We’re not allowed to say much about it, so we’ll leave it at this: I got a bit of hands-on time with Windows Phone (the official name for what was previously known as Windows Mobile 7) prior to its announcement. I’ll have a bunch more to say about it once I’ve spent some time with it in a setting that allows for video/photography – but in the mean time, read on for my notes and early impressions.
Notes:
- Windows Mobile 7 is officially known as “Windows Phone”. If you’re talking about this build in specific in relation to others, its “Windows Phone 7 Series”, but Microsoft primarily refers to it as “Windows Phone.”
- No consumer devices will be shown today, nor is it likely that any will show up this week at Mobile World Congress. The only ones floating around are pre-production, development-only handsets
- We’ll have a full list of hardware partners soon, but the names we’ve heard mentioned so far are Dell, Garmin-asus, LG, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, and HP.
- The first Windows Phone handsets will launch “in time” for the Holiday season of 2010
Impressions
- The interface is a rapid, massive departure from Windows Mobile 6.5. Really, it’s huge. There is next to no resemblance between Windows Phone and any past version of Windows Mobile
- As far as we’ve heard so far, the details we broke in January are spot-on. Much of the interface is very Zune like. As we said then, manufacturers will not be able to make massive modifications to Windows Phone. Microsoft specifically said that things like HTC’s TouchFlo will not exist on Windows Phone.
- The Zune brand will be used for music/video content, while Xbox Live will be used for Games.
- The homescreen is made up of two pages: on the left is a series of “panels” (Update: They’re called “Live Tiles”), either square or rectangular, which serve as shortcuts to your favorite applications and pull in data from them. On the right is a simple list of all the applications installed on the handset. You flip back and forth between the two pages by swiping.
- The panels on the homescreen (the shortcut icons) are dynamic, to some extent. The “Photos” panel pulls in recent photos as the icon background, for example.
- The entire thing reminds me very much of a combination between the Zune interface and the new Xbox 360 dashboard
- Panels can be dragged around and rearranged on the homescreen the same way icons are re-arranged on the iPhone: tap and hold, then drag.
- Each screen has been stripped down to its core – if it’s not necessary, it’s not onscreen. There is no Start button lingering at the top of the screen at all times; hell, there’s not even a clock/WiFi/battery bar up there until you click the space it would usually be.
- Windows Phone is very heavy on the animations, and Microsoft is proud of it. Take the calendar, for example: when you jump from a day view to month view, it zooms gracefully from one to the other. It makes the entire interface look incredibly slick, though we’re already hearing people ask if they can be turned off (and no, they can’t.)
- There is at least rudimentary Facebook integration; I spotted Facebook status updates being pulled into the contacts screen (which is called the “People” hub), and you can update your own status from the same place.
- All Windows Phone handsets must have three buttons: back, Start (Windows key), and search. As we’d heard, Microsoft is being pretty strict about the specs of Windows Phone handsets.
- The search button is context sensitive. For example: on the homescreen it launches Bing, but tapping it while on the application list screen will let you search through just your apps.
- I’m not sure if we were supposed to see this yet, but holding the search button will launch a voice searching feature. It wasn’t currently functioning
- As far as I could tell, there is currently no copy/paste functionality. We were told that “developers will hear more about that” at Microsoft’s MIX conference next month, though it was implied that it would be about why copy and paste “won’t be necessary” rather than when it was coming.
- The build we checked out was really buggy – but considering that they’ve got almost a full year to patch it up, I’m not too worried at this point.
The UI looks cool, and I’m sure some teenagers will love it. But the UI is also inherently confusing as heck. There’s no clear rhyme or reason to the way headers and boxes are used for navigation — it’s just crap floating around and looking really cool. Ultimately it’s going to make it tough for people to figure out how to actually get stuff done on the devices.
Yeah, the UI of the WinPhone 7 is refreshing, isn’t? Its like its a new shift from the normal platforms we have seen in the past. I think ‘simplicity’ is the key here.. **Reminiscing the almost windows phone 7: http://bit.ly/windows-phone-7-before
@jenna. I kind of like that early UI. I wish they’s allow you to at least switch between the stock UI as announced and an advanced UI which would be something like sense UI.
I dont like the UI that much, I am HTC HD2 user and appreciate what HTC have done with HTC Sense everytime I use it, but the new UI somehow feels un-organized..may be just to need to spend some time with..otherwise will be forced to move to Android as I like my features and proper layout more than just pretty graphics and pictures..will see next year…
I don’t think they have nearly a year to fix the bugs for Christmas market – more like six months.
Looks like an interesting take on phone IUs. I can’t wait to see one in the wild.
Since I don’t own an Xbox (PS3) or a Zune (iPod) I wonder how valuable some of the built in integration would be for someone like me.
I love my iPhone but it is good to see the additional competition.
What a mess.
“There is next to no resemblance between Windows Phone and any past version of Windows Mobile.”
I’m sure if you look hard enough, you’ll find a registry in there somewhere.
The iPhone, on the other hand. Well, the WiMP7 graphical design looks completely trash in comparison, but the choice of controls seems highly inspired by the iPhone, right down to the limited means with which to delete e-mail messages.
As a Zune HD user, the interface is pretty easy to use. If you know how to scroll up, down, left, right, and if you are literate, then it shouldn’t be too complex.
Ha ha ha Windows Mobile Phone 7 = WiMP
+1
This review sounds more like, “I hate microsoft, so what ever they do sucks” . I can sense lot of sarcasm through out. I have an android and am happy with it. But i think MS is on the right track too. From consumer point of view(most of whom are non techie), added competition is a good thing.
I can’t agree more. I get really sick of the prevailing anti-Microsoft sentiment. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve got a MB pro and an iPhone, so I’m no MS fanboy, but at least I keep an open mind. Most people in the tech community seem to bash everything Microsoft does regardless of the merits.
You know….Its not like MS didn’t do anything to bring bashing down on them. Vista is the reason I got a Mac and dealing with Windows Mobile for 2 years is the reason I got an iPhone. They have tended to put out a lot of junk….or didn’t update what they had.
When I see the interface, I see a ton of wasted space. It does look cool though. Not sure the tiny words on the panels are really that useful from a UI point of view. The icons are nice though.
Is there a big demand for editing Word docs and spreadsheets on their phone? The iPhone displays Excel sheets pretty well, that’s all I’ve ever felt inclined to do. Maybe I’m wrong.
The Zune HD would’ve kicked the iPod’s butt a few years ago, but without the app store, its just a cool device on the shelf.
I like how MS is incorporating their other products in the phone’s ecosystem. Kinda. The Live stuff rubbed me the wrong way when it gave me bad directions to my mortgage closing. Its probably better now though. Some sort of Xbox live integration could be cool.
We will see if they can earn consumers respect.
Don’t criticize someone else for not being impressed by this turd Microsoft just floated. Just tell us if you’re going to buy one? I thought not.
This thing is going to ship 4 years after iPhone and it doesn’t even have the specs of the original iPhone. Without an industry standard HTML5 browser you can’t even run the thousands of mobile Web apps that non-Microsoft smartphone users have been running for years.
Where is the desktop class OS and API’s? That is 2007 iPhone also.
BSD Unix and Apple WebKit are both free, both totally open source. If Microsoft wants to make their own core OS and browser core then they have to be at least as good as the free stuff. That means desktop class OS and HTML5 browser. Without that, why bother? What are you building on here?
If you love Microsoft, if you are a rabid Microsoft fanboy (you’d have to be to use their stuff these days) then the best thing you can do is demand better from them. In 2011, they should not be struggling to meet the 2007 feature set of a competitor’s VERY FIRST PHONE.
Call a turd a turd. The excusifying for Microsoft is the problem, not some anti-Microsoft bigotry. They’ve earned every disenchanted customer.
What the hell are you talking about when you mention hardware specs? The new Windows phone line will most likely be powered by Tegra 2 and require huge screens in addition to a high minimum RAM.
Zune HD User? Your’re kidding right? You actually spent money on that versus an iPod Touch? Amazing…
Cool Story Bro!
I don’t own either of the devices but I’ve still used each one throughly and I’d take a Zune over an iPod any day.
You have clearly never seen or held one before. I’ll go on a limb and say you don’t even know what a Zune Pass is.
Also, fuck off with your smug self-righteousness. I’m an iPhone user (I have a Zune 30 for music, I can’t stand the limited iPhone music UI) but I recognize there is a world of awesome devices out there without a fruit stamped on their backs.
Well said.
Just for info…the quality of music palyback on zune hd is much better than Apple Ipod even though it plays only loss-less. Ask any genuine music enthusiast or a listen to a symphony and compare….
Let’s not start pretending that PMPs are somehow audiophile equipment.
If you want to get snarky, tell me how to get hundreds of my PlaysForSure-DRM’ed symphonies to work with the new Windows Phone.
Well damn, i thought that 17 year old was the only connection between Apple and people on/behind TC, but what a mess guys. Just put a ‘We work for Apple but don’t tell anyone’ sign on top of the site.. nobody will notice.
Yes, MS sucked with older versions of WM, but this is really exiting, the amount of integration with social platforms ( we only seen Facebook, but i don’t think MS is so stupid to bet it all on that alone) is really huge. For iPhone OS and Android already being in ‘the zone’ means they need even more massive updates on their os’s for “the normal” consumer to have the ‘wow’ effect.
@Dog; @Epic
Have some respect for other mens work, a little ‘well done’ wouldn’t hurt anyone guys.
Well, it does look appealing for a consumer point of vue.
The problem, as many are pointing it out, is that WinMo 6.x was mainly useful for business users. And this edition seems to be aimed at a totally different market.
So yes, good for competition in the media consumption market. But maybe not the best for the business market.
Well i got to disagree on that one, i think specially for business market it’s a huge step forward.
Allot of business people now are going for iPhone as preferd phone because of the UI experience. And with this release MS tries to get them back.
I think at the dev conference we’ll see even more examples of Office/Exchange integration, specifically aimed at the business market. With over 80-90%% of users on Office this could be one of it’s killer features. I don’t see Apple or Android phones come up with a solid Office integration in the near future.
Thanks for the information Roman.
I wasn’t aware that iPhone was such a hit with business users. From where I am, the most used device is still the Blackberry since its integration with the infrastructure is well set.
Now, if as you say the iPhone has such a market with the business users, then I must agree with you, Windows Phone 7 might have a nice hit when it finally comes out.
On an other note, I must say it is very late for it to come out. They should have worked this out at least a year ago… It’s Microsoft for crying out loud! Not like if they didn’t have the capital/expertise for it… Lack of vision?
So what you’re saying is that Microsoft’s last 10 years of products were actually all really, really great, and if people don’t like those products then they’re in Apple’s pocket?
The fact that you read this and thought it was pro-Apple is just bizarre. If anything, this lets Microsoft off too easy. A Zune with a phone in it is Windows Mobile 7? They have sold even fewer Zunes than Windows Mobile 6.
There are thousands of mobile Web apps that run on Apple, Google, Nokia, Palm, and RIM devices, but they don’t run on Zune or Windows Phone because the Microsoft devices lack a basic HTML5 browser from 2007. How can there be any excuse for that at all? There is none.
No copy/paste when your existing user base is all business users who were sold on Windows Mobile because of Pocket Office is pretty bizarre also.
This thing is going to ship 4 years after iPhone. It is amazing how slow Microsoft moves. How can you defend that? Palm started over since iPhone, Android started over since iPhone, and they are both on v2 already.
Yes, Apple has kicked ass for the last decade. Microsoft has a lot of Windows XP users with viruses. Those are actual facts. Your whining about it won’t help Microsoft ship good products.
it looks nice. are they rolling out new hardware?
It looks awesome. I don’t know why they made this announcement almost a year before release. What are we suppose to do until then?
You’re supposed to buy another netbook with XP on it.
By looking at it, it looks as sexy as Ballmer does!
it looks very uncool.
I’ve been a Windows Mobile user for three generations. This OS will sink like a rock. Looks awful. Plus, I hate them trying to shove Windows Live and Bing down my throat. I’m a Google person. I tried Windows Live once for about four minutes. And apparently they won’t even allow HTC to put something useful on top of this ugly OS. Now, I can only hope they’ll open up the Iphone some more, or get a decent touch screen on the Android.
The iPhone has a totally open HTML5 Web app platform, ISO audio video, ePub books, iCal calendars, LDAP and POP mail, OpenGL graphics, GSM cellular, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Unix, USB. How is it not open?
Yes, the native apps are proprietary, but so are all native apps on every platform in the entire history of computing. On Microsoft platforms you not only have proprietary native apps but proprietary Web apps, proprietary audio video and other formats. Android and RIM native apps are also proprietary. Palm’s would be if they had any native apps.
Openness is one of the reasons iPhone has succeeded. People make Web apps for iPhone because they know they also run on other smartphones, people make audio video for iPod because they know it also runs on other devices. It works with existing infrastructure. It doesn’t crash because it has an open source core OS that has been steadily improved since the 1980′s. It isn’t succeeding by some kind of magic.
The native apps provide a kind of balance. Where Web apps are totally unmanaged, totally Wild West, the native apps are managed, the regular consumer trusts them. When you consider Google bans about 10% of the open Web from its Search index and has served malware off of Android Market and Microsoft has used up 25-50% of the Internet’s bandwidth over the past 10 years with XP botnets I think questioning Apple’s methods is the wrong approach.
Wow. . .a whole page of comments and no one complains about no copy-and-paste. MS makes a half-way decent piece of vaporware that they won’t release for 9 months and all of a sudden copy-and-paste isn’t critical anymore! Imagine that.
Also, according to Ballmer this will not be suitable for business because it has no mechanical keyboard.
The lack of an HTML5 browser is also amazing. Blackberry is about to ship their HTML5 browser which creates a universal smartphone app platform (Apple, Nokia, Google, Palm, Opera, Mozilla, Blackberry) except for Microsoft. Users of this device shouldn’t have to wait for Microsoft to ship a Flickr app or Facebook app … those apps have already been on the Web since 2007, along with literally tens of thousands more.
I don’t know how you can call this a smartphone without an HTML5 browser. That is the second most important feature after the dialer.
This is definitely better than Windows Mobile 6.5. A big improvement. Much like the latest Zune HD is a big improvement over the original Zune.
However, is this enough to save Microsoft? You notice that despite the improved Zune, it still isn’t getting much in the way of sales. Being just as good as Apple doesn’t get you ahead of the game.
Remember too that the iPhone is going to get a big refresh come this summer. The Windows Phone might look nice when compared to the current iPhone, but will it still look good when June/July comes around.
The original Zune was aimed squarely at the iPod and three months later, Apple introduced the iPhone and changed the game. The Zune HD came out swinging against the iPod Touch just in time to see the Apps store come on line and change the game again.
Windows 7 is aimed squarely against the iPhone in its current incarnation, but by the time “the holidays” come around and the first Windows Phones come out, it’ll again be left in the dust by the new iPhone and Android phones.
There isn’t room for too many different smartphone OS’s. Three separate platforms sound about right, and that is now the iPhone, RIM, and Android. Windows is right now a long shot and everything is riding on this to make some sort of impression.
One more observation: Windows Mobile should be the business platform of choice, but I can’t see too many businessmen being overly charmed by the interface. It’s not only aimed squarely at the consumer market. It’s aimed at the younger set. Nice to be cool, but the interface isn’t going to attract a lot of businesses which have pretty much switched from Windows Mobile to RIM and the iPhone.
Business platform of choice?
How many IT/telecomm managers are going to be thrilled at that Facebook logo on the front screen? Will their business users be able to “collaborate” on FarmVille between meetings?
The one thing they could have done to get back in the game would be if this device ran Windows 7. Not Windows Mobile 7, but actual Windows 7 … Windows NT. Like Apple’s mobiles run the full OS X. Like XBox runs NT. Then this device would have the weight of the entire of Microsoft behind it, instead of being a boutique phone from just one small division of Microsoft that usually loses money. This is a Zune phone, not a Windows Phone, and it’s not enough.
Android has surprised a lot of people with its low quality because they think Google is so big, how can they ship such lousy mobile software? But Android is just from the small Android division of Google. Less than 5% of Google is focused on Android, whereas 100% of Apple is focused on OS X. Apple’s market cap is actually higher than Google’s, so for Google to send out a tiny team to compete with the whole of Apple on software is a very minor effort. When you add the additional overhead of coordinating with various hardware partners, Android has an enormous task to compete with iPhone.
If Microsoft wanted back in the game, 4 years after iPhone, they would have to bring the whole of Microsoft to the ball game. Instead they sent Zune. A Zune Phone that is called a Windows Phone is the lazy way out and it’s not enough. Zune was not able to compete with Apple even on the iPod when it did not run OS X. Now, they are completely outclassed.
Ballmer criticized Google for having separate desktop and mobile operating systems as if he himself didn’t know that Windows NT and Windows Mobile are separate systems. Maybe he doesn’t. To him, maybe the branding is all that matters. But branding doesn’t help existing NT code to run on Windows Phone.
Even if they could not port NT to ARM, they could have gotten behind an Intel chip and come in with a Wintel Phone and made some noise. But a Zune with a phone in it? Zzzzzzzzzune.
I still think that Android is the platform at risk now, not WinMo. WinMo sales will go way down this summer, in anticipation of version 7, but by the fall Microsoft will have a reasonably compelling product, that, unlike Android, will actually be desirable to consumers, not just to 2nd grade manunfacturers that lack their own OS. Speaking of which, Samsung’s Bada seems to be a decent offering and given that Samsung used to be Android’s biggest potential supporter, it is going to be a serious blow for Android’s mid-term viability. By the end if the year, Android will be in 6th place after Symbian, iPhone OS, RIM, Bada, and WinMo and slowly die like so many of Google’s experiments (it is now in 5th place, in spite of the Droid and Nexus hype. Some people seem to have forgotten that).
I see no reason this will be desirable to consumers over Android. Android has had facebook integration from almost the start. Android has a better looking UI already now, who knows what it will look like in a year when this comes out!
Android has a webkit, industry standard browser, not something based on outdated and outclassed IE.
Android has copy/paste AND true multi-tasking!
D.O.A.
I missed your comment on Bada. OMGWTFBBQ?!
The fact you think Bada is in any way a serious threat to ANY smartphone OS makes me think you’ve never used Samsung phone software before or you work for them. Those are the only two rational explanations.
Steve, thank you for your comments. I personally think vanilla Android is butt ugly, as are most Google interfaces with more than a text and seven words. You obviously disagree, so let’s just leave it at that. So far Android hasn’t even been able to outsell WinMo 6, so I don’t see them having better chances against Win Phone 7.
As for Samsung – they don’t have to prove anything to anyone. They’ve sold about 250 million phones last year, among them 40 million touchscreen phones. If you leave the smartphone definition aside for a moment, that’s more than either Apple or RIM have sold last year. Again, you might not like their phones, but consumers have voted with their wallets. Once they migrate the upper half of their touchscreen lineup to Bada by the end of the year, they will be rivalling Apple and RIM with 8 digit quarterly smartphone sales.
In order to see the time, I have to touch it, just like I did with my LED watch in 1976? Talk about innovative!
I’m interested to see the accusations of Apple bias in this review – I see no such bias.
For all of the accusations of Apple users being ‘fan boys’, we see here in these comments the exact same thing. If a reviewer expresses concern about an MS product, they’re suddenly ‘biased’. Doesn’t make sense.
The truth is that this is a very very different OS to the ‘previous’ version – intended for an entirely different market. Questions about whether it will be able to complete with Apple/RIM/Android phones are valid in a review – especially when MS management previously had lots to say about these devices – now suddenly they’re trying to be like them?
“Hamranhansenhansen” is an APPLE TROLL…..
In order for me to be trolling, I would have to be lying, which I am not, and this would have to be a Microsoft fanboy site, which it is not. This is a site about mobiles. If you are a Microsoft fanboy, you are entitled to your own opinion, not your own facts. Catch up with the state of the mobile industry. There is absolutely no way this vaporware Windows Phone can be described as competitive, even if it was shipping right now. The idea that it will ship in a year? It is a massive joke.
I’m happy to hear your actual arguments to the contrary. Please defend the technology that is described here. If I’m unfairly unimpressed then please tell me why.
You are a troll. You make statements backed up by false assumptions in your vitriolic comments. Just say you hate Microsoft and go from there. Quit kidding yourself
“fb1302604533″ is an APPLE TROLLBOT…..
I thought it was the Mac fanbois that couldn’t take criticism or didn’t have a “sense of humor”. The level of fanboi crying an whining on this page is sickening!!! If TC is so biased, the why on earth do you read it you bunch of utter MORONS!!!
It looks nice. Definitely will attract young kids. But I was hoping you could customize the UI more, use sense etc. I’ve been waiting on this because I dont like the touch sensitivity on the android phones. Touch on the iphones is outstanding but Im not ready to commit to the closed off world of the Iphone.. I’m curious about the WinMo7 phone touch sensitivity.
So you want to commit to the closed off world of WP7? That makes sense!
Microsoft already said they’re completely following the Apple model. It will be as unlike WM 6.5 and Android as it can be!
Years ago, in the days of Windows 3.11/95, NT 3.5 and Netware, I was a sysadmin over desktop and Intel and Alpha servers.
Unfortunately, this product announcement fits Microsoft’s long-standing MO.
They pre-announced WiMP 7 while it’s still vaporware (remember Longhorn, anyone?), promising all sorts of neat features (like WinFS) in order to salt the market and scare customers away from the competition’s shipping products.
If Microsoft’s history is any indication, WiMP will ship with fewer features than we’ve seen to date. I just hope they don’t need a codebase reset mid-way through development. Their marketing division needs to stop promising what’s beyond the engineers and developers are ability to deliver.
I’m looking forward to getting some hands on with this. I love the Zune interface so this should rock.
Just hope that the windows phone does not come with the blue screen of death
Windows 7 is in alpha-condition, not even beta.
The fact that it has less than 10 months to quash and skill all its bugs and to make its features work is worrisome.
Microsoft does NOT have a good reputation for creating things on time.
We all should remember how many years it took for Microsoft to create the update to Windows XP despite all the early examples. And we all remember all the bugs the Windows XP update had.
Windows Vista, here we come!
Openness is one of the reasons iPhone has succeeded. People make Web apps for iPhone because they know they also run on other smartphones, people make audio video for iPod because they know it also runs on other devices. It works with existing infrastructure. It doesn’t crash because it has an open source core OS that has been steadily improved since the 1980’s. It isn’t succeeding by some kind of magic.
What the crap are you talking about? Apple is the most closed platform company ever, you only can install applications from their App Store, if you developed an application you can sell it only over istore and needs to be certificated by Apple.
Even in IPad Story, you can’t install any to your machine which Apple doesn’t approve.
It is not Windows Phone, it is Tiles Phone.
Flashy visual gunk, no customization,no memory card, no independent third party apps, no backward compatibility, no real enterprise support, no real advance, but a backward step a la iPhone. This is Microsoft’s platform lockdown a la Apple. This is what you guys ( tech blog writers) asked for. As for me, I will milk out WinMo 6+ for it’s power. When the Android finally corrects the stupid mistake of only allowing you the installation of a couple of apps, I will seriously consider it. You asked for eye candy trash, I hope you enjoy it.
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