Microsoft To Abandon The Bastard Child Of Windows Phone In Two Months

(GNN) - Remember Windows Phone 7.8? Microsoft built it as a stop-gap measure to lessen the ire of Windows Phone 7.5 users, a group technologically precluded from making the leap to Windows Phone 8. If you had forgotten about it don’t worry, Microsoft is about to do the same.

Mary Jo Foley today detailed the coming death-dates of a number of Microsoft products, including Windows Phone 7.8. As it turns out, 7.8′s moment of expiration has been known for some time: September 9th.

Today Microsoft published — and then retracted, it seems — a note to computing users concerning the end of support for a number of its products. The list included a note that Windows Phone 7.8 would lose “mainstream support” in September.

It wasn’t clear what that meant. According to the company’s general life cyle page, consumer products generally receive a two year period of updates and support, after which they are no longer supported. There isn’t “extended support” for such products, as there is for versions of desktop Windows, for example.

Windows Phone 7.8 is being axed after a mere 18 months. The official verbiage: “Microsoft will make updates available for the Operating System on your phone, including security updates, for a period of 18 months after the lifecycle start date.” In short, if you are on Windows Phone 7.8 you have a few months left before your phone won’t update ever again.

How many Windows Phone 7.8 users are left? About 17% of the larger Windows Phone market, so it’s no small tally.

Windows Phone 7.8 was never more than a band-aid. Microsoft decided that Windows Phone needed to join the larger Windows family, and the original Windows Phone 7, 7.1 7.5, and 7.8 devices could never share in that future. Thus, to see Microsoft walk quickly away from the product is hardly surprising.

What does it gain from its support? Aside from honoring the implicit promise to not leave users behind when providing them with a platform to by into, little.

Strategically, that is, Windows Phone 7.8 is moot.

IMAGE BY FLICKR USER VERNON CHAN UNDER CC BY 2.0 LICENSE (IMAGE HAS BEEN MODIFIED)

BlackBerry Is One Of The Hottest Stocks Of 2014, Seriously

Don’t look now, but BlackBerry, you know, the butt of most cell phone jokes, is mounting an impressive comeback. BlackBerry’s stock (NASDAQ:BBRY) is up 50% on the year and one of the best performers in its sector.

BlackBerry has been written off as dead countless times. The company is often viewed as a relic of a bygone era. Its CEO is a blowhard, not afraid to take spats with the company public. Yet the company is creating value for its shareholders.

In 2014 BlackBerry’s stock is outperforming all its peers. At the beginning of the year, the company’s stock was languishing at $7.44 a share. Yesterday it closed at $11.21. That’s a gain of 50% on the year. The stock is also up in trading today.

Apple is up just 20% on the year. Google? Just 5%.

The Motley Fool recently looked at the company’s financials and caution the company has yet to improve its revenue growth or its profit margin. The company is simply slashing costs and not making waves. So far, investors are liking that approach.

The company is also making some strategic moves. BlackBerry has leveraged its established Messenger app, positioning it as a WhatsApp for the lucrative enterprise market.

The company also released minor updates to its BB10 mobile operating system and turned to niche and developing markets for additional handset sales.  Essentially, by not doing a lot this year, BlackBerry hasn’t done anything wrong. That could change.

The company’s long-term future is still in question. Its mobile market share is still shrinking and Apple and Android makers are increasingly adding features once exclusive to BlackBerry devices. If BlackBerry is to remain the company will need to do more than cut cost and add stickers to BBM.

Samsung Galaxy S5 may come with an Eyeball scanner and more

New rumours starting to roll out about new generation smartphones for the next year, specially aiming on Apple and Samsung that what they will introduce next.

We already witness how Samsung overcome on Apple since the launch of Galaxy S3 and Galaxy S4, but Apple once again emerge with iPhone 5S to take some market share and to break the smooth track of consecutive success of Android device.

Now things have changed since the launch of Apple iPhone 5S with finger scanner. Samsung once again try a bit different with its upcoming device Samsung Galaxy S5.

According to reports, Samsung is planning an Eyeball scanner instead of finger print scanner found in iPhone 5S and HTC One Max.

Samsung Galaxy S5 is in the rumors circle for months, but since the confirmation of its camera by the company it make it even interesting.

Samsung is eyeing to change the regular design and material of its Galaxy S series. According to reports the new device will feature a metallic body instead of regular plastic.

If Samsung introduce the handset with a metal body, smartphone will have solid base a more protected from inner and outer sides.

The processor of the device is even more interesting. Apple iPhone 5S is running on a quad core 64bit A7 processor. But Samsung have a different plan, according to report Samsung is working on a 14nm 64bit octa-core processor based on ARM.

In addition to 64-bit processors, the phones are also expected to ship with WQHD (2,560 by 1,440 pixel resolution) displays.

Samsung already confirms that company’s upcoming device likely Samsung Galaxy S5, will feature a 16 megapixel camera.

The Samsung Galaxy S5 will make its appearance in the first quarter of the next year, according to sources.

As far as the operating system is concerned Samsung have the two choices that whether it will go with recently launched Android 4.4 KitKat or look towards co-created Tizen. The time will tell Samsung chose Android or go with a new operating system Tizen.

موبائل کی بیٹری دیر تک چلے؟ چند مشورے

Nexus 5 Launch Likely Coming Today, Here’s What We Know So Far

Google’s Nexus 5 is not a real thing yet, but at this point it’s a foregone conclusion; Google will update its Android reference smartphone, which comes with the clean stock version of its mobile operating system, and it’ll probably do it today. Which is why it makes perfect sense that the leaks are now flying fast and furious.

The Nexus 5 will reportedly be unveiled later today, sometime around 8 AM PST according to a report from GottaBeMobile, and it’ll begin shipping tomorrow, November 1 with orders starting immediately.

Whether or not it happens right at that time, the case remains that we’re probably going to see the phone today at some point, since a number of earlier reports also indicated Oct. 31 as the time for its official debut.

Google’s Nexus 5 is likely sourced from hardware partner LG, just like the Nexus 4, and it is said to have a 4.95-inch, 1080p display, with a Snapdragon 800 processor running at 2.3GHz, 2GB of RAM, 16 or 32 GB of storage, an 8 megapixel rear camera/1.3 megapixel front, and Android 4.4 KitKat.

It’ll likely be the first KitKat device, which is a software update that brings a lot of refinements, along with replacing the stock SMS app with Google Hangouts now that it has SMS integration, we’re hearing.

According to one T-Mobile employee, the Nexus 5 will be available at that carrier the same day it’s announced, and will cost roughly the same as the Nexus 4 did on T-Mo last year (which is to say, at a considerable markup).

Google has also updated the look and design of the Play Devices web store, prompting some to note that this could be in preparation for a Nexus 5 listing.

Google’s Nexus 5 seems like it’ll be a match for the current crop of top Android smartphones, at least on paper, and it’s a handsome device if early render and photo leaks are to be believed.

Price and international availability remain the biggest question marks at this point, as well as the exact timing of availability, but we’ll be sure to bring you more as soon as we get any official info from Google.

Apple Replacing ‘Limited’ Number Of iPhone 5s With Manufacturing Issue Leading To Battery Life Problem

Apple released a statement today to The New York Times noting that a manufacturing issue has caused shortened battery life in a ‘very limited’ number of iPhone 5s devices. At its introduction, the phone was reported by Apple to have nearly identical life to the iPhone 5, and most tests have borne that out with reviewers seeing identical or slightly improved numbers.

The statement, issued by an Apple spokesperson, indicates that a small number of the iPhones that Apple has sold so far are defective. Here’s the statement given to the Times:

“We recently discovered a manufacturing issue affecting a very limited number of iPhone 5S devices that could cause the battery to take longer to charge or result in reduced battery life,” said Teresa Brewer, an Apple spokeswoman. “We are reaching out to customers with affected phones and will provide them with a replacement phone.”

The Times says that Apple’s statement ‘implies’ that this is only a few thousand devices, but Apple themselves gave no exact number. Apple sold 9 million iPhone 5s, iPhone 5c and iPhone 4s devices in its launch weekend in September.

iPhones do not have user replaceable batteries, making the life of those batteries of paramount importance. In general, iPhones get comparable battery life to other devices in the same size and thickness.

Other devices from Motorola, Samsung and more have made design decisions that allow them to get greater battery life by packing in larger or thicker battery packs.

If that reputation for decent, if not exhilarating, battery life is going to be maintained, Apple will want to make sure that they clamp down on this issue quick.

Of course, the bad news about iPhone 5s battery life issues arrives ahead of iPad Air reviews, which are expected later today. Slick.

We’ve reached out to Apple to see if it has any more information to share.

Nokia Lumia 1520 review

The Nokia Lumia 1520 is a phone that takes all the best bits of the Finnish brand and stuffs them into a dramatically oversized package.

The handset, which brings the first round of supercharged Windows Phone handsets to the market, is really rather large. Think HTC One Max rather than Galaxy Note 3 and you'll get the picture.

The Lumia 1520 is the first Windows Phone with 1080p resolution, and it's rocking the biggest screen yet a 6-inch offering in a large, polycarbonate body.

It's also the first Nokia to come with a nanoSIM tray, meaning a number of sad upgraders who realise that once again they'll have to order a new SIM card.

It doesn't make a lot of sense, given this is the biggest phone Nokia has ever created, but does mean that future models will be given a little more design room to play with.

It's also using a Snapdragon 800 quad-core CPU, supplemented with 2GB of RAM, to really make things speed along under the finger.

In our testing, the speed really was there, and it's hard to explain how important the upgrade to the 800 processor really is. We wouldn't advocate an upgrade to a quad-core CPU for the sake of it, but in this case it's a significant improvement over the Lumia 1020.

Everything opened that little bit quicker, the overall speed of browsing (which has always been reliable, rather than nippy, on Windows Phone) was improved and generally you could tell that things were working a bit more smoothly when using the phone.

For instance, using the Pureview 20MP camera was a lot faster in general use, and web pages opened with much more urgency than they had before.

Even TechRadar managed to flick up on the six inch display with more aplomb, and while the zooming ability of the phone was still hampered by the need to use Internet Explorer we still found it to be a real step forward when it came to using the phone for the fun tasks we'd want a larger display to allow.

What else impressed us? Well, the addition of the microSD slot means you can supplement the 32GB of onboard storage with 64GB of expandable goodness. Google and friends might be trying to rip these from our handsets, but we're really happy to see hot swapping on offer.

The Nokia Lumia 1520 will be on sale very soon for those in the US, although other territories will have to wait a little longer. Europe is covered but we've got a scary feeling that we'll be into 2014 before it goes on our shelves.

The Pureview camera is obviously a big step up for Nokia again - it's not the 41MP option found in the Lumia 1020, but it does pop in at 20MP, and loses the extra heft the cameraphone flagship brought.

It also dispenses with the Xenon flash, but that, combined with the Snapdragon 800 processor moves the Lumia 1520 into a more useable option. we got so fed up with the processing speed of the 1020, despite the results often being brilliant.

Another great ability of the Lumia 1520 is the ability to output RAW files, although it can't manipulate them on the device itself. However, it's another boon for the Finnish firm, as it means professional photographers, or those that like to really edit properly, will be able to get the maximum from the photos.

Optical image stabilisation, something we thought we'd be seeing on a lot more phones by now, is thankfully here again, proving the photo-ability of the device nicely - plus the 5MP shareable shot is something we're always glad to see for social networking.

Here, Nokia's mapping team, has combined with the photo guys to create Storyteller, an app that places your pics and other such juicy photonuggets on a map, enabling you to create a location-based tale that you can easily get to by pinching inwards on the snap to jump straight into the map view.

This was handled easily by the Snapdragon processor, and we were impressed with the overall design of the app. We're not fans of the way Here maps looks generally, but this little addition does go some way towards improving it.

The final thing we'd like to talk up is the battery: Nokia has slapped a 3400mAh power pack in there to keep things ticking along. Combined with the Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 CPU this should equate to some really long standby time.

More importantly, this means that when you're taking loads of photos at max resolution you'll be able to use the phone for more than a minute before it dies in your hands.

The price is a little more palatable though for this slice of technological power from Nokia, with the $749 price tag (around £460 / AUS$775) meaning it will rival the likes of Samsung's Note 3 and HTC's One Max in the pricing wars, while beating them both in some ways on specs.

 That's not a phrase we thought we'd be saying about Nokia any time soon.
Early verdict

What's Nokia done here? Made something that we can't criticise from the spec sheet alone? The answer has to be yes: the CPU, screen, design and expansion offerings are all the things we've been gagging to see for months, if not years.

The extra apps are standard fare from the firm: bringing user upgrades in a way that delivers actual performance. we're actually quite intrigued by Storyteller as an app, although it can be a little cumbersome to use.

We'll be fleshing out this hands on in the next hour or two, so pop back later today to see more of an in-depth look at Nokia's flagship. but if you're the odd sort who makes an instant decision and won't budge from it, we can honestly say this might be the first Nokia phone in ages that we can recommend without worry.