Hasta La Gadget!

So… look. Sometimes you find yourself in a Vegas club at 3AM, holding a Windows Phone 7 Series testing device loaded up with a working copy of The Harvest, and you shoot what might be world’s shakiest video of the gameplay using a nearby Nexus One. It’s practically a rite of passage in this town, right? Video after the break.

Update: Also, sometimes you find yourself in a Vegas hotel the day after the Vegas club, nursing your brutal headache and desperately seeking a second opportunity to film that hot unreleased game with a better camera. Video of that is after the break, too.

Continue reading Windows Phone 7 Series gaming, all up in the club (video!)

Windows Phone 7 Series gaming, all up in the club (video!) originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 17 Mar 2010 16:07:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |   | Email this | Comments

Speaking at a MIX10 session about Windows Phone 7 Series architecture this morning, Microsoft’s Istvan Cseri mentioned that the Windows Phone Marketplace — the one and only clearinghouse for apps in WP7S — will be able to remotely revoke licenses. Since devices will only run properly-licensed apps, this effectively means the company will be able to shut down apps remotely — a capability they’d probably invoke if a Marketplace app were to badly misbehave en masse, for example. To put it bluntly, Cseri says that apps simply aren’t in control of their own life cycle; the user controls installation and removal while the Marketplace ensures that the license is valid.

On a related note, we know that Microsoft has a series of not-yet-finalized “business, technical, and content” guidelines for accepting and rejecting apps submitted to the Marketplace, and we’ve got a particularly interesting case: apps are being “discouraged” from using the phone’s Back button. They’re being so strongly discouraged, in fact, that Todd Brix — senior director of mobile platform services product management at the company — told us that apps can and will be straight-up rejected for using Back for anything but dismissing dialog boxes. We won’t know the full rulebook until Microsoft releases it in May — but in the meantime, don’t bother making anything too controversial with those free tools, eh?

Windows Phone Marketplace can remotely revoke app licenses originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 17 Mar 2010 12:42:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |   | Email this | Comments

It’s no TouchFLO or SPB Mobile Shell, but it turns out you will be able theme Windows Phone 7 Series… a little. Although we’ve only ever seen the classy “dark” theme with the black background, Microsoft just demoed a “light” theme with dark text on a white background. Earth-shattering, we know. Both themes also have selectable accent colors, but don’t expect to go crazy here: your choices are red, orange, green and blue. We’re hoping all of these options will be expanded over time, but for now it’s not looking like a customizer’s dream come true.

Windows Phone 7 Series will have themes… sort of originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 16 Mar 2010 23:11:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |   | Email this | Comments

Each week Ross Rubin contributes Switched On, a column about consumer technology.

Throughout the histories of Windows Mobile and Android, many handset developers have talked the talk of supporting these mobile operating systems, dribbling out a couple of handsets per year as they focused on other priorities. But not HTC. The company has created more Windows Mobile and Android handsets than companies many times its size, and in fact developed the very first Android handset. Microsoft cited HTC at Mobile World Congress 2009 for being an exceptional partner, while Google’s Nexus One is an HTC-built handset sold exclusively by the search giant.

HTC has done more than simply create a lot of phones for these operating systems. It has attracted attention for its designs that include some of the largest displays and best QWERTY keyboards, as well as clever touches like the Touch Pro2’s speakerphone, which activates simply by placing the handset face down on a table during a call. But most distinctively, HTC has invested heavily in developing engaging user interfaces on top of both mobile OS foundations, with development teams focused on delivering skins like TouchFLO and Sense to both Windows Mobile and Android. But now that Microsoft is radically changing Windows Phone 7 Series, HTC will have to change course, and in the process lose the distinction of having its custom user experiences live across both Windows Mobile and Android.

Continue reading Switched On: Halting Total Customization

Switched On: Halting Total Customization originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 16 Mar 2010 17:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |   | Email this | Comments

So we noticed this odd “Contoso” label on Microsoft’s Windows Phone Marketplace press image earlier today, and we finally got to the bottom of it: Microsoft’s Todd Biggs says it’s a placeholder entry for a carrier-branded section of the store — instead of having a separate portal and / or store, Verizon or AT&T or whoever can simply sell their content to customers directly through Marketplace. So why Contoso? Todd says it’s a random trademark owned by Microsoft used in place of carrier names that doesn’t actually mean anything, although we think it suggests adventure, white roadsters, and finely-groomed mustachios. And now you know.

Olé, Contoso: Windows Phone Marketplace will integrate carrier-branded stores originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 15 Mar 2010 23:57:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |   | Email this | Comments