The Windows Phone team has updated their blog with a reminder to users running a version of Windows Phone below v7.5 (aka Mango) to update their device with the latest version in order to continue to have access to the Marketplace on both the web and on the device.

The move is being made to continue making improvements to the Marketplace and Microsoft needs to move users to the latest update to do so.

If you have never upgraded you phone’s software, you will need to connect the device to your PC and run the Zune PC software and follow the onscreen instructions to begin the process.

AT&T is the premiere carrier for Windows Ph0one and has been from the start. Offering the widest selection of devices for the platform by far, AT&T has a lot to gain if Microsoft’s new mobile platform takes off and the CEO of AT&T wireless, Ralph de la Vega, believes it will happen.

We’ve seen very good signs that users are starting to adopt Windows Phone as a viable third smartphone platform and according to the AT&T CEO, the Lumia 900 has exceeded expectations and expects the launch of Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8 to add considerable value to the mobile platform.

Speaking at the JP Morgan technology conference, De La Vega notes:

I am really pleased with what I am seeing out of Microsoft and Nokia coming out with their first product. The operating system works really well. It is simple, it is easy to use, it is intuitive.

The reception to the Lumia launch has actually exceeded our expectations. So we think there is a very good chance that Microsoft will have a very good OS that will be right in there with iOS and Android.

When they come out with Windows 8 in the fourth quarter, I think it will actually add to the value that that OS brings to the marketplace, in that that will be the first time that you can truly have a similar experience on your PC, on your tablet, and on your smartphone from soft Microsoft. From what I have seen and the previews that I have been given, I think it is going to be exceptionally good. I am very upbeat in what they are bringing to the market.

Microsoft has an event planned for Windows Phone in mid-June where we expect they will make some announcements about Windows Phone 8 and the future of the platform. Windows 8 is believed to be finalized in time for the holiday season. Together, the two may converge into a dominant single platform for the Redmond giant.

Source: ZDNet

Wrigley and Microsoft have combined forces to bring a candy and Kinect Sports-inspired title to Windows Phone. The title is free for all users and features three mini-games (basketball, baseball and football) where the users flicks a ball into the net, through the uprights or into the stands.

The mini-game takes the look and feel of the Kinect Sports titles for the Xbox 360 and gives users the ability to play for fun or for prizes by entering codes from candy packaging. Here’s the Marketplace description:

Play the free mobile sports game as colorful as Skittles®, Starburst® and Life Savers® Gummies® – and inspired by Kinect Sports: Season Two.

Candy Sports challenges your skills in baseball, football and basketball. Hit it out. Kick it through. Shoot it for two. Earn trophies. Candy Sports puts realistic, fast-paced action right in the palm of your hand!

SKITTLES® BASEBALL

You’re the batter in colorful Skittles Stadium. Go to bat and blast your way through 5 challenging levels. Power it over the wall. Nail targets with your screaming line drives. See if you’ve got the power, precision and bat control to be a star!

STARBURST® FOOTBALL

The ball is all teed up for you in Starburst Stadium. Have you got what it takes to blast it through the uprights and win the game? Step up and prove it. Kick the game-winner. Test your skills on challenging trick kicks. You’ll need an educated toe and nerves of steel to defeat all 5 championship levels!

LIFE SAVERS® GUMMIES® BASKETBALL

You’ve got the basketball in your hands in Life Savers Gummies Arena. So what could be more natural than to shoot it through the hole? Fill ’er up from all over the court. Drain incredible trick shots. Conquer 5 mind-bending levels and show you know how to deliver in the clutch!

WIN. COLLECT TROPHIES. POST ’EM ON FACEBOOK. BE A CHAMPION!

You can find the Candy Sports game for free in the web Marketplace here.

Kantar Worldpanel has released share figures for the smartphone market for the last 12 weeks (up until April 15th) and it seems that Windows Phone has finally taken hold and is climbing faster than the exodus from previous Windows Mobile customers.

Based on their findings, Windows Phone has grown in the US from 1.9% at the end of 2011 to 3.6% here in early 2012. Keep in mind that these numbers include a number of weeks before the Nokia Lumia 900 was available in the US, so the increase may be significantly larger if we base our assumptions on the popularity and lack of availability for the 900 lately.

Other market share numbers from around the world are also encouraging. Windows Phone found increases in the German market with 6.2%. Both Great Britain and France are hovering around 3%. Numbers worldwide should continue to rise on the release of the Lumia 610 in emerging markets as well as the worldwide availability of the Lumia 900.

All in all, the news is very positive and points Windows Phone in the right direction just before an official announcement about the future of Windows Phone and Windows Phone development at the Microsoft event in mid-June.

via TechCrunch

As a followup to the original favorite tower defense title, geoDefense, geoDefense Swarm takes the same great-looking graphics, visuals and gameplay and adds to the action in this new sequel for Windows Phone.

In the original game, players were tasked with stopping hoards of enemies from moving to their destination along a specified path. in Swarm, users must be creative and make mazes of destruction for their enemeies using obstacles along the way. The title is now available in the Marketplace, here is the description and download link:

The Thinking Man’s Tower Defense Returns! Introducing geoDefense Swarm, the sequel to the critically acclaimed geoDefense.

geoDefense Swarm takes all the dizzying vectorized visuals, vexing challenges and highly kinetic addictive gameplay from the original, and changes the equation – instead of defeating creeps along a pre-defined path, geoDefense Swarm challenges you to use your creativity, building mazes for the creeps to navigate across obstacle-laden open levels.

NEW FEATURES

• Classic ‘Open Field’ Tower Defense Gameplay
• 30 Levels, Each With its Own Unique Challenges
• One ‘Endless’ Level in Each Difficulty Group – the Creeps Keep Comin’!
• geoDefense Swarm is OpenFeint Enabled – Featuring Online Leaderboards
• New Tower, new Creep, new Challenges!

With the ability to compete for the high score with friends on the leaderboards and exclusive Xbox LIVE achievements, this is a tower defense game like no other!

You can find the new Xbox LIVE title in the Marketplace for $2.99 with a free trial here.

I recently ran across this letter on Microsoft’s Windows Phone website. I found it interesting. An admitted Apple fanboy decided to write Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft, to voice his pleasure with his Windows Phone, a Nokia Lumia 900.

The Windows Phone team has posted the letter to Ballmer up on their site here.

From: Scott G.
Sent: Friday, April 13, 2012 1:50 PM
To: Steve Ballmer
Subject: Apple fanboy loves his Windows phone

Mr. Ballmer,

Hopefully this will get to you. Your team deserves credit for producing an excellent product in the newest version of Windows Phone. Yes, I am writing from my MacBook Pro. And I have been a fairly loyal Apple customer over the years. However, I recently bought a Nokia Lumia 900 and intend on keeping it. For full disclosure, I was sure to make sure it could be returned after a dismal experience with an Android phone.
My reasons for switching are:

1. Call quality. I actually use my phone as a phone. That concept seems to get lost in many product reviews. One of my employees actually thanked me for getting rid of my iPhone as it was so much easier to hear me. I apologize for the tedium but it means a great deal to me and my business.

1. Simplicity. My family owns five vehicles, including two Fords with Sync. The 4S didn’t support all functions in any of them. My Nokia 900 was flawless out of the box. It was refreshing to have something that just worked. I cannot afford to have my primary means of communication be a science experiment.

1. No junk software. Speaking of science experiments, I also tried a Motorola Razr. Software that cannot be deleted and restarts itself? A company with questionable privacy rules. Software that terrified my poor in-laws? I guess if you like spending your day tinkering with your phone, it’s pretty cool. Maybe it beats playing with your Star Wars dolls?

1. Simplicity again. Everything after set up has been painless as well. Adding apps, setting up email accounts, etc. I thought the iPhone was good. Your set up was actually smoother and took less time. Same for Wi-Fi, in-car Bluetooth, etc.

1. Speed. The 900 doesn’t seem to lag the way the iPhone did at times. Everything seems to execute quickly. That I don’t think about it is probably the best compliment.

1. Live Tiles. It’s a minor thing but the Metro tiles are pretty cool. I just like the look.

Best regards,

Scott G.

While we wait for true cross-platform, multiplayer gaming to come to Windows Phone, we can feast our eyes on a video that a developer put together that displays the capability between a tablet running a Windows 8 preview and a Windows Phone.

As you’ll see in the video below, a users could play each other in cross-platform gaming in real-time. Combined with the Xbox and Windows 8, this could be a huge advantage for WIndows Phone over other platforms, but we need Microsoft to enable it. Hopefully we see more of this realization come to fruition when Microsoft details WIndows Phone 8 development at their event in June.

via BestWP7Games

It seems that most of the official apps for Windows Phone come in bunches. Last year, around this time, a number of official apps hit the Marketplace and this year is no different. Two of the official apps now available for download is the LinkedIn and Time Magazine app. Here are the Marketplace description’s and download links for each:

The Daily Beast

This app officially came to the Marketplace last week, but I failed to do a write-up at the time, so I’m going to bundle it with the other official apps for WIndows Phone. The Daily Beast is a website which captures some of the best stories and posts from around the web. The popular “Cheat Sheet” section is published daily and features most of the notable stories you’ve probably missed.

The Daily Beast app is the quickest way to get breaking news from across the Web on your phone. The Daily Beast offers instant summaries of the Web’s must-read stories, plus original news reporting, opinion, and photos.

Features:

• The Daily Beast’s “Cheat Sheet” of the best stories from around the Web — the latest summaries of breaking news on your phone.
• Original news reporting and features on politics, entertainment, culture, and books.
• Share stories via email, Twitter and Facebook.

You can download the The Daily Beast app for free in the web Marketplace here.

LinkedIn

With the Mango update for Windows Phone last year, Microsoft introduced LinkedIn functionality into the OS. While the baked-in functions for LinkedIn is a great addition to WIndows Phone, it’s always a good thing to have a standalone app for the features that aren’t supported on the OS level. Up until now, an official LinkedIn app has been missing for Windows Phone, but the popular professional network service has finally made it to the Marketplace.

Get on-the-go access to your professional network with LinkedIn for Windows Phone. Find and connect with more than 150M members worldwide, read the latest industry news, keep up-to-date with your groups, explore jobs you might be interested in, and share content with your network from anywhere.

You can download the LinkedIn app for free in the web Marketplace here.

Time

Time Magazine is a popular news magazine which has tons of great stories, videos and photos to browse. The new app is metro in design and spartan, which is a good thing. The scrolling and swiping in menus and articles is smooth as we have come to expect from top-notch apps on Windows Phone.

Reading TIME’s trusted journalism anytime, anywhere just got easier for Windows Phone users.  Get the latest news, read opinion and analysis from TIME influential bloggers, and browse through award-winning photography and TIME’s hugely popular lists.

You can download the Time app for free in the web Marketplace here.

Samsung has announced today a new low-end Omnia W successor, the Samsung Omnia M (model: GT-I8350). The handset targets the low-end, emerging market of smartphone buyers. It appears that the handset is samsungs answer to Nokia’s 610 device and other lower end handsets from companies like ZTE.

The handset features:

• 4-inch Super AMOLED display
• 1GHz processor
• 4GB of storage
• 384MB of RAM
• 5MP camera
• Front-facing camera
• 1,500 mAh battery

Most people look over this market, but the new smartphone buyer is an important category for Windows Phone and will help to grow the market if Microsoft and its OEMs can be successful.

You can check out the Samsung Omnia M on Samsung’s website here.

A user over on WMPoweruser sent this in. Happy Friday!

Just in case there are those which doubt the authenticity of this picture, check out the WolframAlpha website, which is the technology Apple uses for their Siri service.