Author: Clinton

One thing that Microsoft is doing and doing well with Windows Phone is going after the entry level market.  They have been doing this for some time and their latest offering in that space, the Lumia 635, is packed with performance for the price.  I received a unit Friday to review and having spent the majority of the weekend with it, I have to say I’m very impressed.  For the price point of this Windows Phone – £129.95 here in the UK (about $240 US) Unlocked & SIM Free – it is a very powerful Windows Phone.  Sure it lacks some of the high end features, most notably a reasonable camera with a flash, but it is still a worthy contender for those who are looking for a budget friendly Windows Phone.

So just in case you missed it somewhere down the line, I left Windows Phone about 3 years ago out of frustration and started another site, AlliOSNews.  Now I like iOS but it isn’t magical.  I like the iPhone 5s as well but again, it isn’t magical.  To me, the magic was in Windows Phone.  But there was a glaring hole in the platform and that would be the app store.  When I left a few years ago there were less than 25,000 apps in the app store.  That was at a time when Apple was pushing some 300,000.  Yeah, it puts it into perspective that the Windows Phone Store has just now hit the 300K marker.

As I wrote in my first post here a couple of weeks ago, there were two main reasons I came back to the Windows Phone community (besides missing all you peeps of course!).  One was the improvements that Microsoft had made in Windows Phone 8.0 and 8.1 and the second was the Windows Phone Store was finally getting the attention it need from big developers.

Tonight the team over at WP Central exclusively posted all the specifications of the anticipated HTC One W8.  When I saw the notification pop up, I immediately jumped on it and read it.  Pretty exciting stuff.  But I was eating sushi and not much gets in the way between me and sushi.  So now that I’ve had my sushi, rather than simply re-post what WPC posted, I’ll provide you a link to what I’m referring to in case you missed it.

Now my question to all of you is simple:  Do you care?  And perhaps equally as important, do you trust HTC to stay in the Windows Phone game with the HTC One W8 – or whatever the call it?  I ask in all seriousness because given HTC’s track record, they may have a public perception problem to overcome regardless of how awesome the W8 looks.

The Facebook for Windows Phone app has received a significant update today that brings an improved layout for the UI and a major boost in performance, particularly on slower Windows Phones.  The update, v5.3 for those keeping score, looks more native to Windows Phone than the previous version and Facebook Messenger is now supported in the app.  This is an interesting development given that Facebook is pushing iOS users to a standalone Messenger app (which is also available for Windows Phone).

All the interwebs are a flutter now that Windows Phone 8.1 Update 1 has been released to those on Developer Preview.  It seems many of you upgraded your Nokia Lumia’s to the latest from Redmond yesterday so you could take advantage of things like Live Folders and Cortana if you live outside of the United States.

So my question for you:  Did you upgrade to Windows Phone 8.1 Update 1 yesterday?  If so, what do you think?  Take the site poll below and leave a comment on your thoughts about the update or why you didn’t update.  If you ran into troubles (or have found a bug) what were those issues?  Keep in mind that this is technically beta software so a bug here or there is entirely probable.

[yop_poll id=”2″ tr_id=”1″]

Be sure to leave a comment – good or bad – on your Update 1 experience.

Last week Microsoft stated that those who had been a part of the Developer Preview program would start seeing Windows Phone 8.1 Update 1 roll out to their devices this week.  Here we are on Monday and the rollout has begun.  The update has been rolling out to DP members globally with several key improvements and enhancements now available on their devices.