Jul 27
It seems that Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7 is really living up to the hype it has stirred earlier this year when Steve Ballmer first showed the world the work in progress last February. Originally, Microsoft announced that the OS would not be ready until the end of the year. However, it seems that the OS has been finished a lot earlier than expected and that there are already reports that it might be released this coming September.
As promised by Microsoft, several handsets that run the new OS will be offered when the system finally comes out this year. This means that users will not only get to try out the new operating system, but they will also have a range of devices to choose from.
While Microsoft did declare specifics for minimum hardware requirements to run the new OS, there are still variations among the different devices –particularly with the form factor. The Windows Phone 7 OS works with three existing device configurations –though so far, type 1 is the most prolific while there are only a couple of type 2 devices available.
Speaking of which, one such type 2 handset is the LG Panther. This Korean made smart phone will be using a slide out QWERTY keyboard as opposed to just being a standard touch screen smart phone. According to the reports, all WP7 devices will have WVGA touch screen displays. Several other manufacturers have been named, among which are HTC, Samsung, Dell, and Asus.
The developer version of the system has already been distributed last week to various developers and testers. According to early reactions to the new user interface, many find that the new direction Microsoft has taken to be quite bold. The design is something that people really love or really hate, which means that it will be having a very specific niche crowd of users despite being made to be an OS for all.
Jul 22
Since last February, Microsoft has been exciting many smart phone users with the promise of the upcoming Windows Phone 7 operating system. The new platform is dynamic, geared towards social networking and has plenty of new features that are bound to make previous critics of the Windows Mobile OS see MS in a brand new light.
However, in these past couple of days, the excitement for the new OS has turned into apprehension as the developer copies have been shipped out and the initial reactions are quite the opposite of what was originally expected.
In terms of looks and feel, the new OS’ user interface is everything that Microsoft originally demonstrated it to be and a little more. Everything runs smoothly –in fact, some could say that it runs better than the demonstration videos. But there are some crucial factors missing.
These factors are multitasking and “cut and paste”. According to Microsoft, users do not need these features and that adding them in will only sacrifice the handset’s performance.
Anyone who was tried out the Apple iPhone would be quick to say rubbish, and they have every right to do so. When the iPhone OS first launched, multitasking and cut-and-paste were two major features that we not included in the operating system. Users had to demand and beg Apple –which eventually relented; cut and paste came out early, while it took over two years to get multitasking as an available feature.
Microsoft needs to learn from Apple –or at least, Apple’s mistakes. There is not point putting the Windows Phone 7 OS through a similar problem, especially that the industry already knows the possible outcome as well as what the market needs.
With the developer copies of Windows Phone 7 already released, expect to know more about this new OS in the coming days.
Jul 14
Without a doubt, the Windows operating system is the single most successful operating system for desktops and netbooks. With this, Microsoft was able to establish the company as the leader in the computer industry. This is probably why it is such a big deal for MS that after they were trying to do the same with the smart phones, they completely failed.
In fact, they were pretty much behind the with the whole smart phone era. And by the time 3G and WiFi became common place –and smart usability moved from the business clients to the general users, the Windows Mobile OS could not keep up with the new dynamic user interfaces and the inclusion of mass market appealing capabilities such as social networking integration, games and media playback.
According to Steve Ballmer, current CEO of Microsoft, they missed out on an entire generation of smart phone users. They did nail a significant portion of the business industry –managing to take second place to BlackBerry (which is the only spot which is ever going to be open as RIM is completely dominating that field), and MS is still enjoying a moderate degree of success in the smart phone industry.
But with the shift of users leaning more and more towards general users, Microsoft has to face the fact that they need to change the OS.
And thus we have the upcoming Windows Phone 7. The new OS is everything that the older mobile platform is not. It is dynamic, hip, stylish, fresh and fun. It takes away the serious air and complicated controls of the WinMo UI and brings in a new multi-touch capable, intuitive touch screen user interface. It also brings in new features such as Bing search, Zune media and Xbox Live Games as well.
Jul 02
Nokia and Intel’s latest creation, the MeeGo operating system has been confirmed to be set for an October unveiling. Should this latest report be true and the other rumors about upcoming mobile platforms push through, there will plenty of things to look forward to once October comes around: the first Windows Phone 7 handsets, MeeGo unveiling and possibly, the launch of the Android 3.0 Gingerbread OS.
Anyway, going back to the MeeGo, this new mobile platform is actually the combination of Intel’s Moblin and the Nokia Maemo, both are mobile platforms designed with smart phone users in mind (though the OS can be used in other devices too). With the slight success of the Maemo on the Nokia N900, it is possible that the same community that supported Maemo would also be supporting the upcoming MeeGo OS.
In the meanwhile, Nokia has already announced that the N-series would now be making use of the MeeGo OS. The upcoming Nokia N8 smart phone will be the last N-series handset to make use of the Symbian operating system. Despite this announcement, recently leaked images and videos of a device that has been tagged as the Nokia N9 showcase the Symbian^3 mobile platform –which is not what most people expected to see.
Close ups of the device clearly show that the handset is labeled as the “C0-00”, but the software indicates that it is an “N00 Model”. With Nokia not yet making an official announcement regarding the images and videos, it has yet to be confirmed if the device is indeed the N9.
Developers are now being enticed by Nokia and Intel to help develop and support the new MeeGo OS. The platform, despite being co-developed by Intel will be compatible with both Intel and ARM made processors. This will make the MeeGo easier to adapt to other phone manufacturers.
May 20
Hotmail’s free email services has managed to stay in the internet long enough to get a major revamp, and this time will it seems like the integration of Bing on mobile phones will also require a good email service client from Microsoft as well. This is why it is important to be able to provide users with a good email, and while Hotmail is very old, MS has re-launched the service not only with an all new look but also new features.
Brandon LeBlanc, a member of the Microsoft Team, has made a blog post describing some of the new features on the new Hotmail service:
“I absolutely love filters. And the new Hotmail brings filters front and center. Previously, I had Hotmail automatically sorting emails into specific folders – such as emails from social networking services like Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn. However, I’ve since turned off automatic sorting and am now relying solely on the new Hotmail’s Social updates filter.”
Filters are a great addition to any email service, for those of you who have yet to try it out, this is the one function that allows an email user to instantly access specific types of mail. After all, not all content that one deems unimportant will be sent to the spam bin –there are often subscriptions to various mailing lists or forums, as well as corporate emails that often fill up the main inbox. By making use of filters, mail is sorted in an easy to read and access manner.
This has been further improved with the social filters, which not only auto-filters emails sent from sites such as Facebook, but it also categorizes them according to needs. After all, it makes no sense to have a single Facebook filter that gets instantly spammed by Farmville notifications.
Aside from new filters, Hotmail is also introducing a new document reader that will allow users to instantly view attached documents.
May 19
When it comes to smart phones, nothing beats being on top of the food chain. And while Apple is enjoying the biggest market sales, it is HTC that is currently holding the new ground in terms of the best hardware. And by saying hardware, we are certainly referring to the new Snapdragon processor on the upcoming HTC Mondrian smart phone.
Yes, Snapdragon. The same old QSD CPU from Qualcomm; but this one is the QSD8650-A and it is clocked at a speed of over the standard Snapdragon chips –it goes all the way up to 1.3GHz. Outside of over clocking, this makes the Mondrian the fastest smart phone to be announced. It will be a while before this phone actually store shelves and it is possible that it will not be the first device to use the new chip to get stocked on shelves. The same thing happened to Sony Ericsson –they were the first to announce that they were working on an Android smart phone with a 1GHz CPU; the Nexus One beat them to retail availability for several months.
Back to the Mondrian, this impressive phone comes complete with a yet to specified internal camera, a 4.3 inch capacitive touch screen (many are willing to bet that it will be an AMOLED display) and of course, the upcoming Windows Phone 7 mobile platform. This officially makes the Mondrian the second WP7 phone to have a name (the first being LG’s Panther which features a slide out QWERTY keyboard). HTC has yet to release images of the Mondrian, though it has been stated in earlier reports that the device will be a standard touch screen handset (type-1 chassis).
HTC and Microsoft have recently made an agreement for the Taiwanese company to use MS patents –it is reported that Microsoft would have a percentage of sales for every Android smart phone that HTC sells.
Mar 29
Foursquare may just stomp on the competition. As of late, there has been a steady increase of users of their existing iPhone, Blackberry, Android and Palm apps (yes, even the Palm) and the Windows Phone 7 version has already been unveiled to the public.
What is Foursquare anyway? Foursquare enables users to “check-in” to a place in order to tell their connections where they are and how to find them. Recommended activities and establishments nearby are also highlighted and there are a good number of places where people can check-in such as bars, restaurants, offices and parks.
This app encourages socialization and has a built-in to-do list and suggestion system to help people figure out what activities to do with their friends and show tips on whichever nets them the best service and accommodations. Badges are like an achievement system, wherein checking-in from different places and with different people nets you some points. Frequent users get the title “mayor” and get freebies from selected affiliates until the title is snatched by someone else.
The Windows Phone 7 version of the app was shown at the recent MIX developer’s conference. The app looks very chic and organized. A Society tab is added to help people meet other people with similar interests. No more boring nights stuck in front of the computer now. Anyway, the number of real-time check-ins is updated every few minutes and hot spots are plain to see based on the graphic displays.
The application was made using a mix of Silverlight and C#. It seems that Windows Phone 7 has quite a scene stealer in the form of Foursquare when it hits the market. Not only does it help users connect to one another, it actually helps businesses get more traffic by being recommended. It would not be far-off to see many more establishments supporting Foursquare when it comes out for Windows Phone 7.
See Windows Phone 7 Foursquare screens at Gizmodo.
Mar 19
It is an already established fact that despite its many flaws, the Apple iPhone OS is one of the most successful mobile platforms to date. This is partly due to the fact that the OS is a well designed platform that is both innovative for its time and also because the iPhone itself simply sells so much. But despite the immense success of the iPhone, its flaws are anything but insignificant. Many still feel that Apple’s closed system work is too restrictive; no memory card support, unable to remove batteries. Apple eventually had to give in to some of the software demands of the public such as providing basic functions such as copy and paste.
Anyway, the Windows Phone 7 series is pretty much on the same track as the iPhone OS. Not that we are happy to say this. After all, while the good things are present (pre-set hardware specifics, dynamic OS), it has also emulated many of the things that people find troublesome with the iPhone.
The most obvious case of this is the lack of cut and paste on WP7.
Seriously, Microsoft is not adding it? This is a bad joke considering the fact that Word will be one of the apps present of the device –unless Office apps gets their own version of cut and paste. There is bizarre form of copy pasting that involves users being able to copy phone numbers and addresses. But that hardly answers for all the needs that cut and paste fills in.
Cut and paste is not the only thing missing. Multitasking support will also be unavailable. In terms of hardware, any chassis type for WP7 can handle multitasking, which means that it is the OS itself that restricts the function.
Learn more about the cut and paste problem with WP7 at Mobile Choice UK.
Mar 18
Just last month, Symbian announced that they are going open source. Similar to the Google Android and the Linux Mobil OS, open source platforms are quite preferred by many developers since they allow access into many features and core components. Of course, being open source also has its limits, as some platforms are “less open” than others.
Windows Phone 7 will not be an open source mobile platform. Just like the Apple OS, very specific portions of the platform are accessible to developers. However, despite not being open source (and despite the restrictive and one sided developer’s contract), there are still thousands of apps being made for the Apple OS.
Microsoft is hoping to duplicate this feat with the WP7 mobile platform. They have just recently unveiled developers’ tools such as the XNA Game Studio, Visual Studio and even specialized app testers. MS has also gone off to announce that the Marketplace will also be getting some new additional content in the form of a new WP7 apps category and features such as allowing users to try out applications prior to purchasing.
The new coding scheme shown in Visual Studio will certainly delight developers who like to make apps for the PC and the smart phone. Thanks to shared codes, they can now make apps that are fully transferrable from the mobile device to a desktop computer; they can even bring the app to the Microsoft Xbox. More importantly, users can transfer an exact game instance, allowing you to continuously play from one device to another.
The XNA Game Studio on the other had showed some pretty impressive 3D rendering capabilities. It is reported that the studio will enable run games to run in full 3D –a feature that many game developers would certainly want to make use of.
Get to know more about the WP7 dev tools at Tech Radar.
Mar 17
It seems like the wait for the arrival of Windows Phone 7 just got a little more exciting with the new features that have been recently announced.
Just last week, it was confirmed that the new XNA Games Studio 4.0 would be enabling full 3D games for the OS. So far, no titles have been shown actually running on full 3D as elements with pre-rendered content were still used in the apps. Despite this, the announcement is certainly going to attract the attention of many game developers who are starting to see the potential of developing for mobile devices. This feature will certainly be made full use of with the new Xbox Live Games service on WP7.
Speaking of development, Microsoft also got to showcase the cross platform compatibility features of apps for the mobile platform, on the Xbox and on the Windows OS. A simple platforming game was demonstrated running on all three with the user able to bring the current game progress from one device to another. Thanks to the shared codes used by Visual Studio, developers will now have an easier time porting apps.
The MSN Player also got confirmed to be heading for both WP7 and on the Xbox as Microsoft is keeping up with its competitor, Apple who has also come up with a new BBC Player. The MSN library of videos stretches up to over 1000 hours, providing users with a large range of shows to choose from.
The Microsoft developers’ platform has been anticipated by many devs since the WP7 was first shown. With many people eagerly awaiting the release of the new platform, developers are certainly itching to make new apps for the fresh new market.
Learn more about the new features and capabilities of the upcoming Windows Phone 7 series at Mobile Choice UK.
