As we see in this first ever video, the Windows Phone 7 interface is filled with simple, beautiful animations not so dissimilar to the Zune HD. UPDATE:
UPDATE: Here’s more video showing us the experience of maps and web browsing. Very sharp.
UPDATE 2: And here’s a full features rundown clip that’s a must-watch.
UPDATE 3: One last video from Recombu—here we see a giant Windows 7 Series mockup running the interface in real time. It probably offers the best feel of general navigation we’ve seen yet.
Update: Read our hands-on with the new Windows Phone 7 Series.
Microsoft on Monday announced its next-generation mobile operating system Windows Phone 7 Series, which will bring together the Zune multimedia experience and Xbox Live gaming to mobile phones worldwide.
Manufacturers have already begun building phones featuring Windows Phone 7 Series with plans for release by the 2010 holiday season, according to Microsoft. Manufacturers on board include Dell, Garmin, Asus, HTC, Hewlett-Packard, LG, Samsung, Sony Ericsson and Toshiba.
Carrier partners include AT&T, T-Mobile USA, Verizon Wireless, Sprint, Deutsche Telekom AG, Orange, SFR, Telecom Italia, Telefónica, Telstra, and Vodafone.
Microsoft did not announce its own phone hardware. However, the software giant is working more closely than it has in the past with manufacturing partners in the design process of their phone hardware. For example, each Windows 7 Series phone will include a dedicated hardware button to access Microsoft’s Bing search tool with one click.
“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,” said Steve Ballmer, chief executive officer of Microsoft, in a press statement. “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.”
Similar to the Zune HD’s interface, the Windows Phone 7 Series main screen is organized into six “Hubs” (categories) containing different sets of features: People, Pictures, Games, Music + Video, Marketplace and Office.
The People hub includes tools to make posting status updates, photos and videos on social networking sites (such as Facebook and Windows Live) a one-step process.
The Pictures hub keeps a user’s videos and photos all in one place, where they can also be immediately posted on a social networking site.
The Games section will provide access to the Xbox Live experience. With Xbox Live integration, Windows Phone 7 Series users will be able to download and play games sold through Microsoft’s online store, Xbox Live Marketplace, which currently serves about 300 titles. Windows Phone 7 users will also be able to view their Xbox Live profiles, avatars and game achievements on their phones. (The addition of Xbox Live to Microsoft’s mobile OS may come as a surprise, but the software giant as early as 2007 announced its plans to incorporate the Xbox Live experience into phones as part of its “Live Anywhere” program.)
For Music + Video, Microsoft is integrating its Zune player software into Windows Phone 7 Series, which will enable Windows Phone 7 Series customers to sync and play content downloaded through the Zune Marketplace store. Windows Phone 7 Series devices will also include a built-in FM radio and Zune Social to share their music recommendations with other users.
The Office hub will contain productivity tools: Office, OneNote and SharePoint Workspace, enabling users to read, edit and share documents. This section also includes Outlook Mobile for managing e-mail, appointments, contacts and tasks.
At the press conference, Ballmer was vague about the Marketplace hub, which will serve downloadable third-party apps and games. Microsoft did not disclose whether Windows Phone 7 Series would have access to apps and games sold through the Zune Marketplace. The company said it plans to share details about the Windows Phone 7 Series Marketplace and its development platform during the Microsoft MIX developer conference in March.
“Windows phones are very differentiated with the new UI,” said Michael Gartenberg, vice president and tech strategist of Interpet. “They don’t look to act like another iPhone clone. The integration of other Microsoft services such as Zune and especially Xbox will help drive a message that there’s more to mobile than apps, and that integrative services matter a lot as well. Finally, the breakdown of app silos into an integrated story will help, and Microsoft explains why different can be better.”
Microsoft’s new, rebranded mobile OS is the software giant’s effort to regain its edge in the mobile space. The software giant had a head start in mobile beginning with Windows CE, its pocket PC OS, in 1996, which serves as the foundation for the Windows Mobile OS shipping on smartphones today. However, while Apple’s iPhone and Google’s Android devices are gaining market share and rising in popularity, they’ve left Microsoft’s Windows Mobile OS in the dust. Windows Mobile lost nearly a third of its smartphone market share between 2008 and 2009, according to research firm Gartner. Windows Mobile had 11 percent of the global smartphone market in the third quarter of 2008, according to Gartner, and in the third quarter of 2009 Windows Mobile’s market share plummeted to 7.9 percent.
Analysts and developers told Wired.com in November 2009 that Microsoft’s Windows Mobile OS failed to appeal to the mainstream because its apps focused on enterprise users rather than consumers. Also, from a programmer’s perspective the platform was difficult to develop apps for due to segmentation of the hardware ecosystem for Windows Mobile smartphones. Because Windows Mobile ships on several different manufacturers’ hardware, including phones made by HTC, LG and Samsung, developers have to code an app for several phones with different UI styles, buttons and screen sizes — a daunting task when compared to coding one app for Apple’s iPhone platform.
It remains to be seen to what extent Windows Phone 7 Series will compensate for its predecessor’s weaknesses — though the emphasis of personal media and social networking, along with the additions of Xbox gaming and Zune functionality, will likely shift the new platform’s focus toward consumers. Also, because Microsoft is now more involved in the design process of Windows Phone 7 Series hardware (as shown by the Bing button and built-in FM tuner included with all Windows Phone 7 Series phones), it may become easier for developers to code software for the new platform.
“Microsoft hasn’t been in nearly as bad shape as many have believed, but this refresh takes them to the next level in terms of mobile platforms and does so in a way that differentiates them from the rest of the market,” Gartenberg said. “Their challenge now is to execute, continue to tell the rest of the story and begin to expand their market share as these devices come to market.”
A live webcast of the Windows Phone 7 Series announcement will be viewable at Microsoft’s website 3 p.m. CET (6 a.m. PDT) on Monday. Wired.com’s Charlie Sorrel will be reporting live from Mobile World Conference in Barcelona, Spain. He’ll post more details as he receives them, so stay tuned.
Windows Phone 7 Series. Get used to the name, because it’s now a part of the smartphone vernacular… however verbose it may seem. Today Microsoft launches one of its most ambitious (if not most ambitious) projects: the rebranding of Windows Mobile. The company is introducing the new mobile OS at Mobile World Congress 2010, in Barcelona, and if the press is anything to be believed, this is just the beginning. The phone operating system does away with pretty much every scrap of previous mobile efforts from Microsoft, from the look and feel down to the underlying code — everything is brand new. 7 Series has rebuilt Windows Mobile from the ground up, featuring a completely altered home screen and user interface experience, robust Xbox LIVE and Zune integration, and vastly new and improved social networking tools. Gone is the familiar Start screen, now replaced with “tiles” which scroll vertically and can be customized as quick launches, links to contacts, or self contained widgets. The look of the OS has also been radically upended, mirroring the Zune HD experience closely, replete with that large, iconic text for menus, and content transitions which elegantly (and dimensionally) slide a user into and out of different views. The OS is also heavily focused on social networking, providing integrated contact pages which show status updates from multiple services and allow fast jumps to richer cloud content (such as photo galleries). The Xbox integration will include LIVE games, avatars, and profiles, while the Zune end of things appears to be a carbon copy of the standalone device’s features (including FM radio).
Besides just flipping the script on the brand, the company seems to be taking a much more vertical approach with hardware and user experience, 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. Those new phones will likely look similar at first, featuring a high res touchscreen, three front-facing buttons (back, start, and perhaps not shockingly, a Bing key), and little else.
Carrier partnerships are far and wide, including AT&T, Deutsche Telekom AG, Orange, SFR, Sprint, Telecom Italia, Telefónica, Telstra, T-Mobile USA, Verizon Wireless and Vodafone, while hardware partners include Dell, Garmin-Asus, HTC, HP, LG, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, Toshiba and Qualcomm. We’re told that we likely won’t get to see any third-party devices at MWC, though Microsoft is showing off dev units of unknown origin, and the first handsets are supposed to hit the market by the holidays of this year.
We had chance to go hands-on with a device before the announcement, and we’ve got some detail to share on just what the experience is like, so click here to read our hands-on impressions (with lots of pics and video on the way!).
And here comes another handsome devil. Toshiba’s outed its second 1GHz processor-boasting device for the day, this one is known as the K01. This guy is 12.9mm thick, a QWERTY slide out keyboard, and a 4.1-inch, capacitive, OLED touchscreen. The K01 boasts a microSD slot for storage up to 32GB, and runs Windows Mobile 6.5. There’s no word on pricing or availability for this looker yet — we’ll keep our eyes peeled. Full press release is after the break.
It looks like the next generation of little green robots just got a little bit faster, with Comsys Mobile announcing its ComMAX CM1125 reference design at Mobile World Congress 2010 (and beating HTC to the punch). It’ll apparently find life inside Windows Mobile handsets as well, where it will not only offer WiMAX, but bring GSM/Edge, WLAN, GPS, Bluetooth, and even FM radio to the table, all in a design with “exceptionally low power operation.” It’s said to be able to switch from WiMAX to Edge seamlessly, though we image that transition would feel something like being inside KITT on Turbo Boost and hitting the Emergency Braking System. No word on when we’ll see phones at retail based on this design, but we’ll endeavor to bring you more information on this design (as well as more Knight Rider references) as the show progresses.
Behold! Windows Phone 7. Someone wasn’t quite careful enough with his last minute update of this MWC signage and a passerby managed to snap this first glimpse of the WP7 interface, featuring bold, rectangular icons and Xbox integration.
This shot seems to confirm, to some extent, the bit of the last significant batch of rumors that promised tight Xbox integration. It also shows off the simplistic, geometric start page, including big, square icons for phone calls, messages, Twitter, and Facebook and a large band for accessing your pictures.
The device in the shot is a simple one: the screen is surrounded by a black bezel with a thin metal trim. Three hardware (or maybe touch?) buttons below the screen are the only visible controls, with a backwards arrow, a home-button with the Windows icon, and something that looks like a sideways magnifying glass. Is this the Zune phone? Or just another device in the WP7 stable? [Engadget]
The eagle-eyed folks of learnbemobile have come across this stupendous leak of Microsoft’s forthcoming Windows Mobile 7 OS. It would appear that some last minute alterations were taking place under the covers in Barcelona, though apparently no one bothered to check if there were cameras around before lifting said covers. You can see what appears to be some kind of Xbox Live integration — which was heavily rumored already — taking up a corner of what’s presumably a new home screen for the OS. There are also big, finger-loving notice icons for calls, text messages, and email, with sections for Facebook, Pictures and “Me” filling out the rest. We don’t have any more info than these few shots, and the aforementioned site just has the images camped out on its Facebook page, but it definitely looks to be the real deal. If this is the new face of Windows Mobile, color us excited for today’s event — it looks like a radical departure (or at least a crazy skin). You can check out a few more shots in the gallery below.
[Thanks, HJ Willems]
Update: The official announcement has now been made and fully corroborates the visuals leaked here. Check out our hands-on experience with the fresh new software to learn more.
If you’re both ready and set, then you’ll be pleased to know that Microsoft has major Windows Mobile goings-on to discuss tomorrow at 9AM ET (3PM here in Spain). What does that really mean? Well based on the torrent of circumstantial (and actual) evidence we’ve seen, it looks like the big M is set to deliver its most important piece of mobile news in years: Windows Mobile 7. Or, Windows Phone 7 Series… or whatever it is they’re calling it these days. Regardless, it looks like a new era for Redmond’s smartphone platform, and we’ll be there covering the whole thing minute-by-minute… as only Engadget can.
If you’re as curious as we are about Microsoft’s plans, the event kicks off on Monday, February 15 at the times below.And here’s the URL to park your browser at to see the action take place:
04:00AM – Hawaii 06:00AM – Pacific 07:00AM – Mountain 08:00AM – Central 09:00AM – Eastern 02:00PM – London 03:00PM – Paris 11:00PM – Tokyo
So, we had a few precious moments to play around with Garmin-Asus’ latest Nuvifones here in lovely Barcelona today — the M10 and A50, running on Windows Mobile 6.5.3 and Android 1.6, respectively — and even better, we did so in the back of a black Mercedes expressly purposed for testing out the integrated turn-by-turn capabilities. Follow the break for our quick impressions!
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UPDATE: Here’s more video showing us the experience of maps and web browsing. Very sharp.
UPDATE 2: And here’s a full features rundown clip that’s a must-watch.
UPDATE 3: One last video from Recombu—here we see a giant Windows 7 Series mockup running the interface in real time. It probably offers the best feel of general navigation we’ve seen yet.
