Facebook Messenger for Windows Phone is now available. There may be many apps in the Windows market that mimick the Facebook Messenger, but this is the official app by Facebook.
Facebook Messenger allows you to connect easily with your Facebook friends. You can send messages, share multimedia files, location and more. Similar to the Android and iOS versions, Facebook Messenger for Windows Phone comes with Facebook stickers. But it misses voice messaging and Chat Heads options. These features should be coming in the near future.
It needs Windows 8 to run. It comes with the traditional Windows Phone style user interface.
Facebook has now killed off the Facebook Messenger app for Windows desktop and Firefox browser. Rumors about Facebook Messenger for Mac OS X may not be true considering Facebook is dropping support for desktop messaging.
It’s official: Nokia has launched two flagship phones of its Windows Phone 8 lineup – Lumia 920 and 820, in India. Lumia 620 on the other hand, is said to be available in February.
Lumia 920 and 820: features and specifications
Nokia calls Lumia 920 as the most innovative phone, while I won’t take it so far, they definitely have brought lot of new stuff to the table.
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Lumia 920 features a uni-body design, built using polycarbonate. Lumia 820 shows off a more open design with removable battery and (customizable) shell.
Lumia 920 is powered by a 4.5″ PureMotion HD+ display, while the 820 has a 4.3″ AMOLED display.
The camera on 920 uses Pureview technology and OIS (Optical image stabilization) with a 8.7 MP sensor. Lumia 820’s camera has a resolution of 8 MP.
Both the phones ship with Windows Phone 8, along with built-in Lumia apps like Nokia Music, which lets users stream music (or download) for free for one year.
Wireless charging and NFC capabilities stand out.
The official pricing for Lumia 920 is RS 38,199, and Lumia 820 is RS 27,559.
Time for revival for Nokia?
Personally, I think Nokia has really given its best for the hardware side of both of these phones – the design, build quality and camera are impressive. Not to forget the software side like Nokia Drive, City Lens, Music and many other Lumia-specific apps.
Just compare this with an Android OEM, like HTC or Samsung. They only cripple the software with their own versions of Android and make it worse, can you think of any amazing HTC-specific or Samsung-specific feature? I can’t. Heck, have you seen them making a phone which is well-designed, very durable and available in multiple colours – all at the same time?
Of course, all this is just the positive side of a Lumia, there’s a negative side which is called Windows Phone 8. WP still lacks majority of apps and nothing matters more than apps in a smartphone.
It’ll be interesting to see how the new Lumia lineup will do in India. Tell us what you think.
Google Maps has never been officially available on Windows Phone, but users could always go to the Maps website on IE and it would work. Since yesterday, this is not the case. Windows Phone users are being redirected to google.com if they visit the Maps website.
Google has officially responded saying –
We periodically test Google Maps compatibility with mobile browsers to make sure we deliver the best experience for those users.
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In our last test, IE mobile still did not offer a good maps experience with no ability to pan or zoom and perform basic map functionality. As a result, we chose to continue to redirect IE mobile users to Google.com where they could at least make local searches. The Firefox mobile browser did offer a somewhat better user experience and that’s why there is no redirect for those users.
Recent improvements to IE mobile and Google Maps now deliver a better experience and we are currently working to remove the redirect. We will continue to test Google Maps compatibility with other mobile browsers to ensure the best possible experience for users.
Here Google is trying to clear that Maps being not accessible on WP is not an anti-competitive practise by Google, rather it was a well thought-out product decision.
Is Google being evil?
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This question is yet to be answered. First of all, Google hasn’t been playing well with Microsoft lately. They have removed Active Sync support from Gmail, restricted Microsoft from making a standalone YouTube client for WP (that’s the claim Microsoft makes) and lot more. Also, Microsoft will never stop making those hate ads on Google, like Gmail Man.
So when Google Maps started to redirect to google.com on WP devices, everyone thought this was just another plot by Google against Microsoft.
There’s been a lot of outrage by WP users saying that mobile website of Google Maps actually worked well before – this is opposite to Google is arguing.
At the end of the day, what matters is, whether Google Maps will work on WP devices in future. For which, the answer is yes.
Nokia in an event yesterday, introduced the much awaited Windows 8 phones to the world. The Nokia Lumia 920 is being touted as a phone that would help Nokia become a relevant brand in the mobile phone business.
But controversy broke out when The Verge, first pointed out that the advertisement show casing PureView camera stabilization technology (OIS) was a fake.
In the advertisement, a reflection clearly shows that the camera being used to take the image was not a phone.
Nokia has apologized on its blog for not having the correct disclaimers but its reputation has already been harmed. Last thing Nokia need was to showcase the camera and then come out and apologize for faking the video itself.
Nokia Lumia 920 Features
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The phone features 4.5-inched curved glass display.
1.5 GHz dual-core S4 processor.
Lumia 920 is a Windows 8 phone.
The phone will have 8.7 megapixels camera.
1 GB Internal Memory and 32 GB storage.
In the long run the problem with Lumia 920 is not the controversy of the fake video. It will be the platform it runs on and its ability to compete with the apps ecosystem of Android and iOS.
If Windows 8 does not kick in some magic, it might be too late for Nokia.
