Windows Phone Summary of the Week: August 29-4, 2011

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It's another weekend over so here's your Windows Phone summary. This week we've had the Mobile Nations Monday brief, Mobile Nations podcast, WPCentral Podcast episode 124 and a developer interview with Ronny Gydar of Trine's Hangman. Our Dave Blake has also compiled the top discussions happening over at our forum.

We were at HTC event in London on Thursday, check out our summary, our hands on videos of the Radar and Titan, special episode 124.5 of the WPCentral Podcast and the official product pages. Check out the rest of the summary after the quick break.

Kik has published some interesting data that indicates releasing their Windows Phone app gave a boost to iOS and Android user growth. Microsoft has paired with PEGI for game ratings on the platform, while Litigation claims Microsoft is tracking users via the camera. Mango has been rumoured to be set for September 15th, but was not spoken of at the HTC London Event.

We covered a case study last week that looked at the revenue potential between Android and Windows Phone. Part two of that study reveals a massive gap between advertisement earnings in Android and WP7. Transhub, a Sydney public transportation app, is now available on the Marketplace and received the 2011 Spotlight Award from Microsoft during the 2011 Tech.Ed Conference in Australia.

Moving swiftly onto gaming and our Paul Acevedo has got hold of the makers of Beards & Beaks for an interview. We have the official Your Shape: Fitness Evolved companion app for Windows Phone working its way onto the Marketplace. Fable Coin Golf is this week's Xbox Live Deal of the Week, while Fight Game Rivals finally arrives into the ring and is ready to throw some punches.

Gravity Guy, a platformer from Miniclip, is on its way and will arrive on September 7th and Bouncy Mouse... erm... bounces onto the stage. Mobilewares, Australia-based publisher, is looking for some beta testers for two of their upcoming games: Words! and Jumble!

Mango seems to be missing the "Find on Page" feature in IE9 and is said to be making a return someday. Microsoft has shown off a Metro style concept for windows 8, which still seems to be aiming for a simple yet elegant interface. An official SkyDrive app could well be on the way with more device integration, while the BBC still hold back from developing an iPlayer app for the platform.

Windows Phone Connector for Mac is upgraded to v2.0 in time for Mango's arrival, with Samsung closely behind updating their Now app, which receives live tile treatment. NAVIGON GPS is announced and later demoed at IFA 2011. It ain't gonna be cheap.

HTC have certainly been busy bees this week, but they've been making some changes here and there including moving attentive phone, sound enhancer and more to the Settings section of the OS in favour of separate apps. Tango is also seen on a HTC device at the London event, no not the OS code name, but a video calling app. Can we get more interesting than that? Oh yes, HTC also have a DLNA app for Mango.

We've had one crazy week for hardware on the platform, make no exception that the HTC Omega/Radar has appeared on the web for sale. Not only are we continuing to see more Nokia handset model numbers, but Nokia were looking to the fan base for ideas as to how they should name their series. We've seen a rumoured capture of the Nokia 703, which looks to strongly resemble the N9.

Another interesting feature that the HTC Radar and Titan sport is to be turned into a temporary alarm clock or desk prop with an optional dock accessory - pretty cool. The HTC Titan and Radar are also set to be available on Amazon UK from October 15th, but if I'm honest I'm personally still brainwashed by Nokia's N9 design approach. The Acer W4 gets shown off in a number of photos for all Acer fans to see.

For fun we have some Metro-to-Android movement that's getting more accurate by each attempt, although one thing is almost always a certainty - it'll never be Windows Phone. The Windows Phone YouTube channel has received a Metro makeover and looks sweeeet!

For developers we have App.net looking to include Windows Phone soon and the Nokia Academy is preparing for training on Microsoft's platform. Finally, Bee Mobile is offering a powerful DevKit.

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Rich Edmonds
Rich Edmonds
Senior Editor, PC Build

Rich Edmonds was formerly a Senior Editor of PC hardware at Windows Central, covering everything related to PC components and NAS. He's been involved in technology for more than a decade and knows a thing or two about the magic inside a PC chassis. You can follow him on Twitter at @RichEdmonds.