ChevronWP7 Labs offered a limited jailbreaking tool for phones running Windows Phone 7 for a brief period of time. The tool didn’t give you complete access over your phone’s software the way that rooting an Android phone or jailbreaking an iPhone does. But it did make it possible to install apps that were not downloaded from the official Windows Phone Marketplace. Now the folks behind… Read more »

If you want to install apps on a smartphone running Windows Phone 7, you have two options: Get your apps from the Windows Phone Marketplace or pay $99 for a developer account. Scratch that… now there are three options. Today the folks at ChevronWP7 have launched a new tool that lets you sign in with your Windows Live ID, pay $9 via PayPal, and get… Read more »

A group of independent developers is working with Microsoft to provide an officially sanctioned tool for jailbreaking Windows Phone 7 devices. Right now if you want to install apps that aren’t available from the Windows Phone Marketplace you need to pony up $99 for a developer license. But the upcoming ChevronWP7 tool will let you do it for just $9. One of the developers unveiled… Read more »

The folks at ChevronWP7 introduced the first tool for jailbreaking Windows Phone 7 a while back, allowing users to install third party apps that weren’t available from the Windows Phone Marketplace. But the app was killed last year at Microsoft’s request. Now it looks like jailbreaking days may be here again soon. The team has announced that a new tool for unlocking WP7 devices will… Read more »

A few days ago developer Chris Walsh released a tool to let Windows Phone 7 users apply the latest software update bringing support for copy and paste and other new features to their phones without waiting for Microsoft to push the software to their phones and wireless carriers. Today the ChevronWP7 Updater is no longer available. It’s not entirely clear at the moment what happened…. Read more »

Microsoft recently started pushing out software updates for Windows Phone 7 handsets adding support for copy and paste, faster app launching and better Facebook synchronization, among other things. But the so-called NoDo update isn’t yet available for all phones… unless you’re willing to through caution to the wind and use an unofficial utility that lets you upgrade your Windows Phone 7 phone to NoDo. The… Read more »

The developers of the first jailbreak utility for Windows Phone 7 devices ceased development of the ChevronWP7 tool after Microsoft promised to work more closely with the homebrew software community. But not everybody wants to play ball with Microsoft, and Windows Phone developer Julien Schapman says he’ll soon release a new tool for jailbreaking WP7. Jailbreaking basically means opening up a device so that you… Read more »

There’s good news and bad news for the Windows Phone 7 homebrew community. The good news is that the developers who brought us the ChevronWp7 tool for sideloading applications on WP7 devices have been talking to folks at Microsoft who say they support independent and homebrew development for the platform. The bad(ish) news is that as part of these discussions, they’ve discontinued the ChevronWp7 unlocking… Read more »

Windows Phone 7 doesn’t officially let you install apps unless you either grab them from the Windows Marketplace or pay for a developer account which lets you test apps on your phone, among other things. Last week a group of hackers put together an app called ChevronWP7 that gets around this restriction, allowing anyone to install third party apps on their Windows Phone 7 devices.Now… Read more »

Apple doesn’t officially allow users to install third party apps on iOS devices unless they’ve been approved by Apple and posted in the App Store (although there are third party app stores for jailbroken devices). Google has its own Android Market app store, but most Android phones can accept non-market apps when you check a simple option in the settings menu. So what about Microsoft’s… Read more »