At a jam-packed press conference at the Mobile World Congress trade show in Barcelona, Spain, Microsoft finally announced its next generation Windows Phones 7 platform, which breaks with the past in key ways while retaining the best parts of the Windows Mobile ecosystem. As expected, the Windows Phones 7 UI takes its cue from Microsoft's digital media player, the Zune. But it also goes much further than the Zune UI, offering up what Microsoft calls a delightful and fun user experience.
"Today, I'm proud to introduce Windows Phone 7 Series, the next generation of Windows Phones," said Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer. "In a crowded market filled with phones that look the same and do the same things, I challenged the team to deliver a different kind of mobile experience. Windows Phone 7 Series marks a turning point toward phones that truly reflect the speed of people's lives and their need to connect to other people and all kinds of seamless experiences."
Windows Phones 7 Series features a home screen built from live tiles that display real-time information and spin when touched. These tiles break with the static home screens found on other devices, especially the iPhone, and allow users to get things done and see information without diving into individual applications. They're also fully customizable, providing a fully customized experience.
Devices built for Windows Phones 7 will all feature capacitive multi-touch displays (just like the iPhone) and three hardware buttons: Start, Search, and Back. (Take that, iPhone: A Back button is still sorely lacking on Apple's otherwise excellent device.) Microsoft says that the Search button is "a dedicated hardware button for Bing," providing instant access to the service no matter what the user is doing.
And if you're looking for integrated services, Windows Phones 7 has you covered: The system offers up to six "hubs," many of which appear to be based on similar user experiences in Windows Live and other Microsoft properties: People, Pictures, Games (which "delivers the first and only official Xbox LIVE experience on a phone, including Xbox LIVE games ... and avatars"), Music + Video, Marketplace, and Office.
With the new UI, one thing will remain consistent with the past: Microsoft is working with a large group of hardware and wireless partners, which will deliver new Windows Phone 7 Series devices to market by "Holiday 2010." Wireless carrier partners include AT&T, Deutsche Telekom AG, Orange, SFR, Sprint, Telecom Italia, Telef?nica, Telstra, T-Mobile USA, Verizon Wireless, and Vodafone. And Microsoft is partnering with Dell, Garmin-Asus, HTC, HP, LG, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, Toshiba, and Qualcomm to deliver devices.
More information can be found on Microsoft's new Windows Phone 7 Series website, and I'll be previewing the system this week on the SuperSite for Windows as well. Stay tuned
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Discuss this Article 38
"*SHOCKED* to see that a Windows/Microsoft-centric site is biased towards Microsoft."
You totally miss the point.
Being MS centric does not mean you have to negate reality and skew facts towards MS. Being able to think for yourself is the difference between blind gibberish from Paul's fangirl blog (or should I say: mediocre shill marketing) and the content of a site that claims to be for "IT professionals".
(striking: the content of this site matches exactly the level of professionalism I constantly see from MS "IT Pros" - no experience and knowledge as soon as they leave the treacherous waters of pure MS solutions. Most of the time totally helpless when confronted with real production environments stripped down to pure necessity, etc. etc.)
Care to explain why the main content of a "MS centric site" is more concerned to write about Apple / Google / etc. (or rather try to make them look bad while desperately try to make MS look good)?
I know that there are horrible fan sites for Apple, too. But these are fan-sites and don't claim to be "IT pro".
BTW: This is how PRO this site is:
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Please try the following:
• Enable Robust Exception Information to provide greater detail about the source of errors. In the Administrator, click Debugging & Logging > Debugging Settings, and select the Robust Exception Information option.
• Check the ColdFusion documentation to verify that you are using the correct syntax.
• Search the Knowledge Base to find a solution to your problem.
Oh, and just to add: it has NO, I REPEAT NO, MULTITASKING!
Microsoft also left multitasking a mystery, saying only that "music will play in the background." Once again, there are more details to come at MIX.
Mystery my ***: if it were there, they'd exploit it in their marketing and announcements.
"Then I can say the iPhone multitasks because it's built on OS X."
Yes, but the difference is WinMo7 will actually multi-task, your iPhone still wont. And the iPad? I know, lets build a $700 computer in 2010 that can't multi-task. That's just flipping brilliant.
Not to mention my WinMo phone has much better hardware than anything Apple releases. They really need to go for model differentiation beyond memory sizes. Their "base" consumer model good for that market, but they really need something "pro" and something "lite".
This will multi task. It's still built on Windows CE like every other phone. All versions of Windows CE inherently multi-task.
As usual, everyone is oversimplifying. A Windows Mobile phone is 2 distinct pieces of software.
Core OS: Windows CE
Shell GUI: Windows Mobile
WinMo 7 is the same thing, but the shell looks and behaves differently. For example if you buy an HTC device, you'll get Windows CE as the core, and Touch Flo 3D as the Shell GUI (they almost entirely push WinMo out of the way -- it's not unloaded but not really needed). At any rate, I never see it, which is good because the WinMo GUI stinks -- they tried to use a desktop computer paradigm on a little phone. No matter how hard they try, you can't fit the square peg into the round hole (at least not on my 4 inch screen).
Yoshipod,
EXACTLY. Paul's asymmetric attitude towards Apple and Microsoft (or any other Microsoft competitor) is obvious and becoming pathetically lame. As Leo Laporte says, "This just in from Microsoft apologist Paul Thurrott".
But then, Paul's livelihood is entirely dependent on Microsoft's success, so no surprises.
Just had to think about this post as well:
http://community.winsupersite.com/blogs/paul/archive/2010/01/28/ipad-the-morning-after.aspx
Apple's biggest blunder with the iPad, perhaps, is that the device wasn't available for sale immediately.
Right. WMobile 7 will be available in >9 months. This has been 'there is no trouble with WMobile 7' conference, rather than a product announcement. Heck, the stuff doesn't even browse properly.
Really, this is so little so late: it reminds me of this picture. http://nl.tinypic.com/r/11ug2dd/6
I'll probably end up getting a WinMo7 phone, just because I love the Zune service (I know, I know), and would love to have Zune on my phone.
However, my worry with it is based on MS' track record - every WinMo device I've ever had gets slower and slower during transitions and in overall touch responsiveness as time goes on. Hopefully starting from scratch in 7 will finally make that problem go away. Otherwise, that interface (which I actually like, based on the fake-y "demo" on the website) is going to be very painful as transitions start crawling from screen to screen.
That answer is a non-answer by the MS VP. There is multitasking, as the WM7 experience has been architected as to not jettison app compatibility with prior generations of WinMo apps that require it. The only thing that Joe is saying is that the notification system has been changed -- what used to be in the bar at the top as singular event notifications, can now be functional in and of themselves. And you can link between running apps in a manner differently than the somewhat kludgy task-list drop-down in the upper right corner. What he is referring to is that new apps will need to be written in such a way to notice the new notification system -- running WinMo 6 enterprise apps, for example, won't integrate into this new system. It would appear to be a more functional version of the system tray... Basically, it was like running Windows 3.1 apps on Windows 95. They had no idea what to do with the tray, since as far as they were concerned, it didn't even exist.
Like I said, you mac people are trying to bring everyone down to your level. And suddenly you'll go tone deaf whenever Apple adds multi-tasking to their product and you'll completely forget it couldn't do it for 3 years. You need to remember -- the core market for WinMo has been, for the past decade, enterprise customers. Their software, and their experience will not be jeopardized for potential consumer gains, which I don't think MS believes it will actually capture. I believe their marketing strategy is to remain viable in the enterprise space and have enough spill-over into the consumer sector as to not lose mind-share of IT execs making purchasing decisions.
@MysterMask (and all other Apple trolls)
The point you're missing about Paul is Media 101.
Paul is paid by Penton because he makes Penton money.
How does he make Penton money? Advertising.
What drives advertising dollars? Visitors.
What drives visitors? Any form of controversy.
If Paul was straight to the point, didn't have a slant, and plainly reported the news, nobody would visit. Just as if Keith Olbermann or Bill O'Reilly did the same - nobody would watch. The reason all three are successful at what they do is because they bring viewers.
If you really want to send a message, email Penton your complaints and stop coming. But every post here, every reply to a post here, every check to see if someone replied to your post is simply more money for Penton and more incentive for Paul to keep doing what he's doing.
"This thing won't multitask or else they'd market it."
Well that's about the dumbest thing I've heard all morning. Why would you advertise a feature that WinCE has had since the 1990s? Hey, they never marketed the great multi-tasking of Windows 7, but guess what... It multi-tasks too! Multi-tasking is a given on any modern OS or device, except the ones that Apple seems to release... I think the last time MSFT advertised multi-tasking as a feature, for anything, was when Windows 95 came out (even the 360 multi-tasks to a degree).
You Apple nuts really have some self-confidence issues. Your device can't do something basic, so you have to tear everyone else down to make it seem like that's how it's supposed to be. Literally, *every* single smart phone on the market can multi-task except the iPhone. RIM, Palm, WinMo, Symbian, etc. Crikey, you guys couldn't even send MMS messages or cut and paste until 18 months after the thing was released, so you can't pretend that the thing didn't have a rocky start.
Seriously though -- multitasking on a phone is probably not needed for 60% of users, but for those of us that consider the phone a mobile-computer, it is needed. The odder thing is the iPad -- why would you release something with a 10 inch screen and not have it capable of multi-tasking? That's just nuts. You mean I cant flip between the browser, email, an e-book, and a note pad instantaneously? The company is starting to worry about looks too much and forgetting about function. Reminds me of B&W speakers, sure they look pretty, but they don't sound anywhere near as good as the price would suggest. Am I buying speakers, or a work of art that just happens to make noise?
"In a crowded market filled with phones that look the same and do the same things, I challenged the team to deliver a different kind of mobile experience"
Ballmer means that Steve Jobs challenged Microsoft.
"*SHOCKED* to see that a Windows/Microsoft-centric site is biased towards Microsoft."
You totally miss the point.
Being MS centric does not mean you have to negate reality and skew facts towards MS. Being able to think for yourself is the difference between blind gibberish from Paul's fangirl blog (or should I say: mediocre shill marketing) and the content of a site that claims to be for "IT professionals".
(striking: the content of this site matches exactly the level of professionalism I constantly see from MS "IT Pros" - no experience and knowledge as soon as they leave the treacherous waters of pure MS solutions. Most of the time totally helpless when confronted with real production environments stripped down to pure necessity, etc. etc.)
Care to explain why the main content of a "MS centric site" is more concerned to write about Apple / Google / etc. (or rather try to make them look bad while desperately try to make MS look good)?
I know that there are horrible fan sites for Apple, too. But these are fan-sites and don't claim to be "IT pro".
BTW: This is how PRO this site is:
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Please try the following:
• Enable Robust Exception Information to provide greater detail about the source of errors. In the Administrator, click Debugging & Logging > Debugging Settings, and select the Robust Exception Information option.
• Check the ColdFusion documentation to verify that you are using the correct syntax.
• Search the Knowledge Base to find a solution to your problem.
No multitasking, no Flash, no keyboard, no copy/paste, not interested.
Where have I heard that before?
Seriously, a little more info is needed. I never saw what was behind the Office hub. Never saw a video play. What is the underlying OS? ARM or Intel? When will the SDK be available? I guess we'll have to wait for MIX10.
I gotta say I'm just shocked *SHOCKED* to see that a Windows/Microsoft-centric site is biased towards Microsoft. Next you're going to tell me that Apple-centric sites (daringfireball, etc) are biased towards Apple. Oh the humanity.
"*SHOCKED* to see that a Windows/Microsoft-centric site is biased towards Microsoft."
You totally miss the point.
Being MS centric does not mean you have to negate reality and skew facts towards MS. Being able to think for yourself is the difference between blind gibberish from Paul's fangirl blog (or should I say: mediocre shill marketing) and the content of a site that claims to be for "IT professionals".
(striking: the content of this site matches exactly the level of professionalism I constantly see from MS "IT Pros" - no experience and knowledge as soon as they leave the treacherous waters of pure MS solutions. Most of the time totally helpless when confronted with real production environments stripped down to pure necessity, etc. etc.)
Care to explain why the main content of a "MS centric site" is more concerned to write about Apple / Google / etc. (or rather try to make them look bad while desperately try to make MS look good)?
I know that there are horrible fan sites for Apple, too. But these are fan-sites and don't claim to be "IT pro".
BTW: This is how PRO this site is:
=============
Error Occurred While Processing Request
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Element PUBID is undefined in GETARTICLEINFO.
Please try the following:
• Enable Robust Exception Information to provide greater detail about the source of errors. In the Administrator, click Debugging & Logging > Debugging Settings, and select the Robust Exception Information option.
• Check the ColdFusion documentation to verify that you are using the correct syntax.
• Search the Knowledge Base to find a solution to your problem.
That would have to be worst, unintuitive, most inefficient user interface I have ever seen demonstrated.
Scroll to unlock, Scroll down tiles, touch tile, wait 2 seconds for animation to turn tile around, wait 2 more seconds for next screen to appear. Words, pictures randomly placed half cut off, icons all different sizes, scroll down, scroll right, touch screen, nothing happens, touch screen again, touch screen third time, watch another needless animation, wait 2 seconds, scroll, scroll, scroll, scroll right, scroll left. Where the hell am I?
Press the Start button. Ah good back at ugly tiles.
Innovation done the Microsoft way!!
Thank god every phone will have a Back and Start button, you're gonna need them to back way the hell out of that total mess.
@Christopher:
"This will multi task. It's still built on Windows CE like every other phone. All versions of Windows CE inherently multi-task."
Then I can say the iPhone multitasks because it's built on OS X.
Christopher,
I'm not trying to denigrate Windows Phone 7 in any way. Just pointing out that the "true" multitasking does not appear to be part of that OS. His answer is VERY telling. If it did what you think it would, why would that VP not simply answer "Yes, it can fully multitask"?
I have not seen anything that seems to indicate older apps will run on this OS. It appears Microsoft made a clean break from older versions, which looks like a good decision. More info about 3rd party apps are on their way, but I doubt older apps will run right out of the box. They are not able to use any of the modern features of this OS. No touch, no notification as you point out, etc. Probably a whole new API for development.
Everything shown on this OS so far indicates its meant for consumers. Enterprise users don't care about facebook integration, zune music pass or xbox live. Maybe Microsoft will show off more enterprise features in the future, but right now it screams consumer product to me.
This is a very different product from Win MO 6.5. But that is a good thing.
"This is a very different product from Win MO 6.5. But that is a good thing"
No it's not.... It's a very similar product. The underlying WinCE is very similar too... None of these journalists have apparently asked to see any preliminary SDK.
And you're forgetting there are literally billions and billions of dollars of bar code scanners, medical equipment, logistics devices, etc, that run WinMo. There is no clean break. That I can assure you... On the UI side, yes, but as far as backwards compatibility goes, no. For example, 6.5 is heavily touch sensitive, but it will run older apps written for PDAs that had no touch capability (Pocket PC 2003 apps run fine on 6.5).
Granted most enterprise apps are high volume that should rely on minimal input, for example scanning a thousand bar code labels shouldn't require doing anything other than holding the device trigger. A touch sensitive UI or not is ultimately pointless in those cases.
WinMo is not a consumer platform -- 7 is designed to give it a more friendly UI, that's it. Sort of like XP was designed to be a more consumer friendly version of Win 2000, but ultimately has it's origins in business and was designed to service that market primarily (but be accessible to consumers as well).
There will be no great change in multi-tasking.
"And you're forgetting there are literally billions and billions of dollars of bar code scanners, medical equipment, logistics devices, etc, that run WinMo. There is no clean break. That I can assure you..."
"Though the leak only shows a few documentation screenshots, it already tells us a lot about the Windows Phone development experience. It further suggests that backwards compatibility is almost entirely sacrificed; most current applications use native code, and for most developers that's no longer going to be an option. "
-http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/news/2010/02/windows-phone-7-series-development-kit-info-leaks.ars
If these new windows mobile 7 devices perform as demonstrated, they will make strong competitors for the iPhone.
"and if Google give theirs away, wheres the business model?"
Changed it for the same effect.
Let's wait until MIX to see more details, at which point I think we will see tons and tons of details. I think they wanted to wait to MIX for this announcement, but were starting to realize that the cat was about to get out of the bag, so they might as well go ahead and announce it.
MysterMark, the problems with this site are legendary. I'm not sure what there problem is, but I've talked to Paul about this before, and he can't understand why it is so problematic either. It's worthwhile to mention that ColdFusion is not an MS product.
As I've said before, I don't understand why the Paul bashers keep on coming back. It's not like you guys just come in once, say your piece and then go. You come back again and again for the same article. If you dislike Paul or don't like his opinions, it is not Paul who is the crazy one when you guys come back day after day. Look in the mirror.
A horrible, horrible mess.
The problem with being stuck with 4th place in attempting an intuitive, innovative and useful UI is that the previous three guys have worked out the best way to do things. This is especially true if you were first. Being fourth means so much pain in finding ridiculously convoluted ways around the most simple of tasks, in order to not infringe on patents. As Steve Jobs said at the original iPhone Keynote "Boy have we patented it".
Being this late to the party means being severely limited in what new innovation you can deliver.
The Zune tried 'squirting', brown devices, Zune points in the Zune marketplace and HD output, - what a game-changer each of those were...
Windows is just so 'uncool' in the mindset of the type of people wanting social networking biased phones. Windows is 'Kind of what your dad uses'.
Palm has already tried this approach, with hardly any traction.
Apple will be on their 4th version of the iPhone OS, have over 200,000 Apps in the App store, iPad will be uppermost in peoples minds and will have sold over 10,000,000,000 songs on iTunes before this effort debuts.
Windows Phone. - A bit like a Google Phone, A bit like a Palm Pre, A poor relation to the iPhone, but great if you love being a follower.
This is going to be so much fun.
Ahhh... I was a bit disappointed I didn't get my Apple trolly goodness for the Short Takes, but fortunately good things come to those who wait.
Oh god, the trolls are here already, guns locked to tear down anything MS related. Seriously do you people have lives outside of trashing the stuff
that is posted here? How in the Hell do you all know how the Phone is going to do? short of it
is, you dont so shut up already.
Ah, seems I was wrong.
Microsoft will be 6th to the party, after Nokia's Meego (yeah seriously) and Samsung's Bada operating systems.
This is going to be better than I thought.
http://blogs.birminghammail.net/technobabble/2010/02/samsung-launches-wave-rival-to.html
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/536f1ac6-1a66-11df-a2e3-00144feab49a.html?nclick_check=1
According to Thurrott:
"But Microsoft has one-upped Apple by specifying some requirements for these devices, including three prominently placed hardware buttons for Start, Back, and Search. This is genius, both because it corrects a major issue with the iPhone--which has no Back button--and because it creates a nice consistency that will make moving from device to device more seamless."
So Microsoft's 'Genius' is in the provision of a 'back button'.
Funny that I have never needed a 'back button' on my iPhone because the OS negates the need for it. Therefore it's a non-issue.
I have rarely heard anything so desperate by way of 'one-upmanship'.
If thats all Microsoft has in their armoury, their marketing had better be really really good.
Gates & Seinfeld perhaps?
Christopher,
I think you had better do a little more research about the multitasking capabilities of Windows Phone 7.
http://gizmodo.com/5472240/is-there-app-multitasking-in-windows-phone-7-hint-its-a-lot-like-the-iphone
It sounds like it will have the same type of multitasking capability that the iphone currently has.
After 10 years of failed attempts with WinMo, THIS time it will be different!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AYWmDag3ruM
Or, at least, it will be different...nearly a year from now.
Microsoft are nothing if not consistent:
http://www.thestreet.com/_yahoo/story/10684355/1/exclusive-microsoft-crashes-phone-bash.html
Plays for Sure - anyone?
Get ready to hear Paul describe the iPhone as a 'Train Wreck' - coming to a supersite review near you soon.
The lack of Paul's usual skepticism and wisecracks is pretty telling. Microsoft coverage is enthusiastic and to the point, while Apple coverage is full of sarcasm and trolling.
Viper1,
The trolls are not tearing down what Microsoft has done with Windows Mobile 7, so much as they are laying it on Paul.
They are pointing out how Paul instantly pans an Apple product before even seeing it, yet loves the Microsoft one. That his perceived problems with the Apple products are completely ignored when the Microsoft product has the same ones. Not shipping right away, big problem for the ipad, not an issue for mobile 7. No Flash, big problem for the ipad, but not a mention about mobile 7. The list goes on and on.
Look at the his reviews of the ipad, where 10 minutes into the presentation he calls it "idud" before most of the features are even shown. He takes every opportunity to put in his jabs at Apple, yet with this announcement everything is just rosy.
>"Today, I'm proud to introduce Windows Phone 7 Series, the next generation of Windows Phones," said Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer. "In a crowded market filled with phones that look the same and do the same things, I challenged the team to deliver a different kind of mobile experience. Windows Phone 7 Series marks a turning point toward phones that truly reflect the speed of people's lives and their need to connect to other people and all kinds of seamless experiences.">
Let's rephrase.
Ballmer: Three years ago I laughed out loud at the iPhone not having a keyboard and thus not appealing to business customers. But since I really have no clue about innovation and good design, I ordered my team to do what we have been doing for two decades: copy good and innovative ideas from others and present them to our users
- like we developed it ourselves
- like it hasn't been around on other devices for at least two years
- and show demos that actually don't reflect how it really works.
"I received a few minutes with a Windows Phone 7 Series prototype today, and the software looked beautiful but felt very, very early. Tiles responded sluggishly. When I scrolled down a contact list, it scrolled into a great black abyss that only filled with contacts after a few seconds. That wasn't what Microsoft showed in its demo,"
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2359245,00.asp
The big problem for Microsoft is that popular computing is moving to the mobile space and as usual they are being left behind.
Operating systems from Apple, Google, Rim (if they modernise it), Samsung and Nokia will be fully entrenched in the marketplace both on iPhone knock-offs and iPad me-too's, by the time Windows Mobile 7 is 'unleashed' into the world.
The thing is, all the other OSes are given away free, either by the device manufacturer or Google.
Who's going to licence WinMob7 when they can get an OS for free? and if Microsoft give theirs away, wheres the business model?
