Even though the tiled nature of Windows Phone serves as a quirk, it's also a hindrance to those who like their traditional wallpapers. Recognizing this, Microsoft has come through with a compromise in Windows Phone 8.1, allowing wallpapers to be spread across tiles in a neat, mosaic fashion. But there is still a conflict of interests between tiles and wallpapers thanks to fixed-color tiles, and with everything appearing a little too busy and cluttered, one developer has decided to create an app that renders these stubborn tiles completely transparent.
Samsung and Google have already invested time and resources into the emerging smartwatch market, and with Apple widely expect to follow suit later on this year, Microsoft is also rumored to be planning a product line-up of its own. We've already seen patent filings to corroborate this notion, and now, a credible new report has offered some fresh details.
Having officially announced the acquisition of Beats Electronics, the official Beats Music app for iOS, Android and Windows Phone have seen a new pricing and trial structure with immediate effect. Although the app itself remains largely unchanged, the previous 7-day free trial of the premium service has now been pushed to 14 days, while the annual subscription has dropped around $20 to just $99 for the whole year.
As of early last week, Samsung has taken over London Heathrow Airport's Terminal 5 in a typically over-the-top ad campaign that has seen the entrance renamed "Terminal Samsung Galaxy S5." On top of that, the place is awash with billboards advertising the Korean company's most celebrated handset, and this exhibition is set to continue for another week yet. Before Samsung's takeover, though, Nokia - now Microsoft - had quite a sizeable advertising stake in Terminal 5, and given the mobile industry rival, it's no surprise that the Windows Phone giant has begun trolling Sammy's efforts with a little campaign of its own.
Windows Phone might not be as popular as the contemporary iOS and Android platforms, but that doesn’t mean that Microsoft has given up on it already. In fact, they keep making efforts to improve the overall experience for users of the Windows Phone platform. However, when something is missing the most basic elements, we see little to no hope there. A part of it - no, a fraction of it - might change since Joe Belfiore’s confirmation of a File Manager app around the corner for Windows Phone 8.1. In fact, he had some screenshots to back up his claim as well.
Social apps often overlap each other. It's the nature of the beast that if one service implements a useful new feature, several others will follow suit. On a day that has already seen Snapchat go all instant-messaging on us, Foursquare has announced Swarm, an app that helps you find close-by friends and discover things to do. The app represents a departure from the company's check-in ways, and also throws down the gauntlet to a neat little feature that Facebook added to Paper only a week or so ago.
The developer preview Of Windows Phone 8.1 is now out there for all to try out and assess, and even though the Cortana voice assistant seems to be the main talking point, Microsoft has thrown in many more useful features besides. Along with the Action Center, wallpaper support and other such niceties, it looks as though the software giant has included support for Apple's Passbook passes, which can be read and comprehended via Microsoft Wallet.
In the earlier days of the modern smartphone, it was the new, casual games that really caught our attention, with the likes of Angry Birds and Cut the Rope really taking a stronghold. But as devices have improved considerably during the past few years, developers of famed PC and console apps have seen the mobile market as an important outlet, and joining the many classic titles to reach the mobile platforms, Age of Empires will soon be heading to the App Store, the Windows Phone Store, and Google's Play Store.
You can now download Windows Phone 8.1 early. If you're a non-dev and want to give it a shot, here's how you can still download it.
The Amazing Spider-Man 2 movie is pretty much just around the corner, with the action film hitting the theatres on May 2. Tagging along is the mobile game with the same title, courtesy of Gameloft, to be released for the iPhone/iPad, Android and Windows Phone. Today, the game developer has released a new trailer for the upcoming title and given it a firm release date for all three platforms - April 17.
