Just in time for Christmas, Microsoft launches Digital Gift Cards for Windows Phone

It’s the time of year when attention turns to buying gifts. Black Friday is now out of the way, but there's still Cyber Monday for you to stock up on low-cost presents for yourself and others. There are plenty of electronic devices vying for attention as companies try to tempt you into parting with your cash, but if you're the indecisive type, there's always the trusty fall-back of the gift card.

Keen to give you as many ways as possible to throw your money in its direction, Microsoft has launched Digital Gift Cards for Windows Phone. This is an app that does very much what you would expect, making it possible to buy and share gift cards from the comfort of your Windows Phone. But Microsoft isn’t stupid. The gift cards themselves are not limited to Windows Phone purchases -- they can be used to buy apps, games, movies and music from Xbox and Windows stores.

Great for a last-minute gift, the digital gift cards are emailed out the instant payment is made. Bringing the gift card idea to mobile devices is interesting. Should you find yourself out shopping and unable to locate the perfect gift for your friends and family, you can opt to sort out all of your gift buying over a coffee -- send a batch of gift cards and leave your loved ones to decide what they would like to buy for themselves.

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Microsoft to reveal Windows Phone 10 features alongside Windows 10 Consumer Preview in late January

Last week, WinBeta exclusively revealed a number of new features which are set to make an appearance with the Consumer Preview in 2015. Within that story, we mentioned that Windows Phone 10 was also in the plans for an unveiling alongside Windows 10, which was also confirmed by The Verge recently.

Microsoft recently stated issuing Windows Phone 10 to partners. The first Windows Phone 10 build that was issued was 8.15.xxxxx, notice how the build number is 8.15 and not 10.0. Windows Phone is yet to catch up with the NT kernel change, and WinBeta is unable to confirm whether the build number will jump from 8.15 to 10.0 anytime soon.

Still, Windows Phone 10 is slated for an unveiling alongside the Windows 10 Consumer Preview in late January. Microsoft should talk about how Windows Phone and Windows 10 are the same in the Consumer Preview, and we're expecting a preview for phones to be released alongside the Consumer Preview as well, hopefully at the same time.

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Lumia 535 Smartphone Review: Microsoft's Brilliant Budget Bullet

Microsoft’s release of the Lumia 535 Windows Phone is a critical moment in Redmond’s mobile mission. Not that every handset release shouldn’t be regarded as critical (it’s never too early to start #failing), but the Lumia 535 comes at an important transitional time for the company as it is aimed at a vital market for the continued adoption of Windows Phone.

The Windows Phone project, for all the talk of high-end handset, impressive camera specifications, tight integration with enterprise and cloud services, has found much of its success at the low-end of the portfolio. Primarily through Nokia’s expertise in shifting high volumes of low-cost handsets, the Lumia 520 was seen not just as a success for Nokia, but a success for all of Windows Phone. Its low price and powerful facilities (due in part to the lesser specifications required from the hardware because of the design of Windows Phone) meant that dollar-for-dollar it was easy to call the Lumia 520 a success.

Now the 520′s successor in the form of the Lumia 535 is here. It has to content with the championship status of its predecessor, it has to deliver Microsoft’s marketing message for mobile to the low-end, primarily to the BRIC countries, and it has to do all of this without the power of ‘brand Nokia’ to back it.

All of these areas focus more on strategy rather than hardware, because that’s the nature of today’s mobile market – interdependence and connectedness of online services and personal networks, over and above the hardware. Microsoft has delivered a handset that, in my opinion, comfortably provides for the former  to be achieved. The first critical goal – solid and dependable hardware – has been reached and SIM free price of 110 Euros before tax ($135) is incredibly competitive.

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Black Friday 2014: Carphone Warehouse offering several discounted Windows Phone handsets

It's Black Friday, and this means you get to buy a wide range of products at amazing discounts. If you're residing in the UK, Carphone Warehouse is offering a flash sale on a number of flagship devices, including a number of Windows Phone handsets. The sale is valid from today until Tuesday so you need to act fast if the list contains any of your favorite Windows Phone handset. There's no high-end Windows Phone handset in the list such as the Lumia 930 or the Lumia 1520, but you can grab the likes of the Lumia 830 and 735.

Carphone Warehouse is offering several handsets, pay monthly and pay-as-you-go, at great discounts. Starting with the pay monthly plans, the retailer has waived off the upfront costs from most of the Windows Phones it's offering. Customers can grab a Lumia 735 for £0 upfront and £13 a month, a discount of £29.99 on the upfront cost. It's not just the Lumia 735, the affordable flagship device is also available for £0 and £18 a month, dropping the £49.99 upfront cost on the handset.

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Windows Phone 8.1 Finally Breaks The 50% Market Share Threshold

Windows Phone 8.1 accounted for more than 50 percent of all Windows Phone usage in November. It closed October with 46.7 percent of the market.

Windows Phone 8, its predecessor, still controls 33.5 percent of the Windows Phone base. That amount will decline as more carriers update phones that were initially sold with an earlier version of the Windows Phone platform.

Also worth noting in the above data is the 95 percent of the market that Microsoft controls. Microsoft wants both its gross sales figures to rise, and its percentage of the Windows Phone market to decrease. Microsoft would be far happier to sell twice the phones, at 80 percent of the market, than sell a few more, and control 95 percent — third-party OEM support is critical to the long-term health of Windows Phone. That’s not conjecture. The company wouldn’t be working to expand OEM uptake of Windows Phone if it didn’t want to see a more diverse manufacturer base for the platform.

At the same time, for us nerds, the 95 percent figure — and its likely only small change in December — means we’ll be able to quickly estimate the total Windows Phone handsets sold in the current calendar fourth quarter, Microsoft’s fiscal second. Extrapolating from Microsoft’s raw reported unit volume to the entire market’s size is simpler the larger the company’s personal market share remains.

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Windows Phone Stats: November 2014

In this month's look at Windows Phone handset usages, we see an important milestone being crossed, a big push by this year's low-end devices, and—finally!—news of new Microsoft Lumia handsets, including a few that might be marketed as flagship devices.

As you may remember, AdDuplex bills itself as the largest cross-promotion network for Windows Phone and Windows 8 apps, empowering developers and publishers to promote their apps for free by helping each other. And each month it provides a tantalizing glimpse at which Windows Phone (and Windows) devices people are actually using.

Here's what's happening with Windows Phone usage this month.

Lumia 630/635 continue upward. The Lumia 520 is still in the number one spot with 26.3 percent usage (or 30.2 percent if you add in the 521, which is fair), but its 2014-era replacement, the Lumia 630/635 is doing quite well, with the 630 taking third place in usage, with 7.1 percent, up from 6.4 percent last month. Ad Duplex notes that the Lumia 630 and 635 are "the most popular" of Microsoft/Nokia's 2014 devices. And sure enough, in the US, the 630 and 635 combine for 18.1 percent of the market, good for second place behind the 520/521 with 34 percent of the market.

Windows Phone 8.1 takes over. This month, Windows Phone 8.1 represents over 50 percent of total usage—50.8 percent to be exact—meaning that Microsoft's new OS version is now in use on more handsets than Windows Phone 8.0 (33.5 percent) and Windows Phone 7.x (15.7 percent) combined.

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VLC Media Player For Windows Phone Closed Beta Arrives

The sign-up program for VLC Media Player for Windows Phone beta was filled up in just a few hours after it was announced yesterday, which means that the long-awaited beta of VLC Media Player for Windows Phone is close to a release. One ought to remember that this happens to be a closed beta – at least in the here and now so only those who were successful in signing up yesterday would have the pleasure of giving this version a go.

VLC happens to be an extremely popular media player that is used mostly on desktop machines that run on the Windows platform, but it is nice to know that the team behind the VLC project has sweated it out in order to port the app over to the far more modern environment of Windows 8, followed on by a potential release on the mobile Windows Phone platform in due time.

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