The latest round of update news from Telstra, really didn’t give to much away, in fact the 7.8 update now seems to be available for a few more of their Windows Phone 7 devices, except the Titan 4G, Samsung Omnia W and the LG C900K. Hey, assume they want to get it right.
Even bigger news, a community member, Craig R, who is on the Telstra Products & Services Team, let slip a little future information in what I assume was a misunderstanding about the GDR2 update for the Lumia 920.
The GDR2 update for the Lumia 920 has not been provided to Telstra for testing yet. Nokia have informed us that they are expecting to submit in mid-May and have not been able to bring that date in any further. I will include schedule details in the next status update post which I hope to have out in a weeks time.
Some vital information has been given away though for the update time line, and even though Nokia seem to be able to get these updates out first, if Nokia are submitting to Microsoft in Mid May, then after testing and that little wait for deployment, we should possibly be seeing the update around late June, early July. This fits in with Microsoft’s projected timing for major updates, and would make the big jump to Windows Phone 8.1 line up with it’s initial reveal date in 2012.
Crowd Support Thread
A lot of important development for Windows Phone, is actually born out of necessity, and is left to independent developers to extrapolate on ideas, often based on their own needs. Company Browser for Windows Phone is one such app, built for business owners by an accountant. Obviously not all business owners have the where with all to pay some one to do their books for them, and rely on third party software solutions to keep track. Company Browser is Client Software for Windows Phone that enables keeping track of your books when using MYOB management software.
It’s not always that we have access to a PC and internet connection, but we always have our phones, and being able to respond in a timely manner to clients, creditors/debtors on the go, is a must.
Read On
Angry Birds is one of the few games that I have completed on Windows Phone, I’m not much into gaming, but the way angry birds works it’s a bit shooter and a bit strategy. Seeing that it was updated was a bit of a thrill I must say. While the update has delivered a bunch of new levels, something more important has happened.
Rather than an update, however, this is a re-release of Angry Birds; you’ll need to download the new version separately, which is free until May 15th. The real benefit is that it will now work on low memory phones,
The game will have over 400 levels from the get-go, and will be free to download for the first two weeks. The Windows Phone 8 version will also have Xbox Live integration with new achievements and leader boards!
The new version is also designed to work on Windows Phone 8 models with 256MB of memory.
The real bonus is that the new version is actually smoother, and faster on standard Windows Phones, 7.8 and 8 Os’s, although I haven’t been able to test on a device with 256 Mb of ram.
What you do have is another major franchise supporting Windows Phone, and that is vital for the platform, it also looks like Angry Birds Rio will be coming shortly to the platform as well.
Remember, it is free till May 15th, so get on it now, for Windows Phone 7 download here, and for Windows Phone 8 Here!
Windows Phone Blog, Rovio
The Windows Phone 7.8 update has been having it’s issues, and those issues were supposedly fixed, with the update rolling out again. Of course locally what that means is that carriers had to go back to testing, and approve the update again before they let it be delivered.
Telstra, on their Crowd Support forums, regularly let users know of device updates that are rolling out, and the good news is that a few, not all of their Windows Phone 7 handsets are receiving the update again.
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So it looks like Microsoft have released in some regions, another update, or two, for Windows Phone 7.8. While it seems to have hit first in Europe, reports are coming in that it is happening in other regions. Mainly on carrier unbranded phones, assume the update will have t go through regular approval processes. The updates are available in Australia, of course on unlocked devices. I have updated a HTC HD7 which found both updates immediately via Zune once connected, and using this tool, a carrier branded Titan II. What’s in the update though?
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Windows Phone 7.8 started rolling out locally, back in February, but there’s been some issues. If you didn’t get in quick for the update, the wait has now been extended indefinitely. Now the problem seems to be two-pronged, live tiles consuming huge amounts of data when updating, initiating an endless loop which causes huge data use, and or live tiles freezing, not actually working at all.
WPCentral is reporting that Microsoft has now acknowledged the issue, via the MSDN forums, and the fix, another OS update, and we thought 7.8 would be the last! [sarcasm intended]. What though does this mean for Aussies though? Well at least Telstra has updated their site to let us know. In the most recent updates digest at the Crowd Support forums, the message is, as the latest update, first of March.
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Twitter sort of went from nothing to something rather quickly, to the point where it is now one of the major communication tools for not only the proverbial geek, but any mainstream internet user. It’s become such a major tool for internet users, that mobile OS providers, and OEM’s skinning those OS’s have been including the service natively.
Windows Phone is no exception, although the deployment is rather limited, spurning a bevy of clients/apps, that try to take advantage of all the features that Twitter offers, and some of them are incredibly successful at doing that. Offering features that only third party clients can, either on the Desktop or phone via a browser.
Twitter has had a presence on Windows Phone with an official application for quite a while, but it was definitely relegated to the “one of those apps that are there, but I can get better results from other free apps” list for most users. So it was the digital equivalent of two tin cans and string, in the world of Windows Phone Twitter Clients. While it has always been stable and done what it promised, a lack of updates, and keeping up with what other smaller developers have been doing with their service, may have just changed.
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Windows Phone 7.8 finally became available for first and second generation WP devices yesterday, well possibly not all of them. I have seen reports of non carrier branded devices getting the update, LG, Samsung and HTC, just by connecting to Zune and checking for updates. I have a HTC HD7 that was running a custom 7.8 rom, that I flashed back to stock last night and plugged in to Zune and after going through all of the updates, it came to WP7.8, OS Version 7.10.8858.136.
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![Another Surface Phone Concept! [Drool]](/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/surfNcon_thumb-238x196.png)
