Windows Phone 7

[Animalor]

Microsoft went ahead and scrapped Windows Mobile of yore and announced Windows Phone 7 today.



Here's a link to their promo site.
http://www.windowsphone7series.com/

The thing operates very much like a Zune HD in the layout and presentation. Search and maps are powered by Bing.

There's Xbox Live integrations, they plan to have some XBLA games be cross-compatible with the phone. Phone to Phone MP and Achievements are in here as well. Every phone is also a Zune player. There's office and sharepoint integration too.

You can apparently do every popular webmail type natively. I've heard gmail, hotmail and exchange mentionned throughout the day. All mail is in the default mail folder and the messages are labeled by source.

Apps will be addressed at the MIX developer conference in a month.

Overall a proposition that I find highly interesting personally. first batch of phones are going to ship holiday 2010.

[Winnow]

Looking forward to seeing the capabilities of the Window 7 Phones but my god, those are some hideous looking screenshots. They hurt my eyes. I hope that's not an indication of what the UI will look like. That looks like a jumbled mess. Microsoft is capable of making more appealing UIs than that.

[miir]

Looks pretty good to me.
Clean and easy to read.
Not like the screenshots you posted of the clusterfuck UI you use on your iphone.

[Funkmasterr]

I have zero faith that Microsoft can develop a worthwhile mobile OS, you can't just go from the worst phone OS possible to something good. Even if they do it won't be open source and for that and other reasons it will still be inferior to Android.

[Animalor]

I dunno about Android. they seem to be doing the same mistake that Microsoft did way back when. Where's so much variety in the form factor and the capabilities of the phone that the experience is completely fragmented.

MS is planning on having much stricter platform specs on this OS as well as hardware layout requirements. (the 3 button search, home, back thing for example is a requirement. Capacitive Touchscreens are also mandatory etc...) I can really see this being a much more cohesive experience while not alienating their hardware partners.

If they employ the zune paradigm for software updates for the OS instead of the old model of the OS never being updatable like is used to be in the old WinMo days, I thing they have a decent chance of reclaiming a lot of marketshare.

I have no idea how the business market will react to this device though.. There are some shops that might see this as too much of a gadgety phone (a la iPhone) and might push more of their old clients into the arms of RIM. (Especially since RIM just announced a free version of their Enterprise Server for Small and Medium Businesses)

[Funkmasterr]

I dunno about Android. they seem to be doing the same mistake that Microsoft did way back when. Where's so much variety in the form factor and the capabilities of the phone that the experience is completely fragmented.

MS is planning on having much stricter platform specs on this OS as well as hardware layout requirements. (the 3 button search, home, back thing for example is a requirement. Capacitive Touchscreens are also mandatory etc...) I can really see this being a much more cohesive experience while not alienating their hardware partners.

If they employ the zune paradigm for software updates for the OS instead of the old model of the OS never being updatable like is used to be in the old WinMo days, I thing they have a decent chance of reclaiming a lot of marketshare.

I have no idea how the business market will react to this device though.. There are some shops that might see this as too much of a gadgety phone (a la iPhone) and might push more of their old clients into the arms of RIM. (Especially since RIM just announced a free version of their Enterprise Server for Small and Medium Businesses)

I don't know how that's a downside? I'm not sure why everyone is so excited to get prepackaged, locked down experiences from their phones with the iPhones and such.

I have used Android on most of the android devices, and they don't vary that much. The bottom line with Android is that A) it's open source so you don't have to hack your damn phone to actually use what you want on it and B) IMO the browser, layout and functionality of the OS no matter which phone it's on is superior to anything else available for Mobile phones.

[Winnow]

Looks pretty good to me.
Clean and easy to read.
Not like the screenshots you posted of the clusterfuck UI you use on your iphone.

Are you serious? Those pics look like they were taken from a Simon says game. MS can maintain conformity and still make the UI look a little more visually appealing.

[miir]

Looks a lot better than this vomit

[Aabidano]

I'll wait and see on the MS phone, if it was done in-house by v4 or v5 it should become usable. Assuming it's not riddled with holes.

Android looks promising, and Vz has the bandwidth to support it.

I do need a new phone, but still can't see the use of a data plan. For mobile browsing a netbook with an aircard still looks more promising\useful.

Keeping in mind all I do on my mobile is talk to the wife, and maybe 3-4 SMSs a month.

[Winnow]

Looks a lot better than this vomit

I forgot that Euros and Canadians like neon bright glowing colors. Makes sense now!

And yes, that screen shot of my UI does have an ugly green color but that modified UI is very functional and it's customized by me so it may not make sense to you which is fine. If Microsofts' home screen turn out to be modifiable then that will solved the problem.

[miir]

That UI may be functional to you but it looks like someone haphazardly threw it together...
Overlapping text, icons that are cut off, text that is cut off, random fonts and font sizes... it literally looks like vomit.

[Winnow]

That UI may be functional to you but it looks like someone haphazardly threw it together...
Overlapping text, icons that are cut off, text that is cut off, random fonts and font sizes... it literally looks like vomit.

yep! it's designed for functionality. I made it that way on purpose (the overlapping icons to cram as many high priority apps on the front screen as possible. I also have a stacks icon on front screen now that expands to access 12 more apps quickly.

Keep in mind that the Pogoplank UI you see is a beta and it's since been revised, also that the bottom row is my own doing and the Pogo Theme is bland on purpose for the screenshot.

The iphone needs some work in app organization which should come with v4.0 in a few months.

That still doesn't excuse the crude and jumbled look of the Windows 7 mobile front screen. I will watch a video on the functionality of Window 7 and how it handles apps soon. I'm specifically commenting on the look of it atm. I favor function over flair but jeeze that looks bad.

[Animalor]

The home screen from MS is customizable in effect that you can move the squares around to suit your needs/most frequently used apps. You can also pin specific contacts instead of apps directly on top.

Pushing the arrow will fli[ the UI over to the app listing. I suspect that any app can be pinned to the home screen as well.

[Funkmasterr]

As far as a home screen go... The "cool" effect of all the different things you can get apps for is long gone for me, and I mainly only use widgets for video game news and weather. Being able to fully customize my desktop like that (not just move around icons) is not something I'm willing to let go of at this point.

I guess we'll see how this thing does later this year.

[Winnow]

As far as a home screen go... The "cool" effect of all the different things you can get apps for is long gone for me, and I mainly only use widgets for video game news and weather. Being able to fully customize my desktop like that (not just move around icons) is not something I'm willing to let go of at this point.

I guess we'll see how this thing does later this year.

You may think they are "cool effects" but I don't have anything on my front page that I don't use a lot.

iPod = need quick access on road to listen to podcasts
yahoo = my IM of choice and used all day long
iStockManager = extremely important. Use all the time and makes huge difference having it easily accessible for quick trades.
Newsstand = aggregates all of my top news sources (tech, gaming, news, entertainment, sports, etc)
Phone = well it is a phone so of course, quick access to contacts important

Single click access is important to me

None of these are "cool effects". My second layer which I named critical are the collection of apps that I use often but don't always need while on the road quickly...Banking, Password Manager for all of my accounts in one easy place, Skype (now 3G enabled), Remote Desktop for quick access to my home PC's desktop do to things that would be shady on PC at work, Grocery IQ list has been extremely handy in keeping track of what I buy and reminding me what to pick up while at store, Access to my phone stats, minutes used, pay bill etc. None of these are "cool effects".

The second layer are all included in a stacked icon that expands allowing single click access to the rest of my high priority apps.

The wheel provides an easy way to organize the rest of the apps into categories that provide fast access as well as keeping things organized.

I don't know about you, but the most important thing to me with a mobile device is fast easy access to what I want. Having one click access to specialized apps that do their job well is important to me. I watched the Windows 7 movies covering the UI and wasn't impressed with what it showed.

I hope the Windows 7 phones turn out well and their apps solution provides they key elements that make my iPhone important to me.

[Funkmasterr]

I've had apps for all of those things plus some, and I used them for about two weeks before I got down to what I use; weather channel widget, gaming news widget, and a few things built into the OS like Google Talk and Search, the browser and maps. I want to have the little I do use displayed on my home page, not have icons to open them when there is very little to actually be displayed and no reason it can't be displayed as a widget.

[miir]

I just have a hard time taking Winnow's opinion on user interfaces seriously after seeing what he considers good.
Most people don't like a UI with mismatched fonts and icons and as much shit as possible crammed into the available space.

[Animalor]

I may be a fringe case being that I'm more embedded in Microsoft tech than most but this device speaks to me in a ton of ways.

First is the Zune portion of the device. I love my Zune because of the native support for Media Center Recordings.

Second is the Xbox Live integration. I buy a couple of XBLA games a year and if some of those become playable on both(or all 3 platforms if you factor in the PC, it's a huge win.

3rd is the way I use my current office-assigned Blackberry. Most of the stuff I tend to use this is web browsing, social media, Google Reader etc. Having a Data-Centric view would be great.

Imagine if Google would be allowed to have it's own hub as opposed to having "just an app" on the device. The integration possibilities could be epic.

[Funkmasterr]

I may be a fringe case being that I'm more embedded in Microsoft tech than most but this device speaks to me in a ton of ways.

First is the Zune portion of the device. I love my Zune because of the native support for Media Center Recordings.

Second is the Xbox Live integration. I buy a couple of XBLA games a year and if some of those become playable on both(or all 3 platforms if you factor in the PC, it's a huge win.

3rd is the way I use my current office-assigned Blackberry. Most of the stuff I tend to use this is web browsing, social media, Google Reader etc. Having a Data-Centric view would be great.

Imagine is Google would be allowed to have it's own hub as opposed to having "just an app" on the device. The integration possibilities could be epic.

Google isn't going to integrate a bunch of their kick-assness into MS's OS just like they won't for the iPhone Why would they when they have their own OS they want you to use?

[Animalor]

Google isn't going to integrate a bunch of their kick-assness into MS's OS just like they won't for the iPhone Why would they when they have their own OS they want you to use?

That's cause Google wants to be everywhere they can be. They don't want do dominate markets like the mobile space or the netbook market. They want eyes on the web and on ads.

Their issue with the iPhone is that Apple is cockblocking all the cool stuff they want to do. Microsoft's mantra is "If you want to build it, then go right ahead". (At least I hope this is what they will be doing with WP7.)

[Aabidano]

Google is perfectly happy shafting anyone they partner with to advance the Google cause. If they can gain any traction they'll quickly ditch anyone & the agreements they've made that are no longer convenient along the way.

Now that they're big enough to get away with it they really have turned into a bunch of serious douchebags if you follow the telecom and other press.

They want eyes on the web and on ads.

The advertisers are the customers, not the users of the service(s).

[Winnow]

I just have a hard time taking Winnow's opinion on user interfaces seriously after seeing what he considers good.
Most people don't like a UI with mismatched fonts and icons and as much shit as possible crammed into the available space.

The ability to get to what I want, as fast as possible is my UI goal. I don't care if the icons are cramped. To me, the whole purpose of a mobile device is quick access to what you want. If you're using your phone, you're typically on the go and don't have time to wade through sub menus.

For Funk, the only important apps are gamer score and weather so he could have a very simple phone with just those two options but most people have other needs.

I just made a nice chunk of change buying some stock this morning while on my way to work. Quick access is extremely important for buying and selling stocks short term. I can't imagine digging through layers of screens to get to my stock app.

Im rooting for Windows 7 and Microsoft. I want serious competition between Apple, Google and Microsoft. It benefits everyone.

As for Miir, I would own you in any Feng shui competition! Bring it on!