concept

A new patent has been found for a Nokia Windows Phone. What's more is that the design looks familiar. In fact, we've seen this particular design before in a render. Filed back in December 2011, concept images of the device were leaked prior to that in August, which was before the Lumia 800 - Nokia's first Windows Phone was even announced.

Bence Bogár, a designer who publishes work to a majority of websites and resources, has revealed some Nokia Windows Phone concepts on Twitter. Bogár, who works at Egy Stúdió in Hungary, states the device in the images is a Nokia Windows Phone sporting a quad-core processor and HD display. While they may well be mere concepts and ideas as to what Nokia could work with in the future, they do appear to be marmite within Windows Phone Central HQ - it's torn the team between absolute detestation to appreciation.

We've read many complaints (especially in the comments and on our forum) that Windows Phone lacks a central notification centre, Apple's iOS being a good example, and we tend to agree. Toast notifications on Microsoft's platform disappear after a few seconds only to be lost in cyber space with the inability to view what has been missed. Let's face it - we're not glued to our phones 24/7.

Introducing a concept by Kasser Riaz (click the image for larger / better quality version), which looks relatively promising with how it doesn't look as though the simplistic beauty of the OS would be in jeopardy should an implementation such as this be carried out, unlike some concepts we've seen posted around the web.

As one can see when looking at the concept above, Riaz has provided an idea for how Microsoft and the Windows Phone team could create their own notifications centre (or "History") in this case. Keeping everything simple and clutter-free, swiping to the right on the home screen will bring up the app list as usual, while swiping on the left will land you at the notification history list.

As well as system alerts, messages and email notifications, third party app alerts are also displayed with a short description and the time stamp. It's not only a user-friendly way of keeping the UI chrome and clutter free, but enables the user to view their history of notifications in a Metro format. But would this suffice as a solution to a unified notifications centre for Windows Phone, or should we be looking elsewhere?

As a side note: what do you guys make of the wallpaper with transparent tiles and a more Windows 8 feel?

Thanks Kasser for sending the concept in!

Yesterday we ran a story on a fan concept that gave the ability to shrink down the program tiles on the Windows Phone Start screen. The post turned out to be wildly popular, with over 80 comments from you folks where you actively (and cordially) debated and discussed the merits of such a proposed UI. Very impressive and some great ideas too.

Today, we have a follow up to that, asking the question "What if Windows Phone had folders?'. This was the route taken by Apple and their iOS as a means to organize programs. While Windows Phone has a "jump list", it's the Start menu where users can customize and organize. It's that latter part where we've seen users create iconic separators to help better tidy up.

WPCentral member Sebastien "ArtSooby" Bruneau has posted up a few shots of what he thinks would work, namely those folders. His idea is take off of the current People Tile, where you have little photos flashing around of your contacts. But instead he envisions having a "Folder tile" with the apps inside flashing in the same manner. Once again, an elegant idea as it is keeping within the bounds of Metro's design principles. We could imagine that tapping on a folder tile will expand to show it's contents, allowing a quick selection (we'll leave the mechanics to Microsoft, ahem).

In the image above and to the left, you can see a tile called "News". In the second image, how a second menu option can be added called "Pin to folder' from the jump menu and finally in the third shot (the right), we can see how they would populate the "News folder". Looks good to us.

So like yesterday...sound off in comments on why/why not this would be a good solution!

Victor Cao, an artist from Vietnam, has created some concept designs for a Sony device running what appears to be a vision of Windows Phone 8. What's eye-popping about the design? The specifications of course, unfortunately we still can't wireless synchronise with microwaves and ovens but the proposed 1080p screen with a 12MP camera coupled with HD video capturing would be pretty nice.

Only issue I have with it is the UI, it's taken the simplicity of Metro and thrown in some gradients with glass effects. While I think the device looks promising (and the specification is on par with advancements), the prediction of WP8 looking as it does in the designs isn't my cup of tea. Check out some more images after the break.