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Nokia Lumia 920 Day 3 - Application availability

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Having had the Nokia 920 for a few days now, I thought I would take a look at the application availability.

It wont surprise you to hear that all of the applications I had on my Lumia 800 (Windows Phone 7.5) also exist on the Nokia 920 with (Windows Phone 8). What I have noticed however is that a number of the major apps, for example AccuWeather and Facebook have asked to interact with the lockscreen. With Accuweather it allows me to quickly see the current weather conditions (some might say I could just look out the window) and with Facebook it scrolls through my photos, straight from the lock screen before I even unlock the phone. It's a nice little feature of Windows 8 phone and great to see the app owners using this functionality. It did however find it hard to decide what to display on the lockscreen so could do with an app to solve my indecision.

The Facebook app in particular seems a lot quicker and more usable. That could be down to the increased processing power of the Lumia 920, the Windows Phone 8 operating system or perhaps a combination of the both. Either way, the increased speed of the Facebook and bigger screen made the application far more enjoyable than it is on a Lumia 800.

One thing I did find frustrating is that when I go into the 'Store' on the Lumia 920 it doesn't show me a list anywhere of the apps I already own. This is more a function of the operating system (Microsoft) rather than Nokia but it does mean its harder to download all the common apps onto a new phone. This 'App I have already purchased' option exists in Windows 8 desktop and works really well so I hope they bring it to Windows Phone 8 sometime soon. Second grumble, again one for Microsoft, is that it doesn't seem to automatically recognise when you already own an application. When downloading NextGen Reader I needed to login before it flipped from 'trial' to 'purchased'. For the RailPlanner app it still tells me it's a trial even though I have paid for it before, I will jump on twitter or email to see if I can solve this one.

Last of all, it's worth mentioning there are some extra Nokia apps, available only for Windows Phone 8. I am not going to comment on these for now as I want to dedicate a post to them.

In summary, all of the apps I had on Windows Phone 7.5 seem to be on Windows Phone 8. Some of those apps also have been updated to work with new features in Windows Phone 8, like the lockscreen, which is great. Only problem is the Windows Phone Store isn't a slick as the Windows 8 Store in my opinion, which is surprising as it (Windows Phone Store) has been round much longer. That's a problem for Microsoft to fix though, not Nokia. That or it's just user error :)

The weekend is almost upon us and we have friends coming round so intrigued to see what they think of the Lumia 920. They are all Apple ecosystem owners so it's going to be a tough crowd ;)

UPDATE : When logging onto the https://www.windowsphone.com/ website, you can send applications you have downloaded previously to your new phone. This makes it REALLY easy to put all your old apps on your new phone. Love it :)

Comments

  • Anonymous
    September 29, 2014
    Nokia Lumia 920 Day 3 - Application availability - Mark Deakin - Site Home - TechNet Blogs
  • Anonymous
    November 11, 2014
    Nokia Lumia 920 Day 3 - Application availability - Mark Deakin - Site Home - TechNet Blogs
  • Anonymous
    November 17, 2014
    Nokia Lumia 920 Day 3 - Application availability - Mark Deakin - Site Home - TechNet Blogs