Available in | English |
---|---|
Owner | HMD Global (2017-present) Microsoft Mobile (2014-2015) Nokia (2007-2014) |
Commercial | Yes |
Launched | 16 April 2007 (as Nokia Beta Labs) 14 August 2014 (as Lumia Beta Apps) 25 October 2017 (as Nokia phones beta labs) |
Current status | Active |
Nokia phones beta labs is a service in which beta software for Nokia smartphones are available for public download. [1] The service was originally launched as Nokia Beta Labs in 2007 by Nokia for S60-based Symbian devices, and later for the company's Windows Phone-based Lumia line. After the sale of the Nokia mobile devices division to Microsoft, the website was renamed Lumia Beta Apps. [2] It was discontinued in 2015. The service was revived by HMD Global in 2017 for Nokia Android smartphones, allowing members to test Android 8.0 Oreo beta.
The applications provided by Beta Apps are in development, but are considered "mature" enough to be released in order to be tested by users worldwide. Anyone can submit feedback about applications, which goes to the development team. After a period of time, an application either "graduated", meaning it is released as a final version, or is removed from the site and placed in an archive. [3]
The site facilitates beta applications being developed by Microsoft or select 3rd party developers for Lumia products. The applications are, of reasonably good quality, but may have rough edges and occasional service breaks, not commercialized yet, not guaranteed, and not officially supported, under active development, free of charge and not be used for commercial purposes
Applications may graduate to become commercial offerings, or they will be archived along with the lessons learnt based on user feedback.
Nokia phones beta labs was launched as Nokia Beta Labs on 16 April 2007 only as a page linking to other Nokia beta applications, namely Sports Tracker, Wellness Diary and WidSets. [4] On 13 August, Nokia employee Tommi Vilkamo announced the website's renovation and his role as the new Beta Labs manager on his blog. [5]
After the rebranding Microsoft collecting feedback through UserVoice and has since launched several new applications such as Cinemagraph Beta and Gestures. [6] Originally the site was operated by Nokia but Microsoft moved the development to a more feedback-orientated design in August 2014 to allow more users to add their feedback rather than just Nokia-developers. [7] [8] On 14 August 2014 it was announced the relocation of the Nokia Beta Labs website to a new site that host all new beta trials for Lumia apps. [9]
Microsoft has discontinued the Nokia Camera Beta trial and re-released the Beta app as "Lumia Camera Classic" while implementing the new features in the Lumia Camera app, [10] and has added OneDrive integration to Lumia Cinemagraph (formerly Nokia Cinemagraph) after first trialing it in the Lumia Beta Apps site. [11] On 25 February 2015 Join Conference (previously Nokia Conference) was made public for all Windows Phones but republished under the Microsoft Garage and reduced the number of markets it was available in. [12] [13]
In May 2015 Microsoft released the Lumia Camera Beta app reminiscent to the Nokia Camera Beta app to test improvements, among the new features is the ability to select Office Lens from settings. [14] Though these features are exclusive for newer PureView powered handsets, these devices include the Nokia Lumia 930, Nokia Lumia Icon, Nokia Lumia 1520, Microsoft Lumia 640, and Microsoft Lumia 640 XL. [15]
On 22 July 2015 Microsoft launched a new version of the Lumia Creative Studio called Lumia Creative Studio Beta that added support for living images if the photographs were captured with the Lumia Camera. [16]
On 11 September 2015 Microsoft announced that they would no longer accept any feedback via the Lumia Beta Apps site and would archive all older feedback and encouraged users to send feedback via the Windows Insider feedback application or through the Windows Phone Store, despite the discontinuation of the website no Lumia Beta App would be immediately removed from the store. [17]
Nokia Beta Labs was reintroduced for Android-based Nokia smartphones in 2017 by HMD Global as Nokia phones beta labs. [18]
Bing for mobile is a search tool for handheld mobile devices from Microsoft as part of their Bing search engine. It is designed for mobile device displays. Bing Mobile is built into Windows Mobile and Windows Phone as proprietary software, accessed via the Search key on Windows Phone 7 and Windows Phone 8 devices. It is also available on Windows Phone 8.1, and can be downloaded for other platforms, including and Android.
Microsoft Software Updater is a Windows and OS X based application launched in 2006, that enables customers to update and recover their mobile device firmware of a S40 or S60 or Lumia device from any Internet enabled access point. To avoid data loss users are prompted with on-screen advice on how to safely update their device.
Windows Phone (WP) is a discontinued mobile operating system developed by Microsoft Mobile for smartphones as the replacement successor to Windows Mobile and Zune. Windows Phone featured a new user interface derived from the Metro design language. Unlike Windows Mobile, it was primarily aimed at the consumer market rather than the enterprise market.
MixRadio was an online music streaming service owned by Line Corporation. The service was first introduced by Nokia in 2011 as Nokia Music for Windows Phone, serving as a successor to Nokia's previous Nokia Music Store/Comes with Music/Ovi Music Store initiatives, which was based on the LoudEye/OD2 platform. After its acquisition of Nokia's mobile phone business, the service was briefly maintained by Microsoft Mobile Oy before it was sold to Japanese internet company Line Corporation in 2015. Following the acquisition, MixRadio expanded to Android and iOS in May 2015.
The Nokia Lumia 900 is a Windows Phone-powered smartphone, first unveiled on January 9, 2012, by Nokia at Consumer Electronics Show 2012, where it won the Best Smartphone award in January 2012. The phone has 4G LTE support and was released in April 2012. The Lumia 900 was the flagship smartphone of the Lumia range until the release of its successor, the Lumia 920.
Microsoft Lumia is a discontinued line of mobile devices that was originally designed and marketed by Nokia and later by Microsoft Mobile. Introduced in November 2011, the line was the result of a long-term partnership between Nokia and Microsoft—as such, Lumia smartphones run on Microsoft software, the Windows Phone operating system; and later the newer Windows 10 Mobile. The Lumia name is derived from the partitive plural form of the Finnish word lumi, meaning "snow".
Microsoft mobile services are a set of proprietary mobile services created specifically for mobile devices; they are typically offered through mobile applications and mobile browser for Windows Phone platforms, BREW, and Java. Microsoft's mobile services are typically connected with a Microsoft account and often come preinstalled on Microsoft's own mobile operating systems while they are offered via various means for other platforms. Microsoft started to develop for mobile computing platforms with the launch of Windows CE in 1996 and later added Microsoft's Pocket Office suite to their Handheld PC line of PDAs in April 2000. From December 2014 to June 2015, Microsoft made a number of corporate acquisitions, buying several of the top applications listed in Google Play and the App Store including Acompli, Sunrise Calendar, Datazen, Wunderlist, Echo Notification Lockscreen, and MileIQ.
Nokia Lumia 920 is a smartphone developed by Nokia that runs the Windows Phone 8 operating system. It was announced on September 5, 2012, and was first released on November 2, 2012. It has a 1.5 GHz dual-core Qualcomm Krait CPU and a 4.5" IPS TFT LCD display, as well as a high-sensitivity capacitive touchscreen that can be used with gloves and fingernails; the display is covered by curved Gorilla Glass and has a 9 ms response time. The phone features an 8.7-megapixel PureView camera with OIS; it was the first smartphone camera to implement that technology, as well as to support Qi inductive charging. The phone comes with 32 GB of internal storage, but has no expandable storage.
Nokia PureView is the branding of a combination of technologies used in cameras of Nokia-branded smartphones and previously, in phones by Microsoft Mobile. PureView was first introduced with the Nokia 808 PureView.
The Nokia Lumia 810 is a Windows Phone smartphone made by Nokia exclusively for wireless carrier T-Mobile US. It was announced on October 8, 2012. The device runs the then-new Windows Phone 8 operating system and features a 4.3-inch AMOLED WVGA ClearBlack display, an 8-megapixel rear-facing camera, a 1.5 GHz Snapdragon processor, exchangeable shells and supports Qi inductive charging when equipped with a specific shell. It supports T-Mobile's 4G network.
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The Nokia X family was a range of budget smartphones that was produced and marketed by Microsoft Mobile, originally introduced in February 2014 by Nokia. The smartphones run on the Nokia X platform, a Linux-based operating system which was a fork of Android. Nokia X is also known generally as the Nokia Normandy. It is regarded as Nokia's first Android device during the company's Microsoft partnership and was in the process of selling its mobile phone business to Microsoft, which eventually happened two months later.
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