Microsoft has replaced the wireless sync in Zune desktop and Windows Phone 7 with the cloud in Windows Phone 8. The “devices and services” strategy coming along nicely for Microsoft.

Windows Phone 8 Sync: Really Taking You to the Cloud

Despite being tempted by iOS and iPhone, I have decided to stick with Windows Phone. See why.

Why I Decided to Stick with Windows Phone

The official Twitter app for Windows Phone finally gets notifications. It is finally an app I don’t feel ashamed to recommend!

Twitter for Windows Phone Gets Updated: Notifications, Finally!

Some quiet updates on Windows Phone related to aspects of Twitter. Sign of things to come?

Windows Phone Native Social Features Keep Getting Updated Quietly

Nokia announces partnerships with major brands to bring their apps to Lumia and other Windows Phones. Is Nokia really the “real” Windows Phone maker?

Nokia Provides More Evidence of Being the “real” Windows Phone Maker

In my series comparing iPhone 4S to Windows Phone (Nokia Lumia 800), I look at the amazing Retina display.

iPhone 4S Used by a Windows Phone User: Screen

In my series comparing iPhone 4S to Windows Phone (Nokia Lumia 800), I compare setup and out of the box experience.

iPhone 4S Used by a Windows Phone User: Out Of the Box Experience, Setup

I start using iPhone 4S as my primary phone to compare the experience to my Nokia Lumia 800 Windows Phone. I document what I like and what I don’t like.

New Series: iPhone 4S Used by a Windows Phone User

If you are not aware of the “Blown Away by Lumia” contest, it is the Nokia’s version of “Smoked By Windows Phone” contest started by Ben Rudolph of Microsoft, at the 2012 Consumer Electornics Show (CES) in Las Vegas. Nokia took that contest global, and here are some videos of former Miss World Priyanka Chopra competing with challengers with various smartphones and beating them. Quite cool, although she comes off as a bit too chirpy.

www.youtube.com/watch

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Nokia’s had a roller coaster fortnight. What matters though, is the Lumia 900 seems to be selling well. Is it enough to mark Nokia’s comeback? Time will tell.

Nokia’s Roller Coaster Fortnight

Nokia Lumia 900 reviews are out. A look at why Nokia and Microsoft have a problem with the device and the platform when it comes to reviews and reviewers. Perception is reality, right? The Problem with Reviewing the Nokia Lumia 900

Plex, the “media center” software application built for a multitude of devices, has a Windows Phone app now. They wrote up a blog post about it and while I am excited that there is a WP7 app now, it was heartening to see the praise they had for WP7 both from a user’s perspective as well as from a developer’s perspective.

There are so many gems in that post, I felt compelled to not only write this blog post, but highlight a bunch of the gems from the post:

Android phones never managed to capture my interest. They just looked and felt like bad photocopies of the iPhone, and didn’t offer anything new I was interested in, like the ability to install a custom theme that looked even uglier than the default, or download torrents on my phone, or play a Matrix animation in the background, or remove my battery, or spend time killing random processes, or over-clock my CPU, or any other beardy sort of thing.

Fast-forward to this January, I ordered a second hand Samsung device to help with development, and promptly fell in love with it.

As much as Android felt like (poorly) recycled ideas and bad new ones, Windows Phone felt original, well designed, and fun to use.

The performance was great, really smooth in a way iOS is and Android isn’t even in ICS.

The “pivot” and “panorama” UI concepts were fresh and a great way of making good use of a small screen in portrait mode. The typography was clean and brazen.

The integration of Facebook and Twitter made them feel like first class citizens, not an afterthought.

The live tiles on the home screen were a great way to make the phone feel alive.

But the iPhone felt staid, for lack of a better word. I wanted to be able to pin a few email folders to my home screen and watch them update live. I wanted to see all my social updates in a more integrated way. I missed being able to go to a contact (which I could also pin to my home screen), and easily see the conversations (Facebook, or SMS) I was having with them, and recent photos they’d uploaded.

The iOS development environment is quite good, with the weakest link being Objective-C, which has a steep learning curve and feels like it stepped out of the 80s with a cocaine hangover.

Android, oh, Android, I don’t mean to pick on you once again, but your edit-build-deploy cycle is long enough to make a grown man cry, and then stab himself in the eyeballs, and then cry some more. Java is fine, but the surrounding environment and piss-poor emulator makes it much harder to develop for than it should be.

So how is the Windows Phone development environment? It’s scary good. C# is a great language, .NET is a solid framework, XAML is a really nice way to design user interfaces, and the edit-build-deploy cycle is fast.

We were able to write the [WP7] app from start to finish in two months, between two engineers working part time, which is almost an order of magnitude faster than it took for the iOS and Android app.

58 minutes later an a new wp7 Instagram client is born. I think that's a record for me (but #nuget helped me along the way)

— Bil Simser (@bsimser) January 13, 2012

My last thought on Windows Phone is that it’s got all the ingredients it needs to be successful: It’s a fun, useful, well-designed platform, with sexy (Nokia) hardware, and it’s as good for developers as it is for users. It deserves much more marketshare than it has, and Microsoft seems to be making most of the right moves (about time).

Hope to see many others release their WP7 apps. Are you listening, Instagram?

Wow. Just wow. PCMag’s Sascha Segan just tweeted some astounding results from their Readers' Choice Awards for smartphone OSes:

Windows Phone 7 and iOS pound Android to take Reader's Choice for smartphone OSes. Big win for MS. pcmag.com/article2/0,281…

— saschasegan (@saschasegan) March 28, 2012

iPhone and - get this - HTC Trophy triumph in our user survey of Verizon Wireless smartphones. pcmag.com/article2/0,281…

— saschasegan (@saschasegan) March 28, 2012

Samsung Windows Phones rate as our users' favorite handsets on AT&T. Not the iPhone. pcmag.com/article2/0,281…

— saschasegan (@saschasegan) March 28, 2012

@saschasegan Very weird. So conclusion is, Android users don't read PCMag, then?

— Romit Mehta (@TheRomit) March 28, 2012

@TheRomit No, we had far more Android phone responders than Windows Phone. Android owners just gave lower ratings.

— saschasegan (@saschasegan) March 28, 2012

As you can see, I was a bit skeptical about the Android bit because Verizon Wireless, especially, has sold a ton of Android phones, of all shapes and sizes. Turns out, Android owners don’t quite like their phones/OS. It’s not surprising, most Android phones start out cool (or “not iPhone”) but they deteriorate over time with battery issues, lags, etc.

Windows Phone and iOS on the other hand, have extremely high satisfaction rates, and it shows through these Readers' Choice Awards. Another interesting thing, on AT&T, the Samsung Windows Phones rated higher than the iPhone. Whaaaa?

Regardless, as an unabashed fan of Windows Phone, I am delighted with this!

Does Tango restrict developer capability so apps can target lower-end (256MB) devices? Per Justin Angel, Principal Engr at Nokia, not really.

Calm Down, Windows Phone Developers. Tango is Good for You!

It has been a year since Nokia announced it was adopting Windows Phone as its smartphone platform. A review of the past year.

One Year On: Nokia Has Come a Long Way, Still Has a Very Long Way to Go

Windows Live now allows you to connect to Google to keep contacts in sync. Is this is prepration for native support of Google services in WP7/W8?

Windows Live Now Connects to Google Contacts: Google Talk Coming to Windows Phone and Windows 8?

Hands on with Nokia Drive and Nokia Transport, two location-based apps which come with Nokia Windows Phone devices.

Hands on with Nokia Drive and Nokia Transport

Video of the ESPN app for Nokia Windows Phones.

Nokia Windows Phone ESPN App Walkthrough

Budget smartphone with free built-in turn-by-turn navigation and 2D/3D maps ($100 value, at least)? Check. The Nokia Lumia 710. For $50.

[youtube [www.youtube.com/watch](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mDECIwJPWBk?wmode=transparent])

Sexy, large-screen, 4G LTE-enabled, dual-camera boasting smartphone? Check. The Nokia Lumia 900. Coming soon.

[youtube [www.youtube.com/watch](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c1qurHPAeDA?wmode=transparent])

I was able to get some pictures of the Nokia Lumia 900 at the Nokia booth at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES).

Nokia Lumia 900: My Hands-On from CES 2012

Microsoft’s Ben Rudolph runs yet another awesome campaign to show non-Windows Phone users how they phone is slower than Windows Phone. Puts $100 on it!

Microsoft’s Ben Rudolph with Yet Another Cool Campaign (#smokedbywindowsphone): Smokes Galaxy Nexus, iPhone 4S, Others

After a blog post created large-scale uproar, Microsoft clarifies the state of Windows Phone updates. It’s business as usual.

Windows Phone Executive: It’s “Business as Usual” with Windows Phone Updates

Windows Phone engineering team did a fantastic job after NoDo update fiasco - increased transparency and forced carriers/OEMs to synchronize. Sadly, that story seems to be ending.

Windows Phone Updates Are Now Completely Opaque

My wish list for Windows Phone for 2012.

My 2012 Wish List for Windows Phone