Android, Windows Phone 7 and Windows Mobile

Windows Phone 7 – a year later in numbers

Microsoft continues to keep on secret how many phones with Windows Phone 7 have been sold so far, but from the company shared some other information that is interesting. Until now, the tools for creating applications for the platform, including Visual Studio Express for Windows Phone and Expression Blend 4 for Windows Phone, were downloaded 1.5 million times. Each week is registered 1200 new authors of applications, and 40% of all enrolled to make software for WP7 have posted software on the Windows Marketplace. Currently Windows Phone Marketplace has 11,500 applications in which Microsoft have not included the e-books and mobile content such as backgrounds for the screen. The freeware applications for Windows Phone 7 are 1100, and paid – 7500, users downloaded an average of 12 applications per month. 44% of all paid applications offer the option to test them before purchasing.

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Angry Birds, Plant vs. Zombies and other games are coming to Windows Phone 7

Good news for Windows Phone 7 users. Some of the best mobile games are coming to Windows Marketplace, especially the bestseller Angry Birds, Plants and Zombies, Doodle Jump and three more titles. Some of the other upcoming games also will be compatible with Xbox Live.

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Nokia and Microsoft announce partnership

Like a bolt from the blue, from London came the news that many users were expecting – Nokia has officially partnered with Microsoft.

Nokia will use Windows Phone 7 OS as its main platform for smartphones, will unify Ovi Store with Windows Marketplace and will place the services of Bing in its phones. It is all in addition to the admission of guilt for not being able to keep up, fresh and young Stephen Elop Chief Executive Officer of Nokia, took office only last September, confirmed that Nokia will collaborate actively in the development of Microsoft’s mobile operating system, relegating to Symbian a platform for mid-range devices (still, if we could, to distribute it to other manufacturers) and opening MeeGo Open Source. Nokia Maps also will be integrated into the Microsoft system, from the mapping of Bing (remember that Nokia has NAVTEQ), and all other services like MS Office.

Freda ebook reader app for Windows Phone 7

Freda, the free ebook reader for Windows Phone 7. This software is up on Windows Marketplace and available free of charge, so download it onto your Windows Phone and enjoy reading thousands of free books on Gutenberg, Feedbooks, Smashwords and other on-line catalogs. Or if you already have a collection of ebooks, use Calibre to share your library with your phone.

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Mobile marketplace: Android with 200,000 apps and Windows Phone 7 with 5,000

2010 has just ended and already reckoning on the market trend of mobile applications. While waiting for the official statistic on the total downloads, we announce the latest achievements of two major platforms.

The first is an unofficial estimate on Android Market, which according to the claim made by AndroLib, one of the most reliable services for consulting the catalog in question, the number of applications and games found on the store exceeds 200,000.

The growth of published mobile applications also covers the newest store, which is the Windows Marketplace for Windows Phone 7 devices. Microsoft has recently passed the 5,000 apps barrier, compared with nearly half of that last month.

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Already 3000 apps in Windows Phone Marketplace

Since Microsoft is praised that are already registered 15,000 app developers in its program for Windows Marketplace and expected by the end of this week applications in the Marketplace to cross the border by 3000. The registration of such programmers hardly means that they will all write applications that will reach the end users, but it’s nice that Windows Phone 7 also received attention and interest outside of Microsoft.

Walt Mossberg: Windows Phone 7 is not that good

Walt Mossberg, the famous signature of the technology sector of the Wall Street Journal, has tested a few weeks, two smartphones with Windows  Phone 7: Samsung Focus and HTC HD7. His considerations are not very positive.

According to the journalist WP7 has too many limitations to compete with other operating systems for smartphones. In light of the fact that it was launched four years after IOS and 2 years after Android, it is very unfortunate that lacks basic functions such as copy / paste, flash in the browser, VoiceMail and support the massive third-party applications.

Windows Marketplace, Microsoft’s store will have 1,000 applications within the next month. Very few when compared to the App Store and its applications 300,000 and 100,000 Android Market and its applications. Support for Office files also does not work very well. The only positive elements are the integration of services such as Microsoft X-Box Live and Zune Connect.

HTC Touch 2 – Getting you light-years ahead of others

Is there anything stopping the HTC bandwagon? The mobile biggie from Taiwan has come up with the HTC Touch 2, adding another one to its touch screen based phone list. In a coup of sorts, the phone runs on the latest mobile OS from Microsoft that is the Windows Mobile 6.5. With the Windows Marketplace, one will be able to get third party applications downloaded directly to the phone via the Wi-Fi or 3G. Besides, HTC Touch 2 also supports Flash, thus enabling flash video supported content allowing you to watch YouTube videos. It also optimizes the web browsing experience as the display of web pages is of desktop style i.e. in a manner that it is actually supposed to be viewed, clear and accurate.

There are also a number of enhancements to the HTC Touch 2 that has been added and upgraded to the phone including the TouchFLO. The TouchFLO is a user interface that is extremely advanced in its uses and features with integrated updates of weather and a quick touch access to many popular applications. Other additional features include Google Maps. Thus the smartphone is indeed smart in terms of the features that it has on offer for its user.

As far availability of the HTC Touch 2 is concerned, as of now it is only available to the customers of Vodafone in UK. It will be made available to the customers in Europe SIM-free, October 6 onwards. Broader availability will begin as the last quarter of 2009 passes on. We might add that the phone has also made an appearance on the website of Vodafone UK. However there isn’t a word as of yet on its pricing range as of yet. The only assumptions being that it might be free with certain particular contracts.

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Most Android apps are free, Microsoft needs to lure in more developers for Windows Moobile

Distribution of prices in the various app stores

Google’s Android Marketplace contains primarily free apps – 57% by Distimo’s estimate (Androlib says 62%). This is much more than the competition. Less than a third of the apps in their catalogs are free. Even so, half of apps in most app stores (save for the Windows Mobile and BlackBerry ones) are under 2 US dollars.

The Apple App Store in general has about 28% free apps, but it differs quite a bit when it comes to paid apps. The iPhone apps run around 2.62 USD (average price for the 100 most popular apps), while iPad specific apps cost 6.02 USD by the same metric. More »