Od jutra zaczną obowiązywać nowe oferty dla firm. Oglądając zapewne dostrzeżecie nowe podobieństwa do nowych ofert dla klientów indywidualnych, czyli ofert FORMUŁA S, M, L, 1000 Najważniejsze benefity w ofercie: nielimitowane rozmowy z Play i z numerami stacjonarnymi za darmo we wszystkich abonamentach najtańszy na rynku abonament bez telefonu dla małych firm z nielimitowanymi [...]

Od jutra zaczną obowiązywać nowe oferty dla firm. Oglądając zapewne dostrzeżecie nowe podobieństwa do nowych ofert dla klientów indywidualnych, czyli ofert FORMUŁA S, M, L, 1000 Najważniejsze benefity w ofercie: nielimitowane rozmowy z Play i z numerami stacjonarnymi za darmo we wszystkich abonamentach najtańszy na rynku abonament bez telefonu dla małych firm z nielimitowanymi [...]

If you are a regular reader then you’ll have probably noticed that we love our app round-ups here on Conversations. 

Very often we like to focus on a particular theme or topic such as our recent look at voice control apps, lock screen apps or camera lenses for your Lumia. 

Apps are a terrific way of enhancing your Nokia Lumia experience. They are fun to use and, very often, give your smartphone a completely new function that it couldn’t do before!

I’m sure that even long-time Lumia owners are still regularly coming across new apps in the Windows Phone Store that can both surprise and delight them.

Apps you can depend on

This is not a round-up of glamorous or astonishing apps that will blow your mind and make you want to tell your friends about them. There’s nothing here that will transform your Lumia into a Space Shuttle controller.

Instead, they are the quiet and dependable apps that will probably go mostly unnoticed in the background. Until, that is, you really need them. System apps are the little shortcuts to help you get the most of your Lumia. 

We know that many of you have recently got your hands on a Nokia Lumia 920, Lumia 820 or Lumia 620. Here are some system apps that should be among the first things you consider downloading from the Windows Phone Store. 

Connectivity Shortcuts (free)

Toggling your connectivity options such as WiFi, Bluetooth, location services and cellular data is a smart way of conserving your Lumia’s battery life.

This app provides shortcuts to all these settings on your smartphone and also includes the Flight Mode option as well. 

The entire app can be pinned to your Start screen or if you need to access to one option more often than the others, such as the WiFi setting, then that can be pinned individually to your Start screen.

The Live Tiles can be customised to match your accent colours and will also tell you the current state of your connectivity options. 

Speedtest.net (free)

I can’t imagine many people will need to test their connection speed every day but it’s certainly that you may be interested in knowing.

This is particularly true if you’re using a Nokia Lumia 920 or Lumia 820 on a high-speed 4G network. Maybe you could show your friends its connection speed and show them what they’re missing out on!

Install this attractive and simple to use app and find out your download and upload speeds in around 30 seconds. If you want to check your cellular data speed then you’ll need to turn off your WiFi first – otherwise you’ll be measuring your WiFi connection.

It will also save your results so you can see how your speed varies over time and by location. Call it geeky if you will, but I love this sort of thing. It’s useful as well if you’re considering downloading a large file to your Lumia.

Flashlight-X (free)

There are plenty of flashlight applications in the Windows Phone Store but this is one of the most highly-rated and popular ones.

It turns your camera’s flash into a torch and has a compass for all those times when you’re lost outside in the dark and need to get your bearings. If you find yourself in lots of trouble then you can use the SOS mode.

It locks underneath your lock screen and has a couple of other nice features such as shake to toggle on and off. Again, it’s not an app that you’ll be playing with on the bus to work but it’s extremely useful to have on your Lumia nonetheless.

Stopwatch & Timer (free)

Just like the flashlight, you are spoilt for choice in the Windows Phone Store when it comes to timer and stopwatches.

I particularly liked the cheeky reviews for this app, which is why I have chosen it over the others.

Both of these comments left it with 5 star reviews:

“What more do you want from a stopwatch and timer than for it to time things.”

“Does what a stopwatch and timer does.”

With such glowing testimony, how could you resist?

Battery Status (free)

Keeping on top of your battery usage is half the battle towards maximising the battery’s performance. This app provides all the stats you’ll need to help you do this.

As well as showing you the current status, it also tells you the estimated time you have remaining, your average time between charges and other detailed statistics about your battery usage.

Much of this information is displayed attractively on the different-sized Live Tiles and you can also set up a notification to alert you when your battery is running low.

Are there any other useful system apps that you would like to recommend? Let us know in the comments below.

How difficult can it be for a complete novice with no programming experience to create an app? 

In the last couple of weeks I have spoken to a Computer Science student and a university lecturer who teaches software development.

In their own ways, both of them seemed to imply that developing for Windows Phone was extremely accessible and fairly easy to get to grips with.

In fact, every developer I’ve interviewed for Conversations have all made the observation that creating for Windows Phone is relatively ‘straight forward.’ 

It’s time to put that theory to the test.

TouchDevelop (free)

Obviously, I am not going to create an app from scratch.

If that were the case then this post would be either very short (”Sorry, I can’t do it”) or very, very, very long (“Let’s start with the basics of coding and go step by step from there…”).

Instead I am going to use a nifty little app from Microsoft called TouchDevelop.

TouchDevelop boasts that by simply tapping on the screen you can create simple programmes, apps and games.

There are tutorial videos and you can search for commands, or say what you want to achieve, and the app will write the code for you. 

It sounds too good to be true and yet TouchDevelop’s reviews are also pretty encouraging:

“Fantastic, all the complex bits hidden away.”

“This is really cool. It’s so easy just to make scripts to do everyday tasks, just on a whim! This really needs to be publicised more, hell why not just package it with the phone?”

“Major step forward in programming history.”

Take the Tour

Feeling just a little bit scared, the first thing I did after installing TouchDevelop was to take the tutorial.

The tour was very quick, the onscreen instructions are easy to follow and within a couple of minutes I had completed the task of creating a small script that played a random song whenever I shook my Lumia!

The tutorial is no guarantee that you’ll soon be making millions from your own apps but it does give you a flavour of how TouchDevelop works.

At each stage of the tutorial you’re selecting from simple options on the screen and there is never any coding or programming involved. 

Getting started

To make the most of TouchDevelop, you’ll need to sign in with a Windows Live ID, Facebook or Google account. This will let you look at, download and share scripts.

I spent a fair amount of time looking around to see what other people had done with TouchDevelop. You do this by swiping through the New, Top, Featured and Tags screens.

There was a tremendous amount of variety and some of the programs were very slick indeed – many were apps that I could well imagine downloading from the Windows Phone Store.

Others are more akin to nifty little features that you may want to incorporate into a larger app. Think of the whole thing as a toolkit for you to choose and pick from.

If there’s something you like, you can download it and examine its inner workings. I found this a useful way of seeing how things had been done or created.

Making scripts

Tap the + button at the bottom and the first thing you’ll need to do when creating a script is give it a name.

On the next screen you’ll see the options with which you can start building your script. It looks daunting when you first read through it but after playing around with it for a little while, it’ll make more sense.

I found that the easiest place to start was with ‘events’ – this is an action that starts, such as playing music or displaying a picture, when you do something to your phone, such as shaking it or putting it face down.

Tap the + sign to the right of events and you’ll be presented with a list of the different actions that can trigger an event.

Tap the action you require and next you’ll see a blank screen with some words at the top. 

For example, if you selected ‘phone face down’ you’ll see this:

As you can see, the current action is that when the phone faces down, the script will do nothing.

Tap on the words, “event phone face down” to bring up more options and select edit.

The next screen is where the fun really starts.

A series of boxes will appear with different options. Selecting one option will bring up more boxes until you drill right down into executing an action.

If you select through the boxes: Media > Songs > Random > Play and then use the Back button to save your work – whenever you run this script and your phone is facing down (remember this is the event you selected right at the beginning) then your Lumia will play a random song. 

After playing around and familiarising myself with TouchDevelop for an hour or so, I felt confident enough to build on top of this basic script by creating a couple of other events where they could all work together.

1. Phone face down to start playing a random song
2. Shake the phone to play another random song
3. Each time a new song starts display a different random picture

There is much, much more to be explored in TouchDevelop and, to be honest, I would still struggle to make anything that resembles a proper app!

However, TouchDevelop certainly gave me an insight into the logic and principles behind creating apps. Best of all, it’s a real thrill when you run a script for the first time and you think: “Wow, I did that!”

Find out more about TouchDevelop. Have you created anything with TouchDevelop? Let us know in the comments below.

This time last week, I was lucky enough to take delivery of the new Nokia Lumia 620 – Nokia’s latest, and most affordable, Windows Phone 8 smartphone. Since then, I’ve been using it on a daily basis and putting it through some real-world tests.

Like a kid on Christmas morning, I grabbed the delivery bag, tore it open and glanced at the contents – a blue box with the words “Nokia Lumia 620” printed on it.

Hardware and design

In addition to this, I found three shells (back covers) hiding in the bottom of the bag; one glossy lime (dual-shot made of yellow and cyan), one glossy orange (dual-shot made of yellow and magenta), one matte cyan, and one matte frosty white. Worth noting that you only get one of these shells inbox, the others have to be bought separately. I got all of them as a special delivery from Helsinki!

Dual-shot is the term we’re using to describe the blending of our CMYK palette to create new and exciting colours. For example, for the glossy lime we used a yellow polycarbonate base colour and overlaid it with a transparent cyan one. From the front, you’ll see a double layer of colours, but from any other angle, all you can see is a vibrant, luscious lime colour.

Comparing the weight with my Nokia Lumia 800, the Lumia 620 feels lighter, but not in a cheap way. It feels solid and heavy enough to fit snugly into the palm of my hand while the smooth back and rounded edges give the whole phone a comfortable feel.

The 3.8″ TFT WVGA ClearBlack display produces some vivid colours, equally on par with the Nokia Lumia 920 and the Lumia 820. Plus, the screen can be used with gloves on – very handy for this time of year or for those living in colder countries. Correction: this feature is not actually supported on the Lumia 620, though I was able to achieve it.

From the start, it’s clear to see that the Nokia Lumia 620 is a fun, almost-youthful smartphone, thanks to the new colour range.

After popping in my Micro SIM card, a spare 8GB Micro SD card (supports up to 64GB) and the 1300mAh battery, I clipped on the lime shell – it just happened to match the jumper I was wearing that day – and powered it on.

Software

As is usual with any new phone, there’s a brief process of selecting times and dates, as well as the option to sign in to your Microsoft account, something you’ll need if you want to purchase any of the over 125,000 apps or games available on the Windows Phone Store.

Then it’s probably a good idea to head into the settings and then ‘email+accounts’ to setup any email accounts you may have, and to sign into Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, or Sina Weibo. Or none, if you’re not using them, of course.

With the boring necessaries out of the way, the first thing you’ll want to do is personalise the Start screen, even if it’s just to change the colour theme and the accent colour. It seemed only natural to change the default theme from cyan to lime, considering I opted for the lime green shell.

Nokia Lumia 620

Our newest Windows Phone 8 smartphone.

The family is growing.

Once I’d made some more adjustments to my Start screen – resizing Live Tiles, adding email tiles, and moving tiles around – it was time to delve into the Windows Phone Store to download some great games and apps.

I made sure I covered the basic, and essential, as far as I’m concerned, apps/games; Cinemagraph, Creative Studio, 4th & Mayor, Weather Flow, Draw Something and Angry Birds.

Right now, I’m loving the Cinemagraph app. Here’s my first attempt, down a dark alley:

Cinemagraphs have got me thinking about photos in a completely different way. Rather than seeing a single, static scene, I now look at something and see the animation potential.

OK, so Cinemagraphs don’t take full advantage of the 5MP camera, because the saved format is a GIF, but it produces some interesting results.

However, the 5-megapixel camera does take a great photo, as you can see below. The tube lighting in the office wasn’t ideal, so I auto fixed it using the built-in tools with just a click.

Performance

You’d be mistaken in thinking that because a device has 512MB of RAM, it would run slowly and you’d experience a certain amount of lag. However, this isn’t the case.

The dual-core 1GHz Snapdragon CPU does a fantastic job at keeping everything running as smooth as any other – more expensive – smartphone.

In terms of battery performance, I easily get a full day out of it, with a fair amount of usage. As I’m still in the honeymoon phase, where I’m still trying to find new things with it, I’d expect the battery to run down considerably quicker. But it doesn’t.

The official stats for talk time, using GSM or WCDMA, are up to 14.6 hours and 9.9 hours respectively. As for standby time, it’s up to 330 hours.

If you’re into your music, you’ll be happy to know that the Nokia Lumia 620 plays it loud; at about 100db we believe. Perfect for listening to you favourite bands using Nokia Music.

As a big fan of NFC, I’m delighted to be able to finally have that technology in my pocket, in an affordable, attractive, fully functional package as the Lumia 620.

What do you think of the Nokia Lumia 620? Join in the discussion below, to let us know.

Note: This article was first headlined as a ‘review’, obviously, it’s more of a hands-on account of Adam’s experiences and the headline has been changed to reflect that.

The electric guitar, the digital camera, 3D printing, the list of technologies that have generated new ways to unleash our creativity goes on and on. Tech has always given artists, musicians and film makers new ways to express themselves. Today, though, technology and art are more intertwined than ever. It’s no surprise then that Nokia has been helping to promote a cool new artistic endeavour in New York called IDLE. To find out more, we hooked up with organizers Katya Guseva and Luke McCann.

Thanks for joining us guys. So what exactly is IDLE and what makes it so special?

The mission of IDLE is to blend and merge the two worlds of audio and visuals together. We love going to music shows, we love art exhibitions, but both worlds are so tightly intertwined, that it makes perfect sense to experience them together at the same place, same time. Lots of musicians these days are turning to visuals, created specifically for their music, and visual artists have always been inspired by music. We want to bring our favorite musicians and artists together. 

What makes it special though (besides our excellent curation of course), is the personal approach and intimate settings, where only a couple hundred people can enjoy acts that usually gather big night clubs. 

New York is one of the world’s most international cities, how is this reflected in its art, music and film?

You’d think so, but even though the creative scenes are blooming, there are only so many outlets and venues, that don’t require bottle service or close at 2 am. It’s hard to see a show where there’s equal attention given to the environment and the content. If the venue is all decked out, it’s probably going to lack quality of sound, or talent. If the sound and dj are great, it’s usually in a dark basement. To each their own, but with IDLE we hope to create an experience that’s going to stimulate both audio and visual senses.

What sparked the idea to mix a club night with film and art? What theme unites them? 

When you put two minds together, beautiful things might happen. Big Up Magazine and Reconstrvct always shared similar aesthetic, however the ways we share them were different. Reconstrvct being an underground dubstep night wanted to branch out into different outlets and styles of music. Big Up, having an online and print presence wanted to do something more involved in the local scene. It all blended perfectly into IDLE.

Dance music’s been around since the late 80s. Why do you think it’s stayed so popular?

Dancing is the most natural thing people do. Anyone can dance, move to the rhythm. Rhythm is present in everything beginning with our heart beat, breathing, walking… If you’re talking about electronic dance music, it’s become popular with the rise of computers, and it’s not going away, now that any 15 year-old can start producing music on their smart phone. Dance is the release of all sorts of energies, be it negative emotions or joy. And people love going out to release everything they’ve been holding inside for a while. We can only hope that we manage to create an environment where people can feel free and comfortable to have a good time and dance.

How has mobile tech changed the way people create music, art and film in your experience?

It’s fascinating how many young and talented people are around us these days. Still in high school, they have releases on major labels, create covers for magazines and make their own music videos. We can easily attribute this to the Internet and the spread of devices like laptops, tablets, phones and their variations. What it’s done is made creating content easier, learning more accessible, and spreading lightning-fast. It brought about flood of art, music and film expressions, both good and bad. And there’s no stopping from now on. Expect your toddler being the next Warhol. 

What is it about Nokia that made you want to work with them?  

We’ve seen Nokia getting behind very cool initiatives lately, which create authentic experiences with music, art and film. And it was only logical for us to reach out with our unique idea. We’re over the moon, humbled that Nokia loved what IDLE is about, and we hope for a long and fruitful partnership. 

We think this is a super cool new collaboration, and hope you do, too. In the next couple of weeks, we’ll get up close and personal with some of the artists, musicians and film-makers who used Lumia 920′s to record their IDLE nights. 

In the meantime, we’d love to hear your thoughts on whether tech is powering art for better or for worse. 

The People Hub is at epicentre of your social experience on the Nokia Lumia. This is the place where you’ll find all your contacts and their numbers, emails and addresses.

However, it’s much more than just an address book. The People Hub fully integrates popular social networks, such as Twitter and Facebook, so you can easily see what everyone has been getting up to.

A long-standing feature of People Hub is Groups, where you can add filter through all your contacts to see just a chosen few. It might be your closest friends, family, colleagues or the people you play football with.

Once created, you can pin the Group to your Start screen for quick access, message or email everyone simultaneously and see their latest social network updates too. 

If you have a lot of people in your Contacts Hub, then you’ll find Groups a really useful feature. 

Rooms

On Windows Phone 8 this social experience has been enhanced further with the addition of Rooms.

A Room is an invitation-only only part of your Nokia Lumia 920, Lumia 820 or Lumia 620 where you can privately share your photos, videos, calendar, location and notes with other members.

All the members of a Room can chat with each other too.

When you’re initially setting up the Room, every member that you invite will receive a text message with a link to join the group.

Difference between Rooms and Groups

Rooms differ from Groups because it is an interactive space where content is shared and everyone can make changes.

In a Group no content is shared between the members – it is only a way for you organise your contacts. 

You don’t need to notify people and they don’t need to take any action to join the Group – unlike in Rooms.

Setting up Rooms

Setting up Rooms on your Windows Phone 8-powered Lumia smartphone is simple to do.

1. In the People Hub swipe across until you come to the Together screen
2. Tap + at the bottom of the screen, and then select Room
3. Type a name for your Room and press save
4. Add the people that you wish to invite to the Room by tapping + and then selecting them from the list.
5. If the contact you’ve selected has more than one phone number listed, you’ll be asked which one you want to use for the text invite
6. When you’ve added all the members, press the Done ‘tick’ icon.

Members won’t appear in your Room until they’ve clicked on the text message link. Think of it as their acceptance of your Room invite. Members will then have the Room set up for them in the People Hub on their phone too.

When all the members have joined, then you’re all ready to start using the Room!

NB. Although Rooms work best when everyone is on Windows Phone 8 – many of the features work across all phones. 

Using Rooms

Each Room you create can be pinned to your Start screen for easy access.

Inside each Room you’ll see a screen for each of the following: 

• The members – Send an email to everyone in the Room
• Chat – Group chats and current location sharing
• Calendar – Everyone can see and make changes to the calendar
• Photos – Everyone can see photos and videos that have been added
• Notes – Shared notes can be created, edited or deleted

Carrying out any of these tasks will be extremely familiar to all Windows Phone users.

However, you need to remember that rather than sending a message or a photo to one person – you are sending it to everyone in the Room. Always keep this in mind!

Editing a Room

If you are the original creator of a Room – ‘the owner’ – then you can:

• Invite new members: Go to Room > Members > + > select contact
• Remove members: Room > Members > Select contact > Remove
• Rename the room: Room > Members > More … > Rename
• Delete the Room altogether: Room > Members > More … > Delete Room 

If you’ve joined a Room that was set up by someone else then you can leave the Room by tapping the Room, going to Members and select Leave Room.

Rooms are simple to create, use and edit. They’re a great addition to Windows Phone 8 and underlines once again why we think your new Lumia device is the best social smartphone in the world. 

Attention all Nollywood fans! Make sure you’re stocked up with plenty of popcorn because you’ll be finding it difficult to tear yourself away from the new iROKOtv app on Nokia Lumia.

In addition to a wide choice of full-length Nollywood movies, you’ll also be able to watch behind-the-scenes features, interviews with the stars and entertainment gossip.

The iROKOtv mobile app will be available for Nokia Lumia devices running on Windows Phone 8, such as the Lumia 920, Lumia 820 and Lumia 620.

This is the result of a partnership between Nokia and iROKOtv, the world’s largest online distributor of Nigerian movies.

Who needs Hollywood?

For the uninitiated, the Nigerian film industry, which is also known as Nollywood, is a very big deal indeed. In fact, by volume, it is the second largest film industry in the world behind India’s Bollywood.

The films are made quickly and prolifically – some of the larger production houses can make up to 40 movies per year.

Nollywood is a homegrown success story that reflects Nigeria’s passion for story telling and watching movies. However, its appeal goes beyond its own borders. 

Global appeal

“Even though it is done in Nigeria by Nigerians, it actually translates really, really well,” says Adibeli Nduka-Agwu who is iROKO’s Head of Business Development and Partners in Africa.

“We find that these are the sort of movies that do well across all African countries. Everyone from South Africa to Kenya but also in the UK, US and all those places where you have people with connections to the African diaspora.”

Is there such a thing as a typical Nollywood movie?

“There are certainly some recurring themes… Romantic comedies, love and a lot of drama – definitely a lot of drama!”

“The power lies in great story telling and some fabulous actors and actresses, such as Mr. Ibu, Mercy Johnson, Mama G and Tonto Dikeh.” 

Another of those recurring themes is a penchant for naming their movies after common brands or global celebrities. For instance, on the app you’ll be able to watch films such as Return of Beyonce and Rihanna or Fazebook Lovers.

Nokia Lumia 820

Personalisation meets power

Learn more, here.

The mobile experience

When it came to making their Lumia app, iROKO were keen to get all the features that are available on their website transferred to the mobile experience, such as the ability to search by genre or actor and selecting movies to watch later.

In addition, there was also the acknowledgement that people consume content differently on their mobile than they do when sat in front of the TV or computer.

“What we have added to this app are things that you can view much more quickly,” Adibeli tells Conversations. 

“People have certain movies that they love and they just want to see a scene or the best part of the movie.

“Normally to watch a clip you have to go through the entire movie but with this app you can just watch the most popular scene, or search for their favourite actress and get her most popular scenes.” 

Working with Nokia

On bringing the iROKOtv app to Nokia Lumia, Adibeli says:

“One thing that was very important to us is that people have a very good experience and that’s why we wanted devices that could do our work justice.

“We’ve been working with Nokia for a very long time and we felt confident that this was the only way we could get the type of experience that we wanted to have.

“In Africa, Nokia is by far the biggest in terms of mobile phones and we believe we are the biggest in terms of African entertainment.”

“Together we’ve made the biggest and best Nollywood app that there could be.”

Nokia Lumia owners with a Windows Phone 8 device can download the iROKOtv app now from the Store and they’ll get three months’ subscription for free.

Existing iROKOtv PLUS customers will have free access to the app.

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