Windows Phone News 17/06/2012 : Nokia This Nokia That

To everyone who is listening .. You guys might have noticed that the number of posts has not been up to our usual output last week. I have been quite busy with my day job and other personal stuff and have had little time to catch up with whats happening around Windows Phone. Moving fwd I am afraid this will continue to be the case especially since some of the contributers here have gone AWOL. I haven’t yet figured out how to handle this just yet but I am thinking instead of doing multiple post on news I will just do one news post a day which will try and cover some of the interesting things happening around Windows Phone. So without further ado here is the Windows Phone News Roundup 17/06/2012 ( not seeing this on the 17th , I live in Melbourne Australia … blame your timezone )
Nokia’s Network Setup app coming back to Windows Phone
Starting off with the most lovable Windows Phone OEM at the moment ‘ Nokia’ . According to Daniel Rubino from WPCentral Nokia’s Network Setup app is coming back to the Nokia Collection section of the Windows Phone Marketplace. Why was it pulled in the first place ? No idea . When is it coming back ? According to the folks from Nokia the app is going through the final stages of submission and should land up in the marketplace late next week ( assuming Microsoft lads approve it ). The app might not sound quite useful if you get you phone off your local carrier on a contract but if you grab an unlocked one over the internet ( which usually works out cheaper ) this could be quite handy to setup the network settings with a few clicks , instead of waiting for them folks over at your network operators customer service department to answer your call.

Climate Mission 3D released for Windows Phone
Surprise Surprise .. it’s another news item about Nokia this time from WMPU. Nokia has released its game ” Climate Mission 3D ” exclusive to Nokia Lumia devices ( on Windows Phone , the game did exist on its Symbian platform ). You play to reduce global warming by completing a series of challenges which include merging small ice blocks to get a bigger one , plating trees by lobing the fruits in different directions or guiding ants to collect fallen leaves. When the game was originally released on Symbian users could vote for different projects ( from Oxfam, WWF and IUCN ) with the voting ballots they earn by playing the game and Nokia would make a donation to that campaign. I am not sure if that still exists on the Windows Phone version. You can grab the game here

Little Acorns and Sally’s Spa will be xBox Live Titles
2 new xBox live title info has been discovered by the best Windows Phone gamer in the world via wpdaily. The games are ‘Little Acorns‘ and ‘Sally’s Spa’. After running a successful Salon, Sally is back in town this time backing a Spa. With Little Acorns you are looking at a cute platformer that has done well for itself on the iOS. We will keep you guys posted on when these will come out on Windows Phone. Don’t forget to check out our early look at last weeks Final Fantasy on Windows Phone if you are a RPG fan.

Speculations about windows phone 8
With the June 20th sneak peak in to Windows Phone’s future fast approaching we have seen many speculations on what will be coming in Windows Phone 8. Liveside has thrown together a list of stuff that you can expect to see. We expect the following stuff to pop up in WP8 :

• Nokia Maps with 3D navigation will replace Bing Maps on Windows Phone
• Skype will finally be integrated in to the OS ( our own Yanko is going to show us his concept design for it next week. So if you have any ideas go to the post there and throw em in there and he will take a look at it)
• Windows Phone Wallet : if NFC is supported by Windows Phone 8 ( we think it will ) , contact-less payment + a lot of other goodies here we come
• Voice Control gets kicked up a notch

I am not yet convinced about Native code development and VOIP integration coming to Windows Phone 8 just yet.

Copy Paste Directions from Map on Windows Phone
To Sum up today’s news here is a Pro Tip for Map users : ( credits to Sorry_Wrong_Story on reddit for the find )
When in maps you can click and hold the destination to copy the directions to the clipboard which you can easily paste to an email or SMS. This can be quite handy when you want to give directions to a lost friend.

Got Tips for tomorrows news ? Drop em here