The next Windows OS for phones has been has been announced; Windows Phone 7 series was showcased at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona earlier this week.
The OS is not due for release until Q4 2010 and currently no devices which will run it have been announced. As such the OS was demo’d on a prototype device, however several device manufacturers and phone networks have already pledged their support.
The look and feel of the Windows 7 Phone is a departure from the previous Windows Mobile OS’s, with the interface looking looking less like the previous incarnations and more like the one sported by the Zune HD media player.
The OS uses user configurable, dynamically updating, tiles on the homepage. These tiles can be linked to an application, media gallery, people and probably much more. They can displaying information such as new calls/texts, emails and even status updates automatically pulled from social networking site like Facebook and Windows Live.
Delving further into the interface will reveal another new interface feature of the OS, something Microsoft is calling Hubs. These have been described as an ‘app that make sense of your apps’, what this seems to mean is a Hub is a page that links to other functions or media. Each Hub will have it’s own emphasis and can link to both local content (stored on the phone) and cloud-connected content (stored remotely and delivered via the web).
Although Microsoft have yet to reveal it fully, it seems applications on the OS seem to be dealt with in a similar way to the iPhone, coming pre-installed with the essentials, with further apps available from a Marketplace. Office has been confirmed, though so far only the Office Hub has been shown so it’s still unknown how the individual apps (Word, Excel etc.) will look/feel.
Searching is contextual depending on what is currentlydisplayed on screen (eg. when viewing photos the search will default to a photos search) but pressing the Search button ( a MS requirement for any devices which wish to run the OS) from the Home screen will launch the confirmed Bing Search app. This can search the device and the web and will try to intelligently guess which you are trying to perform. All results are displayed in the app rather than launch the browser, keeping the same aesthetics as the rest of the OS in order to make this feel seamless.
Here at Glo-Networks we have mixed feelings on Windows Phone 7 . Currently it is looking very pretty and quite innovative but Microsoft have been quite stingy with the info on certain aspects (Sharepoint link up, gaming capabilities, Xbox 360 link up etc..). We will be reserving our overall judgement on it until more information is available, however from what’s currently known it seems people who use the current version of Windows Mobile (v6.5) will definitely find the new OS massively different and, potentially, lacking in the features that have kept them loyal.
Tags: Windows 7 Phone
