Windows Phone 8

The operation team behind Chinese app Love Wallpaper HD recently found new device codenames from Samsung, Huawei and Nokia. Yesterday the guys had another look at their updated server log. And guess what they found? A new device from HTC. That makes almost a full house (save for ZTE) for the next wave of Windows Phone devices.

Lumia 720, Nokia's new king of the hill at middle range, is now available to the Chinese consumers through the legal market. Aside from great value, awesome camera and solid build, the device introduces another thing to the Chinese Windows Phone users: the Wallet hub.

The Department of Computer Science and Telecommunications at the TEI (Technological Educational Institute) of Larissa, Greece has once again partnered with Microsoft Hellas to launch another developer contest. This time the competition will cover Windows 8 apps. We've previously looked at the contests held at the institute for Windows Phone, offering the opportunity to budding developers who'd like the chance to display and utilise their creativity.

Earlier today we shared with you guys news about Microsoft looking to add more live tiles to Windows Phone. It would allow the interface to look better on displays with larger and higher resolutions, something that Windows Phone 8 currently might not excel at. A reader sent a quick mockup of what that would look like. We figured we’d share it with you all.

We've already covered rumours of Microsoft looking to add 1080p support for Windows Phone later this year with the GDR3 update (this is all before the anticipated "Blue" update), but now the company may well be addressing the larger real estate issue that will occur with Live Tiles. Should you own a Samsung ATIV S, the three columns of tiles can appear to be rather limited at times, but Mary Jo Foley from ZDNet has learnt that the Windows Phone team is looking at a solution - to add more tiles. 

In perhaps not a surprising move, Microsoft is expected to add 1080P resolution support for Windows Phone 8 displays later this year with the General Distribution Release (GDR3) software release to OEMs. Currently, Windows Phone can only support up to 768 and 720 resolutions, which while a marked improvement over its predecessor is still far behind Android.

The resolution will reportedly only be for displays 5 inches and greater, allowing OEMs to expand their Windows Phone offerings into the new “phablet” designs like the Samsung Galaxy Note I, II.  That’s also presumably done because supply constraints on manufacturing will also limit initial 1080P displays to certain sizes, though that will change in the future.

An invite sent out by Huawei Philippines is teasing what might be the release of their Ascend W1 on April 12. The invite states "We are unveiling higher and bigger 'doors'" and depicts the side view of what surely looks to be the Ascend W1 in white and it's Lumia-like cyan. The event will be held at 10:30 AM on April 12 at Huawei's headquarters in Makati City.

Update: Turns out this is an in-app joke by Baconit developer Quinn Damerell. So if you see this in the next 24 hours, you can stop sweating.

We all should know by now that Windows Phone 8 is based off of the NT kernel and overlaps significantly with Windows 8, a merger that will only get closer with future releases for both platforms i.e. Blue. So with that knowledge it should be of little surprise that things can go wrong, or some oddities pop up (if we had a time for every “tip” we had on the C:/ root installation thing happening, we’d be rich).

Microsoft has just announced another //BUILD/ conference for developers. The event will take place sooner than expected and will be held in a new location. We cannot wait for summer.

We sympathize with you Windows Phone fans on Sprint. Here we are, it’s almost April 2013 and you’ve only had one device available since Windows Phone debuted back in October 2010. The HTC 7 Pro (Arrive) was a nice phone to start you out, but it’s time for something new. You already know that HTC and Samsung will be the OEMs making your devices when you get them early summer. But now we have a better idea about those devices – The HTC ‘Tiara’ and Samsung Ativ S.