Tag Archives: Windows Phone 7

Official ESPN Fantasy Football 2012 App Kicks Off On Nokia Lumia Phones

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Nokia really knows how to make other Windows Phone users jealous. The Nokia Collection section of the WP7 Marketplace is always growing, and has got some really spectacular apps. Quite a few of these Lumia-exclusive apps are related to sports, and the latest to join the list is ESPN Fantasy Football 2012. There are already many Windows Phone Mango apps that deal with American football, but ESPN FFL 2012 focuses primarily on ESPN’s famous online Fantasy Football game. With ESPN Fantasy Football 2012, you will be able to manage your fantasy leagues, view the results of your matchups, and get all the latest NFL scores, news and related videos clips. If you're not interested in fantasy football, and are just looking for a companion app for the NFL season, ESPN FFL 2012 is sure to prove quite sufficient for you. Read More

Stream Free Movies & TV Shows On Your Windows Phone With Crackle

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If you don’t have access to Hulu because you live outside the US, then there are very few good and legal options available for streaming TV shows and movies. Even for people living in the US, Hulu and other similar services don’t offer a solution that is cheap, and you have to pay per view in most cases. That’s why Crackle is so special. Admittedly, the service does not offer all the popular movies and TV shows, but if you aren’t really choosy and just want to spend some quality time watching some good content, then you are sure to fall in love with this free service. Crackle doesn’t work everywhere, but it isn’t restricted to just the US, either. You can watch some really awesome movies and shows if you live in UK, Canada, Australia or US (the app might work in other locations too, specially if your WP7 ID is registered in any of the supported countries). Read More

627.AM: Alarm App For Windows Phone With Weather & To-Do List Integration

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The alarm clock functionality in Windows Phone 7 is enough to get the job done on most occasions, but it is very basic in its overall outlook, and does not have any extra features included either. You can use any feature phone to wake you up on time as well, so shouldn’t there be something extra in a smartphone’s alarm clock? If you agree with this, then you are sure to love 627.AM. It is a WP7 app that adds a lot of spice and usefulness to the concept of having an alarm clock on your Mango phone. 627.AM doesn’t just wake you up; it helps you get your day started properly. Most people take a look at the weather forecast soon after waking up, and with this handy little app, you will be presented with the temperature stats with each alarm, so that you don’t have to go to a separate app just to gauge the weather. Not only that, you can also create small to-do lists and pin them to the app’s main screen. This way, you can always be aware of your schedule for the day. Read More

Family Story: Official Client For Samsung’s Social Network Comes To Windows Phone

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After Nokia, Samsung is the most active app publisher for Windows Phone 7 among all OEMs. Of course, Samsung Zone does not offer as many exclusive WP7 apps as the Lumia series does, but nonetheless, there are a few really handy apps available for Samsung fans using Mango phones. The latest Samsung-exclusive app to make its way to the WP7 Marketplace is Family Story. The app is the official client for Samsung’s own social network that is focused on providing users with a private environment for interacting with their loved ones. You can define or join groups in Family Story, and then share anything with complete ease. Using Family Story, you can share events, photos and notes with your close family. Even if none of your family members have got a Samsung Windows Phone, they can still use the service on a Samsung Android device, or simply by going to the web version of Family Story. Read More

Counters: Track & Limit SMS, Call & Data Usage On Nokia Windows Phone

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When the Lumia series was first unveiled, Nokia did not take full advantage of the OS customization rights that Microsoft had granted them. Nokia’s own version of Windows Phone wasn’t too different from the one rolled out for other OEMs, which proved to be a bit disappointing for most WP7 fans, but thankfully, the folks over at Nokia seem to be determined to make everything right and give their customers special treatment by rolling out a slew of Nokia-exclusive Mango apps. The latest addition to the Nokia Collection section of the Marketplace is Counters. The app is sure to prove useful for almost all Lumia owners, as the functionality it brings to the mix is pretty basic, yet important. Using the Counters app, you will be able to view all the usage stats related to your monthly calls, text messages and internet data. And that’s just half of it! The app can also be used to place restrictions on all the aforementioned items, so that you can stay within your phone budget each month. Read More

Contacts Share: Send & Receive vCards On Nokia Windows Phone Devices

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The Lumia series has got a nice mix of Nokia-exclusive apps, and fortunately not all those apps are about glitz and glamor. The Finnish mobile manufacturer appears to be taking user convenience pretty seriously as well. It is good to remember that no matter how many awesome features your Mango phone gets, it still has to perform the basic functions of an ordinary phone. One such everyday functionality is quick transfer and sharing of contacts. Although it is possible to copy any data from the People hub manually, this is not as efficient as sending a vCard to someone. This is why Nokia has come up with the new Contacts Share app in the Nokia Marketplace. The app imports all the data from the People hub, and using it you will be able to create .VCF files and send them via email or SMS to anyone. Other than that, the app also handles the vCards you receive via text messages, and lets you export them to the People hub. Read More

AUPEO! Radio: Intelligent Music Discovery & Streaming For Windows Phone

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Fans of music streaming services and online radios have got access to a few decent apps on Windows Phone 7, but the absence of giants like Pandora means that the Mango platform still has a long way to go. Having said that, another way of looking at the situation could be that the Marketplace has a vacuum that can be filled by any good app released for music streaming and song discovery. Many people are already saying that AUPEO! Radio can prove to be the app that makes all Windows Phone users forget all Pandora. For one thing, AUPEO is not limited to US only, and works around the world. In addition to that, you don’t need to sign up for any account if you want to stream music. The app supports an amazing number of genres and subcategories, and if you like any song in the radio, you can purchase it for offline playback via Amazon store. AUPEO! is intelligent enough to learn from your music history, and will play songs according to your taste after a while. Read More

Cloud Storage Service ‘Box’ Releases Its Official Windows Phone Client

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Although many people might be under the impression that due to its integration with SkyDrive, Windows Phone is not a good platform to be on for fans of other cloud storage services, like Dropbox and Box. Fortunately, the folks over at Microsoft are trying everything in their power to lure more users to the Mango platform, and for that reason, they have welcomed the official app for Box with open arms, despite it being a rival of their very own offering, SkyDrive. After taking the new official Box client for a spin, we have to say that the app bests the SkyDrive client for WP7 by quite a huge margin. Almost all the options that are available in the web version of Box are there in the WP7 app as well. You can upload files, view all the data stored in your Box, and manage everything related to files, folders, comments and collaborators. Read More

Speaktoit’s Talking Personal Assistant Comes To Windows Phone

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Siri might be responsible for creating all the hype for personal assistants having speech recognition capabilities, but there are services and apps that adopted the concept long before Apple introduced Siri. Speaktoit Assistant is one such service that is among the pioneers of talking personal assistants. Since the Assistant app has had more time to evolve and learn, it is much better than Siri in many regards. The app has been around for iOS and Android for quite a while, and after the two bigger smartphone platforms, Windows Phone has become the third one to receive the app. Assistant for WP7 has got all the features that made it popular on iOS and Android. You can use the app as your day planner, newsreader, music and video player, web browser, or just a buddy you can have a light chat with every once in a while. Read More

Experience Windows Phone 8 Start Screen On WP7 With W Phone 8 Simulator

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Mango users might not have recovered just yet from the blow Microsoft dealt them by announcing that Windows Phone 7 devices won’t be getting the Apollo update, but apparently the Windows Phone developer community still has enough passion left to come up with an app like W Phone 8. If you followed our coverage of the Windows Phone 8 event held last month, you might already know that one of the best changes expected to be released in the Apollo update is the revamped Start screen. Users will be able to resize live tiles to three levels (small, medium and large) and most of the tiles will be made double-sided. So, what has the W Phone 8 app got to do with all that? In fact, it has got everything to do with the WP8 Start screen! The app is a simulator of sorts that comes with a secondary Start screen having semi-functional tiles. Not only that, you can adjust the size and positions of all the pinned tiles just the way it will work in WP8, and there’s even a nice collection of accent colors to go with it. Read More

[+]EMOJI: Get All The Emoticons You Will Ever Need On Your Windows Phone

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They might appear to be a bit childish at times, but smileys can certainly spice up any boring conversation. Apart from that, it almost becomes necessary to use emoticons in some situations to convey the full meaning of everything you are trying to say in a text. Due to this importance of emoticons, all smartphones (and even most feature phones) come with a keyboard that has some menu for smileys. Windows Phone has always had a dedicated emoticon button on its texting keyboard, and things took a turn for the better when graphical emoticons were added to the mix in Mango. However, there is still no clear way of using all the supported emoticons, unless you memorize them by heart (something that is sure to require a few months of practice, because there are around 500 smileys available in Mango). EMOJI is an app that will take away the need for all this memorizing, as you can compose your texts within its text editor, making use of all its neatly categorized emoticons! Read More

Moments For Windows Phone: Keep A Journal & Back It Up To The Cloud

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Although the habit of keeping journals has gone somewhat out of fashion in recent times, you can’t deny the benefits and positives that diary-writing can bring to life. Even if you don’t plan to publish your memoirs one day, they can still prove to be an absorbing read for your loved ones, and you can also use them as letters to your future self. Having said that, it is no mean feat to maintain a proper paper diary in today’s fast-paced life. Fortunately, that’s where smartphones can prove to be your best friends. Moments is a WP7 app that you can use to create short entries to record your moods and thoughts at any particular point in time. The best thing about the app, apart from its beautiful interface, is the fact that it really makes your journal everlasting, and backs everything up to the cloud. Read More

Keep Wifi Alive Makes Sure That Your Windows Phone Remains Connected To The Internet All The Time

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Quite like iOS, Windows Phone also disables Wi-Fi if your phone remains in sleep mode for more than a few minutes. While this measure is useful for battery conservation, it can get a bit annoying if you have a download going on in the background, or if you don’t want to miss an important push notification. For iOS users having jailbroken devices, Insomnia is one tweak that never lets the WiFi go to sleep. Finally, the Windows Phone 7 community has got exactly the same option, thanks to Keep Wifi Alive. This new Homebrew will keep your WP7’s Wi-Fi connection active for as long as you want. The app takes advantage of the fact that the Mango platform does not kill the WiFi connection, even when in lockscreen, as long as you are streaming some audio file from the internet. So, Keep Wifi Alive streams a blank audio file continuously, making sure your connectivity is never lost. Read More

Improve Your Windows Phone’s Battery Life With Eco

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Although Windows Phone features a battery saver mode in the Settings menu, most users aren’t really satisfied with it, and claim that it is not very useful in prolonging battery life. You can take matters in your own hands as well, and kill background tasks linked to several apps, but shouldn’t there be some way of automatically entering an effective power-saver mode? Thankfully, you can now use Eco, a new Homebrew app that aims to increase your phone’s battery life considerably, without any help from the user. You will need an interop unlocked device in order to use Eco, but once you have flashed it to your phone, you will not have to do anything else except launching the app once to make it optimize your device’s battery usage. The app lets you manually kill background tasks, or temporarily disable your Windows Phone's sensors while it is not in use. Read More

TrackUrSelf For Windows Phone Automatically Logs All Your Travelling For The Day

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There are a few really decent maps and navigation apps on Windows Phone 7, and the Apollo update will bring Nokia Maps to all WP devices. So, while things might be looking on the rise for Windows Phone (in terms of maps apps), there is still a lot of room for improvement if you are a WP7 user who likes to take full advantage of the GPS unit in your device. TrackUrSelf is a Homebrew that might not prove to be the most useful app available for Mango phones, but it is based on a pretty neat concept, and is sure to appeal to a lot of users. This app will automatically track all your movements for any period of time, and you will be able to see your movements plotted on the map at the end of that period. In addition to that, TrackUrSelf also provides its users with a list of all the GPS coordinates of the places you have visited throughout the day. Read More

Point and Call: Dial Any Number By Simply Scanning It With Your Windows Phone’s Camera

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No matter how advanced a smartphone platform becomes, it still has to perform the basic functions of an ordinary phone. What use is an expensive Windows Phone 7 device if it can’t even make calls properly, or doesn’t let you send MMS? While WP7 can do all this, there’s nothing really special about the basic features of the platform. Point and Call is a Mango app that plans to change that. The app comes up with a completely new and innovative way of making calls quickly, and removes the need of having to enter a number manually! If you are thinking that Point and Call is just another dialer app for WP7, think again. The app doesn’t even have a keypad, neither does it integrate with the People hub. Thanks to Point and Call, you just have to launch the app, point it at the piece of paper or screen where the number is written, and voila, the call will be made in an instant! Read More

Kaliki For Nokia WP Devices Brings Audio News From Various Sources

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News apps are nothing new for Windows Phone 7, and there is even a category for news + weather in the Marketplace. The profusion of news apps for Mango means that there needs to be something really special about an app to make it a favorite among WP7 users. Kaliki is a new Lumia-exclusive app that is not a conventional news aggregator, although it might look like one on the surface. Kaliki has categories for all news items that might interest an average user, but instead of providing you with written news articles, the app features professionally recorded audio clips for all news stories. This can be really helpful if you are driving (or doing something else) and just want to listen to all the best news items and articles. Read More

Uplay For WP7: View Tips, News & Achievements For Ubisoft Games

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Since Microsoft owns a pretty decent gaming platform in the form of Xbox, it makes sense that there is an Xbox Live hub integrated with Windows Phone 7. Fortunately, this doesn’t mean that you can only play Xbox titles on your Mango phone, and there are games from a lot of different developers available in the Marketplace. Ubisoft is the name behind games like Assassin's Creed, Anno and Prince of Persia, among many others. Uplay is the companion app for all games developed by Ubisoft, and you can think of it as the Xbox Live hub for Ubisoft titles. Thanks to Uplay for WP7, you will be able to view all the information related to Ubisoft releases on different platforms. The app displays walkthroughs for games, along with tips and tricks, and you will also be able to get all the latest news and game reviews for upcoming Ubisoft titles. Read More

Lock Widgets 2: Weather Info, SMS & Battery Status For WP7 Lock Screen

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WP Hacker’s popular Lock Widgets for interop unlocked Windows Phone devices awed a lot of users and amassed many fans. Even though the Homebrew was just a rough rendition of a concept, and there were more than a few bugs in the app, it served its purpose and showed some really useful data on WP7’s lockscreen. The Homebrew has just been updated, and if you have been using Lock Widgets, you are sure to be pleasantly surprised upon seeing Lock Widgets 2. Admittedly, the latest version of the app has taken away some of the options that were available in the original Homebrew, luckily the ones that are there are certainly more refined. A new feature added to Lock Widgets 2 is the SMS preview. The app now displays your most recent unread text message on the lock screen, along with weather details and the status of your battery. Read More

Photo Genius: Official Aviary Image Editor For Windows Phone

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When it comes to photo editors that are simple and elegant, no one does it better than Aviary. The service provides its plugin for many apps that do not primarily deal with photo editing but still want to come up with a decent set of options for their users. Recently Aviary released its standalone photo editor for iOS and Android, and we all know which platform usually follows those two when it comes to app releases. Photo Genius has just become available in the Windows Phone 7 Marketplace, and using this app from Aviary, Mango users will be able to apply a host of photo effects to their images. Not only that, the popular Enhance feature is there in the app as well, just to ensure that you can make photos look better with a single tap. Photo Genius has a few other really cool features too, like fancy stickers, red-eye removal and even a teeth-whitening menu. Read More