One year from this day, I went from store to store, begging salesman after salesman to sell me what I intended to buy, what I was sure to be something big, something invaluable. Finally, at an hour much past dinner, I managed to find one manager who was enthusiastic about the phone (or rather, about somebody wanting to pay money for one), and managed to snag myself a Samsung Focus.
It is to my much contemplated self that I now must say, I am moving on.
It is the responsibility of time constraints and conflicting projects that brings me this day to say that ForeverWP will be coming to a close. I may drop by now and then to share some thoughts that will tie up loose ends, and comment on what exactly Microsoft thinks it is doing. But until then, everyone must come to a point where self-evaluation is a necessity, where focus must be found. This is the case here. For now, ForeverWP, my project once known as "Windows Phone 7 Central" (a name I will admit became easily conflicted with certain experts of smartphones) will be slowing fading out. It will remain online for the time being, and perhaps may even become a place for another group to reign, a group who has more time and focus available to draw upon, and bring this project back to its feet.
This decision was not an easy one, but in the end, it was necessary. The high points of writing here were exactly that; the times when I could write freely on an opinion, and say what everyone else was afraid to say. But it seems day to day that such original content is becoming obsolete, that to compete with sites hogging the attentions of all followers who merely copy and paste, who seem almost illiterate in their commentary and lack of understanding. With more time and effort, this could be remedied, but when something better comes along, does one take it, or just let it slip?
The primary focus now will be WindowsPhoneHacker, which represents the majority of my feelings about Windows Phone; that it has potential, but needs help. Help that was once feasible, but has since been combated at the hands of two-faced executives at Microsoft. Perhaps this sentence means hate to some, but to my fellow developers, it should be well agreed upon. I was never part of the consumer base, the base that says "Nokia has potential, but disappointing specs. But they have potential.", or the point that thinks dancing tiles on a home screen is the savior for our daily lives. Code is creativity, a certain creativity I will embrace from now on.
To the faithful readers, I leave this message. I appreciate you, and especially your patience. As a recommendation, I suggest keeping tabs on WPCentral and 1800PocketPc; the former shines through as the most professional group, capable off reducing bias on most topics, something I see as invaluable. The latter shines through with perhaps the greatest original content I've ever seen, bringing both hard work and personality to the blogosphere. Your work is appreciated.
On behalf of Microsoft, Windows Phone, and what was once ForeverWP, zai jian.
An ignorant person with a bad character is like an unarmed robber, but a learned person with a blog is a robber fully armed. ~Mickey Kaus
Nokia's marketing team has been up to quite a bit lately, and in a recent posting, the source of the name Lumia has been explained.
Anyone who has ever had to name something knows where Nokia is coming from here, and Nokia's list of over 200 suggested names was quickly narrowed through global trademark searching. The names were then sent to experts in 84 dialects, looking for an ease of pronunciation and avoiding possible negative connotation.
In the end, Lumia was found to be a winner. Despite the fact it has origins of being an old Spanish word for "prostitute", the team found that over 60% of Spanish consumers thought that it was a great name, and was associated with "light" and "style", rather than the old meaning that some keen-eyed researchers seemed to find.
What does this mean for end users? It shows a sense of devotion. Nokia isn't throwing out another phone, slapping some random model number on it, and seeing if it sells. No, Nokia is pushing the big guns here, and isn't leaving any room for mistakes, whether it be in marketing or production. Windows Phone is Nokia's chance for a do-over, and there's no chance they'll mess it up.
Nokia's Lumia 710, also known as the Sabre, won't be stopping at it's European launch. The device passed through the FCC recently with T-Mobile bands, and now, according to TmoNews, the device will be coming to T-Mobile as early as January. The device is codenamed on the stateside the Sword, and will be reportedly coming in white and black schemes.
We're excited to hear the device will be making it to the USA so early, but also a little disappointed that it won't be here for the holiday season. Maybe next time, Nokia.
At a Windows Phone Inner Circle event, Microsoft took the liberty of showing off the new Samsung Focus S for AT&T, coming November 6th. Windows Phone Daily managed to get a hands-on video of the phone, and shows off the hardware and screen performance of the phone.
The Focus S is designed to be the successor to the well-selling Samsung Focus, with a boost to a 1.4ghz processor, a bump to an 8mp camera, and a 4.27" S-AMOLED+ screen as compared to the original 4" S-AMOLED seen on the original. The size difference is immediately obvious, and the hardware is something we would love to put in our hands. It's certainly a great upgrade from the original phone, and we suggest you have a look at it in the video above.
We knew Acer would be creating a Windows Phone this fall, and even got a look at the Allegro earlier this month. It's since been made official by Acer, and while our expectations weren't high, we can't pretend to be impressed.
Sure, the device design looks very solid, and gives a nice sturdy, professional look to the phone. But, at the same time, this device looks like a missed opportunity for Acer and Windows Phone in general. Are the specifications bad? No, but there are a lot of high end phones launching this holiday season, and this device would struggle even in last year's market. Oh well. Without further rant, here's the specification sheet:
Dimensions of 11.6 x 5.9 x 13mm
Weight 126g
LCD 3.6-inch WVGA (480×800)
Qualcomm MSM8255 processor 1Ghz
Storage capacity of 8GB
5 megapixel camera with LED flash
1300mAh battery with autonomy of 6 hours talk time
Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR
Wi-Fi 802.11b/g/n
At least we have Nokia's offerings to look forward to.
No, you're not missing something, this is a first for us, too. Apparently Lenovo has joined the Windows Phone party in secret, and apparently already has a working "Lenovo S2" prototype slated for China.
The device looks a lot like a Samsung Focus or a Nexus S, and honestly, we like it. But... wait. There's not a lot of Windows Phone branding on the device itself (specifically on the bottom), and what's more alarming: look at the image above. The camera application shown is not Windows Phone's, and in fact, looks a bit like Android.
According to the source, the device may be released in both Android and WP7 fashions, but we're suggesting some caution here. The image below shows the device running Mango, but doesn't show the bottom capacitive buttons, so take it with a grain of salt:
AT&T's new line up will be launching within weeks, according to a revelation made on AT&T's Facebook page. The self-proclaimed premiere Windows Phone carrier posted the above message earlier today, which indicates that it's upcoming Samsung devices will be launching on November 6th.
The two devices, the Samsung Focus Flash and Samsung Focus S are the follow up devices to AT&Ts popular Samsung Focus. The Focus S is geared to be the higher end device, priced at $199.99 and boasting a 4.3" Super AMOLED+ screen and a 8mp camera. The Focus Flash, on the other hand, is more of a budget model, but still packs a punch with 3.7" Super AMOLED screen. Both feature 1.4ghz processors and front facing cameras, making this year's round up cheaper and higher in value than last year's.
AT&T's new Samsung devices, the Focus S and Focus Flash (a branded Omnia W), have appeared over on Samsung's official products list, detailing the devices' top features and specifications.
The devices are slated for a November launch on USA's AT&T, which, if our suspicions are correct, will comprise of a countrywide launch of the Mango 2nd generation devices on different carriers, similar to the actions last year.
The appearance of these devices over on Samsung's website further proves this theory, and shows that these devices are not far from hitting shelves near you.
Nokia's second offering, the Nokia Lumia 710, is a smaller, lower budget device that still packs a punch. Per Nokia's official product page, here are the specifications:
Screen: 3.7" ClearBlack display
Dimensions: 119x62.4x12.5mm
Weight: 126g
Camera: 5mp (typical)
1.4ghz MSM8255 processor
8gb memory (no MicroSD)
512mb RAM
Battery: 1300 mAh
400 hours standby, 6.9 hours talk time, 38 hours music, 7 hours video
The Nokia Lumia 800, previously known as the Nokia Sea Ray, is the first of Nokia's upcoming Windows Phone line. The device is very close to N9, aside from the fact it runs full blown Windows Phone Mango. Here are the official specifications, as reported on Nokia's product page.
Despite having no American ad campaign until next year, Nokia has a large portfolio of videos on it's Youtube channel that will be used as TV ads for the Nokia Lumia 800. Check them out below, and share your thoughts on their marketing technique, which seems to imply that using this phone will make you do amazing (or at least unusual) things:
Similar to it's older brother, the Nokia Lumia 710 has been officially announced today. This device, previously known as the Sabre, was seen recently floating around as a prototype.
Today, the following information has been released by Nokia:
The purposely built, no-nonsense Nokia Lumia 710 can be personalized with exchangeable back covers and thousands of apps to bring the Lumia experience to more people around the world. The Nokia Lumia 710 is designed for instant social & image sharing, and the best browsing experience with IE9. It is available in black and white with black, white, cyan, fuchsia and yellow back covers. With the same 1.4 GHz processor, hardware acceleration and graphics processor as the Nokia Lumia 800, the Nokia Lumia 710 delivers high performance at an affordable price. The estimated retail price for the Nokia Lumia 710 will be approximately 270 EUR, excluding taxes and subsidies.
Nokia has released a series of videos on it's Youtube channel that demonstrate Windows Phone 7.5 running on both the Lumia 710 and 800. Information about the product can be found at Nokia's website, here.
Today, Nokia has released all the information about upcoming Nokia Windows Phones (and other devices) at Nokia World, an event that clears up all the questions and rumors about Nokia's upcoming portfolio.
The Nokia Lumia 800 is described as "stunningly social" with a "head-turning design". The device will come in cyan, magenta, and black, and boasts the following specifications:
3.7" AMOLED ClearBlack screen
1.4ghz processor
Carl Zeiss 8mp camera
16gb internal memory
The device is currently preparing for a November launch in Europe, where it is priced at approximately 420 EUR, excluding taxes.
The following commercial released by Nokia shows the marketing strategy of Nokia, which focuses on having an "amazing everyday":
The details about the device can be found here, and the device is currently up for preorder in Europe.
We've seen the keyboard bug and the file upload bug, and now it looks like we might have another to add to the list of Windows Phone Mango related bugs.
According to reader Benn, it appears that voicemail text notifications are not longer being handled currently on Mango. Here's the gist of it:
Thought I'd submit a heads up about a Mango bug my friend and I stumbled onto tonight. Seems that, at least on several Australian carriers, voicemail text notifications no longer work correctly post-Mango.
If you receive a new voicemail, you receive no text notification of it. If you manually navigate to your voicemail text thread, you will see that in fact it has updated to include the new message and time of call, but that it did not flag this as a new message or move it up your message history. Very... broken.
In essence, it looks like the individual thread's message times are not being updated correctly, which prevents properly ordering or notification.
We don't know enough about how Vodafone and Telstra Australia handle voicemail text notifications to try and figure this one out, but it looks like Mango's new threaded system may have support issues with carrier messages. Hopefully we can get enough word out to Microsoft on this one to solve the issue.
AT&T's new line up will be launching within weeks, according to a revelation made on AT&T's Facebook page. The self-proclaimed premiere Windows Phone carrier posted the above message earlier today, which indicates that it's upcoming Samsung devices will be launching on November 6th.
