Windows 7 Mobile - worth waiting for....

Plates

http://www.windowsphone7series.com/

GigaByte

Sounds good

"Today, at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Microsoft is publicly previewing Windows Phone 7 for the first time. The brand new, totally fresh operating system will appear in phones this year, but not until the holidays. All of the major wireless carriers and every likely hardware maker are backing it, and they'd be stupid not to. It's awesome. Further details are forthcoming, but here is what you need to know"


http://gizmodo.com/5471805/windows-phone-7-series-the-complete-story?preview=true

Brian

Looks pretty cool. Although I laughed at this - "[They're] just showing off Zune to everyone in Europe. Hey you know what they should do? Release Zune for everyone in Europe. Just a thought."

http://www.engadget.com/2010/02/15/live-from-microsofts-windows-phone-7-series-windows-mobile-press-event-at-mwc-2010/

chillin_penguin

It looks good but to be honest im more interested in android 2.1

MiCr0

i'm glad there's no audio - Steve Balmers shouty voice hurts my head

Brian

chillin_penguin wrote: »

It looks good but to be honest im more interested in android 2.1

This absolutely blows away 2.1 in terms of sexy UI, although we'll see about funcationality. Google really have to up their game with Android's interface... it's all been quite samey really, the updates have been too iterative.

Sarn

You can watch the live stream on gizmodo if you really want to hear his dulcet tones.

It looks fairly nice and is an interesting change from what's out there at the moment.

GigaByte

chillin_penguin wrote: »

It looks good but to be honest im more interested in android 2.1

I'm sure Android 2.1 will be good but this is a BIG step up from the previous version of Windows Mobile.

MiCr0

winmo 7 won't be out until christmas - android 2.1 is here now

justsomebloke

MiCr0 wrote: »

winmo 7 won't be out until christmas - android 2.1 is here now

ye quite interesting that it will take so long to come out and give everyone else a chance to take one step beyond before that.

stevenmu

What really makes or breaks a mobile OS these days is the app support it has. And of course to get good apps you need to get developers on board.

Microsoft already has an excellent tool chain in the .Net Compact Framework and Visual Studio. I don't think details of development for Winmo 7 have been released yet, but at a guess it would be based on an update .Net CF using WPF, through Visual Studio and possibly with the option of a version of Expression Blend for GUI design, and almost certainly using extra tools and controls provided in a Winmo 7 SDK.

This would make for a very developer friendly set of tools, the problem being that currently Winmo development requires the expensive professional versions of Visual Studio. If they can bundle this into the free Express versions of Visual Studio then they could have a winner on their hands from a development point of view.

CivilServant

Joe the Santa wrote: »

ye quite interesting that it will take so long to come out and give everyone else a chance to take one step beyond before that.

Agreed, Apple are going to have OS4 out for 6 months by nov/dec. At least when you announce something have it ready to go in 6 months or less. Else you will let the competition setup a counter before you even release to market. 10-11 months is an eternity in the tech industry.

oxygen

I know, aimed at releasing for the holidays. WTF?
I had to read that twice, what holidays, Paddy's Day?

"The mobile picture is now officially a three-way dance: Apple, Google, and Microsoft."
Eh... no its not.Still only Apple and Google.Check back early 2011 and say that again.

Bob_Harris

Spot the difference.

http://www.windowsphone7series.com/

http://www.google.com/phone/?locale=en_US&s7e=

Brian

One of them uses Silverlight.

AntiVirus

CivilServant wrote: »

Agreed, Apple are going to have OS4 out for 6 months by nov/dec. At least when you announce something have it ready to go in 6 months or less. Else you will let the competition setup a counter before you even release to market. 10-11 months is an eternity in the tech industry.

None of that matters at all, if you're going to use that logic all it proves is that Apples OS4 is going to be 4-5 months older than WinMo 7 when released, nothing more.

AlmightyCushion

stevenmu wrote: »

What really makes or breaks a mobile OS these days is the app support it has. And of course to get good apps you need to get developers on board.

Microsoft already has an excellent tool chain in the .Net Compact Framework and Visual Studio. I don't think details of development for Winmo 7 have been released yet, but at a guess it would be based on an update .Net CF using WPF, through Visual Studio and possibly with the option of a version of Expression Blend for GUI design, and almost certainly using extra tools and controls provided in a Winmo 7 SDK.

This would make for a very developer friendly set of tools, the problem being that currently Winmo development requires the expensive professional versions of Visual Studio. If they can bundle this into the free Express versions of Visual Studio then they could have a winner on their hands from a development point of view.

Hmm, never thought of that. Adding it to the express versions would definitely be a good idea. While it will lose them some revenue from selling visual studio it will gain them a lot of hobbyist developers (like who are currently making apps for maemo) and mean that the only cost for developing apps is a cheapo pc and a win7 phone.

Not really liking it ditching multi-tasking. Also ditching backwards compatibility could really kill app support for it, although it's probably a necessary evil.

Bluefoam

Engadget have an image of series 7 beside the iPhone & it really makes the iPhone look ancient. It looks visually fantastic. Plus enterprise will love it, as Microsoft will have to have put huge effort into security and exchange comparability. If its as good as it looks, I say fair play to Microsoft, that's not a popular view but... I hope android can pull something out of the bag, I love android but am really impressed by how HTC treat it.

CivilServant

AntiVirus wrote: »

None of that matters at all, if you're going to use that logic all it proves is that Apples OS4 is going to be 4-5 months older than WinMo 7 when released, nothing more.

Well Microsoft's plan is to create a social media centric phone. Now the cat is out of the bag and Apple have the opportunity to preempt MS and create something even better. It could have gone social media centric first, but announcing first and delivering late (in tech terms 11 months is long) you miss the chance to strike while the iron (hype) is hot. And people may remember it as being second if Apple release something like that first.

AlmightyCushion

CivilServant wrote: »

Well Microsoft's plan is to create a social media centric phone. Now the cat is out of the bag and Apple have the opportunity to preempt MS and create something even better. It could have gone social media centric first, but announcing first and delivering late (in tech terms 11 months is long) you miss the chance to strike while the iron (hype) is hot. And people may remember it as being second if Apple release something like that first.

This is an earlyish demo. 11 months is a long time, they could add a lot of extra functionality and make serious improvements between now and then. Plus, while apple have 5ish months to makes changes to os 4.0 to take away some of microsofts thunder then microsoft have another 5 months to see what apple have done and improve upon it/rip it off.

AntiVirus

CivilServant wrote: »

Well Microsoft's plan is to create a social media centric phone. Now the cat is out of the bag and Apple have the opportunity to preempt MS and create something even better. It could have gone social media centric first, but announcing first and delivering late (in tech terms 11 months is long) you miss the chance to strike while the iron (hype) is hot. And people may remember it as being second if Apple release something like that first.

Thats just nonsense

spockety

oxygen_temp wrote: »

I know, aimed at releasing for the holidays. WTF?
I had to read that twice, what holidays, Paddy's Day?

"The mobile picture is now officially a three-way dance: Apple, Google, and Microsoft."
Eh... no its not.Still only Apple and Google.Check back early 2011 and say that again.

Er. Nokia sell more phones in a day than Apple or Google will sell in a month.

Brian

spockety wrote: »

Er. Nokia sell more phones in a day than Apple or Google will sell in a month.

In terms of where the market is going, nobody gives a crap about Nokia. They're lagging severely.

I'm loathe to use the term, but Apple, Google, and now Microsoft have far more "mindshare" than Nokia.

mickoneill30

Baza210 wrote: »

In terms of where the market is going, nobody gives a crap about Nokia. They're lagging severely.

From this article 126m units in 3 months for Nokia.
http://www.trustedreviews.com/mobile-phones/news/2010/01/29/Nokia-Regains-40--Mobile-Phone-Market-Share/p1
That is just handsets though so it includes all the little phones.

But from this one http://phandroid.com/2009/11/15/android-stealing-symbian-winmo-market-share/
Symbian has 44.6% (iPhone + Android + Windows has 28.9%). Symbian is in decline but it's not lagging.

Baza210 wrote: »

I'm loathe to use the term, but Apple, Google, and now Microsoft have far more "mindshare" than Nokia.

I agree with you on that one. If you read the industry mags or listen to the podcasts it's iPhone this and Android that. You would think Nokia didn't exist.

justsomebloke

mickoneill30 wrote: »

Symbian is in decline but it's not lagging.

Will symbian not be a dead duck in the smartphone market soon with nokia moving away from it with MeeGo and leaving symbian on only it's mid and low end phones.