Microsoft´s Joe Belfiore today announced that Internet Sharing or Tethering will be supported on new Windows Phone handsets.
Many of us – especially those who are long-term WP7-users – may think that this is really bad for us. I am waiting also for this features, and told this to Mr. Belfiore:
Here is what he responded:
So let´s hope that all OEM´s will soon update their drivers…
[Update] According to the German Site wp7app.de, HTC will publish a firmware update by mid of October, which will enable the mobile Hotspot feature. For Samsung devices exists a workaround to get the Internet Sharing activated – however this is no official way.
So it seems that almost HTC is caring about their existing devices. Good news so far.
Today I want to tell you something how MS treats us users here in Germany.
It started back on the launch of WP7. All European launch countries got the Zune Pass. Except Germany. I asked the Support, when will we get the Zune Pass. They told me by the end of 2010. Didn’t happen.
I asked again in January this year. They told me in spring… Guess what – we still don’t have Zune Pass in Germany.
The next thing happened with the recent changes of the WP7-Apphub. Developers have now to fill a special form for their games only for Germany. As this is also needed for updates, German users had to wait 4 days longer for the last Angry Birds update than the rest of the world. Still a few Updates of other Apps and Games are not available in Germany, but in the rest of the world.
The last thing is that the announced free Xbox Live games of this week aren’t still available here in Germany. I asked the german WindowsPhone-Team on Twitter as well as the American WP-support, but until now got now response.
I am really a fan of Microsoft, but at the moment it is hard to be.
I wanted to change the country of my billing account, but as it is connected with my Xbox and my family’s accounts, this doesn’t even work.
So if anyone from MS reads this, you have to change these things or you will lose a bunch of customers here in Germany.
[Update:] I know that other countries also still don´t have a Zune Pass. As I live here in Germany, I told you the actual situation. The game situation is however localized to Germany only (as far as I know).
[Update 2:] After 2 days I got a response from the Zune-Support-Team for my question when we will get Zune Pass here in Germany… It is really annoying! Have a look:
I wonder how long we still have to wait.
As posted in comments, we got similar other offers here in Germany, but without the 10 free songs… So MS would have a real good chance here, also with non WP7-Users…
[Update 3:] MS did it again. While it seems that in the rest of the world this weeks Xbox live game IonballEX is available, German users have still to wait. How long this time?
Check the Marketplace here. Let’s hope the game will be available soon…
[Update 4:] This Morning while making my usual marketplace check, I was able to download this weeks Xbox live game IonBallEX.
Before Yesterday I contacted again the Windows Phone Support via Twitter, but the still got no information why this happens… Many of us (especially Devs) know, that for Germany you have to fill a separate form to release games. But why Xbox Live-enabled titles were not prepared before launching? Indie-Devs are preparing their worldwide launches in a much cleaner and better way than Xbox Live-Devs (p. e. Air Dagger, which has launched worldwide at the same time).
I really hope that with the official release of Mango these things will change in a positive way.
[Update 5:]
As I mentioned yesterday on Twitter, Microsoft launches Minesweeper to the rest of the world. I honestly thought that we users in Germany again will have to wait much longer than the rest of the non-US-world.
I don’t know whether this is because the game was released last week in the US or if MS has changed its way to publish apps and games to Germany. We will see next week.
as I bought the new Xbox Live title “Beards and Beaks” yesterday on my Windows Phone, I found something interesting.
It is the first App/Game which provides additional content via In-App-Download.
The Game provides you a message, that new content is available:
After finished with checking which content is available, you get a message:
With a Click of “Let Me at ‘Em! you will be redirected to the following page: (yes, my Xbox live Account is German )
Interesting thing is, that the content is payable with you Microsoft Points.
So it looks like we probably get free Xbox Live Games in Future. Game contents will be paid with our MS Points. Nice Idea.
Many customers want to buy apps, music etc. also on their Windows Phone with the Points. So let´s see if Microsoft will open up the system to the whole marketplace or to all app developers. This would be another step to compete with the iOS-in-App-purchase-system.
What do you all think about this? Leave a comment, guys!
The Keynote started of with a video about an app for WP7, based on Windows Azure technology.
The demoed how to help the victims of natural catastrophes like the one happened this year with the fatal earthquake and the even more fatal tsunami wave.
Then there was a hymn of words to all the great Microsoft partners.
Sure, it was is a partner conference, but what do we consumers learn from this?
Steve Ballmer entered the stage and was talking about one thing, which has risen in the last few years and will be the number one thing over the next years: The cloud. I don´t want to juggle numbers right now. But the cloud is already used by roundabout 60 % of all partners, so there is still a great potential to use.
Microsoft provides several cloud services itself, like the Office 365 Beta or Windows Azure.
And S. Ballmer motivated Microsoft´s partners to engage those cloud products even more.
As consumers we will get more great services over time. As an “learning” developer for my own it won´t take that much advantage from those services, until I ensure I will earn the money back from my apps – and that is not so easy…
There has been several announcements today, which will be consumer related:
– Windows Phone Mango Update will come this fall – confirmed again by S. Ballmer himself
– Microsoft has soon (with next Windows-Version) the ability to perform very well on small, mid-sized and big-screens
– Bing will not be only a search engine any more. As features an time are growing, it will be a platform which will be opened to developers to let you integrate the services of Bing. There will be Voice Command on PC, on Windows Phone and also on Xbox360.
– Bing will get more social with Facebook and Skype. We will be able to decide and take action, a whole new experience on a “search engine”.
– Bing will integrate new services like event-ticket ordering, parking prices and more
– Live TV on Xbox 360 this Christmas. It is not clear which countries will be supported until now.
– now news on Windows 8, only the already well known video demonstration …
The final message of MS CEO Ballmer clarifies, where the journey will end: One UX over all your devices. This shows also this final imagine from the keynote:
So as I love the tiles on my Windows Phone, I can´t wait to get them to my Xbox and my PC.
I just made a video and some shots of playing around with the Developer-Build of Windows Phone Mango. You´ll find the video on the end of my post.
Let´s start with the lock screen, while playing music. As you can see the resized play controls are on it as well as the artists picture which is shown in the music hub.
Now let´s get funny within the Games Hub. As you can see on the picture and in the video, while playing music your avatar is dancing around.
As I have done this yesterday for the first time, my avatar got a windows phone in his handy and played around. After that, my avatar started dancing.
I tried to recreate the windows phone prop to rest the phone in its hand, but I had no success with it. I will update this post whenever I found the solution.
Ok, let´s head over to the marketplace. On the initial page we have now a dedicated search button. In this build you can search only using this button, the windows phone search key does not work within the marketplace.
The results will be displayed with to pages, apps & games as well as music:
The view in the app page has also changed. There are now 4 pages, details, reviews, screenshots and related. I will dive deeper into this in another blog post.
In the messaging hub you can choose whether you want to type in your message or if you tell the phone the text and it will be converted into your message.
Finally, here is the whole video.
I will post more about the mango features over the next days, including screenshots and videos, so stay tuned for my mango review series…
Because of the page rules on Facebook, I need a minimum of 25 likes to be able to create a username for my page.
So please help me and give me a like as certain services to connect with Facebook are only available with a username.
UPDATE:
I still need a couple of likes so please go to my Facebook page and click the button! I will remove this post from sticky as soon as I got my username.
Thanx for your help in advance and greets to you all.
![[Update] Important News: Internet Sharing on Windows Phone Mango](https://msicc.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/WP-Placeholderblog.png)
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So now Steve Ballmers WPC keynote has finished.
