Hasta La Gadget!

As you may be aware, ASUS was one of the first companies to officially hop on board with Windows Phone 7, and it even produced some prototype devices (like the one pictured in the middle above) that were used by engineers and developers in the lead-up to the big launch (some 5,000 of them, apparently). As you may have also noticed, ASUS still hasn’t actually released a Windows Phone 7 device for consumers — although that may finally be set to change. Speaking with Forbes at Mobile World Congress, ASUS exec Benson Lin revealed that the company did actually have a first-generation product that it was ready to go market with, but it held back because it realized it “didn’t have the bandwidth” and lacked the carrier support it would need to support another new cellphone initiative. Lin went on to say that while ASUS is still assessing Windows Phone 7, the company feels ready for it, and he will personally be meeting with carriers at MWC over the rest of the week to gauge their interest, which he notes will be a “key factor” in determining ASUS’ strategy going forward.

ASUS still considering Windows Phone 7 device, carriers ‘key factor’ originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 14 Feb 2011 21:52:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Want to know how the eventual, inevitable implementation of app multitasking on Windows Phone 7 will look? Wonder no longer: it’s cards, which seems to be the way a lot of guys are going after webOS showed how to do it right a couple years back, and it looks hot. To see this in action on WP7, simply hold the back button and you’ll get a card-like view of all running apps. Pick your app and you’re back where you left off in that one. You can multitask even in games, have Slacker playing in the background, and if you press a volume button while on the home screen you’ll get a quickie interface for changing track, pausing, and playing.

Microsoft indicated it didn’t previously allow for third-party multitasking due to battery life concerns, but those concerns have been mitigated — somehow. We’re not sure of the API-level details that’s letting all this magic happen, but we’ll look for those later. All we know right know is that it looks great and we can’t wait to try it out for ourselves.

Windows Phone 7’s multitasking uses zoomed-out cards to check on your apps originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 14 Feb 2011 10:37:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We’ve been gathered at the same cozy venue as two years ago (for the introduction of the E52, if memory serves correctly) for Nokia’s event at MWC 2011 this evening… and frankly, in light of what’s happened the past few days, we’re not quite sure what to expect. CEO Stephen Elop should be on stage to take some questions — but in terms of product or strategy announcements, it’s anyone’s guess. Follow the break for all the fun!

Continue reading Live from ‘An Evening With Nokia’ at MWC 2011!

Live from ‘An Evening With Nokia’ at MWC 2011! originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 13 Feb 2011 12:28:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Stephen Elop, in his financial and strategy briefing continuing Nokia’s marathon Capital Markets Day, just posed an interesting rhetorical question: will Nokia be able to “customize everything” on Windows Phone 7 in order to differentiate itself? “Yes!” was Elop’s ebullient proclamation, though he quickly pulled it back to say that Nokia likely won’t make extensive use of this freedom to tailor Microsoft’s OS. Instead, the company will be cautious and seek to maintain compatibility rather than pushing the boat out too far in tweaking the underlying software. That’s a major shift for Microsoft, who forbade HTC from skinning Windows Phone 7 with Sense, something the Taiwanese company would surely have loved to do, and limited it to the introduction of a self-contained Hub. Now Nokia’s saying it — perhaps exclusively — has been given the liberty to play around inside WP7 to its heart’s content. We’ll see how important that turns out to be whenever Nokia delivers its first device bearing its new smartphone OS. An insider tip tells us the current plan is to introduce such a handset by the end of 2011, potentially based on current hardware. Who’s ready for Xbox Live on a future version of the N8?

Nokia will be able to customize ‘everything’ in Windows Phone 7, but likely won’t originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 11 Feb 2011 07:44:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Steve show just ended with both Elop and Ballmer hosting a very informative media Q&A following the reveal of Nokia’s plan to use Windows Phone 7 as its “primary smartphone platform.” Here are the highlights:

• No specific announcement for when we’ll see the first Nokia Windows Phone. Ballmer mentioned that the engineering teams have spent a lot of time together already.
• Elop also confirmed that Nokia is a Finnish company and always will be — they will not be moving to Silicon Valley or anywhere else.
• Ballmer said that the partnership is “not exclusive” but some things that Microsoft is doing with Nokia are “unique” allowing Nokia to differentiate itself in the market. Elop added that it’s important for the Windows Phone 7 ecosystem to thrive, which means that multiple vendors must succeed.
• Elop didn’t believe that Nokia could create a new ecosystem around MeeGo fast enough.
• Nokia will “substantially reduce” R&D expenditures while increasing R&D productivity moving forward.
• Nokia did talk with Google about adopting Android but decided that it “would have difficulty differentiating within that ecosystem” and the “commoditization risk was very high — prices, profits, everything being pushed down, value being moved out to Google which was concerning to us.” Microsoft presented the best option for Nokia to resume the fight in the high end smarpthone segment.
• Elop clarified that MeeGo will ship this year but “not as part of another broad smarpthone platform strategy, but as an opportunity to learn.” Something that sounds very similar to position Nokia took with its so-called “experimental” Maemo-based N900 last year. After the first (and apparently, only) MeeGo device ships this year, the MeeGo team will then “change their focus into an exploration of future platforms, future devices, future user experiences.” Trying to determine the “next disruption” in smartphones.
• Responding to “hope for a broad MeeGo-based ecosystem,” Elop said that Nokia simply wasn’t moving fast enough to effectively win and compete against Apple and Google. Windows Phone makes it a “three-horse race,” something that Elop says is pleasing to the carriers he’s been speaking with.
• Nokia has different options for its tablet strategy including using something from Microsoft or something that Nokia has developed internally.

Nokia Q&A reveals more MeeGo details and tablet plans — says Android ‘risk of commodification was very high’ originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 11 Feb 2011 06:17:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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