Author: Clinton

The Glance screen app for Windows phone has been updated and it has some big improvements and new features.  The biggest new feature is the ability to have live lockscreen information on your Glance screen.  While it is currently limited to only MSN Weather and Health & Fitness, you can now get this information on the Glance screen without having to actually start your Windows Phone.

The Glance app, which is included in several Windows Phone models or can be downloaded separately, allows you to view, erm, at a glance, information such as email, messages and other important information on one screen while your Windows Phone sits idle without having to actually turn on your phone to get to the Lockscreen.

Glance for Windows Phone – Free – Download Now

In almost every major market globally, Windows Phone market share was up in August 2014 when compared to August 2013 according to a new report by Kantar Worldpanel.  The report reviews mobile market share across all platforms in various countries and regions and in some of those markets, Windows Phone took its biggest step forward in a long time – if ever.

Across the European big 5 countries – UK, Germany, Spain, France & Italy – Windows Phone market share jumped to 9.2%, up .7% over August 2013.  Outside of Android, Windows Phone gained the most traction in Europe with iOS sales declining year-over-year by .4%.  Equally as important, Windows Phone market share increased in the United States to 4.7%, up .8% year-over-year.  It is a major step forward for the Little Operating System That Could.

The increase in market share is important for Microsoft as they fight the uphill battle against Google’s Android and Apple’s iOS platforms and these increase certainly aren’t going to cause either of them to lose any sleep.  However it does cement Windows Phone as the 3rd horse in the Mobile OS race and proves that Microsoft’s focus on the platform and devices is not a fruitless effort.

Facebook Messenger for Windows Phone has been updated overnight with performance improvements and a new forwarding feature.  It is the latest update in the instant messaging application that is now across multiple platforms including Windows Phone, iOS and Android.  The update is available now in the Windows Phone Store.  The big new feature is the ability to forward messages to others.

Facebook Messenger for Windows Phone – Free – Download Now

One of the aspects of OS X that I love is the ability to silence notifications.  I travel a fair amount so there are times when I don’t want my laptop chirping away when I’m trying to sleep.  Problem is, I want those emails and other notifications as soon as I wake up.  One of the challenges I thought I would find in moving to Windows 8 would be the loss of this feature.  Thankfully, that’s not the case but setting up Quiet Hours in Windows 8 is a few clicks and menus into the Operating System.

As I have said many times here on the site and on Twitter, I’m a big fan of OneDrive.  It’s a solid, multi-platform cloud storage solution that works brilliantly well Windows Phone, iOS, Mac, Android and of course Windows PC.  It’s also one of the best deals out there if you are an Office 365 user.  For $9.99 per month you get office plus 1TB of storage.  That’ll just about cover anyone I suspect.

One of the great things about OneDrive for Windows 8 is that you can have your PC save your files automatically to the cloud instead of to your local PC.  This not only saves you hard disk space locally (although you can keep a copy local if you wish) but it also is an effective and easy backup to all your files.  By default however this isn’t turned on so this How To will point you how to get there on your PC.

Over the course of the past several months, Microsoft has been slowly and quietly renaming the Nokia apps to the Lumia Apps.  This has all ben a part of the absorbing of Nokia as a company into Microsoft.  Last week during the Lumia 830 announcement at IFA, this became even clearer as every app mentioned by name was Lumia, like the Lumia Selfie app.  Now more and more of what were the Nokia apps are under the Lumia name.