We’re in Barcelona for Mobile World Congress, where Microsoft has at long last pulled back the curtains on the next generation of Windows Mobile. Don’t go calling it “Windows Mobile 7″, though – at least not around Microsoft’s folks, who have officially changed the name of the platform to “Windows Phone”.
There are bound to be more details coming out as Microsoft’s press conference continues, but everything we’ve heard and seen so far indicates that the leap from Windows Mobile 6.5 to Windows Phone was pretty massive. The entire system has been rebuilt from the ground up, with an entirely new interface replacing the one that has gone fundamentally unchanged for ten years. If you’re interested in the finer details, we’ve got a bit more in our early hands-on impressions.
Early hardware partners announced include Dell, Garmin-Asus, LG, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, and HP. While they’re hesitant to give any specific dates, Microsoft says to expect Windows Phone handsets to hit the shelves “in time for the Holiday season of 2010″ – which, unless they’re on some sort of crazy, backwards calendar, generally means by the last week in November.
Update: Microsoft’s press released has just crossed the wires:
More information about Windows Phone 7 Series
Windows Phone 7 Series creates an unrivaled set of integrated experiences on a phone through Windows Phone hubs. Hubs bring together related content from the Web, applications and services into a single view to simplify common tasks. Windows Phone 7 Series includes six hubs built on specific themes reflecting activities that matter most to people:* People. This hub delivers an engaging social experience by bringing together relevant content based on the person, including his or her live feeds from social networks and photos. It also provides a central place from which to post updates to Facebook and Windows Live in one step.
* Pictures. This hub makes it easy to share pictures and video to a social network in one step. Windows Phone 7 Series also brings together a user’s photos by integrating with the Web and PC, making the phone the ideal place to view a person’s entire picture and video collection.
* Games. This hub delivers the first and only official Xbox LIVE experience on a phone, including Xbox LIVE games, Spotlight feed and the ability to see a gamer’s avatar, Achievements and gamer profile. With more than 23 million active members around the world, Xbox LIVE unlocks a world of friends, games and entertainment on Xbox 360, and now also on Windows Phone 7 Series.
* Music + Video. This hub creates an incredible media experience that brings the best of Zune, including content from a user’s PC, online music services and even a built-in FM radio into one simple place that is all about music and video. Users can turn their media experience into a social one with Zune Social on your PC and share their media recommendations with like-minded music lovers. The playback experience is rich and easy to navigate, and immerses the listener in the content.
* Marketplace. This hub allows the user to easily discover and load the phone with certified applications and games.
* Office. This hub brings the familiar experience of the world’s leading productivity software to the Windows phone. With access to Office, OneNote and SharePoint Workspace all in one place, users can easily read, edit and share documents. With the additional power of Outlook Mobile, users stay productive and up to date while on the go.About Microsoft’s Mobile Partners
Partners from around the world have committed to include Windows Phone 7 Series phones in their portfolio plans. They include mobile operators AT&T, Deutsche Telekom AG, Orange, SFR, Sprint, Telecom Italia, Telefónica, Telstra, T-Mobile USA, Verizon Wireless and Vodafone, and manufacturers Dell, Garmin-Asus, HTC Corp., HP, LG, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, Toshiba and Qualcomm Inc.
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In the least that is a smart change on the part of MS. Especially the name. I’m sure they are tired of defending their reputation but have done little so far in correcting it.\It does appear they’ve made all the wrong mooves and realize too little, too late into the game. That is a trait of any large corporation. The market will decide as always but It is hard to fathom how the previous successes of MS have been washed aside to shrewder developers and companies given that they have played a major part in the entire personal computing market. It’s easy to take cheap shots at them without doubt however what really fixes that is a product.
Like lisa said, “Why name it Windows Phone 7?” If they’re not going to release a mobile device.. instead just an OS?
Anyway, One of the most anticipated features is the ability for it to seamlessly use it with your ZuneHD just like iTunes. Other feasible rumors is it using TouchFlo and Sense and some dash of silverlight 3.0. POV: http://bit.ly/winmo7-leaks-information
Just “Windows Phone” will suffice. Agreed. There has been some posts calling Apple IPhone users retards, while that maybe true in a sense remember it’s just a phone. It is supposed to make you retarded by way of it’s ease of use. These people are not retards in other departments. Name calling has never resolved or clarified anything. We are supposed to be retards in this department. If the phone use-of-ease gets in the way then the phone will get out of the way not the user of phones. I am an avid Linux user and liking it but that does not make me hostile nor unfriendly towards anyone with a better product. The area is gray here and the market will decide, not a corporation. Ease of use, technology and simplicity in both will be the ruling factor. Sure, let’s see what happens just the Apple dominance truly bothers me on some level, because they are overpriced, over-hyped and over-marketed. Is that a wrong thing for a company? No. For the consumer? – Yes, for sure. These little devices are the future and they are not clearly defined. There is currently so many non inter-operable interfaces/devices which makes the entire effort appear useless. Let the competition devour itself and see that it is the user who dictates what goes down. Force feeding is doomed to failure. Now and then.
As far as I know, and SDK is being released free with the phone OS, so finally MS have cottened on to what makes a phone popular.. The 3rd party apps!!!! It’s not the hardware?! Virtually all top of the range phones have the same specs, and in fact, most i-phone fan boys overlooked some pretty serious limitations in the first model. And, yes, even windoze phone can have capacative touch screens these days.. The average life cycle for a phone is around 2 years. If MS have still got it wrong this time, I don’t think the phone game is one where a monopoly could get established for any great length of time. It’s easy for the competitors to play catch up, it’s harder to stay in front. Apple now have a challenge of keeping the I-phone ahead of the pack… It will be an intersting landscape in 2 years time..
I see absolutely no reason for a company to pay to license this. MSFT has to show the world how they will compete with FREE!
Also Interface is fugly IMHO.
I expect nothing more from MS haters
They didn’t even talk about how much the OS updates will cost. How much developer tools will cost.
MSFT hater yes, but I used to be a MSFT developer. I see no reason for all the Apple developers to jump to this platform.
Apple’s developer tools are awesome and free. This is probably the reason why the App store has grown so quickly.
You guys can like MSFT, but the company has a major problem across all it’s products.
How do they compete with FREE!
Last time i tried to get the iPhone SDK it was about $100, has that since changed??
Apple Developer tools are not exactly “free”. First of all, you have to pay a $100+ fee just to be eligible to submit applications to the App Store, secondly, the very closed and very inconsistent approval policies put forth by Apple mean that many developers end up having wasted all their hard work when their application never gets approved. Time is money, so those losses are expensive.
The word “Free” has become synonymous with the words “loophole”, “hidden cost”, and “catch”, and the process laid forth by Apple exemplifies these traits. I love Apple, but I hate the way they treat developers. It’s nigh scandalous. And the tools for MS development are far superior to those put forth by Cupertino… there is simply no comparison between X-Code and Visual Studio/VSTS. It’s laughable to argue otherwise.
@PG: It is free, you just have to pay the $100 when you decide to submit your app. Any well thought out idea should easily make $100 on the store, so it allows you to build your app risk-free, then when you complete it, pay up to sell it. Rather than pay for the tools in the hope that you’ll be able to put something good together.
Odd. It cost me upward of $2500 to start developing iPhone apps as I did not have a Mac. They give the tools away because you can only run the tools on their hardware/os combination, which is where they make their money.
And while I have no information on this, it wouldn’t be hard to add a “Windows Phone SDK” to the Visual Studio Express SKU which is free.
You are confusing Apple with Google.
Justin, you seem to be implying that you can run Windows development tools on anything other than a Windows PC. If you have a Mac and want to develop Windows apps, the situation is exactly the same, is it not?
And the 17″ Macbook Pro isn’t the lowest cost option.
Where do I get my FREE copy of the iPhone OS?
I’m looking can’t find it?
Steve, I’m implying that it isn’t as free as Riley states. You have to have Apple approved hardware to do it, which is where they make their money. I already had a PC so the cost was nil for developing. but I agree, if I was a Mac developer that wanted to get into Windows development, I’d have to spend the money on a Windows License (still considerably cheaper than Mac hardware).
And I didn’t buy the MacBook Pro 17. I got a 15 with 8GB of RAM. Sure you can develop on less memory, but why?
I’m sure there is nothing free. You have to pay it sooner or latter. Even for it’s a community development, somebody pay it.
The iPhone SDK is FREE. I have it. I have never used it but I have and it and so could you if you actually tried to get it. But you blather about stuff you don’t really know regardless. The $100 is the 1 time fee apple charges to actually sell your product on their store. Hardly a problem if you are a serious developer and not a 12 yr old spamer.
Free can be a tough term for Microsoft it seems , with the high competition it seems acceptable though
check it out, WP demo http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QMH0Zkr1NQE
Looks confusing.
I agree. The visuals are very nice, and would fit nicely with what I did for my educational tablet effort (eduk8). But, as a designer my initial reaction is that it will prove very hard on the eyes. The transitions look cool, but way dizzying. Flip through a couple screens and you’ll pause. Bad for mobile!
Secondly, the architecture blows, but they are moving fast to catch up. The primary concern developmentally is transition specs and media APIs. This will prove to be Androids downfall if they don’t get stuff out fast.
It needs a lot of work, but development-wise, one could actually design an app in version 1.0. As it cleans up — version 2.0-3.0 — it will prove to be pretty competent.
Any development contacts floating around here? I need to begin prototyping eduk8.com and may be going to Startl. I am developing on the iPhone/iPad right now and have the tools, but could move to Android or Windows rapidly, and would really rather do so! Apple will prove my downfall…
Not sure about that whole auto-hiding clock/battery thing. I glance at those all the time. Whatever, seems like a decent enough effort from Microsoft, but it’s clearly not aimed at me. I use MobileMe and Google, so it’s pretty useless to me. Bing? Why would I want that when I could use Google Search?
No doubt a very good phone with a special feature Bing.
why are u gys nt mentioning the symbian event haapened??
they revealed the new version for them right?/
http://bit.ly/9EtuVp
@Riley
Windows seems to be competing OK with free Linux.
Idiot.
While Android won’t be the iphone killer it will be the windows mobilekiller. As a former windows mobile user going back almost 10 years there is no reason to use windows mobile.
Killed the iPhone for me.
I knew how to use the iPhone when it was introduced, not with this.
Yes but it’s not for morons.
I mean seriously…
+1
apple makes products for computer-illiterates and retards…yeah i said it.
“computer-illiterates and retards” . Right. It’s called “the market.”
I want to be able to extend existing applications by adding a tab
People hub, aka who you recently facebook stalked
This thing is a huge shot in the arm for MSN/Live, if they let me use more competing services like google search/maps/buzz/picasa I’d buy this thing in a second
The MSFT-envy among apple fanboys is palpable. :-) That alone is a good sign that finally we will have some real competition against the iPhone. After all, even if Windows Phone does not go past 5% global market share, just the fact that it exists will be a check on the Kingdom of Jobs. The whole industry was itching to give Apple a dose of its own medicine. Along with Android, Windows phone is their second chance.
Good news for iPhone lovers and iPhone haters alike. When you start seeing ads to “Signup for a 2yr family plan and your second iPhone FREE!”, you know who to thank in Redmond.
-theFitz
1) Windows Phone 7 is a better version of Motoblur. It aggregates feeds of information in an interface that pops and looks pretty.
2) Why so little discussion on enterprise support? This leaves RIM as the only serious choice for enterprise customers.
What’s in a name, Ms still want people to experience the windows touch and feel. Connected on a mobile device which could be anything, In this case ”Phone” sure. Windows Pad is probably on it’s way (marketing strategy who knows).
One thing is certain microsoft want to extend the cloud service without specific attachment to any device, keeping it broad enough to define any windows experience to any platform.
I’m just saying who knows.
i wonder if the windows phone includes the blue screen of death
Will Windows Fone 7 share apps with the ZuneHD?
thanks
Nero Express Lite Edition V.9.2.6.0
http://forums.skinetsystem.co.cc/index.php?topic=4.0
thanks the stuff was gud
Too little too late (IMO)
wrote more here – http://bit.ly/aIWNvq
No release date? Primed by decades of experience with Microsoft, the word “vaporware” leaps into my mind.
We have great range of latest nokia mobiles that are demanded at great level.