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Showing posts from July, 2015

Installing Windows 10 Technical Preview for Nokia Icon

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This is really welcome news for Nokia Icon users (Verizon Specific) who will be getting the full OS upgrade much later than other carriers. Microsoft will be updating the Windows Phone 8.1 to Windows 10 Mobile by the end of the year. Developers are expected to have their apps ported over to Windows 10 Mobile. Microsoft wants to see billion or more phones running Windows 10 within 2 to 3 years. Windows 10 OS is the same whatever device you use, phone, tablet or PC. All apps will look the same on all the devices, quite a feat! You can switch from one device to another without loosing anything, whether it is music, video, YouTube whatever. Check out here: http://www.windowsphone.com/en-US/ However if you have signed for Microsoft Insider then you can install the preview for the following devices: WP10PreviewAvailability Source: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-in/windows/preview-supported-phones This is really welcome news for Nokia Icon users (Verizon Specific) who

Good news for Windows Phone users and Windows Phone developers

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Microsoft will be updating the Windows Phone 8.1 to Windows 10 Mobile by the end of the year. Developers are expected to have their apps ported over to Windows 10 Mobile. Microsoft is looking at 2 to 3 years for increasing its share of devices to a billion or more. Windows 10 OS is the same whatever device you use, phone, tablet or PC. All apps will look the same on all the devices, quite a feat! You can switch from one device to another without loosing anything, whether it is music, video, YouTube whatever. Check out here: http://www.windowsphone.com/en-US/ However if you have signed for Microsoft Insider then you can install the preview for the following devices: WP10PreviewAvailability Source: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-in/windows/preview-supported-phones To become an Windows Insider, go here: https://insider.windows.com/ This is a good news for Windows Phone developers using Nokia Icon which is tied to Verizon. Verizon has no news regarding when it will up

Nokia Icon is still the best Windows Phone

InfoWorld writes about the only 5 smartphones that matter and includes the following: Apple iPhone 6 and 6+ Samsung Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 Edge Samsung Galaxy Note 4 (it's a Phablet) LG G4 (Android) Microsoft Lumia 830 However there is hardly a mention of Nokia Icon. This Verizon specific phone (Nokia Icon) is probably not sold anymore as Verizon has a new Windows Phone. The bottom line: Nokia Icon is better than Lumia 830  I will stay with Nokia Icon. The only worry is what happens if the battery goes bad. AT & T appears to be carrier for Nokia 830.

Would you swap your Lumia Icon to Lumia 735?

Verizon recently gave its Windows Phone users the option to swap their Nokia Lumia Icon to Nokia Lumia 735. It does not look like an upgrade to me at all. I went out to Microsoft Store in Ala Moana take a look at it. I was fairly disappointed and one of the store staff told me Nokia Icon is a much better smart phone than the 735. The other piece of information (I do not know if it is true or not) he gave me was it was a Verizon specific phone. If this is true I would avoid it as Verizon does not provide proper support, like asnweering customer's questions. It took almost a year after talking to Verizon to get the Windows Phone OS to upgrade to 8.1. Probably the upgrade of 735 from Windows Phone 8.1 to Windows 10 is less stressful. I am not sure what features are important for you but there are 41 reasons why Nokia Icon is better than Nokia Lumia 735 but only 13 reasons why Nokia 735 is better than Nokia Icon. Looks like the capability to replace battery and be able to use a

User Interface templates in Intel XDK

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Using templates is the easiest to start off designing apps with Intel XDK. Intel XDK provides a number of layouts and templates for designing apps.  Layout_UI.png If you have been using apps you must have come across apps that use many of these types of apps. For example an earlier post here discusses the List View Template in detail and this link describes the Tab View in detail(). We will explore the other templates in future posts.  The Ionic Framework Starter template uses the Ionic Frame work and AngularJS and you can design apps for desktop, smartphones and tablets using Standard HTML5. Ionic Framework is supposed to provide native-app like feeling for UI and is based on HTML5 and essentially a front end beautifier. However Ionic requires AngularJS which is required for UI interaction; gestures; animations etc.  ionicFramework.png In a future post  we will describe creating an app with Ionic Framework. Read more here for Ionic Framework: ionicframework.com/docs/ Angul

Building Web Apps with Intel XDK - Part 1

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Between Native Apps and web Apps, Web Apps have a lot of advantages. It is browser based and needs a connection to the Internet. It is lightweight and a lot easier to build and develop with just the basic HTML5/CSS/JavaScript. Of course you can build better apps with Intel XDK. Intel XDK gets frequent updates and you may have to update your app for the new builds. When you log into Intel XDK you will be taken to the App Dev Center where your projects are listed. Also note that Intel XDK has plans to discontinue the Control Center and replace it with a new interface. For example I have a couple of them but I have not finished with them yet. AppDevCenter.png I can expand each of them to see what options I have going forward. Here is HodentekBooks expanded. I can build the project as a Web App as shown here: BuildAsWebApp.png In fact most of the apps here were built as a mobile app either for Windows Phone or iPhone 5.0. I can build and test for any of the shown browsers o