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.
You can follow him on Twitter (@rafeblandford) or Google+ and can contact him by email on rafe@allaboutwindowsphone.com or via the contact page.
In episode fifteen of the All About Windows Phone Insight Podcast, we start with news of the updated Facebook app, the availability of the Lumia 800 Entertainment bundle in the USA. Rafe shares some developer links of interest related to Mango APIs and porting from Windows Phone to Windows 8. Our main discussion topic is the new All About Windows Phone app. We finish, as usual, with an app pick from each of the team.
Power hungry smartphones are always looking for a recharge. So a car charger is going to be high on the priority for a lot of people. But which one should you get? One option is Nokia's DC-20 unit, which initially draws the eye with its twin USB charging ports. And while USB car chargers are never going to generate much excitement, the Nokia DC-20 is a diamond amongst the rough competition.
We're pleased to announced that the official AAWP (All About Windows Phone) app is now available to download free from the Windows Phone Marketplace and aims to make it easy to access all of our content directly on your Windows Phone device. You can view our latest content, browse or search for content by section, and stream episodes of the podcast.
In episode fourteen of the All About Windows Phone Insight Podcast, we start with news of the shiny white Lumia 800 and Nokia's decision to move its European device assembly operations to Asia. News of the Domino's Pizza and Vimeo apps leads to a more general discussion on how to find apps and the challenges of discovery. If that's still not enough apps, we finish, as usual, with an app pick from each of the team.
In episode thirteen of the All About Windows Phone Insight Podcast, we start with news of Google's sync updates for Windows Phone devices. We also briefly touch on the release of WordFeud, the extension of Bing Vision's product recognition services to Europe and the release of the Amazon web services for Windows Phone SDK. We finish, as usual, with an app pick from each of the team.
In this quick look video review, we kick off our review coverage of the new Nokia Lumia 710. The video starts with an ultra fast unboxing, before moving on to take a closer look at key hardware and design features of Nokia's second Windows Phone device. It finishes with some thoughts on the mid-tier pricing and positioning.
In episode twelve of the All About Windows Phone Insight Podcast, we start with a discussion of quarterly results from Nokia, HTC and Samsung. We also briefly touch on Lumia 900 availability, the 60k app milestone and Nokia branding on Bing Maps. In our second discussion point we look at the ZTE Tania, which was recently launched in the UK. We finish, as usual, with an app pick from each of the team.
The product barcode recognition portion of Windows Phone's Bing Vision service is now available in the UK. Bing Vision using the phone's camera to perform visual searches. Previously, in the UK, the service would only recognise Microsoft Tags and QR codes, but it will now recognise barcodes on books, CDs and DVDs. Once an item has been identified Bing Vision provides a link to Ciao, a price comparison website.
Nokia has released its Q4 2011 results, reporting an operating loss of €954 million, with net sales of €10.0 billion (down 21% YoY). Nokia's Devices and Services division's profits were €203 million. Margins in devices and services were 3.4% (down from 12.7 % on Q4 2010 and up from 3.1% in Q3 2011). Total smartphone device sales were 19.6 million, compared with 28.6 million units in Q4 2010 (down 31% YoY) and 16.8 million units in Q3 2011 (up 17%, QoQ).
In episode eleven of the All About Windows Phone Insight Podcast, we start with a discussion about patents, prompted by the news that Sisvel has acquired 450 patents from Nokia. Our second topic is about the media reception to Windows Phone at CES, which leads to our third topic where each member of the team shares an area where they think improvements can be made. We finish, as usual, with an app pick from each of the team.