
Windows Mobile 7 Series - glymor
http://www.engadget.com/2010/02/15/windows-phone-7-series-is-official-and-microsoft-is-playing-to/
======
halo
The UI makes both the iPhone and Android look incredibly dated. I have a few
questions about discoverability and usage in practice and it looks a tad laggy
in places, but on the whole it looks very nice.

The downsides are that it shares many of the problems with the iPhone - the
lack of multitasking, no Flash, and I bet it requires iTu--the Zune Software.
There's also unknowns on WM7 as a development platform, and whether it
requires you to use the App St--Windows Mobile Marketplace. That said, from
what has currently been shown I think the good massively outweighs the bad.

One feature I'm particularly happy to see is Wi-Fi Sync. I hope this gives
Apple the kick up the backside they need to include it in the iPhone.

~~~
bruceboughton
That's a really interesting interface... my first impression is that it looks
really cool. Finally someone is _not_ cloning iPhone.

One thing that is interesting is the comparison between (Mac, iPhone) and
(Windows, Windows Mobile). On the Mac, it's unusual to have a window
maximised, but on the iPhone that's the only mode of operation. On Windows,
it's unusual to have more than one window on screen at a time, but WinMo7
seems to have completely abandoned the concept of windows. Interesting...

~~~
danudey
I'm going to second this, in a way. Some parts of this look nicer than my
iPhone (e.g. bringing up a list of letters to skip around in your contacts),
and the entire interface is their own creation (i.e. they're not aping Apple
or Android in the visual style).

The contacts thing I don't know how practical it would be (it interrupts the
flow of skipping to a contact vs. the iPhone's index sidebar), and I don't
like the interface (compared to the Pre or the iPhone), but I have to give
them credit for being original at least.

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pistoriusp
Because of the side scrolling nature of the UI you've got some content on the
right side that isn't relevant to what you're doing right now. (It takes away
from what you're doing.)

The UI appears to lack any boundaries, rather relying on typography. It's
interesting. I don't know how I feel about it, I'll reserve that kind of thing
for the experts. It's certainly refreshing.

I see they've also created depth by having certain object scroll slower (or
less.) Further removing the boundaries. (By boundaries I mean gradients,
lines, blocks and buttons - I believe these objects give a UI a form of
tactility?)

[http://www.youtube.com/watchv=MdDAeyy1H0A&feature=player...](http://www.youtube.com/watchv=MdDAeyy1H0A&feature=player_embedded)

~~~
gdee
There's a question mark missing in you link. Hopefully it will work this time.
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MdDAeyy1H0A&feature=404](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MdDAeyy1H0A&feature=404)

~~~
Groxx
How did _that_ happen...?

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JunkDNA
"...the first handsets are supposed to hit the market by the holidays of this
year."

Kudos to Microsoft for realizing they need to be bold here and re-invent
things. I'm encouraged by the lack of the "Start" bar. They have an incredibly
brutal hill to climb if the handsets are only available at the end of the
year. They should really have had a device out the door at the same time as
the Palm Pre. It has taken Android a considerable amount of time to get to
where it is today, and that took a no small amount of effort from Google. RIM,
Google, and Apple are not going to be sitting on their hands this whole time
milking their lead (well, RIM might ;)). Assuming the time frame holds true (a
_big_ assumption), by the time any appreciable number of users have these
devices in their hands (early 2011), Apple alone will have released a major
new OS update as well as hardware update, and be halfway to the next one. I
expect Google will be similarly aggressive.

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evlapix
With regards to the interface I have to vouch for Windows.. I have a Zune HD.
I love it. The UI is anything but limiting and amazingly intuitive.

My girlfriend would ask "How do I do XXX" and before I could remember how I
would accomplish the objective, she had explored her way to the solution.

Obviously a phone will have more strenuous requirements, but the interface I'm
using on the Zune seems like it may be the exact outlandish interface that
changes the way we think about buttons, and menus for interactive portable
devices.

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topbanana
About time too. As .Net developer, I've been frustrated watching the Windows
Mobile car crash develop in slow motion. Let's hope they get the ecosystem
right too

~~~
stcredzero
M$ can do a SDK. The question is whether they'll stomp 3rd parties as they've
done in the past. If they just get the things right that Apple got really
wrong, they could even come off as heroes.

~~~
rbanffy
Funny how a lesser villain can look like a hero...

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forgotAgain
1) There is no phone yet. This was just a very superficial first look behind
the curtain. Right now it looks like a modified Zune.

2) Delivery of devices by the end of the year seems a very tight schedule.
That gives them basically 8 months to get to RTM. They haven't announced
developer tools yet. I would expect a very basic 1.0 release this year if they
make it at all.

3) It would be good if they succeeded. It's to no one's benefit to replace one
800 lb gorilla (Microsoft) with another (Apple). A counterweight is needed and
Google Buzz has caused me to do a complete re-eval of that firm's worthiness.

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pavs
I hope I am not one of the few who didn't like the interface. It looked too
much like "flash interface" you see on some websites. Not a big fan of
sideways sliding.

I applaud having more choices in interface, but I am more interested in better
choices as opposed to having just another choice. Hard to draw any solid
conclusion just by watching that video, but not very impressed so far. IMO
YMMV

~~~
johns
You won't be the only one. However, I know a lot of Zune owners (mostly that
won them, not bought them) that thought they would hate the interface and
ended up liking it a lot. I don't know if I would like it until trying it. I
thought for sure I would like the iPhone UI but it often drives me crazy.

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mercurio
_[Microsoft is] dictating rigid specs for 7 Series devices (a specific CPU and
speed, screen aspect ratio and resolution, memory, and even button
configuration), and doing away with carrier or partner UI customizations such
as Sense or TouchWiz. That's right -- there will be a single Windows Phone
identity regardless of carrier or device brand._

So all Windows phones will look the same and work the same. I'm skeptical that
hardware manufacturers will be enthusiastic about Microsoft turning their
products into commodities again. Unlike the situation with PCs, this time they
have a viable alternative in Android.

~~~
blasdel
The partners are probably just happy that they didn't get fucked over by a 1st
party Zune Phone.

Microsoft has had several such projects in their recent stable of inept Mobile
OS + hardware dev teams (along with several non-phone Zunes, WM6, WM6.5,
several reboots of WM7, the Sidekick, etc.).

Google's doing a ton of meddling with their hardware partners, as they can
withhold their apps (Maps, Gmail, Voice, etc.) to get their way, but even then
they keep getting fucked on basic stuff like putting the hardware buttons in
the same order, much less the insane issues with backporting software updates!
It looks like MS is trying to dodge all of that up front.

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jsz0
I'm no fan of Microsoft in general but it looks like they made some good
choices here. It's refreshing to see a GUI that's not just an iPhone clone or
yet another awkward facelift on a dated product. I think it will be
successful. SmartPhones don't have the same level of legacy baggage that
prevent users from jumping to another platform easily so I don't think
Microsoft is out of the game at all. It'll be interesting to see where their
market share comes from. I'm thinking RIM & Nokia more than Apple & Android.

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mdasen
What I would have really liked to see in the video was any new capabilities of
Mobile Internet Explorer. Is it going to have the capabilities that we're used
to from the iPhone, webOS, and Android? The web browser is probably the most
important part of these phones since almost everything has a web interface.
The XBOX Live and Facebook apps look nice, but there's no guarantee that
Windows Phone 7 Series will take off and get lots of developers on board.
However, a good web browser means that I can still get what a lot of what I
want without apps.

~~~
glymor
From [http://www.engadget.com/2010/02/15/live-from-microsofts-
wind...](http://www.engadget.com/2010/02/15/live-from-microsofts-windows-
phone-7-series-windows-mobile-press-event-at-mwc-2010/)

 _"Here's a look at the browser. This is a much more advanced browser then
we've ever shipped. It's based on the desktop version of IE, so it's highly
compatible with lots of webpages."_

And there's a few pictures.

~~~
tomh-
That browser better has to support the exact same features as webkit for
android and Iphone else I don't think this phone can match up against the
iphone and android phones due to the lack of developer interest in developing
for this browser.

Developers are fed up for years with Microsoft's browsers and here they can
safely ignore it because it doesn't have a huge market share.

~~~
dangrossman
If it's based on the rendering engine in IE8/7, then pretty much everything on
the web already works for it. No mainstream sites are "safely ignoring"
Internet Explorer.

~~~
tomh-
Well regular mainstream sites aren't, but mobile web applications/sites are
making use of css3 and html5 features not present in IE8/7. In the mobile
industry Microsoft has such a large marketshare that it will be safe to ignore
the browser of Windows Mobile 7 (for now).

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akshat
The phone does not seem simple. My mom was able to figure the iphone out. I
doubt about this one.

~~~
cujo
Is your mom the target audience for this phone/os? I don't know, but my point
is that not everything should be geared towards people who aren't interested
or can't keep up with tech.

~~~
pkulak
Android's already got the geek market. And it's a small market, so who would
be silly enough to fight over the Apple scraps like that? Besides, how could
this be a geek phone with no multitasking? And, that UI looks like it was
designed by an impressionist painter with no regard to actually using the damn
thing, so no normal phone user is going to like it. Way to exclude both user
bases, Microsoft.

~~~
akshat
Again, Android is not in the Geek market. It just happens that their
aesthetics seem to appeal to geeks. Google would love my mom to be using an
Android Phone.

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dannyr
I love my Android but I have to say I'm impressed with Windows 7.

I have a Zune and I dig the UI a lot. Adding XBox Live games is definitely a
big plus. The games give it a big advantage over Android.

Apps will again be key and this is where Microsoft strengths lie. Microsoft
has the best developer tools on the market and they have legions of engineers
on the .Net platform.

My only worry is that it may be a year or two late for Microsoft. I don't
really want to count them out because of what they did with the XBox versus
the Playstation.

However, the phone is a tougher market. It would be harder to convince people
to switch phones. Phones are much more personal than gaming consoles.

~~~
trezor
People switch phones much more often though, maybe even once a year.

Consoles is something you buy for a five year period of time.

~~~
dannyr
True. I would switch phones but very likely it will still be an Android phone.

I don't know that many people switching from IPhone to Android and vice-versa.

My online life is tightly integrated with Google's services so it will be
tough to switch to a new platform.

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glymor
Steve Balmer from the press conference:

 _"...the innovation of developers is important. We build a new foundation
with a rich set of development tools which we'll discuss at MIX next month.
[...] we want to take a very big step forward on [development tools]."_

I wonder if this is just WPF/Sliverlight.

This seems a lot like the Palm WebOS announcement; similar reboot/new platform
and breaking of backwards compatibility (unconfirmed).

~~~
johns
With how much they've been talking about taking Silverlight mobile since last
year's MIX (at PDC most notably) I would almost guarantee that it will be
Silverlight.

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liquidben
It will be very interesting to see what XNA support is like on the final
model. There's a strong community of developers accessing these tools for
free, which would allow Microsoft to roll out a full and lively app store
quickly. I would be highly optimistic about Microsoft's ability to run an app
store service, based on experiences with Xbox Live, Xbox Indie Games, and Rock
Band Network. Since they're building from scratch, they could analyze and
avoid legacy issues present in Apple's iTunes App Store ecology.

Converse to their potential strengths at running an app store, Microsoft has a
difficult decision posed by marketing. There are a lot of people out there
addicted to Xbox Live Achievement points. If MS allows you to earn achievement
points via games on it's new mobile phone, it will get a _tremendous_ boost in
market share.

The risk present here is that the achievement points system requires
additional overhead and review by MS, in order to prevent system breaking
games. There's no feasible way for them to populate their app store with
indies _and_ approve achievement points for all of them.

In order to have their cake and eat it to, MS needs to be able to
differentiate achievement point games from indie games, but without turning
indie games into an unshopped ghetto (see Xbox Indie Games). My best
resolution would be to offer a small differentiation to icons on the store,
specifically take those icons for games with points and apply a smaller logo
to the corner, much like on a shortcut icon. Perhaps make it a little gold
medal with a green ribbon falling in an X shape ;)

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jsz0
Wondering how it effects the SmartPhone industry...

RIM/Nokia: Should be worried. They're jockeying over last place in the
SmartPhone modernity contest these days. Hasn't hurt them much yet but it's
hard to see how that lasts forever. Nokia is probably in better shape than RIM
here.

Palm: Good try. Consider Open Source and/or licensing before it's too late.

Apple: Probably not much to worry about for now but they shouldn't get
complacent with the iPhone platform. My biggest question here is how big of a
distraction the iPad was for Apple internally. Do we have a major iPhone
revision and a strong software update in the works or another minor hardware
bump with a merely evolutionary OS update? If they stay off Verizon for
another year (at least) it could really start to hurt iPhone sales. The iPhone
is no longer so far ahead of the pack that you'd suffer with bad coverage to
use it.

Android: Not much for Google to worry about but I think a lot of third party
handset makers will put some resources back into Windows Mobile devices. Even
more so with the existence of the N1.

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Groxx
I must say, that's surprisingly clean and not in-your-face. A nice change for
Microsoft. I've seen _very_ similar styles of interfaces (concepts) for a few
years, but they're certainly the first big-player to back it with a product.
We can hope it won't be that slow-scrolling (largely seen in other videos).
People get annoyed with shiny things that slow them down.

One thing that's bugged me about the touch line of iProducts is the amount of
wasted space around the icons (though I understand the reasoning behind it,
and it would encourage an entire icon remake if changed).

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gxs
I'm curious to see how it handles emails and .doc and .ppt files.

Whether we like it or not, a lot of day to day business activities happen
through word, outlook, and now, powerpoint. If windows mobile displays those
files types cleanly, I assure you it will be a success. Blackberrys let you
open those filetypes but I think they handle it pretty clumsily.

For me it would be a huge plus if I could go through a deck or read a long
word document without having to always be at my desk.

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rbanffy
Funny how it looks like <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cPDT21oEhW0>

~~~
elblanco
I would still like to use that interface.

~~~
rbanffy
All we have to do is to convince the Gnome Foundation. Or the KDE folks.

But would we have to use Spice Girls (is it?) music to go with that?

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aresant
Refreshing user interface yes.

But did we forget all the lessons of the "readwriteweb facebook login debacle"
of last week?

This UI seems substantially less user friendly than iPhone or Android for your
average end user.

Who is now, incidentally, trained on the "iphone clone" UI if they've had a
smartphone in this generation.

~~~
potatolicious
I think they've struck on something that Android has been ignoring: fun. The
original iPhone was _full_ of fun, interesting usability tidbits - the
momentum-based flicking, the bounce you get when you hit the bottom of a list,
the turning of album covers... etc.

How "fun" your UI is directly contributes to discoverability. Android's UI is
very dry, and IMHO it makes the UI harder for a novice to pick up and learn.
You can inject a lot more features that aren't immediately obvious, and must
be learned - but you must make your platform "fun" enough for users to
actually bother discovering these things.

Given what I've seen so far, I think MS has realized this also, and I think
they're on the right track.

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stcredzero
Seems like M$ has re-prioritized. Backwards compatibility is no longer sacred.
Now it's alright to forge ahead and tack-on backwards compatibility
afterwards. (I'm also thinking of Vista and Windows 7 here.)

~~~
shrikant
Backward compatibility with their absolutely massive install base of WinMo
6.1?

~~~
stcredzero
Good point. But why were they carrying the suckage forward for so long?

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ThomPete
Hmm not sure what to make of this.

The interface looks very limiting.

For instance where do I overview my apps?

~~~
junklight
I get the impression they don't want it to be app centric - presumably "apps"
now add functionality to the "hubs" - of course that assumes everything can be
neatly categorised

~~~
ThomPete
Yeah you might be right.

Then again, they can call it what they want. People still need to get to those
"hubs" of functionality.

Don't seem to well suited for a store let alone any ecosystem thinking.

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stuntmouse
A couple of things I noticed that haven't been mentioned here: Wi-Fi syncing
will be great, the animated XBox Live icon is a little annoying.

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stuntmouse
Microsoft got the memo.

