As part of their Cyber Monday sale, Microsoft has the Lumia 635 Windows Phone on sale today for just $39.00, $60 off the normal price of $99.00. The phone is locked to AT&T however there is no contract on the phone. If you remember, the Lumia 635 was on sale on Black Friday at Amazon for $49.00 so this is an even better deal on what is one of my favorite budget Windows Phone devices.
The Microsoft Store is offering the BLU Win Jr Windows Phone for $49.00 today only at their physical and online stores. This entry level Windows Phone comes unlocked and normally sells for $89.00. It is a great deal if you are looking for a new Windows Phone.
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.
With little fanfare on the By-The-Numbers page, Microsoft has announced that as of September 30, 2014, the combined app total of the Windows Store and the Windows Phone Store has reached 525,000 apps. This represents a 75% growth since the end of August of this year when the stores had a combined 300,000 apps. It is an important milestone for Microsoft but the growth rate is the even more impressive number to take away from this news.
Microsoft has released the all new Movie Creator app for Windows Phone which is aimed at making video creation quick and easy with an intuitive user experience. The app, which is free, is technically a beta app so if you are one who avoids beta software, you may want to wait a few months before it is generally available. That said, having had a go with the app this morning, it is stable.
Microsoft has released a minor update to the Remote Desktop app for Windows Phone, fixing a few issues but also bringing support for Azure RemoteApp to your device. For those who are not familiar with Azure RemoteApp, this is the cloud-based solution for applications for businesses so they can have them in a centralized location but be accessed remotely via devices running Windows, Mac OS X, iOS, Android and Windows Phone.
Your company’s applications run on Windows Server in the Azure cloud, where they’re easier to scale and update. Users can access their applications remotely from their Internet-connected laptop, tablet, or phone. While appearing to run on the users’ local device, the applications are centralized on Azure’s protected, reliable platform.
For those of you who have been around Windows business solutions for a while, think of this as a really advanced, highly stable, Windows Terminal-like solution. Just really, really big.
Microsoft has released a big update to the Battery Saver app for Windows Phone. The Battery Saver app allows you to quickly and easily identify those apps which are consuming the most of your battery power, manage them and manage how your Windows Phone performs when it is running low on battery. Frankly I’m not sure why this app isn’t named Battery Sense as it is installed on every new Microsoft Lumia Windows Phone and seems to stick out a bit naming wise from the other Sense apps.
But I digress.
The update has a lot of new features and information that can help you see which app is consuming the most of your battery either all time or over the past 24 hours. Perhaps the biggest has been the improved battery usage scale in the Battery Saver app. The usage data now scales to the actual device battery capacity with full width mapping to 100% capacity. What that means is that the 3200mAh hour battery in my Lumia 1320, the usage scale will be far more accurate than before and it will be a different formula for my Lumia 520 with its 1100mAh battery. In other words, it’s more accurate.
Microsoft today announced that next year they will be rebranding their enterprise communications app & service Lync to Skype for Business. The move shouldn’t be a big surprise for those who follow Microsoft in the enterprise space as there has been rumors floating around this rebranding for sometime. Skype for Business will bring both intra- and extra-company communication to enterprises and their customers on one common platform and application.
In the first half of 2015, the next version of Lync will become Skype for Business with a new client experience, new server release, and updates to the service in Office 365. We believe that Skype for Business will again transform the way people communicate by giving organizations reach to hundreds of millions of Skype users outside the walls of their business.
In addition to the platform changes, users can also expect some significant improvements around functionality including simplified one-click telephony (assuming you have the appropriate licensing in place).