Cyan update starts rolling out to Lumia 520 in Europe

Rocking a Lumia 520? It's time to check your device settings, as the Cyan update has now started rolling out. The update is currently available in France (Orange), Germany (Vodafone), Ireland (Vodafone), Italy (Country variant, TIM, Vodafone, Wind), Netherlands (T-Mobile, Vodafone), Poland (Orange), Portugal (Vodafone), Romania (Orange, Vodafone), Slovakia (Orange), Spain (Vodafone) and the UK (O2 and Vodafone).

If you're on the Lumia 520 and are seeing the update in other territories and carriers, let us know in the comments. As for availability outside Europe, we have confirmation that Cyan will be available for users in India in about a week to ten days' time, according to a tweet by Microsoft India.

For those of you on Preview for Developers, you need to downgrade to Windows Phone 8 to be eligible to receive the update.

Lumia 520 users, have you started seeing the Cyan update yet?

Via: WPCentral

Read More

Xbox One available for Pre-Order in India, exclusive to Amazon

Ahead of the launch of the Xbox One in India on September 23, Amazon has the console available for pre-order for Rs. 39,990 ($650). Microsoft is launching two editions of the console in India — a standard Xbox One console without Kinect, which will retail for Rs. 39,990, and a Day One Edition that includes a Kinect sensor and two free games (FIFA 15 and Dance Central), which will be available for Rs. 45,990 ($750).
Amazon is incentivising the pre-orders of the console by giving away offers of up to Rs. 10,000 for the first 1,000 customers. The promotion includes Rs. 3,000 off the Xbox One controller (which costs Rs. 3,900 in the country), two free Blu-Ray titles worth Rs. 2,500, Rs. 2,000 off on speakers and Rs. 1,000 off on bags.
Interested? Head on to Amazon India from the link below to place your order.

Pre-Order Here: Amazon India

Via: WPCentral

Read More

HTC 8S will never get the WP8.1 update 1

HTC has announced on their support forums that, after much discussion with Microsoft, that the HTC 8S does not meet the hardware criteria for the Windows Phone 8.1 GDR1 Preview. HTC does not reveal the issue, but I suspect it may be related to the small amount of internal storage (only 4 GB) on the handset. In better news however HTC has also said that they will start pushing out the WP8.1 GDR1 update to HTC 8X users, after some time, to assess the stability of the device with the OS. While Microsoft has done an excellent job bringing the software to the cheapest Nokia Lumia, the HTC 8S was always designed as a cheap handset, and as such the expectation of multiple future updates may be limited. Are our readers overly disappointed or surprised by this decision? Let us know below.

Read More

Official Windows Phone 8.1 Update 1 changelog

Microsoft has posted the official Windows 8.1 Update 1 changelog.

The list of improvements include:

Windows Phone 8.1 Update
OS version: 8.10.14141.167 or 8.10.14147.180

• Folders. Folders let you organize your Start screen the way you want. Just push one Tile on top of another one to create a folder and get going.
• Messaging. Combine multiple text messages into one, and then forward them to someone else.
• Selection. With improved selection, you can now delete multiple calls, messages, or contacts.
• Apps Corner. Apps Corner lets you specify apps other people can use on a Windows Phone. Great for individuals and any-sized organizations who want to provide only the essential apps for others to use for work, school, or any other reason.
• Alarms. Now you can customize the snooze time for an alarm, and then enjoy a little more shuteye for the time you want.
• Accessory apps. Use accessory apps to get notifications from your phone on your smart watch, active phone cover, fitness tracker, or other kinds of accessories.
• Internet sharing. Now you can share your cellular data connection over Bluetooth, so you can get an Internet connection on more kinds of devices.
• VPN. VPN now supports L2TP, which lets you connect to more VPN services. Whether you connect to a VPN for work or personal use, you can do it on your Windows Phone.
• Narrator. Narrator now has touch typing and a way for you to turn off hints for controls and buttons if you don’t want them read aloud. Some other improvements to Narrator help you unlock your phone a little more quickly, find and use the Back, Start, and Search buttons more easily, and tell you when your phone screen is on or off.

The list is of course not comprehensive, and we know some features such as improvements in IE11 and OEM specific changes are not included, but the update is certainly not insignificant, as we have heard some bloggers calling it.

Read More

Chinese OEM HiSense Announces WP8.1 Device ‘Nana’ With CDMA+GSM Dual-Sim Support

Chinese OEM HiSense has announced another Windows Phone device. This device named ‘Nana’(model no.E260T) will be the first Windows Phone device with CDMA+GSM Dual-Sim support. Microsoft added this support only in Windows Phone 8.1 GDR1 update. Since this device will come pre-installed with WP8.1 GDR1, it will also feature Huna, the Chinese version of Cortana.

Inside the device, you will find 5-inch HD display, Qualcomm Snapdragon 200 processor, 1GB RAM, 8MP rear and 5MP front cameras and 8GB internal memory with support for microSD card. The device will go on sale this month for 599 Chinese Yuan (~$100 USD). The source link claims that this device supports Android OS as well, I guess it was a wrong info from HiSense marketing executive.

Via: WMPowerUser

Read More

Microsoft Is Investigating Error 8018830f That Occurs During Windows Phone 8.1 GDR1 Update

Microsoft released the new update for those on Developer Preview yesterday. The new update brought various new features to the Windows Phone Ecosystem as well as brought a new error to some of the users.
While most of us have successfully updated to the new release, some users are experiencing difficulties in the update process. Some users got error 8018830f on update. Joe Belfiore today confirmed on Twitter that they are aware of the issue and investigating to fix it.

Folks seeing error 8018830f on update- we're looking into it, thx for letting us know. Its a very small %, so the rest of you keep going!
— joebelfiore (@joebelfiore) August 4, 2014

 If you got this error during update process, you need to wait for few days until Microsoft delivers a fix.

Read More

Tutorial: Activate Cortana Alpha in India, Canada, and Australia

Microsoft promised that they will bring Alpha opt-out version for those on Windows Phone 8.1 GDR1 update. As the Windows Phone team at Microsoft shared a few days ago, the latest update brings Cortana to China and UK in beta and to India, Australia, and Canada in India.
Let's see how we can configure it for Windows Phone devices in these regions.

If you've changed region or language settings previously to try out Cortana when it released for the US, revert to the original settings for your country. A restart maybe required if you change these settings. If you haven't, confirm that the settings are in order.

• Language: English (India)/English (Canada)/English (Australia)
• Country/Region: India/Canada/Australia

If you've not made any changes before, you'd need to start here and just change your speech settings.

• Speech: English (United Kingdom)/English (United States)/English (United Kingdom)

How do you know if it works? Tap the search button, and you'll have Cortana greeting you rather than the vanilla Bing screen. The top right corner will inform you that it's an alpha version, so things might be awry or some features may not be available.

Read More

Official Facebook app gets a new update for Windows Phone

Microsoft has released a new update for its Facebook app on Windows Phone. The app takes features from the Beta version which was updated few weeks ago.
The change log for the app bumps the version number up to 8.3.1.0 and adds the following new features:

• Updated design
• Improved performance
• Video upload
• Messenger support
• Post detail page

Again, this update is for the non-beta version of the Facebook app, to bring its features up to speed with the ones that have been included in the previously released beta app. It's likely that the beta version will begin to get new updates soon to test out some more upcoming features.
What do you expect/want in the next update? Let us know below.

Download Facebook from the Windows Phone Store

Read More

Windows Phone 8.1 GDR1 Developers Preview rolling out

As promised by Microsoft, they are now Windows Phone 8.1 GDR1 update for users who registered it.
As we have reported before Update 1, also known as GDR 1, adds a few new features to Windows Phone 8.1. The biggest feature is Live Folders, which allows users to dynamically create folders on the Start screen. Other new features include the Apps Corner, SMS merge and forwarding and much more. It should also add Cortana support for the UK and China, and India, Australia, and Canada residents can check out the US version of Cortana officially for the first time.
What do you think of Microsoft releasing Update for Windows Phone 8.1 Developer Preview users and if you are one of them, what do you think of the new features and improvements.

Source: Windows App Mania WhatsApp Group;

Thanks to Toine Theis for the tip and screenshots

Read More

Microsoft goes in controversy again with large sized tiles for Windows Phone 8.1

Not for the first time Microsoft/Nokia have posted a picture suggesting it is possible to enlarge a live tile to not just double width, but also double height.
This new tile size option has been rumoured repeatedly, but so far there is no indication that it is on the way, even in the next GDR1 update to Windows Phone 8.1.
We suggest Microsoft either deliver this new feature, or fire the artist that keeps teasing it.

Read More