Microsoft has announced a second new Lumia this morning after the earlier announcement of the Lumia 435. The new Lumia 532 is aimed at the European, APAC and IMEA markets and sports slightly higher specifications than the Lumia 435. In fact dimension wise it is almost identical to the 435 but with some slightly more impressive features.
Microsoft this morning announced the all new, ultra budget friendly Lumia 435 this morning. The newest Lumia will be available in Europe, APAC and IMEA in February and will retail for around $80 which makes it the most affordable current Lumia device on the market. The announcement comes just days before the big Microsoft event in Redmond next Tuesday where several anouncements around Windows 10 and Windows Mobile are expected.
The Microsoft Lumia exclusive app, Lumia Cinemagraph, has been updated today with the ability to export your cinemagraphs to GIF files amongst other performance updates. For those who are not familiar with the app, Lumia Cinemagraph allows you to take photos and animate them. It’s a fun app – not particularly high on the useful scale – but does a great job. Until now exporting these was a bit of a trick but this update brings the Internet standard animated GIF support so sharing just became way easier.
Windows Phone activations for the week of Christmas this year were a strong 5.8% of the total activations for the market according to Yahoo’s Flurry service. This generally represents 2% over the general market share of Windows Phone globally and certainly is something that should please the folks in Redmond. Still, when compared to the mammoth 51.3% that Apple iOS devices collected in this research, it is clear that Windows Phone, the Little OS That Could, still has a long way to go.
Flurry is an analytics service from Yahoo and they measured the week of Christmas this year, December 19-25, and collected their data from the over 600,000 apps they track. They then use this information to extrapolate the number of devices that were activated over the week based on these apps. It’s not entirely scientific but it is certainly a good indicator of what devices people received as gifts or bought and started using last week.
The Lumia Storyteller app for Windows Phone has had a major update released today, bringing a completely new user experience to the photo viewing app. The new 4.0 version is available now in the Windows Phone store and brings a more Photos hub-like experience to users. If you aren’t familiar with the Lumia Storyteller app, it automatically groups your photos on your Lumia Windows Phone into stories where you can then share them online, add captions to photos and rearrange the groupings as you see fit. It is an app exclusively for Lumia users and it is free to download.
Lumia Storyteller – Free (Lumia devices only) – Windows Phone Store
With the rollout of Lumia Denim expected to start literally in days, I thought it would be a good idea to post a guide of what you can expect in the next major release of the Lumia OS that runs on Windows Phone. Lumia Denim is a firmware update that will eventually make its way to every Windows Phone running 8.1. This update is sometimes referred to as Update 1 although it is unclear if Microsoft will actually call it that when the time comes to release it. Regardless of the naming, Lumia Denim is a big update for Windows Phone users and brings forth a significant number of improvements to your Windows Phone experience.
One of the last remaining Nokia branded elements of Windows Phone is quickly disappearing. The Nokia Collection in the Windows Phone store is being renamed to the Lumia Collection and the rollout of this update is already happening for many Lumia users. It all-but eliminates the Nokia name from Windows Phone as Microsoft pushes forth with the Lumia name on their Windows powered phones.
The popular Vivino app for Windows phone has been updated this week with several new personalizing features including a new Personal Taste Profile. I reviewed Vivino Wine Scanner a few months back and it remains one of my favorite apps for rating wines I try and getting ratings for a bottle before I buy it. It is a gem of an app.
Vivino Wine Scanner for Windows Phone – Free (In-App Purchases) – Download Now