Windows Phone 7 has a few bugs here and there, some more annoying than others, one of my favourite bugs has always been the wifi sleep bug/feature. Whereby if you turned your screen off the wifi would turn itself off shortly after. Ideal if your on a limited amount of data per month and your trying to listen to internet radio or something.
For a while though if you had an unlocked developer phone then you could install a third party app and it would fix this bug. Recently an app to do this has made it’s way onto the Windows Phone Marketplace and it’s called Keep Alive.
Don’t let the app description or reviews in the Marketplace fool you, this app after the most recent update really works well. Previous versions didn’t really work, hence the bad reviews.
The interface is really simple, one toggle, an advert and a donate link. If you want to keep your wifi awake then turn it on, if not don’t.
Before you go trying to stream music for a few days I would try it out and see if it works properly with your phone. It works well on my Lumia 800.
I tested it as follows:
- Turn flight mode on
- Turn wifi on
- Load up an app like 7 Digital or Tunein and try and stream something
- Turn your screen off and listen for 10-15 minutes
- Turn flight mode off
- Enjoy
If your worried about streaming eating your data by accident and you have a Lumia, then get the Counters app to keep track of your data usage.
It is a really useful app that lets you keep your wifi awake at all times, which makes checking emails or streaming whilst in a wifi area really easy. The app does need a little cleaning up. At times you don’t know whether it’s on or off as when you go back into the app it says off. The developer does seem to be updating the app though, which is always a good thing. The app is free, so head over to the marketplace and try it out.
Marketplace Link – Keep Alive