Whenever a new and improved mobile software is released nowadays, there’s always that moment in which owners of certain devices discover theirs will be left out in the cold. In the case of Windows Phone 7.x, that was everybody, and although Microsoft has delivered Windows Phone 7.8 in something of a watered-down edition of Windows Phone 8, it’s still lacking many of the key new features of Windows Phone 8. The advantage of using old software, however, is that, more often than not, it’s a lot more mod-able, and thanks to a new app, those running Windows Phone 7.x can enjoy a slick Notification Center feature with the aptly-entitled Notifications app.

If you were thinking of picking up a Nokia Lumia 900 and happen to live in the UK, then you may wish to hold off on that purchase for a little while, with some interesting news coming out of the Finnish phone maker. In fact, if you’re also a fan of the super awesome Batman, then you’ll definitely want to hold your horses.

So here we are, day three of my look into what the biggest players in the smartphone world will, or possibly should do in 2012.

Nokia is going big with the whole Windows Phone thing, which is probably something to do with that infamous deal it struck with Microsoft last year. As part of the Finnish firm’s newfound love for all things Windows Phone, Nokia has now announced its first WP7 handset to be made available in the United States.

Yesterday, we talked about Bazaar – an alternate apps/tweaks distribution platform for Windows Phone 7 (dubbed as the Cydia of WP7) – and today, we will be talking about Themes – a theming platform for Windows Phone 7 (which we would like to dub as the WinterBoard of WP7). Details after the jump!

We use a Twitter quite a bit here at Redmond Pie, and between the editorial staff here there are a few favorite apps across a selection of mobile platforms. Some like Twitter for iPhone, some prefer Tweetbot. Android fans amongst us tend to change Twitter apps on a daily basis while trying to find one that works!

All things considered, it’s been a pretty solid year for Microsoft. With Xbox 360 + Kinect still selling like hotcakes, allied to Windows 8 being greeted warmly by PC users far and wide, the Redmond-based company’s mobile OS has now been acknowledged as the ‘Operating System Of The Year’.

The Nokia Lumia 800 is Nokia’s brand new Windows Phone 7 smartphone. In fact, it’s the Finnish firm’s first handset to be packing Microsoft’s mobile operating system, and to say there is a lot riding on it is the understatement of the century.

iOS users take screenshots for granted. The feature, as far I can remember, was included in iOS 1.0 (back then known as iPhone OS) and allowed users to capture whatever was going on on their screen. These screenshots could then be used for a variety of purposes, one of the most popular uses being for reviewing apps on blogs. Google’s Android OS will get this feature with Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich when it releases next month while Windows Phone 7 users have to resort to taking photographs of their screens with a separate camera.

For those who have been waiting for a low cost way of installing homebrew Windows Phone 7 apps on their smartphones, the wait could be finally coming to an end.

Samsung’s recently released AllShare DLNA app offers Windows Phone owners of the Sammy persuasion the ability to share all kinds of media over a WiFi network to any DLNA-compatible TV or set-top box. The problem though, is that when attempting to run the app on certain Samsung devices, users were met with an error, and as a result were unable to take advantage of what AllShare has to offer. The popular belief is that Samsung doesn’t want owners of certain handsets to have access to AllShare, though the reasoning is unclear. With that in mind, it’s possible that users could experience some off behavior on certain handsets, but we’ve not seen any reports either for, or against that theory just yet.

Microsoft has shown off the deep integration between Windows Phone 7.5 and its Xbox Kinect once more, this time at the recent HTC Radar launch in Hong Kong.