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What do YOU do with your phone? [poll results]

This time last week, we asked you to take part in a poll where we asked you what do YOU do with your phone? We had an overwhelming response and it’s now time to look at the results.

There were two parts to the survey; one where you needed to tick as many boxes as necessary to let us know what you used in the last month, and the other part would let us know how often you perform those tasks.

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Part one

When looking at the data from the results, there’s really not much in it between all of the options. When it comes to using your phones, you really know how to make the most of your Nokia Lumia.

The top ten activities that you – our Nokia Lumia user readers – did with your phone in the last month is as follows:

Browsing websites
Downloading apps from the Marketplace
WiFi to connect to the Internet
Access email
Use camera for still pictures
Use social networks
GPS
Music/MP3 player
Organiser/calendar
3G to connect to the Internet

If we compare the results from the Niesen survey, there are some minor differences. But that doesn’t surprise us in the least. The results from that survey came from new Nokia Lumia users immediately after purchasing their phone. You, however, have more than likely been using your Lumias for longer and have gone past that experiment phase. It’s now time for full-on every day usage for you. You like to use a little bit of everything your Lumia has to offer.

Here are the full results:

Poll results

Part two

This is where we look at how often you use those features. Let’s stick to the top ten listed above to see how much usage they get.

Browsing websites (77.73% everyday)
Downloading apps from the Marketplace (40.08% several times a week)
WiFi to connect to the Internet (79.68% every day)
Access email (85.88% every day)
Use camera for still pictures (46.64% several times a week)
Use social networks (62.46% every day)
GPS (30.6% several times a week)
Music/MP3 player (44.02% every day)
Organiser/calendar (44.86% every day)
3G to connect to the Internet (63.19% every day)

Other interesting results show that 20 per cent of the people who participated use 4G LTE to connect to the Internet every day, almost a quarter of people transfer files to their Nokia Lumia about once a week, and almost 30 per cent of people play the pre-loaded games less than once a month.

Here are the full results for this section. Make sure to click the image for a closer look.

Thanks to all of those who took part.

Do you find the results interesting? Are they what you expected? Let us know in the comments, below.

2,869 people participated in this poll placing over 50,000 votes. Poll took place between 18 July, 2012 and on 25 July, 2012.

Mirror's Edge on your Lumia

Mirror’s Edge is a single-player action-adventure platform video game that’s been available to play on computers and game consoles since 2008. Now, you can take this title out of your home and with you wherever you go, on your Nokia Lumia.

You play as the protagonist named Faith Connors, a free-runner, whose only goal is to stop the sinister overpowering law-makers in a dystopian city.

Download Mirror’s Edge now

Press the Search button on your Nokia Lumia and then tap Vision
Scan the barcode
Tap on the link when it appears on the screen
Install the application from the Windows Phone Marketplace

You start your journey on the rooftops of this city and you must navigate across the buildings using only your free-running skills. You’ll move from the rooftops into buildings as you progress through the game.

Gameplay is relatively easy. To set Faith in motion, you just swipe the phone in the direction you want her to go. She’ll continue to run until she hits something, falls off a building, or you give Faith her next command.

When you approach a gap between buildings, you’ll need to make sure she jumps the expanse. Swiping up anywhere on the screen commands her to jump upwards. For the most part, these jumps are easy and short. For jumps that see you plummeting to ledges much lower then the one you leapt from, swiping down just before impact will cause Faith to perform a roll, softening the impact.

Air conditioner units and air ducts will stop you in your tracks if you don’t jump over or slide under them. Sliding under obstacles is as easy as a swipe downwards.

There will be times when Faith will need to run up and along walls (think Neo in The Matrix) to cover larger spaces. Swiping up on these will allow you to perform this trick with ease.

Mirror's Edge combat

Mirror's Edge running

In order to reach the goal in each of the 14 levels, it’s important that you maintain a decent speed. The longer Faith runs, the faster she will go, making each leap easier.

While all of this sounds easy, there will of course be people chasing you to make sure you don’t achieve your ambition. The governing-body wants to keep its totalitarian regime and they’ll do anything to stop you from changing it. But will they? I guess that’s for you to decide.

As with any Xbox LIVE title, playing will have you earning Xbox LIVE achievements and will also give you access to leaderboards. Perfect for competing against your friends.

Mirror’s Edge is available for the Nokia Lumia 610, Nokia Lumia 710, Nokia Lumia 800 and the Nokia Lumia 900.

When we brought you news that the official Twitter for Nokia app is now on Series 40 devices, it gained a lot of interest. With hundreds of millions of feature phones around the world, we thought we’d take you on a walk-through of Twitter for Nokia on a Nokia C3-01 Touch and Type to show you how it works.

Upon installing the app, the first thing you’ll need to do is to enter your Twitter username and password; then it’s straight down to business.

T he first screen you land on is the home screen and you’ll notice the Tweets from your follows will appear here in most recent order. If you choose to interact with one of those Tweets, just select it and you’ll be given the option to reply, to Retweet or to save it as a favourite. You can also click through to that person’s profile to learn more about them.

To refresh the twitter-feed on the Nokia C3-01, pulling down on the screen and the releasing refreshes the content.

Once you’re up-to-date with your followers’ activities, make your way to the navigation bar at the bottom where you’ll see the same icons as you’d expect to see using Twitter on your computer.

@Connect is the place to go to check who’s been mentioning you on Twitter. If you’re waiting for a reply from somebody, it’ll show here.

Using the #Discover icon, you can search Twitter for content. Typing in keywords or #hashtags you can find anything that’s of interest to you, or if you’re looking for something new and out of your ordinary interest, check out some of the trending Tweets from around the world.

The profile icon is where you’ll find information about yourself. It’s here you can keep a track on how many people you’re following, how many are returning the favour, your favourites section and those Tweets you’ve saved for later. Selecting your name at the top of that screen takes you to your public profile, which shows your bio and also a list of your latest Tweets.

When it comes to posting a new Tweet, select the last icon that looks like a piece of paper with a quill (old-fashioned, I know). Enter what you want to say into the text box, remembering to keep your text to a maximum of 140 characters and even a photo if you wish. If you want to add your location to that tweet, hit the location icon underneath the text box.

Even though the Nokia C3-01 doesn’t have GPS on-board, you’re still able to add location. This is due to clever technology that recognises where you are using the local cell-sites around you. Using methods like this is good for a rough location, however it’s surprisingly accurate.

If you’ve got a Series 40 feature phone and like the idea of Tweeting while on the move, download Twitter for Nokia today – it’s free

Have you given it a try? Let us know in the comments section, below.

Magical Festival by Mike Deal

Regularly checking the weather forecast is one of the great joys of owning a smartphone. After all, I’m British and cognizance of the weather is necessary for polite interaction with the rest of the society.

Plus, it’s a lot more fun than looking out of the window.

However, judging by the number of weather apps in the Windows Phone Marketplace, Britain is not the only nation obsessed with the weather.

There are localised weather apps for countries as far flung as Hong Kong, Australia, Estonia, Thailand, Canada and many more.

Different but the same

Actually, most weather apps allow you to choose several locations so that you can keep an eye on forecasts in cities all over the world, whether there is a local app or not.

Other common features shared by many of the apps include:

Snapshot of the current day’s weather
The day’s maximum and minimum day/night temperature
Long-range forecasts
Choice between Fahrenheit and Celsius
Wind speeds
UV index forecasts
Sunrise and sunset times
Weather maps
Live Tile customisation

With so many apps to choose from, how do you choose the best one? Ultimately, a lot of that will come down to personal preference.

Here though are some weather apps with some unique and unusual features; or maybe it’s an app that does one thing very, very well that makes it stand out from the others.

So, while the sun is shining, here is a recipe for an ultimate weather app for your Nokia Lumia.

AccuWeather.com

This is one of the most popular weather apps in Marketplace and is comprehensive enough to satisfy even the greatest meteorological anorak.

It claims to have a proprietary weather forecasting system that gives more realistic temperature readings because it takes into account multiple and local weather factors.

Other elements include animated maps, such as radar and satellite maps, and severe weather alarms.

Hottest feature: You can store up to seven locations, including your current GPS position, but handily you can give them all nicknames. So, perhaps if the name of a particular city doesn’t resonate with you, you can store it by the name of a friend that lives there.

Weather Channel

The Weather Channel supports live tiles, easy sharing on Facebook or by email and has a nice interactive map.

Hottest feature: Fittingly, for something called the Weather Channel, this app lets you watch local, national and global weather video bulletins.

Beach Weather Tiles

Beach Weather

An accurate weather forecast is never more crucial than when you are heading off on a beach holiday.

Rather than a mass audience, this app is very much targeting beach-bound holidaymakers.

It’s no mere repackaging job either. As well as general weather conditions, this gives you information about wind speeds, wave sizes and the tides of popular beaches around the world.

Hottest feature: Weather app nirvana for beach bums.

Weather Satellite

This isn’t so much an app that tells you what the forecast is, but rather helps to explain why the weather is the way it is.

Weather Satellite provides the very latest images for clouds and winds taken from orbiting satellites.

Hottest feature: The zoom feature lets you do just that and you can also move the maps around.

StormGlass

On the face of it, StormGlass is a rather limited weather app compared to some of its competitors. There’s nothing remotely fancy like radar maps, weather warnings or video bulletins.

What you have instead is what the vast majority of people want: A simple interface that shows them what the weather will be like today and for the next few days.

This works fantastically well with Live Tiles. Once you’ve set up your locations, all of which you can pin to start screen, you won’t need to launch the app again.

Hottest feature: Best use of customised Live Tiles. You can choose the style of graphics you want and the amount information that you want displayed.

World Weather Free

Like the AccuWeather and Weather Channel offerings, this is another all-singing, all-dancing, all-the-weather-information-that-you-could-possibly-need sort of app.

This has a whole range of maps, 36 hour or 7 day forecasts, weather cams, Live Tile options and save as many locations that you like.

Hottest feature: Get information for your favourite activities and their associated locations. For example, set up weather alerts for the river where you go fishing, or the park where you go running.

LightningDist

This is not really a weather app at all, but it would be a quirky feature to add to any of the other apps featured on this page.

Using the difference between the speed of sound and the speed of light, it calculates the distance of the lightning from where you are. Tap when you see the lightning, tap again when you hear the thunder.

Remember learning this in school?

Hottest feature: OK, it’s only got the one feature but it’s simple interactive fun. Comes in particularly handy on the golf course.

Lunar Phase

Several other apps include the phases of the moon as well but Lunar Phase takes it onto a whole new, er, orbit.

Not only can you see the phases of the moon and what times it will rise and set in the future, but you can also look back on dates in history. Also offers sunset and sunrise times.

Hottest feature: If selenology is your thing, then you’ll be over the moon with this app.

MapWeather

Map Weather

All the apps make a big deal about their global coverage, but this one puts that concept to best use with its simple interface.

Rather than inputting a location or scrolling through a A-Z list, just look for it on the map and tap. Up pops the current weather with a five day forecast.

Hottest feature: Best use of interactive maps.

Weather Stats

How many times have you heard a weather forecaster say that it is hotter or colder than normal for this time of year?

Weather Stats lets you discover the monthly weather records and averages for more than 26,820 cities in 250 countries worldwide. The databases, provided by weatherbase.com, are updated every quarter.

Hottest feature: Integrates with Bing local search so you can generate weather reports for your area with a single click.

What’s your favourite weather app?

image credit: Mike Deal

text sweethearts

Last week, we revealed that SMS is the most common form of phone-based communication in the UK. Its popularity is a worldwide phenomenon, though. (Around 700 billion texts were sent in China in 2007; individual U.S. subscribers send more than 500 a month).

But why? We’ve got email, Twitter, Facebook, Whatsapp, Skype – a myriad of much more sophisticated tools to use.

Yet it’s plain old text messaging that gets the love.

In part, that’s because it’s the lowest common denominator. Everyone’s phone is capable of text messaging. It’s also very cheap in a lot of countries: it doesn’t need a data provision and is often bolted onto contracts as a ‘free’ extra.

But there’s more science to it than that. According to Internet psychologist Graham Jones, it’s about the way we classify different ways of sending messages.

For many, email is associated with business and more formal communications. Social networks, on the other hand, are associated with broadcasting messages to larger groups of friends or complete strangers.

text necklace

So that leaves text. It’s uniquely personal and almost always about one-to-one communication with people that we have relationship with. There can’t be many people who haven’t typed “miss u. wish u were here” into their phone at some point.

Jones notes:

“Text messaging remains a functional communication tool, but still with a personal aspect, which could explain its longevity. You can say things in text you wouldn’t necessarily say on another communication tool.”

A second attraction is that you can normally expect a swift response to a text message, whereas it’s OK to leave responding to an email for a few hours (or days…)

It’s also about our instinctive laziness. We want to do everything in the easiest possible way.

“Running in the back of the human mind,” Jones explained, “is the need to do everything with the least possible effort, and we instinctively search for the easiest way to communicate. This is why we rely on and still love text messaging.”

Nearly all of us still text regularly despite the many alternatives. Do you have any other ideas about why people like it so much?

image credits: sloanpix (sweethearts); Bekathwia (necklaces)

This is a summer of sporting events in Europe. Last month, Spain set new football records in Poland and Ukraine (of course, as an Italian, I was less happy) and as of tomorrow the world’s foremost and oldest sports competition is going to keep London busy for a while, for the third time in history.

To help you follow your favourite sports and athletes, there is a dedicated section on maps.nokia.com with all the information you need about the games, plus public transportation lines and schedules, photorealistic 3D tour of London and tips for accommodation, restaurants, shopping and sights.

Also CNN is using our stunning 3D maps to show what’s happening in London this summer. This is for instance the route of the marathon:

You will really appreciate our city page maps.nokia.com/uk/london, especially if you are a London newbie. The city pages, as you might already know, are available for many locales around the world and actually for all the previous host cities like Athens, Berlin, Paris, Atlanta and Beijing.

What you perhaps don’t know is that the games are not confined to the Olympic Park. Of course the most iconic sports are being hosted in the Olympic Stadium, but football will be played in Wembley and tennis in Wimbledon (where else?). What made us smile is realizing that boxing, judo, weightlifting and more are taking place at ExCel London, which also hosted Nokia World in 2009 and 2010.

It’s also not only about London. The whole UK is hosting the games, as you can see in this map. This is a great opportunity to visit one of the most interesting European countries this summer.

Let us know if you are going to be in London!