Windows Phone 7 is a completely new beast. It has plenty of secrets we’re yet to uncover, but here are the tricks and tips we’ve learnt about the new platform so far.
You can change the colour of your Live Tiles
The “start” home screen of Windows Phone 7 isn’t hugely customisable, but you can change the colour of your Live Tiles and the background. To do this, go to the Settings menu and check out the Theme submenu. Here you’ll see the two options for the background, dark and light, and the handful of colours you can paint your Live Tiles. In some other Windows Phone 7 sections, you can apply a background image, but not currently to the home screen.
Games are kept in the Xbox Live hub as standard
Download a game from the Windows Marketplace and they won’t appear as standard on your apps menu. Instead, they’re stored within the Games Hub — called simply “games” within the apps menu. The Games Hub is skinned like the Xbox 360 interface, with menus that you skip through horizontally. However, if you don’t want to spend much time here, you can also put your games elsewhere…
You can pin just about everything
Just like apps, you can pin your games onto your home screen. Hold your finger on a game’s icon in the Games Hub and a pop-menu will appear. This menu will include the options to “rate and review”, “uninstall” and “pin to start”. This last option will stick the game on your home screen as a Live Tile. This approach works throughout Windows Phone 7 on all sorts of things, including apps and contacts.
Trials are available for most games
Microsoft has grafted the feel of Xbox Live Arcade onto Windows Phone 7′s games, and part of this includes offering a trial version for all the platform’s games. Go to a game’s page in Windows Marketplace and a pop-up menu will appear at the bottom, with options to “try” and “buy”. Obviously, “try” will get you the demo and “buy” the full version. You don’t need to plug in any card details to download the trial games, so play away!
Download the Zune software – now!
As there’s no mass storage mode doe Windows Phone 7 devices, which would make the phone’s internal memory show up as a disk drive on your computer when connected, you have to rely on Microsoft’s sync software to get your phone’s media library off the ground. With a PC, you need to download the Zune software, available from Microsoft’s website. With a Mac, you’ll want to download the Windows Phone 7 Connector package, which will hook up with your iTunes library.
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