Windows Maps for Windows desktop and Mobile gets lane guidance, Santa tracking and Home pinning.

Windows Maps for desktop and Windows 10 Mobile was updated today with features that I find very helpful. Not that I really need them in Mauritius, but they will come in very handy during my travels. Before we look into the update, I want to draw your attention on the availability of the update on Windows Desktop and Mobile at the same time. This is the power of Universal apps.

In this update, Microsoft introduces a feature I think they borrowed from Here Maps, recently owned by Nokia and sold to a German consortium, which lets users pin their Home and later tap on it to get directions back. In this update, Microsoft lets you do that by pinning your Home or Work to get guided directions from anywhere.

With Christmas right around the corner, every maps app has to have their own Santa tracking feature and Windows Maps will let you find Santa and "follow him as he travels around the world on December 24th". Microsoft says in the change log that this feature is not available in all countries or regions. In the case this feature doesn't work at your location, just sit back with your favorite drink with your family and do it the old way, by scrutinizing the sky, which is way better than looking at a screen.

The last item in the log, is lane guidance in turn-by-turn navigation. Every driver, no matter how good, has had to face this moment of not knowing which lane to use. This feature should help avoid these confusing moments for a safe ride. 

This is pretty big update for Windows Maps. This app gives you voice navigation, turn-by-turn driving, transit, and walking directions for free and without the need of a live internet connection. Simply download the maps within the app, but before you can do that, make sure you download/upgrade Windows Maps app in the store.

Use a Treasure Tag as a remote shutter for your selfies.

Selfies, selfies, selfies. Phones are getting better at this global sport of people taking self portraits and posting them to social networks. Remember the days when front facing cameras were limited to 1.3 or 2 MP? They have evolved lot thanks to companies like HTC for example, which recently released the HTC Desire Eye with a front facing camera of 13mp. But pixels are not all.

Alongside the race for the best camera, both back and front, emerged something we can call the selfie gadgets. We know the selfie stick, an accessory that comes in handy for taking group selfies with the help of the timer built into the camera software. The phone itself is clipped to one end of the stick. The selfie stick today is getting competition with ex-Nokia Treasure Tag. Or maybe not necessarily competition.

The Treasure Tag was designed so you do not lose your valuables. Attach it to your keys, wallet, the Treasure Tag will alert you when you're separated from your belongings. Microsoft Mobile, which now owns Nokia mobile division, has updated the Lumia Selfie app which takes advantage of the Treasure Tag and turns it into a remote shutter when taking selfies. Couple with the selfie stick and you have the complete selfie kit. Not only you won't have to struggle with the shutter button anymore, the updated Lumia Selfie also saves your masterpieces automatically.

If you're into the self portrait sport, make sure you get your Treasure Tag and update the Lumia Selfie from the Windows Phone store.

"Transfer my Data" updated with message transfer to/from SD card.

Switching to a Windows Phone is made very easy thanks to apps like "Transfer my Data", a Lumia exclusive app which provides a quick and easy way to copy contacts, SMSs and MMSs from supported Symbian, Android, iOS and Blackberry phones. So if you are moving from one of the afore-mentioned phones, make sure you get "Transfer my Data" if it is not already installed on your new Lumia.
 
"Transfer my Data" got updated today that adds transferring text and MMS messages to and from a storage card. As a community moderator on Microsoft Windows Phone forums, I see a lot of questions about carrying over messages. This update will only make switching to Windows Phones even smoother.
 
Again, "Transfer my Data" is a Lumia exclusive and can be downloaded free in the Windows Phone store.

Full offline Mauritius map now available in Nokia Here Maps for Windows Phone.

Those who live in Google ads bubble might think there is no other navigation tool out there besides Google maps and they are so very wrong as there is Nokia Here Maps. The free navigation app primary strength is offline maps. Yes, you can download full maps to your phone before or during your travel and then save money on data. Google maps only lets you save part of the map and it is not at all efficient. Nothing matches a full offline map service with turn-by-turn navigation and LiveSight, which is the ability to see floating labels of places around you.

The team at Nokia keeps improving Here Maps with new maps and features and the latest will certainly please fellow Mauritians or any person travelling to Mauritius. Here Maps now serves a full offline map of Mauritius. Without further due, let me show you the steps to get the map onto your Windows Phone.

To begin, launch Here Maps on your phone then tap ... and tap download maps > update current maps. If new maps are available, the phone will show a "install" button for you to tap. You may also choose to install the update later. After the download is complete, you will see this message on your screen, "Your maps have been updated." Press the back button and tap download new maps.

Tap the + button at the bottom of the screen, select Africa and tap Mauritius to download; the Mauritius map is just 43.1MB in size. This is it. Now you can switch off your data connection on your Windows Phone and enjoy offline map of Mauritius.

If you haven't got Here Maps on your Windows Phone yet, download it free in the store.

Press Release: Microsoft buying Nokia's Devices and services, patents for 5.44 billion Euros.

Microsoft to acquire Nokia’s devices & services business, license Nokia’s patents and mapping services

REDMOND, Washington and ESPOO, Finland – Sept. 2, 2013 – Microsoft Corporation and Nokia Corporation today announced that the Boards of Directors for both companies have decided to enter into a transaction whereby Microsoft will purchase substantially all of Nokia’s Devices & Services business, license Nokia’s patents, and license and use Nokia’s mapping services.

Under the terms of the agreement, Microsoft will pay EUR 3.79 billion to purchase substantially all of Nokia’s Devices & Services business, and EUR 1.65 billion to license Nokia’s patents, for a total transaction price of EUR 5.44 billion in cash. Microsoft will draw upon its overseas cash resources to fund the transaction. The transaction is expected to close in the first quarter of 2014, subject to approval by Nokia’s shareholders, regulatory approvals and other closing conditions.

Building on the partnership with Nokia announced in February 2011 and the increasing success of Nokia’s Lumia smartphones, Microsoft aims to accelerate the growth of its share and profit in mobile devices through faster innovation, increased synergies, and unified branding and marketing. For Nokia, this transaction is expected to be significantly accretive to earnings, strengthen its financial position, and provide a solid basis for future investment in its continuing businesses.

“It’s a bold step into the future – a win-win for employees, shareholders and consumers of both companies. Bringing these great teams together will accelerate Microsoft’s share and profits in phones, and strengthen the overall opportunities for both Microsoft and our partners across our entire family of devices and services,” said Steve Ballmer, Microsoft chief executive officer. “In addition to their innovation and strength in phones at all price points, Nokia brings proven capability and talent in critical areas such as hardware design and engineering, supply chain and manufacturing management, and hardware sales, marketing and distribution.” 

“We are excited and honored to be bringing Nokia’s incredible people, technologies and assets into our Microsoft family. Given our long partnership with Nokia and the many key Nokia leaders that are joining Microsoft, we anticipate a smooth transition and great execution,” Ballmer said. “With ongoing share growth and the synergies across marketing, branding and advertising, we expect this acquisition to be accretive to our adjusted earnings per share starting in FY15, and we see significant long-term revenue and profit opportunities for our shareholders.” 

“For Nokia, this is an important moment of reinvention and from a position of financial strength, we can build our next chapter,” said Risto Siilasmaa, Chairman of the Nokia Board of Directors and, following today’s announcement, Nokia Interim CEO. “After a thorough assessment of how to maximize shareholder value, including consideration of a variety of alternatives, we believe this transaction is the best path forward for Nokia and its shareholders. Additionally, the deal offers future opportunities for many Nokia employees as part of a company with the strategy, financial resources and determination to succeed in the mobile space.”

“Building on our successful partnership, we can now bring together the best of Microsoft’s software engineering with the best of Nokia’s product engineering, award-winning design, and global sales, marketing and manufacturing,” said Stephen Elop, who following today’s announcement is stepping aside as Nokia President and CEO to become Nokia Executive Vice President of Devices & Services. “With this combination of talented people, we have the opportunity to accelerate the current momentum and cutting-edge innovation of both our smart devices and mobile phone products.”

Nokia has outlined its expected focus upon the closing of the transaction in a separate press release published today.

TERMS OF THE AGREEMENT

Under the terms of the agreement, Microsoft will acquire substantially all of Nokia’s Devices and Services business, including the Mobile Phones and Smart Devices business units as well as an industry-leading design team, operations including all Nokia Devices & Services-related production facilities, Devices & Services-related sales and marketing activities, and related support functions. At closing, approximately 32,000 people are expected to transfer to Microsoft, including 4,700 people in Finland and 18,300 employees directly involved in manufacturing, assembly and packaging of products worldwide. The operations that are planned to be transferred to Microsoft generated an estimated EUR 14.9 billion, or almost 50 percent of Nokia’s net sales for the full year 2012.

Microsoft is acquiring Nokia’s Smart Devices business unit, including the Lumia brand and products. Lumia handsets have won numerous awards and have grown in sales in each of the last three quarters, with sales reaching 7.4 million units in the second quarter of 2013.

As part of the transaction, Nokia is assigning to Microsoft its long-term patent licensing agreement with Qualcomm, as well as other licensing agreements.

Microsoft is also acquiring Nokia’s Mobile Phones business unit, which serves hundreds of millions of customers worldwide, and had sales of 53.7 million units in the second quarter of 2013. Microsoft will acquire the Asha brand and will license the Nokia brand for use with current Nokia mobile phone products. Nokia will continue to own and manage the Nokia brand. This element provides Microsoft with the opportunity to extend its service offerings to a far wider group around the world while allowing Nokia’s mobile phones to serve as an on-ramp to Windows Phone. 

Nokia will retain its patent portfolio and will grant Microsoft a 10-year license to its patents at the time of the closing. Microsoft will grant Nokia reciprocal rights to use Microsoft patents in its HERE services. In addition, Nokia will grant Microsoft an option to extend this mutual patent agreement in perpetuity.

In addition, Microsoft will become a strategic licensee of the HERE platform, and will separately pay Nokia for a four-year license.

Microsoft will also immediately make available to Nokia EUR 1.5 billion of financing in the form of three EUR 500 million tranches of convertible notes that Microsoft would fund from overseas resources. If Nokia decides to draw down on this financing option, Nokia would pay back these notes to Microsoft from the proceeds of the deal upon closing. The financing is not conditional on the transaction closing. 

Microsoft also announced that it has selected Finland as the home for a new data center that will serve Microsoft consumers in Europe. The company said it would invest more than a quarter-billion dollars in capital and operation of the new data center over the next few years, with the potential for further expansion over time.

NOKIA LEADERSHIP CHANGES

Nokia expects that Stephen Elop, Jo Harlow, Juha Putkiranta, Timo Toikkanen, and Chris Weber would transfer to Microsoft at the anticipated closing of the transaction. Nokia has outlined these changes in more detail in a separate release issued today.

Source: Microsoft

Everything you need to know about GDR2 update.

In a blog post on the Windows Phone blog, Micheal Stroh reports about what is in for us in GDR2 update that is currently being deployed world wide. I got the update on my HTC 8X a few weeks ago. The update does contain a fix for the "other" storage issue. Windows Phone OS will delete unnecessary files when space is low on the phone. There is more to write about, but since I'm running late, just click the link below to read the blog post. 

Source: Windows Phone blog

Nokia announces the affordable Lumia 625 with a big screen.

The Lumia 625 is a low pec device announced by Nokia today. Unlike the Lumia 620, it has a big 4.7 inch WVGA display. Not bad for a device that will be priced at around 220 Euros. Besides the big screen, the Lumia 625 sports 512MB of RAM and 8GB of storage with support storage cards up to 64GB; 4G connectivity is also supported.

On the software front, most of Nokia's Here apps are supported thus providing turn-by-turn navigation and maps services similar to high end Lumias.

The Nokia Lumia 625 will be available in a range of colours including orange, yellow, bright green, white and black with an array of changeable shells enabling easy personalisation. With an estimated retail price of 220 Euros before taxes and subsidies, the Nokia Lumia 625 is planned to begin selling in China, Europe, Asia Pacific, India, Middle East, Africa and Latin America in Q3 2013.

Read the full press release after the break.

#2InstaWithLove gets two more filters: Lumia & Nightshot.

                                Nightshot                                        Lumia

I'm telling you, at this trend, #2InstaWithLove will soon become an "Instagram" of its own. Nokia has added two more filters: Lumia and Nightshot, bringing the numbers of filters to four. #2InstaWithLove is very simple to use and sharing to social networks is just a tap away. With Windows Phone sales on the rise, #2InstaWithLove could prove to be a wise investment. Check out the two samples above. To update #2InstaWithLove, simply launch the app. 

#2InstaWithLove gets a new filter.

I'm not sure why Nokia is craving so much for Instagram on Windows Phone. Remember they launched an app called #2InstaWithLove that came with a Polaroid filter as a way to incite Instagram to work on an official app for Windows Phone. Since we haven't heard of any progress, Nokia has published an update to its 2InstaWithLove app that adds a second filter called HandCam. I have no idea what it does, so let me know if you ever find out. Again, I'm not where Nokia is going with this, but if it keeps adding filters to #2InstaWithLove , it will end up having a Instagram of it's own.

Get #2InstaWithLove here.

Nokia releases app for Windows Phone users to "petition" Instagram.

I can't figure why everyone is craving so much for Instagram on Windows Phone. I personally do not use it on Android and nor do I know anyone around me who does. And most of these people have Android phones, for now. I definitely use my phone to snap pictures on the go and I do not apply filters to them. But for sharing, I use Facebook and Twitter. No need to have another social network. That's why I question the very existence of Instagram. With that we're soon going to have a social network for about everything.

But again, it seems nowadays that a phone without Instagram is not a phone. Nokia is serious about that to the point of creating an app to help Windows Phone users to communicate with Instagram team to petition them to make an app for their Windows Phones. "The app allows Windows Phone users to have their voice heard so that instead of letters, chocolates, mix tapes or petitions (although very effective in some cases), the community can speak directly to Instagram and the Instagram community in a way they can respect…through the use of beautiful photography." 

The app lets you take pictures and apply a "classic polaroid filter" and share it to your favorite social network with the hashtag #2InstaWithLove. The hashtag is also the name of the free app. If you want to join the Instagram-on-Windows phone campaign, download a free copy of the app from the Windows Phone Store.

Source: Conversations by Nokia

Nokia Drive+ Beta available for WP8 users in Canada, UK and the US.

Microsoft and Nokia made good on their promise to bring the free Nokia Drive+ app to all Windows Phone 8 devices. The app which was a Nokia Lumia exclusive until yesterday is still a beta version, so expect to see some bugs. If you do come across one or two, do not hesitate to bring it to the attention of the developers through the Windows Store or the app feedback tab

Nokia Drive+ beta can be downloaded free from the Store and will give you access to turn-by-turn navigation, offline maps, speed limit warnings, voice guided navigation etc. 

Download link.

Source

Learn more about Nokia Drive+ beta.

Nokia announces affordable Lumia 620.

Nokia has announced a new Windows Phone 8 phone today, the Nokia Lumia 620. The affordable phone is compact and sports a 3.8" screen WVGA with a resolution of 800x480, 512MB of RAM, 5MP camera as well as a VGA front facing camera. In terms of storage, the Lumia 620 offers 8GB of internal storage which can be extended with a Micro SD card up to 64GB. Add  to that free 7GB of SkyDrive storage.. The Lumia 620 is powered by a 1GHz Dual core Snapdragon processor and 1300 mAh battery.

Depending of countries, the Nokia Lumia 620 will be available in several colors including, lime green, orange, magenta, yellow, cyan, white and black. The device will first be made available in Asia at an estimated price of USD249 excluding tax. It will start selling in early January 2013 and will also be available in Europe and the Middle East.



Read Nokia's press release after the break.

Nokia and Microsoft announce plans for a broad strategic partnership to build a new global ecosystem

London, Feb. 11, 2011 - Nokia and Microsoft today announced plans to form a broad strategic partnership that would use their complementary strengths and expertise to create a new global mobile ecosystem.

Nokia and Microsoft intend to jointly create market-leading mobile products and services designed to offer consumers, operators and developers unrivalled choice and opportunity.  As each company would focus on its core competencies, the partnership would create the opportunity for rapid time to market execution.  Additionally, Nokia and Microsoft plan to work together to integrate key assets and create completely new service offerings, while extending established products and services to new markets. 

Under the proposed partnership:

- Nokia would adopt Windows Phone as its principal smartphone strategy, innovating on top of the platform in areas such as imaging, where Nokia is a market leader.

- Nokia would help drive the future of Windows Phone.  Nokia would contribute its expertise on hardware design, language support, and help bring Windows Phone to a larger range of price points, market segments and geographies.

- Nokia and Microsoft would closely collaborate on joint marketing initiatives and a shared development roadmap to align on the future evolution of mobile products.

- Bing would power Nokia's search services across Nokia devices and services, giving customers access to Bing's next generation search capabilities.  Microsoft adCenter would provide search advertising services on Nokia's line of devices and services.

- Nokia Maps would be a core part of Microsoft's mapping services.   For example, Maps would be integrated with Microsoft's Bing search engine and adCenter advertising platform to form a unique local search and advertising experience

- Nokia's extensive operator billing agreements would make it easier for consumers to purchase Nokia Windows Phone services in countries where credit-card use is low.

- Microsoft development tools would be used to create applications to run on Nokia Windows Phones, allowing developers to easily leverage the ecosystem's global reach. 

- Nokia's content and application store would be integrated with Microsoft Marketplace for a more compelling consumer experience.

"Today, developers, operators and consumers want  compelling mobile products, which include not only the device, but the software, services, applications and customer support that make a great  experience," Stephen Elop, Nokia President and CEO, said at a joint news conference in London. "Nokia and Microsoft will combine our strengths to deliver an ecosystem with unrivalled global reach and scale. It's now a three-horse race."

"I am excited about this partnership with Nokia," said Steven A. Ballmer, Microsoft CEO. "Ecosystems thrive when fueled by speed, innovation and scale. The partnership announced today provides incredible scale, vast expertise in hardware and software innovation and a proven ability to execute."

Please visit www.nokia.com/press for press materials.

Windows Mobile Pocket Outlook better than Blackberry & others

"Strategy Analytics recently benchmarked four popular mobile email clients and concluded that Windows Mobile Pocket Outlook offers the easiest configuration POP3 email accounts. In reaching its findings, the research firm surveyed an unspecified number of users of Pocket Outlook, BlackBerry BIS, Nokia S60, and UIQ v3.0 email clients.According to Strategy Analytics, Pocket Outlook's users achieved a 100 percent success rate at configuring their POP3 accounts. The email client was also tops in both speed and overall user satisfaction. "The BlackBerry Internet Service," on the other hand, "suffered fatal email configuration challenges, while discoverability was an issue for Nokia Series 60," the market research firm added."

I've always said that the builtin apps on our devices are best to use. They are light, fast, intuitive for even the newbies and make good use of our devices resource. Of course, if you need more features, there is a plethora of third party applications for Pocket PCs and Smartphones. Read more...