Local Scout is a great feature ( sorry to the folks who use a windows phone in non supported region ) that came to Windows Phone with the Mango update. Many users love this feature on Windows Phone and now it would appear paid listings are being featured in there along with organic listings. Local Scout is great for finding great local stores and cafe near you. You can easily pull up the listing which also provides you with the stores website, contact number address, and hours of operation. You can also easily find the direction from your current location to this destination all thanks to Bing Maps that is deeply integrated in to the OS.
Local Scout is a nice little feature on Windows Phone introduced with Mango ( I don’t think its available worldwide but its quite useful in the regions its available in ) while this listing does not allow users to add / edit content a 3rd party solution has come to users aid .. meet Pinbucket , Press Release below
Pinbucket, a WindowsPhone service and app combining user-created local scout maps with photo uploading and twitter-like tagging has been moved to Windows Azure servers. With this app users can meta-tag cities around them, save and share events, things, people, locations and photos and pin them to Bing maps. Pinbucket presents data as clusters on fully dynamic map or using Geolocation aware Augmented Reality filter. Pinbucket service is free (no ads) and features completely free exchange of information. No sponsored or curated places, just pure user-created content.
If you write about Windows Phone, you have at one point or another written an item on Tango or published a leaked photo about it. That’s because it’s interesting stuff, for techies and for average owners alike and we have a hungry crowd of info seekers! One of the benefits to being a WP owner is the excitement of knowing you WILL be a recipient of frequent updates, unlike other mobile platforms. So here’s our a clear look at what we know as we say “goodbye” to Mango and “hello” to our next update named Tango… [click to continue…]
BizSaver is a new mango app that allows you to quickly add business contacts on to your windows phone. Imagine this you use local scout to look up some business and want to add that to your contact list , traditionally you gotta manually enter this info in there thanks to copy paste you can copy some item and paste it in but its still a tedious task.
When Jace showed us some of the new stuff in Bing some of you might have noticed that he could scan CD / DVD / Book covers using bing vision but if you out side the US this will not work but luckily the guys at wpcentral have found a simple fix that will allow users to get these in other regions .
Its no surprise that some online service offered by Microsoft via Bing, Zune, etc are only available in the US. There is a break down of the features and availability in various zones here ( andrewtechhelp ) and its clear that to enjoy the full Windows Phone experience you have to be in the US.
Most of you would have seen the video previewing the cool new features in Windows Phone Mango.There was a cool new feature called Local Scout which prioritizes hyper-local search results based on user preferences and recommends the closest restaurants, shopping and activities in an easy-to-use guide. It looks like that will only be available to US and UK customers.
I am not sure if it will be considered but there is an Open Plea to Microsoft ( click ) to allow users to turn on/off features like Local Scout. The issue with this is Bing might not have ( I am guessing ) the data outside the US and UK to provide users with any valid results, it sucks I know, living in Melbourne I too will be missing out on this cool feature. Its a real shame coz most of the time we end up paying more and will end up with a product with less features .. Its a crazy world we live in..
Update : Here is a Facebook group that is trying to gets Microsoft’s attention regarding this issue. ( thanks for the tip Ludwig )
Update 2 : Apparently Local Scout works in France. See video demo ( Thanks David )
In this video you will see various Windows Windows Phone Mango features
IE9 Mobile Browser war : IE9 Mobile outshines the other major mobile browsers !!
Multitasking : Finally we will have multitasking on Windows Phone
Improved Live Tiles – which provides even more real-time information to the home screen. Live Tiles on Mango can be more dynamic and contain more information. ( example using BestBuy )
Local Scout : prioritizes hyper-local search results based on user preferences and recommends the closest restaurants, shopping and activities in an easy-to-use guide. ( but will it work outside the US ? )
Bing Vision : enables users to initiate a Bing search by photographing barcodes, QR codes and Microsoft Tags (without using a third-party app).
Communication Features :
Threaded Email conversations and Multiple email accounts can be combined and linked into one inbox.
Groups ( with live tile ) – make it possible for users to easily access individuals or groups from the home screen.
Friends Thread : see the video and be awestruck ( it happens around 9:19 in the video ).. its one of my most liked feature in Mango
Nick: Nice work, cool ideas. Now, let’s hope MS has something to say in the joint-venture since B&N is not paying any attention to designers. In some ways, MS Reader was ten times better...
fatfingur: I’m not saying this mockup is legit or real. My only point is that using comic sans does not make you unprofessional. Balsamiq is a professional wireframing tool used by pros....
simphf: One paragraph reads ‘NOOK for Android’. Ha [Posted from the 1800PocketPC app]
Hog: Almost forgot, are you going to enter the Nokia X Challenge for over 2 million in prize money? The info.is at Nokia Conversations and with your IT background. Lots of ideas swirl around in my...
Hog: Very nice. I’m not familiar with the Nook at all for content but I really like your design. I hope the Barnes app is made available for all windows phones also. [Posted from the...
Nick
fatfingur
simphf
Hog
Richard Clubb
moe1up
Lee
Xmel
antslava
