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A bit of news that squeaked out during the Win8 festivities was the launch of the Microsoft app store. In the version of the software I was using, the app has always been there but it wasn’t available until today. To be clear, the app store here is still in its absolute infancy and is, at best, a hall of demos for various app providers.

The real test of Windows 8 will be the adoption of the OS’s new design paradigms. While everyone will eventually have to fix their apps to reflect Win8′s major architecture changes, there is going to be a lot of hand-holding until the Win9 (potentially) destroys all vestigial Windows cruft. For example, Windows 8 still uses a legacy version of the registry inside Windows 8, a necessary evil required by many applications. Many apps won’t be able to update to Win8 UI standards and many more apps won’t trickle over to the Microsoft app store. It’s this disconnect that will challenge Windows 8 in the first few years of life.

Microsoft knows this yet the Windows business model won’t allow for anything different. The biggest complaint non-die-hards will have with Win8 is the dependence on the old Windows XP desktop. When I asked the Microsoft spokesfolks about this, they explained that the desktop experience was still the best way to interact with files on a general purpose computer, a concept that Microsoft is surely hoping will go away over the next few years.

The real problem, then, will be app store adoption and, more important, the desire by devs to program for Metro as opposed to “Windows” as we once knew it. Metro will require a new set of tools as well as a new aesthetic and the vector-based graphics do not lend themselves to the usual Windows monstrosities in-house programming teams have been rolling out over the past decade. User experience, once a second or third tier concern, is now at the forefront and the crutch of XP mode will reduce the impetus of the average programmer to really ramp up these dormant skills.

All is not lost. Microsoft has a lot of money and they’ve been evangelizing their new platform to programmers, both desktop and mobile, by offering test hardware and cash incentives. The Metro UI also lends itself to “mini-apps” (Twitter clients, email apps, etc.) that, for the time being, are being built in Adobe Air, and games like Cut the Rope. The hardest thing will be to recreating the experience of dragging and dropping lots of files from place to place and editing major documents in Windows 8, another reason the XP mode is important.

In the end, Microsoft is facing a hard, long road. They have an entrenched user base and an entrenched system for the distribution of apps. Unlike their mobile offerings, people have been installing the same apps the same way since time immemorial. To change the way Windows works so drastically – from the way programmers program to the way users interact with applications to the way those applications are sold – is a bold endeavor and one fraught with peril. It will take quite a while, but rest assured Microsoft will force everyone to move over to their new way of thinking. The question is how long will it take for these changes to become generally accepted and how often will people throw their hands up in exasperation when things aren’t working like they “used to?”

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• WINDOWS

Windows is a series of software operating systems produced by Microsoft. Windows was first introduced in 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces. Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world’s personal computer market, overtaking Mac OS, which had been previously introduced.

Learn more

Verizon Wireless announced Tuesday that it will start selling the Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.7 tablet on March 1 in its online and physical stores. The price: $500 with a 2-year contract.

That’s a lot to pay for a 7-inch tablet. Assuming you sign up for Verizon’s 4G LTE mobile broadband package, which costs $30 per month for 2 GB of data, you’ll pay handsomely to use the Galaxy Tab 7.7: $1,220 over two years.

Yes, you could buy six Kindle Fires for that sum. And the Verizon offer may be yet another sign that Samsung is out of touch with tablet shoppers.

Take a quick look at the 7-inch color tablet market. What’s selling the most? Amazon’s $200 Kindle Fire, of course. Barnes Noble’s Nook Tablet, available in 8GB ($200) or 16GB ($250) configurations, is also doing well.

Kindle FireIn a features contest, neither the Kindle Fire nor the Nook Tablet comes close to the Galaxy Tab 7.7, which is clearly the superior slate with 4G LTE wireless, front and back cameras, a faster processor, and a sharper Super AMOLED Plus, 1280 by 800-pixel display.

Great specs, certainly. But not many of us want a diminutive slate that’s six times the price of a Kindle Fire or Nook Tablet, both of which are perfectly capable devices for reading, browsing, video-viewing, and so on.

The Galaxy Tab 7.7 has 4G LTE, you say? Well, it appears most consumers would rather save a few bucks and stick with Wi-Fi. A recent survey by The NPD Group’s Connected Intelligence service shows that tablet owners overwhelming prefer Wi-Fi-only devices over those with cellular connections.

As media reports from this week’s Mobile World Congress in Barcelona suggest, Samsung’s tablet strategy isn’t working. According to CNET, Samsung executive Hankil Yoon dropped this bombshell on reporters at the show: “Honestly, we’re not doing very well in the tablet market.”

Samsung is trying a new, price-sensitive approach, however. It recently unveiled its Galaxy Tab 2 family of lower-cost Android 4.0 tablets, including 7- and 10.1-inch models, which will begin shipping globally in March.

Contact Jeff Bertolucci at Today@PCWorld, Twitter (@jbertolucci) or jbertolucci.blogspot.com.

ZTE Orbit first Windows Phone with real NFC

ZTE has confirmed that the Orbit should be the first Windows Phone with NFC. Both the booth display and zpokespeople confirmed both to The Verge and Electronista that it would have the short-range wireless when carriers ask for it. Specific use cases weren’t outlined, although providers’ requests could point to mobile payments.

Microsoft did say that Windows Phone 7.5 had a form of passive support for NFC. Developers could include the chipset and build their own native apps to access it, the company’s Greg Sullivan said. However, Microsoft itself hadn’t written any explicit OS or app support so far.

On our own searching through the phone, the only unusual elements were “zBig Boss Settings” and “zStart KITL,” which could just be pre-release prototyping.

The Windows developer has already mentioned NFC support coming in 2012. That timeframe is now believed to have been narrowed down to the Apollo release that many refer to unofficially as Windows Phone 8. ZTE itself has referred to the Orbit’s version of Windows Phone 7 as the long-rumored Tango 2 update and would leave nothing but Apollo left for this year.

By Electronista Staff

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Microsoft is bullet-proofing email on Windows Phone in an effort to follow Apple and Google into the workplace.

Redmond has announced a deal with Good Technology to make Good for Enterprise available for use on Windows Phone 7.5 devices.

The US mobile specialist will deliver FIPS-certified, 192-bit AES encrypted messaging for Windows Phone devices, potentially making it easier for employees to bring their own phones to the office for work. The service will be available in the second quarter.

Good for Enterprise secures Microsoft Outlook or Lotus Notes for iPhones, iPads and Android for enterprise use. The company claims its service provides “military-grade security, end-to-end data loss prevention, and collaboration” for security and compliance to over 4,000 enterprise customers.

The news came in the week Microsoft effectively revealed the update to Windows Phone – codenamed Tango – without actually using the code name. Microsoft said, simply, that Windows Phone was being updated to enable it to run on phones with less memory and slower processors than currently available. Accompanying the news was Microsoft’s announcement that the Tango update to Windows Phone 7.5 would run on the Nokia Lumia 610 phone. ®

BARCELONA—Tango is not a thing. While Microsoft is plowing ahead on getting Windows Phone into lower-cost devices in more countries, the OS update previously known as “Tango” is just being rolled into Windows Phone 7.5, Windows Phone senior product manager Greg Sullivan said in an interview with journalists today.

“This is Windows Phone 7.5. It’s a refresh,” Sullivan said.

Gaining Windows Phone, but Losing Multitasking
Whether or not Tango is a thing, there have been some changes to the Windows Phone platform this week. The OS now runs on Qualcomm 7×27 processors and in 256MB of RAM, enabling lower-cost phones. Nokia and ZTE have announced the first two low-cost Windows Phones, the Nokia 610 and the ZTE Orbit, both coming out in the second quarter of the year. The 610 will cost around $250 before subsidy, meaning it could easily be free with contract.

But using a slower processor means some performance tradeoffs, most notably the loss of Windows Phone’s multitasking (except for background audio) and slower performance for apps that use a lot of memory. Local Scout is also gone, as it stored a large amount of data in RAM.

“Some apps have memory issues and they will invoke paging, the ability for apps to page in and out of RAM,” Sullivan said. “That can affect the performance. The browser pages after a certain memory limit.”

Microsoft tested the system with the top 400 Web pages, but some very heavy pages will have to page out of RAM, affecting performance, Sullivan said.

And even though Tango is primarily designed to enable low-cost devices for a wider range of countries than Windows Phones have appeared in before, it’ll bring a few new features to higher-end phones as well. The OS update adds the ability to attach multiple pictures, audio notes and ringtones to MMS messages, for instance.

The update will come to phones during the second quarter of this year, Sullivan said.

New Features for New Chips
Several of Microsoft’s phone-making partners released new devices this week with cool new hardware, whether it’s HTC’s Image Sense camera processor or Nokia’s PureView 41-megapixel camera. I asked Sullivan whether and when Windows Phone would support these innovations, and he said Microsoft was working on the ability to support proprietary OEM hardware extensions beyond the basic application processor. Could there be an “HTC One W” in the future?

“We’re working with [phone makers] to enable exactly that,” he said. “I don’t want to comment on what [the phone makers] said, but we’re working with them on the ability to do exactly that.”

One company isn’t waiting. The ZTE Orbit has NFC built in, but Windows Phone doesn’t currently support NFC. OEMs can build their own NFC apps, and Microsoft plans to roll NFC into a later release of the platform, Sullivan said.

“NFC is on the roadmap,” he said.

What About Verizon and Sprint?
Windows Phone has a major uphill climb, though. While it now has 65,000 apps and more than a dozen phones available worldwide, the platform has gotten little sales traction in its first year. That’s in part because Apple has defined the terms of the marketing conversation, Sullivan said, and Windows Phone is very different–and in his view, of course, better.

“I think people have had a usage model foisted upon them and they don’t realize why it sucks,” Sullivan said. “Apple has invested a tremendous amount of money in equating the phrase ‘there’s an app for that’ with the value of a smartphone. Applications are the lifeblood of any platform and the economics of platforms are wholly dependent on applications that run on them, but…we think the phone should bring information to you…and enable complete end-to-end scenarios that help you do what you want to do. We’re confident that the user experience we’ve designed enables people to get to the stuff that matters to them,” he said.

Of course, it would help if Windows Phones were available to more consumers in the U.S. Verizon and Sprint, especially, have had extremely thin selections. Windows Phone didn’t launch with CDMA support in the OS, which sapped momentum there.

“The initial delay in the platform capability of CDMA may have impacted the investment by OEMs in devices so we’ll see a resultant lag,” Sullivan said. “Verizon and Sprint are both very important partners in the U.S., and we have teams that work with both of them.”

Back at CES, Sprint’s David Owens said the carrier would take another look at Windows Phones late this summer, when Windows Phone 8 is rumored to be announced. While Sullivan wouldn’t comment on that time frame, that could be an opportunity for Microsoft to turn this around.

For more, see the MWC photo gallery below and our complete Mobile World Congress coverage.

For the top stories in tech, follow us on Twitter at @PCMag.

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BURLINGTON, Mass. BARCELONA, Spain, Feb 27, 2012 (BUSINESS WIRE) –
Nuance Communications


/quotes/zigman/98548/quotes/nls/nuan NUAN
+2.46%



today announced that its Dragon
Voicemail to Text service is included in the Visual Voicemail offering
from T-Mobile USA Inc. Dragon transcribes voice messages into text,
which are then delivered directly to mobile phones via text message or
to the user’s T-Mobile(R) Visual Voicemail inbox. This allows
T-Mobile customers to read their voicemails in whatever order they
choose instead of having to listen to them one at a time.

Nuance’s Dragon Voicemail to Text service features the same
industry-leading voice recognition technology at the heart of the
renowned Dragon Mobile apps and Dragon NaturallySpeaking. Replying to
voicemails is easy and convenient for T-Mobile customers, with the
ability to respond via text message virtually anytime, anywhere.
Further, messages can be stored or forwarded, and consumers always have
the ability to listen to their audio voicemails in any order they choose.

“Voicemail to Text offers a convenient way to handle voice messages and
is consistent with T-Mobile’s vision to provide our customers more
service options to easily stay connected,” said Alex Samano, director
and GM of communication services, T-Mobile USA. “Our partnership with
Nuance is not only powering Voicemail to Text, it will also drive future
innovations to enrich communications virtually wherever our customers
are.”

“We all have a love-hate relationship with voicemail — we need to stay
connected, but hate taking the time to listen to and manage voice
messages on the go,” said John Pollard, vice president and general
manager, voice-to-text services, Nuance Mobile. “In an environment where
consumers expect to receive messages with the same instant gratification
of text messaging and email, Dragon Voicemail to Text gives
forward-thinking carriers like T-Mobile the ability to deliver essential
voice services that are state-of-the-art and perfectly in tune with
subscribers’ demands.”

Availability

T-Mobile
Voicemail to Text is integrated within the T-Mobile Visual Voicemail
application and includes unlimited voicemail-to-text transcription for
just $3.99 per month. Customers get the first 30 days free when they
subscribe to T-Mobile Visual Voicemail. Transcription is available for
voicemails received in English and Spanish. The T-Mobile Visual
Voicemail application is available for download on the Android Market
exclusively to T-Mobile customers.

For more information on Nuance’s voice-to-text offerings, visit
www.nuance.com .

About Nuance Communications, Inc.

Nuance Communications, Inc.


/quotes/zigman/98548/quotes/nls/nuan NUAN
+2.46%



is a leading provider of
voice and language solutions for businesses and consumers around the
world. Its technologies, applications and services make the user
experience more compelling by transforming the way people interact with
devices and systems. Every day, millions of users and thousands of
businesses experience Nuance’s proven applications. For more
information, please visit
www.nuance.com .

Nuance and the Nuance logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of
Nuance Communications, Inc. or its subsidiaries in the United States of
America and/or other countries. All other company names or product names
may be the trademarks of their respective owners.

The statements in this press release relating to future plans or
future events or service, are forward-looking statements which are
subject to specific risks and uncertainties. These could involve
particular market trends, competition factors and other risks described
in the documents submitted to the US Securities and Exchange Commission.
The actual results, events and services may vary significantly from the
forecasts. The reader is warned not to rely on these forward-looking
statements without reservation, since these are simply reflections of
the current situation.

SOURCE: Nuance Communications

        Nuance:
        Nuance Communications
        Rebecca Paquette, (781) 565-5264
        rebecca.paquette@nuance.com

Copyright Business Wire 2012

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Add NUAN to portfolio

NUAN

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Add NUAN to portfolio

NUAN

What’s the hardest thing about building a successful mobile app? If you answered “building a mobile app,” you’re wrong. It’s getting your app found. With over 600,000+ iOS applications, and now some 450,000 on Android, the real challenge for developers is having their app surfaced higher than hundreds of other competitors in the app store search results. Doing this correctly involves ASO, or app store optimization. It’s basically SEO repurposed for mobile, and because we’re still in the early days of the mobile ecosystem, it’s simpler to optimize apps than webpages.

But developers are often lacking knowledge, and especially tools, to help them out on this front. That’s where the newly launched App Store Optimization Keyword Volume estimator (whew!) comes in.

Don’t let the utility’s wordy, boring title fool you – this is a killer product for mobile developers. (If you want, you can pretend it’s called App Store Rockstar or something, if that makes it more palatable.) Created by AppStoreHQ, where it’s been tested internally for several weeks, the ASO Keyword tool tells app publishers how frequently a query is being searched for in the app store.

To use the tool, developers enter their app’s URL, and those from their competitors. The software will then analyze the metadata of the apps entered and make recommendations as to the most important keywords to use. This will help you see, for example, if your competitors are focusing on a particular keyword that you may be missing. It will also show you how frequently that term is being searched across app stores.

In addition to showing the keyword suggestions, the utility also shows your app’s current ranking in a chart, a graph of rankings over time, the current top 10 apps in the category and more.

Unfortunately, there is a drawback here. Google and Apple aren’t keen on sharing their exact search volume data, so the utility has to rely on third-party sources. At launch, the service is using a handful of sources, including AppStoreHQ, AppESP, Google Trends, and Appolicious. However, the plan is to add more sources in the near future. In the meantime, the data is kept up-to-date within the last 24 hours, the company tells us.

In addition, the tool only supports iOS and Android for now, but that’s obviously where the biggest issues are in terms of discovery. Case in point: just this past week, the cool universal remote app called Clik launched, leading to lots of press coverage, but the startup had problems converting users to app downloaders. Why? Because they couldn’t find the darned thing! Over the weekend, a search for “clik” in the Android Market wasn’t even showing the app on the first five pages of results. The problem has since been resolved, but it’s the kind of thing that happens all the time. Focus on product and press, forget ASO…get burned.

If you’re interested in testing out this new utility, a 30 day free trial is available. Afterwards, various pricing tiers starting at $14/month up to $99/month are offered, depending on the number of apps and reports needed. More information is here on the product’s homepage.

P.S. You can use the code TECHCRUNCH100 to get 3 months free.

• APPSTOREHQ

AppStoreHQ is a search engine and discovery platform for mobile applications and developers.

Like Techmeme in news or The Hype Machine in music, AppStoreHQ provides an authoritative and objective view of the most important mobile applications by aggregating and analyzing the commentary of the web’s most influential voices on the topic.

AppStoreHQ also offers a comprehensive directory of mobile application developers, including their current portfolio of published applications and the category(ies) of projects they specialize in.

Learn more

From Jeff Cardillo:

FlightPlanHD is the iPad version of the aviation super-tool, FlightPlan – Pilot’s Toolbox. FlightPlanHD isn’t just a port of FlightPlan – iPhone functionality, it has some special tools built in specifically designed for the larger screen format.FlightScale is built in! FlightScale is a powerful and evolving weight and balance app for the iPad. Rather than just bring over the iPhone’s weight and balance tools (that are a bit more limited because of the smaller screen) I integrated the full version of FlightScale right in to FlightPlanHD! For a full list of FlightScale’s features, such as the ability to plot non-linear fuel CGs, please read about it on the website or see the FlightScale app in the app store.The Navigation Log Calculator is a new FlightPlanHD feature that doesn’t yet exist in the iPhone version. This screen makes quick work of calculating your VFR navigation log reports.All of the tools available for the iPhone version have been brought over too, and the larger screen makes these functions more useful than ever! Take a look at the screenshots showing airport data etc. FlightPlan has lots of functions and a fairly complete list is detailed below, but some specifics may be omitted for space limitations. For more screenshots and information please visit the dedicated website for my aviation software. I always welcome feedback from users and will continue improving the products for you.Conversions: – Avgas kilograms and gal (US) conversion – Avgas kilograms and litres conversion – Avgas Pounds (lbs) and Gallons – Avgas Pounds (lbs) and Litres – Celsius and Fahrenheit – Feet and Meters – Gallons (Imperial) and Litres – Gallons (US) and Litres – Inches of Mercury to Millibars – Jet-A1 kilograms and gal (US) conversion – Jet-A1 kilograms and litres conversion – Jet A-1 Pounds (lbs) and Gallons – Jet A-1 Pounds (lbs) and Litres – Kilograms and Pounds (lbs) – Kilometers Per Hour and Knots – Kilometers Per Hour and Mach – Kilometers and Nautical Miles – Kilometers and Statute Miles – Knots and Miles Per Hour – Latitude/Longitude Formats – Litres and Gallons (Imperial) – Litres and Gallons (US) – Nautical Miles and Statute Miles – Miles Per Hour and Knots Weather: – Wind Direction and Speed – Heat Index – Dewpoint – Density Altitude – Pressure Altitude – Cumuliform Cloud Base – Temperature from PA and DA – METARs – TAFs Navigation: – Climb Gradient to Climb Rate – Course, Ground Speed, Wind Correction Angle – Course/Distance from 2 Lat/Lon Coords (GPS or manual entry!) – Critical Point – Distance for Descent – Distance from Time Ground Speed – Heading, Ground Speed, Wind Correction Angle – Leg Calculator – Minimum Flight Level – Rate and Radius of Turn – Rate of Descent – Required Ground Speed – Runway Crosswind with Gusts – True Airspeed, Density Altitude, Pressure Altitude – Time En-route – True Airspeed (Rule of Thumb) – Wind Star – Airports (AirNav.com) – Global Airport Data – Global Navaids – NOTAMs TFRs from NIFC Fuel: – Bingo Fuel – Endurance – Flex Weight Take Off – Fuel Burn – Fuel Rate – Fuel Uplift – Fuel Volume to Weight – Fuel Weight to Volume – Joker Fuel – Point of No Return Weight and Balance with Envelope Plot!: – Small Aircraft – Medium aircraft – Helicopters MyLinks: – Allows users to create links to helpful websites from within FlightPlan. Some useful sites may be specialized local airport and weather data sites for your country! News: – Gives users a way to check for any FlightPlan related news right from the software

What’s new in this version: FlightScale updates- Lateral Envelope Analysis and Graphing! – Minor graphing tweaks

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Tue Feb 28, 2012 11:13am EST