone platforms, since only 5.2% of all smartphone subscribers are using Microsoft’s mobile OS. If you thought you were sick of the “To the Cloud” campaign, you’re about to get really sick of Windows Phone… but at least more of the general population will even know of its existence.

The post Windows Phone Marketing About To Get $200 Million Booster Shot appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

These days Siri is a pretty big deal, and something that really helps set the iPhone even further apart from the competition. With recent 3rd party efforts to create Siri plugins this experience has gotten even better. What about those that don’t have an iPhone?

There has been plenty of love on the Android platform at this point with great legal, acceptable options like Vlingo, and there has already even been a somewhat-scam related release called “Siri For Android“, which was recently removed from the marketplace.  Most siri attempts though have been laughable.

Where does Windows Phone rank in all of this? Nowhere, at least not until now.

Today a new voice assistant has hit Windows Phone platform, called Ask Ziggy. While it doesn’t seem to be nowhere near as polished as Siri (at least not yet), it does give users the ability to send out Tweets, update Facebook, and is capable of answering trivial questions such as “Was Darth Vader a good guy?”, apparently.

The app is available for free from the Windows Marketplace and seems to be a good start.

The post Ask Ziggy Brings Siri-Like Functionality To Windows Phone appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

Windows Phone Tango doesn’t sound like it’s going to be nearly as substantial as its tropical fruit-named predecessor, but it will reportedly still bring some new moves to the dance floor. For instance, we’re hearing that it’ll get support for smaller screens, smaller chassis sizes, and even LTE. Considering all the LTE-equipped Droids out there, that’s a good thing for Redmond.

But it takes two to tango! There’s a good chance that Nokia will be showing off its new Nokia 719 and Nokia 900 at CES, both of which could very well ship with Tango right out of the box. The newest WP7 update is rumored to be released “soon” after CES.

Looking a little further down the roadmap to what could be Windows Phone 8, we’re hearing that the “Apollo” update is currently being slated to launch in mid-June 2012. Does this mean you should wait? Or is it likely that existing WP7 and WP7.5 devices will be eligible for the WP8 upgrade?

The post CES To Set Stage For Windows Phone Tango Update appeared first on Mobile Magazine.