Windows Phone is now third in the smartphone wars!

   The IDC have done it again and this month they're back with an update to the distribution of the mobile OS' and they have revealed that the for the first time ever Windows Phone is officially the world's third placed operating system!

   This months stats show that Windows Phone is slowly starting to garner more attention, while Blackberry's current lack of phones is starting to impact their overall market share. Obviously, the battle for third place seems somewhat insignificant because both Blackberry and Windows Phone are miles behind the runaway success stories of Android and iOS!  

   As you can see from the tablet above Android is the runaway leader in terms of market share, with huge quantities of devices being sold, indeed Google announced that there are at least 900 million devices which have been activated running their operating system just yesterday! In second place is Apple with their quantities of sales steadying a little and seeing 6% year over year growth in the volumes of phones they ship. Having 17% of the market is still a remarkable achievement considering that they only sell three phones at any given point in time!

   Then comes Windows Phone which saw year over year growth in sales of 133%, which means they only shipped 7 million phones in the last quarter, but some growth is good growth! Then there's Blackberry devices, Linux devices, Symbian devices and the fateful 'other' categories which round out the stats.

   Do you expect Blackberry to head back above Windows Phone when cheap BB10 device start arriving? Can Windows Phone gain on Android and iOS? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!
Via PocketLint.

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Nokia's Lumia 928 now has a low-light theme park test to go along with all the teasers!

   Nokia's Lumia 928 is now all but announced, but that doesn't mean we can't check out some of the features of the new device. To that end there's a new video on the internet which we assume will be used as promotional material for the new flagship device.

   As you can see in the video embedded below, Nokia have spent an evening at the Adventureland fun park in New York. They conducted a couple of tests of their new flagship for Verizon and the Samsung Galaxy S3 and the iPhone 5, with the central idea being to highlight how well Nokia's optical image stabilisation works, whilst simultaneously showing the low light performance of the camera. Seeing as they were at a theme park, the obvious place to test the devices was on the rollercoaster!

   In the interests of fairness it's worth mentioning that Nokia used the Galaxy S3 because they conveniently filmed the video before the Galaxy S4 was available, but to be honest the fact that they're testing it against last year's flagships doesn't matter too much, because it's obvious that the Lumia has good low light and image stabilisation capabilities.

   Seeing as we know so much about this device already Nokia will basically round out the spec sheet on the 14th of May and they'll tell us whether or not the Lumia 928 will be a Verizon exclusive or if it will arrive in the rest of the world too!
Via PocketLint.

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The Lumia 928 goes for worst kept secret of the year: Basically takes the award already with appearances online and in Vanity Fair!

   Ohhh Nokia, this has really just happened. It seems that a Nokia employee got all the advertising release dates wrong or Nokia has planned to advertise their new Lumia flagship in the United States a little bit before its release to build some hype!

   You might remember how a few days ago the Lumia 928 was spotted up high on a billboard, well now it seems that it's not only popped up in an issue of Vanity Fair, which you can see pictured above, but it's also up and running on Nokia's website! At the moment you can only see the image embedded below, on that site, but we don't need too much more than that. And yes, it's exactly the same image as in the Vanity Fair publication!

   So we know what the Lumia 928 will look like and we know it's destined for Verizon, but we don't know the specs. What do you guys think? Will we see a 1080p screen or will it be 720p again and will we see anything more than a dual-core Snapdragon processor? We're not sure, but we'd love for this new flagship to step it up in the screen and processor departments!
Via Engadget.

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Nokia's Stephen Elop comes under criticism at AGM: 'Results are what matter'!

   Nokia are an interesting case: they're still one of the companies who ship the most phones in the world, the only problem is that at the moment those phones are the low end ones and they're selling to emerging markets. As of late though budget handsets which offer better features and would be considered 'smartphones' have been eating into Nokia's market share in that segment. That means that margins get slimmer and sales contract. That's bad news for Nokia because they need to keep their volume devices shipping while they build on the image of their Lumia devices and Microsoft brings what they can to the mobile table with Windows Phone!

   Today there was an Annual General Meeting for Nokia and their CEO Stephen Elop is clearly aware of what he needs to do. Indeed, before the meeting he told Reuters India that Nokia 'are continuing to renew our portfolio, which includes plans to announce innovation and new products in the Asha line in the days immediately ahead," which is good to hear. The thing is that the area where people make all of their profit is on high-end smartphones, which is why HTC has bet big on their HTC One.

   On the high end front Elop reiterated before the AGM, and again to Reuters, that Nokia:

"Make adjustments as we go. But it's very clear to us that in today's war of ecosystems, we've made a very clear decisions to focus on Windows Phone with our Lumia product line. And it is with that that we will compete with competitors like Samsung and Android." 

   The only problem with that reiteration of their commitment to Windows Phone was that shareholders don't necessarily agree and indeed it seems that some are starting to lose patience with the Windows Phone commitment. One particular shareholder, called Hannu Vitanen, expressed his discontent by saying:

"You're a nice guy ... and the leadership team is doing its best, but clearly, it's not enough... Are you aware that results are what matter? The road to hell is paved with good intentions. Please switch to another road."

   The problem for Nokia is that the Windows Phone transition was slated to take two years, it's been two years since Nokia announced that they were going Windows Phone and despite slow increases in sales, things appear to be very stunted and they are nowhere near in the same ballpark as sales of the most expensive models from Samsung and Apple.

   One interesting point which came out of the interviews Reuters did with shareholders was that some people in the audience admitted that they only held shares still because of the sentimentality which came along with them. The company of the 1990's symbolised a rebirth of Finland, which could make do without its old trading partner the Soviet Union when that fell apart.

   When shareholders are hanging onto their shares purely for sentimental reasons that is not good news and Nokia need to turn things around soon. We just wonder whether the change to Android is inevitable or why Nokia refuses to give it a go. Magnus Rehle from Greenwich Consulting put Elop's leadership together in a sentence, saying:

"He's managed to decrease costs but not to increase market share... Maybe they could go back to Google and say we also want to go with Android. Even if it hurts. Microsoft, they've had their chances, and are not managing to take off."

   What do you think? What should Nokia do? Press on with Windows Phone or give Android a shot? Or should they let out their new Lumia flagship and Asha devices and see where things are in three months? Let us know in the comments below!

Via IntoMobile and Slashgear.

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AdDuplex give the Windows Phone breakdown for April: The Lumia 920 is now the Windows Phone king!

   Windows Phone is always an interesting operating system to follow because it has one of the world's biggest companies behind it, it's widely considered to be a fantastic operating system and yet somehow Microsoft and Nokia in particular, just can't quite get it to catch on the way iOS and Android have!

   That being said there's been a bit of growth lately, but the guys over at AdDuplex have used their tracking software, which people put in apps, to give us a much more rounded idea of how well the platform is doing and which devices in particular are stealing the limelight!

   The one device which seems to be setting the ecosystem on fire is the Nokia Lumia 920. Nokia's flagship is now the most popular Windows Phone out on the market and it's finally knocked the Lumia 800 off the top spot for the first time! As you can see in the pie chart below, other phones are selling really well too, with the Windows Phone 8 powered range from the 620, through the 820 to the 920 all starting to catch up with their Windows Phone 7 counterparts which were released the year before! We're surprised to see just how few devices HTC have sold, given the amount of HTC 8S' which we've been seeing around lately, so perhaps we live in a particular hotspot for the device!

   The comparison between Windows Phone 7 and Windows Phone 8 sales is also interesting lately with Windows Phone 8 now starting to assert the sales authority on its older sibling in many of the key countries from Microsoft's perspective. Through the majority of Western European countries and indeed in the US, Canada and Australia there are now more Windows Phone 8 handsets than Windows Phone 7 handsets in the wild!

   The final thing which we wanted to point out from AdDuplex's findings was that, in the key market of the United States, Nokia are the most popular Windows Phone manufacturer with 66% of the market. After the Finns it's interesting to see that Samsung's Omnia and ATIV ranges haven't proved very popular, especially not compared to HTC's devices. It'll be interesting to see whether or not Nokia can continue to grow in the United States, which is a market they've traditionally struggled in!

   If you want to read more about the platform then AdDuplex have lots more comparisons and country specific breakdowns on their website which you can find here!
Via WindowsPhoneDaily.

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Microsoft's new ad pokes fun at Samsung and Apple fans. Their solution is switching to Lumia!

   Microsoft have been doing their level best to get their Windows Phone platform out there lately. Windows Phone 7 was a good start and Windows Phone 8 carried on the good work, but the one thing they really need to make their platform a success is to convince a lot more people to 'switch'. 

   With that in mind the two obvious places to target are those people who are thinking about either picking up an iPhone or one of Samsung's Galaxy range of smartphones. Both of those groups have a big set of fans and if you read the comments sections on posts then you'll quite often see their fans squabbling. That's something which Microsoft have picked up on and their latest advert, set at a wedding, captures the mood rather well.

   As the ceremony gets under way both sides pull out their phones to capture the special moment, one Samsung owner is asked rather impolitely to get his 'enormous' phone out of the way, before a war of words kicks off. The retort 'enormously awesome' is thrown out, before S-Beam, Siri and the stereotypical age of iPhone users are all brought into the fray, just like the normal 'iSheep' and 'CopyBot' remarks too!

   One of our personal favourites in this ad is where a Galaxy user says, 'Autocorrect this', before proceeding to start a brawl, during which an iPhone user is thrown into the cake and asked 'is there an app for that?' which also made us chuckle.

   When all is said and done a pair of brightly coloured Nokia Lumia 920's are held out by the catering staff with the ultimate suggestion being 'Don't fight. Switch'. Will this ad be enough to stop the slide in Lumia sales in the US lately? Possibly not, but it's a good fun advert which certainly hits the mark!

Via TheVerge.

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Samsung rebrand all Windows devices ATIV, while the Galaxy S4 screen gets reviewed by the experts!

   Samsung have been pretty busy lately; they've been churning out phones left, right and centre, they're supposedly working on a water and dust proof version of the Galaxy S4, some tablets and an S4 Mini, but somewhere in that busy schedule the guys from South Korea have also crammed in a little rebrand for their devices which run Windows software.

   Basically, it seems as though someone at Samsung turned round and said that their naming convention for laptops, tablets and Windows powered smartphones was all a little to complicated and arguably that was true. So the way Samsung has decided to overcome that problem is to rebrand the lot! The way they've chosen to do this has been laid out below and it's relatively straight forward, although the numbers could get really quite confusing in future, but then they are quite a challenge at the moment!

   While we're on the topic of changes, it seems that Samsung and their AMOLED displays are getting a lot better these days! According the guys over at DisplayMate the Galaxy S4 now matches the quality of Apple's LCD display on the iPhone 5 in the scoring stakes, with both screens given A ratings. to the last-generation Galaxy S3 and Apple's flagship iPhone 5 handset, and states that Samsung's latest screen matches the quality of Apple's retina LCD.

   The guys said that: 

"The first notable OLED Smartphone, the Google Nexus One, came in decidedly last place in our 2010 Smartphone Display Shoot-Out. In a span of just three years OLED display technology is now challenging the performance of the best LCDs."

  That's really quite impressive progress over such a short period of time and, while the screen was said to be a tad over saturated in its default mode, as well as having some troubles with green colours, but DisplayMate feel that, "If this keeps up then OLEDs may pull ahead of LCDs in brightness and power efficiency in the near future." You can read the full report over at DisplayMate here!

   It looks like the LCD vs. AMOLED war is here to stay for a bit longer yet! Which do you prefer? Let us know in the comments below!

Via BusinessWire, Slashgear and ExpertReviews.

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Nokia's Lumia story continues on May 14th! What could be in the works?

   This May is shaping up to be one of the busiest months for us techies; we already know that Google will be hosting their I/O conference and Blackberry will have their Live gathering and now Nokia has dedicated a day to telling us what comes next for their Windows Phone based Lumia series.

  On May the 14th we can probably expect to hear news of a few more Windows Phones and it's quite likely that Nokia will show us a new flagship! You might remember that Stephen Elop promised us 'a new season of product launches' and it's quite likely this is exactly what he was referring to! Obviously the much rumoured Nokia Lumia 928 could be a part of this, but it's impossible to say at the moment and it seems a little unlikely because that's meant to be being made for Verizon in the USA!

   The most interesting thing will be whether Microsoft decides that this is a good point to update Windows Phone to a new version with this launch too. We've heard that a GDR is in the works and it'll be good to see if Microsoft has been busy improving their operating system!
Via Pocketlint.

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Stephen Elop teases a new 'hero' device for the US which will mark the new season of phone announcements!

   We already heard today that Nokia are doing a bit better on their balance sheet, even if it's not quite a profit, but it seems that their Lumia sales are still growing slowly. The best way to bump sales up is brand new, super shiny phones and that what CEO Stephen Elop dropped a little hint about today.

   In one of his earnings calls Elop said that:

"Later this quarter a new Lumia device is anticipated to have hero status with a leading US carrier... [which will] mark the beginning of a season of new product introductions."

   Elop refused to say any more than that, but if we're getting a hero device with a US carrier we expect that this will be the much rumoured Lumia 928! He could be making reference to the aluminium-clad device which supposedly showed up on a Chinese social media site yesterday, which you can see pictured below, or alternatively he might be referring to the often rumoured version of the 808 PureView which is expected to run Windows Phone, both of which people expect to arrive by the end of the year!

   Perhaps this new generation of devices will help Nokia gain some more traction in the US market which they've seemingly been losing of late! What do you think? Are you excited by these devices? let us know in the comments below!
Via WPCentral and TheVerge.

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Nokia's Q1 result are in: It's a bit better but there's still a long way to go!

   Nokia might still be in their huge fall from grace, but that doesn't mean things don't keep ticking over inside the Finnish giant. Their Lumia Windows Phones seem to be grabbing a bit more attention with every device release, but how are the sales looking?

   Well the latest quarterly earnings call shows improvement in Lumia sales once again! In the last quarter of 2012 they managed to ship 4.4 million devices and sales grew again last quarter, up 1.2 million to a grand total of 5.6 million! Of those devices Nokia claims that only one third of them are running versions of Windows Phone 7, the remain two-thirds were powered by Windows Phone 8. If we compare this to the Q1 2012 then sales of Lumia devices are more than 100% up from the 2 million which they had shipped! When everything is added together Nokia has now sold 19.9 million Lumia devices since their inception in November of 2011. That is by no means exception, but it's a good start! 

   If we break things down into regions slightly more, then things are looking better basically everywhere except for America. In the Greater China region revenues are up, something which has been attributed to the sales of the more expensive Lumia devices in the area, despite the company actually selling less devices as Symbian continues it's free-fall, as you can see in the chart below which suggests Nokia needs to get those cheaper Windows Phones selling in order to make up for the loss of Symbian sales! Symbian sales took a big hit as you can see in the tweet from Benedict Evans embedded below!

Very nasty lurch down in sales for Nokia's non-smart business. 56m units, down 21% y-on-y twitter.com/BenedictEvans/…

— Benedict Evans (@BenedictEvans) April 18, 2013

   Unfortunately for Nokia North American is proving difficult to crack still, with device sales sliding back down to a total of 400,000, making that 33% less than sales at the same time last year and this is notably less than the sales over the holiday season which gave a Q4 2012 sales total of 700,000 in the region.

   Sales are all well and good, but what really matters is the overall profit or loss. You might remember that in Q4 2012 Nokia managed to turn a small profit, but the Finns were back in the red this quarter, posting a loss of €150 million (which is around about $196 million or £128 million) on €5.85 billion ($7.65 billion or £5 billion) worth of revenue. Interesting the company regarded this as a relatively good result as their restructuring efforts have managed to bring the losses right down compared to the mammoth hit their bank account took in Q1 2012 of €1.34 billion!

   If you're interested in full details of how Nokia did then check out their full results PDF here!

   

Via TheVerge (1), (2)

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In Other News: 16/04/2013.

• Rumours of a Lumia smartphone with that 41MP PureView camera just won't go away! This time the guys from MyNokiaBlog are reporting that the devic could arrive relatively soon and it could be an AT&T exclusive initially. Rumour has it that Nokia is currently testing two configurations of the phone; one with a dual-core and the other being a quad-core  Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 processor. According to the rumour the latter of those two options struggles with batter life, something which will be vital if you want the rumoured 1280 x 768p AMOLED display, LTE connectivity and the FM Transmitter to last all day on the 2,000 mAh battery!
  Via UnwiredView.

• There's an unreferenced report floating around the internet that Sony has sold 4.6million Xperia Z's in the last 40 days. Take this with a pinch of salt, because there's nothing official here at all, but we will find out precisely how well the device has sold on May the 9th when Sony gives us a new update!
  Via XperiaBlog.

• OFCOM are reportedly calling for industry input on 5G mobile plans already because of fears of a data crunch in a few years time!
  Via PCPro.

• Microsoft's Outlook app for Android has been updated with a new look and feel. The update makes it resemble Windows Phone much more closely, but the app still works totally fine and you can get it here!
  Via Eurodroid.

• PhoneArena have got their some benchmarks which supposedly confirm the specs for Acer's supposed iPad Mini competitor! There's meant to be a 1.2GHz quad core MediaTek MT8125 processor, 1GB of RAM and 16GB of expandable internal storage, a 7.9-inch IPS 1024 x 768 pixel screen, a 0.3 mega-pixel front and a 5 mega-pixel rear camera, HDMI out and Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean!

• Symantec have published their latest findings which reveal that iOS is more vulnerable to malware than Android, but because more people use Android it is being targeted much more regularly! Check out the hugely detailed report over at TechCrunch here!

• OFCOM are looking into standardising the cost of calls from mobiles to 0800 and 0845 numbers, any changes will be enacted by 2015!
  Via Coolsmartphone. 

• If you have a Galaxy S2 or S3, £150 and you love playing games on your phone then this might be just the thing for you! The PhonePadPlus is a 10.1" dock with a 1024 x 600p display which they hope will be great for gaming! You can find full details here!
  Via Phandroid.

• Microsoft are being rumoured to be bringing back the Home button and using boot to desktop in Windows 8.1!
  Via Engadget.

• Engadget scored an interview with Xiaomi CEO, Bin Lin, who said that he wants to ship 15 million smartphones this year and he wants his company to have a push into markets outside of Asia! Check out the full interview here!

And finally, the companies of Silicon Valley have been told to immediately start saving some power because California's power grid has had one of their transmission substations damaged!

Via Reuters.

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Microsoft rumoured to have a 7-inch Windows 8 tablet in the works!

    Microsoft and their Windows 8 platform haven't exactly set the world on fire with their adoption rates since the platform was launched last year. Instead we've seen a huge decline in PC shipments which were down 13.9% compared to the time last year! It's reported because of the gains made by smartphone and tablet sales that Microsoft is rumoured to be working on a 7" Surface tablet.

    According to the Wall Street Journal "people familiar with the company's plans" have said that Microsoft have reconsidered and a 7-inch tablet is now part of their plans because the Nexus 7, Kindle Fire HD and the iPad mini at 7.9 inches have been so wildly popular.

   What we're intrigued to see is whether or not Microsoft put Windows RT, Windows 8 or even Windows Phone on the 7" device, because the dividing line is becoming increasingly thin. Perhaps Windows Blue is for this exact purpose! What do you think? Let us know in the comments below!
WSJ Via PocketLint.

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Microsoft is miffed by Facebook's Home launcher: Calls it very 2011!

   In a recent blog post Microsoft are seemingly not all that impressed by Facebook's brand new 'Home' launcher for Android which was announced yesterday. Microsoft’s Corporate Vice President of Corporate Communications, Frank Shaw said that when he saw the Facebook Home event yesterday he couldn't be sure if it “was still April Fools Day... [or] if it was somehow still 2011.”

   Frank Shaw had this to say about how the team which built Windows Phone went about making everything:

"So, we got to work and built a phone that asked and answered questions like these:
Instead of rows and rows of apps, why not have a screen full of the people that matter most to you, and start with them?
Instead of having to launch an app to see what’s behind that notification icon, why not just bring the content to the home screen?
Instead of having SMS and Facebook Messaging as separate chat threads, why not bring them together in one conversation?
Instead of having separate address books for Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Skype, why not bring those together in one place?
Instead of having photos on your phone and photos in Facebook, why not bring those photos together in one place?
Instead of having to launch an app just to check in, why not just tap your own face and do it directly?"

   According to the blog post this means that, 'as Android owners know, that platform is complicated enough without adding another skin built around another metaphor, on top of what is already a custom variant of the OS. So, while we applaud Facebook for working to give some Android owners a taste of what a “people-centric” phone can be like, we’d humbly like to suggest that you get the real thing, and simply upgrade to a Windows Phone.' Obviously this is a self-promotional post, but we can understand why he's a little peeved because what Facebook said does sound remarkably similar to this advert.

Via Slashgear.

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In Other News: 11/03/2013.

• According to a Nokia filing with the SEC the Finnish company is starting to become concerned with the possibility that Microsoft may be making, "strategic decisions or changes that may be detrimental to us. For example, in addition to the Surface tablet, Microsoft may broaden its strategy to sell other mobile devices under its own brand, including smartphones. This could lead Microsoft to focus more on their own devices and less on mobile devices of other manufacturers that operate on the Windows Phone platform, including Nokia." Surface phone on the way?
  Via ZDNet.

• Rovio's CEO, Mikael Hed, has said that:
  "With over 1.7bn downloads, we can reach a far wider and more engaged global audience than traditional distribution would allow. Launching the channel, and partnering up with some of the best video-on-demand providers and TV networks, is an important milestone for us on our journey towards becoming a fully fledged entertainment powerhouse."
  It's amazing how far Rovio have taken this series and it seems they still have grand plans in the pipeline!
  Via Guardian.

• It seems that those rumours that Lenovo is interested in buying Blackberry just won't go away! PhoneArena is reporting that the Chinese giants potential acquisition 'could make sense', but we'll have to wait and see on that one!

• A new study called "Convert Anything to Calories" from PHP Science World has worked out just how much energy it takes to operate you computer's mouse! The guys worked it out to being somewhere in the region of 1.42 calories burned per mouse click! That's not quite spot on because that figure assumes you 'completely' contract your muscle, so if you don't the figure is slightly less, but still you can burn a fair few calories that way!
  Via Slashgear.

• Bare with us for a minute while we explain this next (or should we say NXT) one...There have been some rumours that Motorola's supposed X-phone has been pictured and there's a spec sheet which goes with this picture too. Basically we don't want to expand because we think these are very outlandish claims! Feel free to check them out at the sourcelink below though!
  Via UnwiredView.

• The LG Optimus L5 II and the L3 II have both popped up on O2's coming soon page! The pair of devices are currently slated to land this month, but there's no word on pricing or availability!
  O2 Via TheInquirer.

• Calling all comic fans! You can currently download 700 Marvel Comics for free via the Comixology app for iPhone/iPad and Android devices! The offer runs until 4am 13 March GMT!
  Via PocketLint.

• ST Ericsson's CEO, Didier Lamouche, has resigned from his post! At the moment there's no word on a successor or what's next for the company, we'll let you know what the chipmaker does next!
  Via PCAdvisor.

• Mozilla’s VP of Products, Jay Sullivan, has confirmed that his company will not be building another version of Firefox for iOS. Part of this is attributed to the draconian attitudes towards third-party browsers, but with Firefox OS being launched lately, Mozilla have more on their proverbial plate at the moment!
  Via HotHardware. 

And finally, would you consider selling your smartphone's lock-screen to advertisers for $25 a month? That's what SmartAds pledges to do for you! The company is currently trying to raise some money via an IndieGoGo campaign, but it's looking unlikely they'll reach their goal. That's actually a shame because we like the idea and we think for $25 a month, we would offer our lock screen! Anyway check the video below for a little bit more detail and let us know what you think in the comments below!

Via MobileBurn.

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Microsoft 'pause' the Windows Phone 7.8 roll out!

   There are quite a lot of people out there who picked up one of the first Windows Phones. To be fair there were a few good devices in the initial batch of phones, there was the Dell Venue Pro and the HTC 7 Pro for the keyboard lovers, the HTC HD7 for those who wanted something a bit bigger in the screen stakes and then there were devices like the HTC Mozart, Trophy, Surround and later the Radar, as well as phones from Acer, LG, ZTE and Samsung. The big story was that all of these were eventually joined by the Lumia 800 and the Lumia 900 from Nokia.

   As you can see there's a fair few Windows Phone 7 devices out there and we would happily bet that there's a relatively large amount of people still using them too! This is the reason why Microsoft pledged to offer the Windows Phone 7.8 update to these sorts of owners when they revealed Windows Phone 8 couldn't run on this first crop of hardware.

   Some of you may have noticed we haven't heard too much on the update lately, the last thing that we heard was that there were issues with the sound after the updae was installed on Lumia devices and there's also been issues with LiveTiles freezing.

   Today Nokia have confirmed that Microsoft has 'paused' the Windows Phone 7.8 roll out through a comment to CNet and through their Russia Twitter account! So we know Microsoft know about and we know that they're trying to fix it, so hopefully you'll get your update soon!
Via CNet.

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HTC fully committed to Windows Phone: Device coming later this year with an update to Windows Phone 8?

   EVLeaks have been very, very busy in the lead up to MWC this year. We saw a tonne of devices before they were official courtesy of those guys and it seems that they have a little bit of news news regarding HTC's Windows Phone plans for the future!

   HTC have already emphasised that they, "are actually fully committed to [the] Windows Phone business. We do have good collaboration with Microsoft for a future release this year." They were the words of HTC's Vice President for Global product planning, Tai Ito.

   Apparently there won't really be a Windows Phone flagship this year, instead the guys from Taiwan will reportedly offer a more modest mid-range device which is supposedly known as the HTC Tiara internally. It is rumoured to feature a 1.2GHz dual-core Qualcomm chipset, a 4.3-inch Super LCD2 of WVGA, that's 800 x 480p resolution, as well as 1GB of RAM and 8GB of internal storage. The package is supposedly rounded out by an 1800mAh battery, and a 1.6-megapixel front-facing camera which will be paired with an 8-megapixel rear option! This is meant to come inside a form factor which has 'the same design language as the... HTC One'.

   If EVLeaks are right the most impressive feature about this phone will be the operating system on board. EVLeaks believe this will be one of the first phones to launch running Windows Phone 8 GDR2, which is set to be a new update to the WP8 platform.


   HTC have already said that they are aware "that Windows Phone 8 is not as good as the market expected," but that's not enough to put HTC off. They said that, "we think that it could take time and we will continue working with them" and this could well be one of the first fruits of that labour!

   EVLeaks believe the phone will arrive in mid-May, but we're always sceptical with rumours like this, but HTC's continued pledge of support does make this seem a lot more credible!
Via UnwiredView and CNet.

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In Other News: 27/02/2013.

• Nokia have launched a new feature for their Windows Phone device, Nokia NFC! The new app allows you to read or write any standard NFC tag and what you write can be read by anyone, irrespective of their operating system. On top of that there's Foursquare, Twitter, Facebook and Google+ support and you can do various things with each of these accounts! You can download the app here!
  Via WPCentral.

• Dropbox have said that they handle more than a billion uploads per day from their 100 million users!
  Via CNet.

• Samsung have launched their new wallet app which is in effect an Android version of Apple's Passbook. Take a look here for all the details!

• Adobe have announced Photoshop Touch for phones. We already have the tablet version which has been available for $9.99 for a while, but there is now a cheaper $4.99 option for your phone. The app supposedly has an “almost identical set of features [as] the tablet app, in an experience designed for smaller screens.” That means you can use layers, advanced selection tools, adjustments and filters.
  
  Any purchase of the app will also come with 2GB of free Adobe Creative Cloud storage to save your work to. The only limitations are that it requires Android 4.0 ICS or better! You can get the app here!
  Via AndroidCommunity.

• Ubuntu's owner Canonical are rolling out daily builds of their Ubuntu mobile OS on a variety of devices! Devs are currently busy working on Galaxy S III, HTC One X and Galaxy Nexus builds, but development for tablets is happening simultaneously on the Transformer Pad Infinity, Galaxy Tab 2 and Kindle Fire HD!
  Via Engadget.

• Apple's will be forced to pay VirnetX $368 million after the former's request for a reconsideration of a ruling which said Apple's Facetime infringed on some of VirnetX's intellectual property. , said a federal court has upheld a ruling against Apple Inc in a patent infringement lawsuit and denied the iPhone maker's motion to reduce the $368 million in damages. The two companies have been given 45 days to come to a licensing agreement too as VirnetX's request for a permanent injunction was rejected.
  Via Reuters.

• EE have announced that their 4G LTE is now live in: Barnsley, Chorley, Coventry, Newport, Preston, Rotherham, Telford, Walsall, and Watford!
  Via Slashgear.

• Reuters have speculated that if Microsoft released Office for iPad they could earn as much as $2.5billion from it per year! Naturally it removes some of the appeal of Windows based tablets, but that is a heck of a lot of money!

• Spotify for iOS has been given a huge overhaul! Grab the update while it's hot or download the app here!

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EVLeaks post supposed pictures of the Nokia Lumia 520 and 720!

   Sometimes we wish we knew some of the people the guys over @EVLeaks know. The guys have done it again and they've tweeted out pictures of two supposed devices. The shots below look very much like press photos and so we're inclined to believe that these are what the devices will look like.

Lumia 720.

   Naturally they're in the bright rainbow of colours which we've come to expect from Lumia and Windows Phone devices more generally. The Lumia 720 will supposedly be the higher range of the pair and it's meant to feature a 4.3-inch display with Nokia's ClearBlack filter, as well as a 1GHz dual-core processor. The device is also meant to be packing 2 and 6 megapixel front and rear cameras along with 8GB of storage internal storage which will supposedly be microSD expandable.

   The slightly more budget 520 is rumoured to have a 4-inch display, 5-megapixel rear camera, but there's not meant to be a front facing option, other than that we're expecting to see everything else that the Lumia 720 offers inside this device too! 

   If you want to see a few more pictures then head on down past source links and be sure to let us know what you think! Would you be interested in either of these devices?

Via EVLeaks (1), (2), (3) and (4).
Specs via CNet.

Lumia 720.

Lumia 520.

Lumia 520.

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Nokia fans post up super Lumia 920 ad on Vimeo!

   Nokia's Lumia 920 might be the company's flagship at the moment and it's supposedly a relatively popular device and there are seemingly some very dedicated fans, either that or some students just wanted to showcase their media design skills!

   The fan made video, embedded below, offers up the key features of the Lumia 920, in a really professional looking video! If you've got a couple of minutes spare then it's well worth a watch and if the producers are lucky they might even get a thank you from Nokia in one form or another!

   Check the video out and let us know what you think of it in the comments below!

Phong Luong Via Ubergizmo.

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In Other News: 08/02/2013

• A couple of weeks ago there was a big old hoohar about Microsoft's Surface Pro, which would supposedly be arriving with very little internal memory available because the OS was meant to be taking over a lot of the internal storage. Well it turns out it's not all as bas as everyone thought! The picture above pretty much clarifies the situation and assuming you save your recovery image on a flash drive then you'll actually have over 5GB of extra storage on your Surface Pro then you would on a 128GB MacBook Air!
  Via ZDNet.

• LG Hong Kong have posted an official confirmation that the 4X HD, as well as the Optimus L7 and L9's will all get Android 4.1 Jelly Bean in the first half of the year!
  Via UnwiredView.

• O2 UK has announced that they are currently rolling out the Andorid 4.1.2 Jelly Bean update to the Sony Xperia T!
  Via AndroidCentral.

• Blackberry have confirmed they will not be offering phones for sale in Japan any more. Apparently the company cannot justify the extra cost in translating their OS' to Japanese because there simply isn't enough demand in the country, with only 0.3% of phone users rocking their Blackberry's! Blackberry have said that they will support current users for the foreseeable future though!
  Via ZDNet.

• Three UK has announced that their new upcoming DC-HSDPA and LTE connections will be called "Ultrafast". Along with this there has been the announcement of the 'Ultrafast Galaxy S3', which is exactly the same as the HSPA+ version except it can take advantage of Three's new DC-HSDPA network!
  Via AndroidCentral.

• Nokia's much rumoured device with the huge camera module is being touted as the Nokia 1000 by some sites on the internet. This has become relevant because the device has supposedly popped up on a list of devices destined for China.
  Via UberGizmo.

• Forbes have said that the Evasi0n jailbreak is the most popular ever with nearly seven million downloads in total thus far!

• The BBC Trust has announced that they have approved a 12-month trial which will allow shows to be broadcast online before they are shown on TV! The trial will allow up to a maximum of 40 hours of shows available online before they are on TV!
  Via Telegraph.

• The Nexus 4 has supposedly shipped over a million units now! If you believe that the XDA estimates are accurate!
  Via TechCrunch.

And finally, Nokia have been award a patent for a phone which has a curved backplate and an overall rather pleasant design! Given that we are expecting Nokia to unleash at least one new Lumia device on the world at MWC wouldn't it be pretty sweet if they offered us something like this?
LiveSide Via TheVerge.

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