Microsoft Store... in Bellevue, Washington

I am currently in Bellevue, WA for the last couple of days on a software development course so I finally get a chance to check out one of seven official Microsoft Store in Bellevue Square.

Having never seen a Microsoft Store before, this was pretty weird.  It's twice the size of the Apple Store which is buried in a corner of the mall several stores down next to Nordstrom.

I took this picture on a Monday night so the mall was pretty dead.  Got to see something called EXOPC

WP7 Handset Poll + Spell It!

It has been 2.5 months since WP7 launched (for the European folks) and almost 2 months since the North American launch.  I always wonder what kind of wp7 headsets all you nice folks out in the Intertubes have. 

You know what I have (HTC Surround - stay tuned for my 2 months review coming soon...) I am interested in what kind of WP7 handsets you folks are using out there.  Please take some time to vote in the poll on the main blog page.  You are also free to leave comments as to why you pick your WP7 device.  No right or wrong choices, afterall, unlike some other popular phone out there, WP7 is all about giving customers choices!  I might even use your comments in a future WP7 buyer's guide.

btw, I am hooked by Spell It! (free scrabble type game in the marketplace).  I am not very good with spelling type games but I am having a blast. It's a turn-based type spelling game.  Go download it and if you are interested in a friendly game of scrabble (seriously, I am not very good at it), invite me to a game.  My username is 'dex'.

ScoreMobile for WP7

Well, that didn't take long.  Just as I had written about a post about a rumoured release of theScore app on WP7, here (opens zune) it is!

For some reason, I still like Pro Sports Score better because of it's blazing speed.  theScore mobile app is pretty good, there are of course some bugs (i.e no matter how I arrange my favourite sports, NFL still shows up as the first page).  Play-by-play is included and you can set teams as your favourite so they show up in the favourite page and shows up first in the score board.  If you are confused as to how to add a team as a favourite, look up your favourite team under "scores" (if they are playing a game today, yesterday or tommorrow), select the game and hit your team's logo.  It's not obvious but you will see that your team's letter turns yellow (the border around the logo turns yellow as well).

2 million WP7 devices shipped last quarter...

According to a bloomberg news this morning, Microsoft has announced that they have sold 2 millions wp7 devices in the last quarter (sort of half a quarter when you consider that wp7 was released late October).  In comparison, according to the report, Apple sold 16.2 million iPhones in Q4 2010.  No numbers on how many each manufacturer sold however.  Hopefully this turns into good news for us WP7 developers...

Here are some highlights:

"Customer satisfaction for the product is at 93 percent and brand awareness has jumped 22 points to 66 percent since it was released... "

"There are now 6,500 applications for Windows Phone and 24,000 developers have signed up to build them, he said."

Click here for the entire report.

Finally, A Proper Sports Scores App for WP7

Sports fans rejoice!  There is finally a good (fast) sports scores app for us WP7 users.  It is the newly released Pro Sports Scores app in the marketplace.

Currently it grabs sports scores from 4 major North American sports - MLB, NFL, NBA, and NHL (important for us Canadians).

It's lightning fast, click on the scores will give you the in game stat (no play-by-play yet).. It's FREE but it is ad supported - so remember to click on some apps to show your support.  linky here (opens zune).  If the link gives you trouble like it did for me, just go to the marketplace and search for "Pro Sports Scores".

Wireless Sync Setup for your WP7 Device

One of the coolest feature of WP7 is wireless syncing to your zune application on your PC.  In a previous post I had mentioned how easy it was for me to setup it up.  Literally took 10 seconds.

However, several of my friends are little bit confused about the whole process.  I really don't know why but after listening to them for a bit, I think I understand why.

Reducing Your Bandwidth Usage on your WP7

Since I got my first smartphone (iPhone 3G), I have had the Fido 6GB data plan for $30 extra on top of my voice plan.  Some of you have probably manage to negotiate your data plan with voice down to around $47.50/mth but that's probably still quite expensive for some (HowardForums have tonnes of resources should you want to negotiate for a cheaper plan)

Some of my friends have opted for the lesser data plan of 150MB, 250MB but with a smartphone (non Blackberrys. BB devices tends to use a lot less as BB is connected to the RIM servers which does a lot of data compression), that much data can be used up in less than 1 week if you keep using your data via 3G (I average around 1.2 GB on my iPhone 3G and I am using about the same on my HTC Surround - similar types of usage).  My friends come to me for advice on how to save bandwidth, because in their eyes, I am the tech savvy one (aka. biggest nerd they know).  I am going to list out a bunch of things you can do on your WP7 device to save some bandwidth.   Some of these "hints" of course are pretty similar should you want to save bandwidth on your non-WP7 devices.