Rafe is the man behind all the ‘All About’ sites. He’s responsible for business development and editorial direction. Rafe has a deep understanding of the mobile and smartphone industry and is widely recognised as one of the leading experts on Nokia’s smart device activities and strategy.
When writing Rafe specialises in covering device, industry and developer themes, but will also turn his hand to any topic that he thinks might interest the ‘All About’ audience.
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More than 90,000 apps have now been published in the Windows Phone Marketplace and new content is currently being added at the rate of 250 apps per day. At the time of writing, 92,383 apps have been published. Of these, 24,371 were added in the last three months and 7,409 were added in the last month. These apps come from just over 22,000 different publishers.
In episode 24 of the AAWP Insight Podcast, we open with news of the Samsung Focus 2 and details of more exclusive app partnerships for Nokia's Lumia devices, both of which were announced at CTIA. The podcast continues with Rafe talking about the beta of Nokia City Lens, Steve sharing his top Windows Phone tips and David previewing his forthcoming Office hub review. We finish, as usual, with an app pick from each member of the team.
Samsung has announced the Omnia M, the latest addition to its Windows Phone portfolio. With a 4-inch Super AMOLED screen, 1 GHz processor, 384MB of RAM, 5 megapixel camera and 4GB of internal storage, the device can be considered an entry level Windows Phone device. The Omnia M will launch first in Europe, before being rolled out to other regions.
Nokia City Lens, an app that helps you find and connect to the places around you, is now available from Nokia Beta Labs. Combining augmented reality, map and list views it provides an overview of places of interest (shops, restaurants, hotels, museums and more) around your current location. In addition the application deep links with Nokia Maps to provide detailed information, reviews and walking directions for any location listed in City Lens.
In this gallery we offer an illustrated tour of the global variant of the Nokia Lumia 900, which goes on sale at the end of the week. The global variant features DC-HSPA connectivity in place of the US version's LTE connectivity. As well as looking at the key hardware features, we also show some of the differences from the Lumia 800 and include a number of comparison photos with other Windows Phone devices.
AT&T and Samsung today announced the forthcoming availability of the Samsung Focus 2, an LTE equipped handset that will be available on the US operator from May 20th at a cost of $50 (with a two year contract commitment). The Focus 2, which is 10.98mm thick, has a four inch Super AMOLED display, 5 megapixel camera (and VGA front facing camera), 8GB of mass storage and a 1.4Ghz processor with 512MB RAM.
In episode 22 of the All About Windows Phone Insight Podcast, we open with news of the availability of the ZTE Tania on Virgin Mobile in the UK, the upcoming WPBarCamp London (aimed at experienced Windows Phone developers) and the forthcoming availability of the global variant of the Lumia 900. Later on Steve offers a tip on upgrading the battery in the Lumia 710, the team talk about Wordament's move to Xbox Live and Microsoft's announcement of a range of policies aimed at reducing cruft in the Marketplace. We finish, as usual, with an app pick from each member of the team.
In episode 22 of the All About Windows Phone Insight Podcast, we open with news of changes to the Windows Phone Marketplace (removal of app browsing and install from Zune desktop). We then discuss Steve's article on the top 20 phone camera innovations of all time, David's editorial on 20 missing Windows Phone features and Rafe's attendance at HTC's Frequencies event. In the latter half of the podcast we talk about recent news around SkyDrive and the arrival of cloud document storage and management for consumers. We finish, as usual, with an app pick from each member of the team.
In episode 21 of the All About Windows Phone Insight Podcast, we open with news of the Nokia Lumia 610 NFC and explain some of likely use cases for NFC on Windows Phone. We then discuss the Nokia Lumia 900's connectivity bug, Nokia's response and ask whether any damage has been done, before moving on to cover the recent Chevron WP7 announcement. We finish, as usual, with an app pick from each member of the team.
In episode twenty of the All About Windows Phone Insight Podcast, we start by talking about the media and consumer response to the launch of the Nokia Lumia 900 and the HTC TITAN II on US operator AT&T. We then share our respective experiences with the Nokia Lumia 800's battery boosting firmware update; there's a quick mention of the mobile side of Microsoft's purchase of patents from AOL, before we finish, as usual, with an app pick from each member of the team.