Windows Phone 7 Users – How’s your device so far with 7.8?
If there’s one good thing Microsoft did to Windows Phone 7, that’s backporting a few good features from Window Phone 8. So if your still keeping that Windows Phone 7 with you, hope that you’ve already upgraded it to the 7.8 version.
Microsoft no longer supports Windows Phone 7 since October 14, 2014. But according to adduplex blog, there are still 10.8% 7.x OS version users worldwide as of February 2015. So if you still have that HTC Titan II with 16MP camera or that 3rd generation Nokia Lumia 505, listen. There are still hundreds of reasons to use it - as good as new.
I can’t tell more about Windows Phone 7 because they’ve already killed the Zune Marketplace. Zune Software is still there but it has been discontinued since October 16, 2012. And now that Windows Phone 8 is alive and kicking, we might soon hear Windows Phone 7 saying its last goodbye. But our friends in India, Mexico and other Asian regions still deserve an update about this smartphone - a phone well-known for providing great interactive experience.
Windows 7.8 – What’s new in Here?
Welcome to your upgraded Windows Phone 7. You can now resize the live tiles to small, medium, or large – just like in 8.x. You can customize your phone’s background theme with up to 20 accent colors – that’s 2X the number of colors in version 7.5. The new lock screen now has gorgeous images courtesy of Bing.
People hub, Music + video hub, Picture hub, Games hub, and Office hub, they’re still there. Thanks goodness, you can still access Xbox Live for cool free games as well as enjoy your Gold subscription. And of course, you can always use Microsoft Word, OneNote, PowerPoint and Excel on your mobile phone. Thanks Microsoft for always putting productivity on top!
How about Windows Live? Anything new?
Now, you can sync your photos and office docs on OneDrive. SkyDrive is out. The Messenger and Facebook chat apps are always there to connect you to your friends. And in case you lost your phone, just log in to Windows Live and you will be able to ring, lock, erase, or find your phone on a map with the assistance of Find My Phone manager. Your phone is still valuable. Right?
What’s hot in the Windows Phone Store?
Windows Phone Store is full of games and apps for your Windows Phone 7. Let me give you an idea on how many apps are there right now – more than 340,000.
The Windows Phone apps marketplace is not showing any sign of slowing down. According to the site WP7applist, one of the largest app directories for Windows Phone 7, around 140,000 of these apps are in the US marketplace. Of this number, about 69% are free while the average price of paid apps is $1.19.
Let’s face it. Windows Phone mobile OS market share is really small (around 2% to 3.5%) – and getting smaller. But we cannot blame Microsoft on that because their current focus is more on the enterprise solutions market – the desktop OS and web clients.
Windows Phone 7 (and Windows Phone 8) features are always beautiful and helpful – especially the live tiles. So if you’re still keeping that HTC, Samsung, LG, Dell, Nokia or ZTE phone, use it. Grab and enjoy all the services offered by Microsoft for your vintage smartphone while they’re still available.
For more information about your Windows Phone 7 features and functionality, visit this link: http://www.windowsphone.com/en-us/how-to/wp7
