Tumblr has finally released a dedicated app for Windows Phone 8, being the last of the major mobile platforms to get a Tumblr app. This will give Tumblr users the opportunity to experience the social blogging platform on Microsoft’s mobile operating system, complete with live tiles as well as most of the features that other mobile Tumblr users have been enjoying.
The new app includes the ability to follow users and post in all formats that Tumblr allows, including GIFs. Users will also be able to share photos, videos, links, text, etc. The user interface looks like any other Windows Phone 8 app, and it also supports Windows Phone 8′s lock screen and live tiles, meaning that you can have the app display the latest images from your dashboard on your lock screen or Tumblr live tiles.
Tumblr has been taking its time rolling out mobile apps to various mobile operating system. Case in point: Android tablet support as well as iPad support arrived back in December, which is a bit late compared to most other popular services. However, it’s out in full force now on iOS, Android, BlackBerry, and Windows Phone 8.
Tumblr is also just starting to roll out ads to its mobile apps, giving the company another way to bring in the bacon. Tumblr announced just yesterday that they would start doing this. It’s not yet known how this will affect users, or whether or not users will make a big fuss over it, but it’s usually a common convention that people don’t like ads, so many users may not take this lightly.
It was just earlier yesterday morning when brought you word that Tumblr will introduce the scourge of ads to their mobile apps in an effort to generate and raise funds to keep them going. Well, for folks who are running on the Windows Phone 8 platform, here is some news for you – it seems that the official Tumblr app for Windows Phone 8 has just debuted, and initial impressions tend to veer towards the positive side of things, touting it to be a “great looking app” in addition to making full use of a slew of unique capabilities found in the Windows Phone 8 platform.
Basically, the Tumblr app for Windows Phone 8 allows you to post just about anything regardless of where you are, ranging from pictures to quotes, music, videos, chats, links, and your random as well as insightful (or so you think) musings. You will be able to enjoy full GIF support, and it will also play nice with speech recognition, now how about that? Imagine creating new posts with but the power of speech alone. Go on, grab the official Tumblr app for Windows Phone 8 here.
The mobile device and data carrier Verizon is often considered the one to beat in the United States, making this week’s report of a possible exclusive release with Nokia a ray of positive light for the smartphone manufacturer. Sources have mentioned the possibility of a device coming to Verizon in the very near future by the name Nokia Lumia 928, one we’ve heard rumors of before. This device would take the successes of the Nokia Lumia 920 and bring a Verizon-tuned setup to the market with 4G LTE, aiming for a win with Windows Phone 8 while the majority of the devices carried by this top US mobile provider run iOS or Android.
This report comes from sources speaking with Bloomberg and have asked to remain anonymous as final negotiations will remain secret until next month. The Nokia Lumia 928 is said to be a re-tuning of the Nokia Lumia 920, a device Nokia has claimed as its hero smartphone through the beginning of 2013. This new device would work with a similar 4.5-inch touchscreen, 8 megapixel camera, and the ability to charge wirelessly.
The device that Nokia and Verizon are said to be using to solidify a deal between them will likely follow the metal body rumors reported several times since the international mobile device convention IFA held earlier this year in Barcelona. It was during that convention that Nokia revealed several new smartphones with low price points including the Lumia 520 and 720, both of which use Microsoft’s Windows Phone 8 mobile operating system.
Have a peek at the timeline below for more appearances in the recent past of the device at the center of the deal being tipped here today. Will it be Nokia’s time to glow brightly amongst the otherwise midrange Windows Phone 8 devices working with the big red carrier? Or will this deal fizzle before the next wave of Windows Phone 8 devices arrive later this year?
Android users and iPhone users have been able to enjoy the wonders of Instagram on their phones for quite some time, but where is the love for Windows Phone 8 users? Well one concerned used decided to ask Nokia Sweden whether the Instagram app will be heading over to his Nokia Lumia 920 anytime soon, in which Nokia replied with, “Instagram is on the way, but we can’t give an exact date right now.”
However, we have to Nokia Sweden’s message with a grain of salt because this message isn’t coming directly from Instagram itself. It would make sense that Instagram would be bringing its app to Windows Phone 8, considering how the platform is gaining traction in the mobile market. While Windows Phone 8 is still miles and miles behind in popularity compared to Android or iOS, it’s still the 3rd most popular mobile platform.
Nokia deleted its Facebook comment shortly afterwards, likely because it spilled the beans on something that was supposed to remain a secret. This, however, isn’t the first time that Nokia accidentally let out details regarding Instagram for Windows Phone. Back in March, Nokia Sweden responded to one of its followers on Twitter saying that Instagram is currently in development for the Windows Phone platform.
Hopefully, Nokia Sweden is correct and Instagram is really on its way to Windows Phone users. Being not as popular as Android or iOS, Windows Phone always gets the short end of the stick when it comes to major apps. Earlier this month, Windows Phone 8 users were finally given the option to view their Netflix movies in 720p resolution. As Windows Phone 8 grows in popularity, developers will be more quick about bringing their apps to the platform. If you’re a fan of the Nokia Lumia line-up, check out our review of its latest smartphone, the Nokia Lumia 720.
Earlier this morning, US Cellular came under our radar as the mobile carrier began to accept Samsung Galaxy S4 pre-orders, where it is said that they would even sweeten the deal further by including a free S View flip cover, now how about that? Well, at the start of this week, too, US Cellular did share on the fact that they will be offering the ZTE Director to the masses, and here we are with word that the mobile carrier will look beyond the Android box and could very well offer Windows Phone 8-powered devices down the road, too.
As part of a response to a request for Windows Phone products on its Facebook page, a carrier representative from US Cellular mentioned that they are getting ready to launch “a Windows 8 device” and they are hoping to be able to share additional information sometime in May. It has been confirmed since that it is not a Windows 8 device, but rather, one from their stables that will run on the Windows Phone 8 mobile operating system.
It’s Nokia’s cheapest Windows Phone 8 device, takes the company’s latest range to five models, and borrows some of the style from its bigger siblings, but can the Lumia 520 compete with cheap Android? Unveiled alongside the Lumia 720 at Mobile World Congress, the 520 slots in at the entry-level with a few compromises along the way to reach its sub-€150 unsubsidized price. Have the cut corners left the baby Lumia lacking? Read on for our review.
Hardware
Cheap doesn’t always mean cheerful, though Nokia has some impressive form in the segment: its track record in squeezing the best margins out of its production lines has resulted in surprising gems like the Lumia 620. For the Lumia 520, you get a Snapdragon S4 dualcore running at 1GHz and 512MB of RAM, just like the 720, as well as 8GB of onboard storage and a microSD card slot to add to it.
Connectivity omits LTE – something we can forgive given the price – and tops out at dualband HSDPA (up to 21.1Mbps down, 5.76Mbps up, network depending); there’s also WiFi b/g/n and Bluetooth 3.0. No NFC, though, which means no tap-to-pair with wireless speakers, and there’s unsurprisingly no wireless charging option either. Nokia tells us it expects people to step up to the Lumia 720 if that’s something they’re keen on.
Nokia’s design lineage takes another mild deviation for the Lumia 520, with the interchangeable casing being a simple snap-on affair without the bevels of the 720 or the dual-colors of the 620. It feels plasticky and somewhat hollow to the tap, too, while the broader screen bezels mean that, despite having a mere 4-inch display (running at WVGA), the phone is only very slightly narrower than the 4.3-inch 720.
That’s not the only screen-related compromise. Nokia’s Clear Black technology hasn’t filtered down to this level yet, and so the Lumia 520 makes do with a regular LCD panel instead. The result is weaker viewing angles and less impressive outdoor visibility, though Windows Phone’s bold colors do their best to keep the UI clean. Best, though, is the extra-sensitive touchscreen, which means you can use the 520 while wearing gloves.
Software
Windows Phone 8 on the Lumia 520 differs little from what we saw on the Lumia 720, with identical performance courtesy of the same internal components. It remains a great OS for the first-time smartphone user, cleanly laid out, but with the Live Tiles – which can show upcoming calendar appointments, gallery previews, and those contacts with new updates on social media – allowing for enough flexibility for power-users missing traditional widgets.
The Nokia software suite is broadly the same, too, with a couple of changes to accommodate the 520′s hardware. Since there’s no digital compass – only A-GPS and Glonass – you don’t get the LiveSight augmented reality City Lens functionality baked into HERE Maps, though there’s still turn-by-turn navigation (with offline mapping support) for the UK and Ireland. Nokia Transit is also included.
At this price point, though, the biggest sell may well be Nokia Music. The free streaming playlists – complete with offline support for a limited number of playlists, unless you sign up to the subscription Music+ service – have real appeal for buyers on a budget. It makes even more sense when you consider that, in the UK, the Lumia 520 is being offered free on a £7.99 a month agreement, less than a Spotify premium subscription.
Camera
At 5-megapixels, the Lumia 520′s camera is unsurprisingly humble. There’s an f/2.4 lens but none of the Carl Zeiss optics that we know from more expensive Nokia phones, and cost cutting has meant the LED flash is omitted too. The 520 is also the only model in the company’s new line-up not to get a front-facing camera, which means no Skype video calls.
Just as we found with the Lumia 620′s 5-megapixel shooter, quality is mixed. Given sufficient natural light, the Lumia 520 does a reasonable job, though there’s plenty of noise and blur to be found when you view shots at their full 2592 x 1936 resolution. Low-light performance suffers, though, with noise and colors underwhelming.
As for video, that tops out at 720p HD, but the results aren’t too hot. Moving objects aren’t jerky but they do encounter some blur, while the audio quality is somewhat tinny.
A minor frustration was how the camera shortcut button works. As on all Windows Phones, holding down the dedicated key on the side of the Lumia 520 loads up the camera app – bypassing the lockscreen – but the budget Nokia proved a little slower to be ready for a shot than its Lumia 720 sibling. We also had some issues with the physical alignment of the button when clipping the battery cover back on.
Phone and Battery
Nokia rates the Lumia 520′s removable 1,430 mAh battery as good for up to 9.6hrs of 3G talk time or 360hrs of standby; your calls will be clear and strong, too, with no issues in audio quality that we encountered.
In typical use, with a mixture of push-email, some Nokia Music playback, internet browsing, Nokia Maps, and photography, the Lumia 520 comfortably made it through a full day and into a second before we needed to reach for the charger.
Wrap-Up
Things are getting tight in Nokia’s Windows Phone line-up, with increasingly small differentiators between different models for different price points. Although that makes for potential confusion in the consumer marketplace, Nokia tells us it pays dividends for Lumia’s enterprise adoption: one of the goals of the 520, for instance, was to make a device for those on the factory floor that runs the same OS as management staff use on their Lumia 820 and 920 phones, but cheap and resilient enough to survive the inevitable drops and scrapes of working life.
Does that mean the Lumia 520 isn’t intended for the rest of us? Some of the compromises – the absence of a front-facing camera, notably, and the mediocre hand-feel – do leave us leaning toward the Lumia 620. It may be slightly more expensive, but it looks and feels better, is more flexible, and while the screen is slightly smaller, it offers the same resolution along with the quality improvements of Clear Black.
If low-cost is your guiding star, though, the Lumia 520 is impressive for the price, and the value-add of Nokia’s software and services isn’t to be sniffed at either.
Nokia’s Lumia range is, depending on those you ask, either getting crowded or becoming more flexible, with the new Lumia 720 slotting in-between the 620 and the older 820. With its 4.3-inch screen adding up to a pocket-friendly size, the Lumia 720 makes a strong argument for the Windows Phone midrange. Still, we’ve already praised the Lumia 620 for punching above its station, so does the 720 really carve out enough of a difference to make it worth consideration? Read on for the full review.
Hardware
Nokia’s familial design language is clear in the Lumia 720, and it’s one of the more pleasing handsets to look at and hold in the company’s range. Narrower sides but wider top and bottom bezels make for a phone that’s slimmer but longer than the Lumia 820 it most closely resembles, though the 720 shaves 0.9 mm off the depth (taking it down to 9 mm).
There’s a compromise involved in that, though, which is that while wireless charging is an option, it’s not baked into the Lumia 720 natively. Instead, you have to slot the phone into a secondary skin, which makes contact with a row of pin-connectors running along the lower section of the rear. Then, it’s compatible with any Qi-compliant wireless charger, including Nokia’s own accessories; unfortunately, Nokia didn’t have the adapter shell available for us to test.
Bare, it’s a sturdy unibody with a smooth, matte finish; the red of our review unit is particularly fetching, but Nokia will also offer the 720 in white, cyan, yellow, and black. A Micro SIM-tray on the upper edge means Nokia can keep the back cover fixed – which also means no removable battery – while on the right side there’s the usual volume rocker, power/lock key, and camera shortcut. A microUSB port is on the bottom edge, and finally another pop-out tray on the left for a microSD card slot (to add to the 8GB of internal storage).
Nokia has been pushing two screen technologies of late, Clear Black for better contrast and outdoor usability, and increased sensitivity for the touchscreen meaning it will work even when you’re wearing gloves. Both are present on the Lumia 720′s 4.3-inch panel, a bright and colorful screen let down only by its mediocre resolution. At WVGA, rather than 720p, you miss out on the smoothness we’ve seen on other, more expensive phones. Admittedly, the effect is diluted somewhat by the smaller size overall, but we’d still loved to have seen an HD screen.
Inside, Qualcomm’s 1GHz Snapdragon S4 chip holds court, paired with 512MB of memory. Nokia may have omitted wireless charging, but you still get quadband 21.1Mbps HSDPA, quadband GSM/EDGE, Bluetooth 3.0, WiFi b/g/n, and NFC. Above the display there’s a 1.3-megapixel camera with a wide-angle f/2.4 lens, while a 6.7-megapixel camera with f/1.9 Carl Zeiss optics is on the back, next to an LED flash. The latter will record 720p HD video, though not Full HD.
Software and Performance
Windows Phone 8 hasn’t deviated from what we last saw on a new Nokia, and so it’s all becoming familiar territory for both the firm and its users. The OS is undeniably approachable for first-time smartphone buyers, and while it doesn’t have widgets in the traditional sense, the Live Tiles system – where each of the resizable blocks can cycle through recent updates, media previews, upcoming events, new messages, and other information – can, with a little investment in setup time, be surprisingly rewarding. If you want to fill the homescreen with a grid of contact shortcuts, you can, or alternatively you can replicate an iOS-style layout with simple app buttons.
On top of that, Nokia throws in its own value-add, the growing suite of exclusive apps and services which the Finnish firm hopes will coax you away not only from Android or iPhone, but from other Windows Phone OEMs like HTC. Most notable are HERE Maps, HERE Drive, and Nokia Music, though there are a few tweaks along the way.
HERE Maps, for instance, now gets LiveSight and HERE Transit baked in, integrating the previously standalone City Lens and Nokia Transit technology within the one core app. LiveSight allows you to hold the Lumia 720 up and look “through” it at points of interest overlaid on top of a real-world view from the camera. It’s useful, particularly being able to zoom past buildings and see what’s behind them, if you’re in a new area, and the Nokia’s processor has no issues keeping up as you physically spin around to pan the camera.
HERE Transit, meanwhile, shifts the incredibly useful public transportation guidance into the core HERE Maps app, where it belonged all along. Nokia says it now has timetable data for more than 670 cities in 50 countries worldwide, with the ability to pin specific routes to the Windows Phone homescreen (and see, on a Live Tile, the next upcoming journey time).
What you don’t get is HERE Drive+, with global offline navigation. Instead, those in the UK will get UK and Ireland maps with offline support, but have to pay extra if they want navigation data for elsewhere in the world.
Nokia Music, meanwhile, continues to offer a compelling alternative for those shy of Spotify’s monthly subscription fee. Sign-up free, it offers 100 Mix Radio playlists that Nokia updates weekly, picking from a catalog of 22m tracks, the ability to create your own custom playlists triggered from an original “seed” track, and support for a limited number of offline playlists. The Nokia Music+ subscription service – an in-app upgrade – unlocks unlimited offline playback, as well as higher-quality audio on WiFi connections, and unlimited track-skips.
Last year we criticized Nokia’s Lumia 610 for coming to market with 256MB of RAM when the latest apps were calling for double that. The Lumia 720 makes a similar mistake – less serious initially, but likely to be no less frustrating over the course of a two-year agreement – with its 512MB looking short-sighted when apps demanding at least 1GB are starting to arrive in the Windows Phone Store.
Camera
Nokia’s 6.7-megapixel camera for the Lumia 720 uses a custom sensor and the company’s favorite Carl Zeiss optics, though falls short of PureView branding. Nonetheless, it’s a capable shooter, particularly in the sort of low-light settings we’ve praised PureView devices for previously.
So, you don’t get optical image stabilization, but you do get a camera that doesn’t lose its nerve when it comes to scenes with mixed bright and dark areas. There, the Lumia 720 leans toward maintaining detail in the low-light patches – though that can leave brighter scenes over-exposed – with results that belie the mid-range positioning of the phone. The LED flash is satisfactory, but we found we could often leave it switched off and rely on the camera’s inherent light-grabbing skills.
On the flip side, both photos and video (recorded at 720p maximum on both front and back cameras) have a tendency to introduce glare and lens-flare when you’re in brighter environments. Otherwise, video from the Lumia 720 looks solid, and the continuous auto-focus does a reasonable job at keeping your subject clear.
Our interest in front-facing cameras usually begins and ends with the odd Skype video call, but Nokia has made a specific play for those particularly keen to take self-portraits. As well as being equipped with a wide-angle lens, to fit more people in-shot, the Lumia 720 supports the new, wretchedly-named Glam Me app, which automatically enhances your selfies. Brightness, skin smoothness, blemishes and more are all ironed out, tweaked, and generally finessed; alternatively, you can apply one of several filters, with Instagram-like textures and color tones.
Phone and Battery Life
Nokia’s legacy for decent call quality continues with the Lumia 720, though the relevance of voice calls alone is perhaps questionable these days. Instead, we can’t help but feel that omitting LTE support was a missed opportunity.
The Lumia 720′s battery may be non-removable, but at 2,000 mAh it’s oversized for a 4.3-inch phone. That pays obvious dividends for runtimes: Nokia quotes up to 13.4hrs of talk time or up to 520hrs of standby (both on 3G), or alternatively 79hrs of music playback (locally-stored, not streaming).
In practice, with regular use – push email turned on, social networking use including Facebook and Twitter, some photography, music streaming, and HERE Maps – we easily made it through two days without having to reach for the microUSB charger. That’s almost enough for us to forgive the fact that wireless charging (or the kit needed to use it) isn’t bundled.
Wrap-Up
In some ways, the Lumia 720 is everything we’ve asked for from Nokia. It’s slickly designed and has superlative battery life, the camera out-performs rivals in the same price bracket, and the screen – though lower resolution than we like – is a nice compromise of size, outdoor usability, and general clarity.
Letting the show down are the absence of LTE and the potentially limiting 512MB of RAM. You could well say that the Lumia 720′s target audience won’t miss 4G, but there’s a growing cadre of people wanting higher-end features without a massive display, and they already know they want LTE. As 4G spreads, more and more people are going to expect it to on their phone. As for the RAM, that’s a more obvious drawback: games like Temple Run are quietly omitted from the Store, since they demand twice the memory the Nokia has.
It’s a frustrating flaw in what could’ve been a fantastic device, though the strengths in camera and battery life still make it a solid choice in the midrange.
We’ve been hearing a number of rumors of Microsoft possibly creating a Microsoft-branded “Surface Phone,” which we expected to hear by the first half of this year, especially since Foxconn has reportedly been chosen to manufacture the device. But Microsoft’s corporate vice president of Windows Phone, Terry Myerson, decided to shed some light on the company’s plans on possibly delivering an official Microsoft-branded Windows Phone.
Myerson hulk smashed his way through all of those previous rumors by denying such a handset would launch anytime soon during AllThingD’s Mobile Conference. He followed up by saying if Microsoft were to produce an officially branded smartphone, it would do so with an effort to provide a unique user experience its Windows Phone partners wouldn’t be able to achieve. Myerson believes Windows Phone partners, such as HTC and Nokia, are already providing some great mobile experiences to Windows Phone users. (more…)
Earlier today, at All Thing’s D’s conference, D: Dive Into Mobile, the head of the Windows Phone division at Microsoft, Terry Myerson, took a few shots at Google and its Android operating system. He made assumptions that Samsung and Google had a strained relationship and that Samsung is the only smartphone manufacturer to benefit from Android. He also stated that Google may have an entire team working on blocking Facebook Home from the Android operating system. Google chairman Eric Schmidt offered his response to the comments.
Schmidt stated that Facebook Home is a “tremendous endorsement” to the operating system, and that blocking it would go against the “open-source” aspect of Android. Facebook Home launched last Friday in the Google Play store for select Android devices as well as the AT&T exclusive HTC First. While it may have been received negatively, removing it would go against Android’s core values. Schmidt says,
“This is what open source is about. It’s experimentation, it’s new ideas, it’s creativity. Removing it would be counter to our public statements, our religion. The answer is no, we wouldn’t remove Facebook Home. We’re phenomenally happy that people are using Android in these ways. You can’t have half-open source. It’s open source. Facebook read the manual, they read the rules, and they adhered to them. Good for them. They went to great lengths to remain application compatible”
Schmidt also comments on the supposed strained relationship between Google and Samsung, and says that any statements saying there is tension between the two companies are all incorrect. He says that the relationship Google has with Samsung “has turned out to be a defining one.” He says that he visits Samsung in South Korea many times to have discussions with them, and that he appreciated their decision to help out Android in its early days.
Schmidt spoke earlier today at the conference regarding Android’s success. He says that there are an average 1.5 million activations a day, and that the total activations for Android will reach 1 billion by the end of this year. He thanks Samsung for most of Android’s success, saying that “literally hundreds of millions of phones coming out on the Android platform” are from Samsung. Schmidt says that Myerson’s comments are purely fiction. He states, “Why are you listening to Microsoft’s statements about Google?”
According to the head of the Windows Phone division at Microsoft, Terry Myerson, Android is “still kind of a mess”. Myerson spoke at All Thing’s D conference, D: Dive Into Mobile about the progress of Windows’s mobile devices and how Windows Phone compares to the competition, mainly Google. Myserson believes that the only entity benefiting from Google’s Android OS is Samsung, and that there is “clearly mutiny in the Starship Android…”
Myerson says that while Windows Phone is still seen as just a “challenger” in a mobile world dominated by Google and Apple, it still has a chance of succeeding. He says that Windows Phone “is an incredibly well-funded startup.” He believes that with Windows Phone, they had to focus on the global market, and not just the United States. He also points out that while Windows Phone may be behind Google and Apple in key markets, it is seeing “stronger momentum in markets where carriers are not subsidizing phones, such as in Mexico, Poland, and Finland.”
Myerson says that both Google, and Apple do well in markets like the United States because that’s where they place most of their innovation. They also sell their high-end smartphones at the subsidized price of $200, whereas if Windows Phones sold at the same price, it’d be even harder for the challenger to compete. That’s why Myerson believes that Windows Phone 8 had to offer a different experience. Instead of focusing too much on the price, it needed to focus on the user experience.
While discussing the recent launch of Facebook Home, he said that having Facebook Home on Windows Phone isn’t exactly out of the question. He also mentions that Google may have a full team working to “squash” Facebook Home on the Android operating system, in order to stop it from overtaking its platform. While discussing the possibility of a Microsoft smart watch, Myerson declined to comment, however, he did joke by saying you could “strap the Surface onto your wrist and call it a watch.”
Instead of focusing on attacking Android OS, or giving vague answers about the future of the Windows Phone platform, Myerson should have focused more on what he, and the Windows Phone division, plan on doing to make Windows Phone 8 more competitive and innovative in key markets. Be sure to check out our review of Windows Phone 8 here.
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
It was just 
Earlier this morning, US Cellular came under our radar as the mobile carrier began to 
