The Windows Phone marketplace continues to expand - it recently passed the 70,000 app mark, with 300 new apps being launched every day. Microsoft's CEO for Greater China, Simon Leung, revealed that the company plans to launch a total of 63 markets, which will please the 100,000 Windows Phone developers currently registered with Microsoft. In a move to further encourage developers to write for the platform, Microsoft has cut the certification process to just three days. The widespread success of the Nokia Lumia 800 around the globe and the rush of manufactureres now embracing the Windows Phone ecosystem should ensure even faster growth in the Windows Phone Marketplace in time for the launch [...]

Audible has released a sophisticated audio-book app for the Windows Phone 7 platform. The app runs briskly and intuitively, letting users buy their favorite audio books on the move. Amongst the highlights of the the Audible app are a primary Live Tile that flips over to display recent history and secondary Live Tiles based on the book's title - this tile enables one-touch audio playback of the book, and on the flip-side of this tile is the user's bookmark history. Another great feature is the configurable "jump back" option, which lets you re-listen to the last section (the default is 30 seconds). Button-less playback makes use of gestures instead of buttons to let users control [...]

Great news for the Windows Phone platform - the developers behind Angry Birds Space, released this week, have announced that a version for WP7 is under development, just hours after saying they had no plans to release Angry Birds Space on Microsoft's mobile ecosystem. However, Rovio Mobile's CMO Peter Vesterbacka’s admitted porting the world's most popular mobile game on Windows Phone OS would mean 'a lot of work to technically support it for minimal return.' On release earlier in the week, Angry Birds Space for Android and iOS shot to number one download, but Windows Phone support was eerily absent, and asked whether the omission was a deliberate snub, Vesterbacka complained [...]

A survey of more than 2000 developers in January by IDC and Appcelerator suggests virtually unchanged levels of interest amongst developers in the Windows Phone ecosystem at 37%. RIM has fallen further from 20% to 16%. Despite the success of the flagship WP7 handset, the Lumia 800, developers are still not rushing to embrace Microsoft's mobile OS. However the survey was conducted only a few days after the launch of Nokia Lumia 800, before anyone knew whether it would be popular, so the next set of figures will be more telling, and should reflect confidence amongst developers that consumers are liking Microsoft platform. Interest in developing for Android devices also fell, possibly [...]

It's getting on for six months now since Apple launched their Siri voice assistant as the flagship app of the iPhone 4S. Since then a large number of Siri-like apps have appeared on Android. Windows Phone 7 users needn't feel left out though - Ask Ziggy is the voice-based Windows version of Apple's Siri assistant app - Ziggy can answer questions or search the web and allows users to call, text or email a contact, as well as updating your status on Facebook, Twitter, or Windows Live. WP7 fans will be delighted to know that Ask Ziggy is completely free and doesn't contain any bothersome ads, either. Available from the Windows Phone Marketplace. [...]