While this thing looks and sounds badass...I will give apple one thing Microsoft hasn't thought of....simple names for their devices! damn son...windows phone 7 series?

In my opinion, all these devices (zune HD, microsoft phone windows 7 series, xbox, windows 7, etc) are all supposed to seamlessly integrate together but if you know nothing about any of these products you would think that they're all made by different companies. I think they should seriously consider renaming their products. Thats really my only problem with Microsoft.

[Edited on February 17, 2010 at 9:43 PM. Reason : .]

2/17/2010 9:40:46 PM

uh dude, it's not a device, it's a platform, like android

2/17/2010 9:44:40 PM

LOL

2/17/2010 9:47:39 PM

meh...thought they were actually making a device too not just an OS upgrade.

2/17/2010 9:51:05 PM

They've got their work cut out for them if Microsoft plans on digging themselves out of the hole that has become Windows Mobile.

2/17/2010 9:51:44 PM

^thats why I thought maybe the videos i was watching was some sort of zune phone hardware/windows 7 series software...

2/17/2010 9:53:12 PM

It's an phone operating system that Microsoft is going to only be licensing for devices that meet specific performance criteria.

I'm sure it'll get a snazzy shorthand at some point. For right now, I'd imagine that MS is doing whatever possible to avoid it being called Windows Mobile 7 just to try and show how different it is from the previous Windows Mobile versions. They just decided to do it with an awkwardly long name

2/17/2010 10:44:32 PM

I could give a shit what the name is, as long as it works well.

Quote :

"thats why I thought maybe the videos i was watching was some sort of zune phone hardware/windows 7 series software..."

Why the hell would you think that? Microsoft isn't going to abandon their hardware partners like Google has. If you've read ANY of the dozens of blog posts about this, I have no clue how you could be confused about this at all. It's been made very clear over and over again that the phone being showed is an engineering prototype and that hardware partners will be required to hit very strict hardware requirements.

2/18/2010 3:01:15 AM

Quote :

"Why the hell would you think that? Microsoft isn't going to abandon their hardware partners like Google has. If you've read ANY of the dozens of blog posts about this, I have no clue how you could be confused about this at all. It's been made very clear over and over again that the phone being showed is an engineering prototype and that hardware partners will be required to hit very strict hardware requirements."

it's quite obvious that I only watched the videos and looked at the pretty pictures. And why the hell would I think that MS would abandon their hardware partners is quite simple...because if they want a fighting chance with this they need to abandon the hardware partners that have produced nothing but garbage in the past. Hell that prototype will probably be the best looking win 7 blah blah hardware you'll ever see in that case

Quote :

"I could give a shit what the name is, as long as it works well."

it's thinking like that that allows for failed marketing I would have expected better from you of all people.

[Edited on February 18, 2010 at 6:42 AM. Reason : .]

2/18/2010 6:40:24 AM

Quote :

"because if they want a fighting chance with this they need to abandon the hardware partners that have produced nothing but garbage in the past. Hell that prototype will probably be the best looking win 7 blah blah hardware you'll ever see in that case"

It's not like MS has the best track record for stylish hardware in the world...



Plus, I think it was said that Garmin/Asus made the prototype anyway. While nothing is guaranteed at this point, I'd be shocked if something almost exactly like it didn't come to market.

2/18/2010 8:36:07 AM

re: Silverlight support

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/02/18/silverlight_mobile/

2/18/2010 9:37:27 AM

also one other related thing: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/02/18/windows_phone_compatability/

seems only .net and silverlight apis will be available to most developers, but super special devs may get access to c++ apis.

2/18/2010 10:24:36 AM

^^^I guess I just dont want to see a sweet OS like this go to waste on piece of shit hardware like android phones and previous windows mobile phones.

2/18/2010 11:10:56 AM

http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=17726

Quote :

"According to the leaked documents ( http://wmpoweruser.com/?p=13486 ) obtained by WMPoweruser, the operating system (officially dubbed Windows Phone OS 7.0, or WPOS7.0 for short) will be built on a mix of Silverlight (Microsoft competitor to Adobe's Flash), XNA (the loop-based multi-platform game development tools previously used on the Xbox 360 and Zune), and the .NET Compact Framework. ... A piece of good news is that the OS will reportedly support be capable of supporting preemptive multitasking, something Apple's iPhone still doesn't completely support. It's unclear, though, whether Microsoft will allow its native apps to backgrounded (which would allow you to run multiple programs at once, similar to the computer). Multitasking was a major selling point of webOS and Android phones, but it also caused anger among some customers for slowing down phone response at times. In the document Microsoft writes, "As a preemptive multitasking operating system (OS), Windows Phone OS 7.0 supports multiple processes running simultaneously on the system. There is no limit to the number of processes that can run on the phone. The only limit is the amount of available system resources." Microsoft intends for its WPOS7.0 apps to be primarily developed in Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 and Express Blend along with a soon-to-be-released new Windows Phone emulator."

[Edited on February 18, 2010 at 11:18 AM. Reason : .]

2/18/2010 11:16:00 AM

WPOS ... Windows POS ... what an unfortunate acronym. Hello, Marketing?

2/18/2010 11:20:49 AM

It's unfortunate, but at the end of the day Microsoft has always had shitty names and it's never made me want to use their products any less.

All marketing probably cares about is that they stick with the number 7. Seems like a magical number for MS these days.

2/18/2010 11:44:00 AM

Some very positive stuff in the article Prospero posted!

Confirming the dev platform is all I really needed to make myself way more interested in one of these phones.

2/18/2010 11:48:56 AM

If I had to guess, I would guess that when these phones come out the moniker "Windows Phone Series 7" is a family name, not a product name.

AKA:

Phone 7 HTC HD2
Phone 7 HTC Foobar
Phone 7 Samsung Kickass

would all be part of the Windows Phone Series 7. That would be my hope anyway.

2/18/2010 1:45:38 PM

I think its probably more likely that the os isn't mentioned other than in specs. Ads will focus on features and if they mention the os at all it would be maybe "powered by windows" or something.

2/18/2010 1:49:37 PM

Quote :

"the OS will reportedly support be capable of supporting preemptive multitasking"

Holy editor fail Batman!

[Edited on February 18, 2010 at 2:11 PM. Reason : ws]

2/18/2010 2:11:11 PM

it still has zune disease

even "If they can deliver on the promises of 7 Series"

good luck with that, this is more of a blackberry 'threat' than a Iphone 'threat'

2/18/2010 2:31:16 PM

Quote :

"it still has zune disease even "If they can deliver on the promises of 7 Series" good luck with that, this is more of a blackberry 'threat' than a Iphone 'threat'"

Did you really think this post was that great that you had to make it in two different threads?

I fail to see how this is a Blackberry threat, when Blackberrys are primarily business focused and this isn't at all.

2/18/2010 2:33:26 PM

blackberries are the absolute worst phones. Unless you need the hardcore lockdown features, litterally any other phone is a better choice.

2/18/2010 2:42:10 PM

im fairly certain this is going to be horrible

2/18/2010 9:46:13 PM

At first look, I welcome the idea of using "hubs" but I think that this OS has a lonnng way to go...


1.) IE rendering speeds appear to be AWFUL. The engadget "hands on" video obviously proves that the MS rep had the engadget page pre-loaded for the interview within the first 20 seconds. I would assume that this was done to prevent embarrassment. See- http://www.engadget.com/2010/02/15/windows-phone-7-series-hands-on-and-impressions/

Also, it looks as if they try to hide from showing the phone's rendering of a webpage during the 20min technet video. Even during the press release they showed "eatsushi.com" - take a look at that site... it's a very basic page that Netscape 3.0 could render.

2.) It seems that many demos have taken a few touches to register a "click" (hence the engadget pre-load slip above). You would hope that this is a hardware issue but capacitive multitouch has been around long enough to make me think otherwise.

3.) Switching between hubs, apps etc seem to take longer than what is is already available on an iphone 3gs or nexus one. I almost feel like the animation of the tiles folding back is there to distract from load times. While this looks nice at first glance I could imagine that this would get old, fast.

[Edited on February 18, 2010 at 11:00 PM. Reason : .]

2/18/2010 10:57:45 PM

guys it's a pre-production demo unit, the phones aren't coming out until holiday of this year, at best it's a alpha/beta build they're using.

2/18/2010 11:02:23 PM

Nah man, most things are flawless 9+ months before release.

[Edited on February 18, 2010 at 11:12 PM. Reason : Roughly 18 months after my iPhone purchase... here's hoping for upgrade eligibility!]

Quote :

"take a look at that site... it's a very basic page that Netscape 3.0 could render."

I realize what you're going for is hyperbole here, but no. Just no.

[Edited on February 18, 2010 at 11:15 PM. Reason : .]

2/18/2010 11:08:16 PM

^seriously. It's on OBVIOUS engineering prototype hardware. The touch responsiveness is certainly a combination of hardware and software. You have to realize that the builds they are demoing are NOT release builds, so there's likely tons of debugging/trace info, very little performance optimization et al.

Quote :

"1.) IE rendering speeds appear to be AWFUL."

They aren't. You just have to wait for MIX.

2/19/2010 10:38:50 AM

I never understood why they announce shit so early on. Why not wait until a few months out THEN announce it when you have a more polished product. Its not like they're bringing anything revolutionary to the table...multi touch already exists...the UI sort of already exists in the Zune HD (basic concept of it at least).

2/19/2010 10:48:49 AM

It has a distinct impact on peoples buying decisions.

I was leaning toward an Android device, but after seeing the news about these phones, I am going to wait a little longer and see how this pans out.

2/19/2010 11:52:06 AM

^Yep.

And it's not "so early on". They needed to announce it with enough lead time to give developers time to create content for the platform, time for hardware manufacturers to finalize and ramp up production, and time for the general public to find out about it.

I would say there are two distinctly revolutionary things on the table (even comparing to the zune). The hub-centric UI changes the way developers think about applications, and the platform driving hardware mandates for open platforms is VERY new and very revolutionary.

We'll see if both work in practice, but the latter worked pretty effectively for Windows 7 (although at a much less prescriptive implementation). I have been waiting for a reason to abandon my iPhone, and Android just didn't do it for me, so hopefully Microsoft will *finally* come through with a viable alternative.

2/19/2010 12:04:44 PM

To reiterate, a "refresh" of a .net platform on a mobile device is awesome.

http://www.engadget.com/2010/03/09/microsoft-shows-off-xna-games-running-on-windows-phone-full-3d/

3/11/2010 9:18:53 AM

Not to mention that one codebase gets you almost instant deployment to three (maybe 4) platforms.

3/11/2010 10:44:23 AM

Quote :

"The hub-centric UI changes the way developers think about applications"

Won't much matter if people aren't making apps. And if the Zune is any indication...

3/12/2010 12:43:13 PM

I'm strongly considering getting the HTC HD2 and "upgrading" to Winphone 7 in the fall via XDA. I put upgrading in quotes because I realize that there likely won't be an actual upgrade path, instead I'd have to wipe and re-install just about everything. Besides that hassle, is there a big risk in going this route? Maybe the HD2 doesn't have the gpu or some other component needed?

Help me out here. I don't want to get stuck with an unsupported platform.

3/12/2010 1:27:01 PM

MS has already said fuck you to the enterprise side for 6-9 months or so at least - that's the only market they still have fully captured basically - i'm interested to see how that side ends up

3/12/2010 4:00:16 PM

^^The HD2 isn't supported because it doesn't have a back button. At least that's what I've been reading. As far as performance specs, it's more than enough to run WinPho7. But Microsoft has drawn the line in the sand, and the three buttons are mandatory.

I imagine that HTC will have out a very similar phone that meets the hardware interface specs before the OS actually launches. Moral of the story: if you want to buy a phone for an OS that isn't out yet, don't hold your breath.

3/12/2010 8:14:17 PM

You mean a "Bing" button. In fact, the HD2 has too many buttons I believe.

I want to get the HD2 because of the huge-ass screen, great processor and low price. Upgrading to Win7 would be a bonus, provided that 6.5 with Sense UI isn't too aggravating.

The alternative is to get a Nexus One for Verizon. Both come out in 2 weeks. I'm still weighing the plusses and minuses.

3/12/2010 8:31:17 PM

^Being that WinPho7 is incompatible with WinMo6.5, you won't be able to leverage any of the apps, services or the same marketplace. SenseUI or not, that seems like a bit more than a nice to have to me.

And the Nexus One is a piece of garbage. Have they recalled it yet for the reciever problems?

3/14/2010 1:52:57 AM

Phone dev tools gonna be free. Thats pretty awesome.

3/15/2010 1:35:23 PM

And Student Developers get free access to the marketplace. And the approval process should be light years better than Apple or Google. And you have your choice of Trial/buy methodologies. And it's all Silverlight, which you can almost directly port from desktop apps to the phone.

I've been working on an app, my first software project in 9 years. Never used C#, Silverlight or modern web services until last week and I'm almost finished with a fully functioning multiperson, push enabled app. It's pretty good. If I were half decent at this, I probably could have written the whole thing in a couple of days.

3/16/2010 3:10:18 AM

Is there any good documentation on the default libraries? Coming from a java world, the standard library is really, really well documented, and silverlight is pretty stark by comparison.

last night I did the basic web browser app which is stupid easy, but i wanted to have the page title get updated with the title of the page in the web browser. I couldn't for the life of me figure out where I could get that data. Am i gonna have to pull down the content separately any manually parse the document? In that case to they recommend not using the web browser in the first place?

3/16/2010 9:38:54 AM

I can tell you that in VB.NET it's WebBrowser1.DocumentTitle

Not sure how it is for Silverlight, but when I was working on my first .NET project last week, just going to Google and typing in "msdn [controlname]" came up with the documentation I think you're looking for.

[Edited on March 16, 2010 at 9:49 AM. Reason : http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.windows.forms.webbrowser.documenttitle.aspx]

3/16/2010 9:48:18 AM

Yea i found the docs on msdn, but the control is apparently much more limited than the standard .net one.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/microsoft.phone.controls.webbrowser_properties(VS.92).aspx

Not much there :-P

[Edited on March 16, 2010 at 9:54 AM. Reason : s]

3/16/2010 9:53:52 AM

Windows Phone 7 Series Emulator:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=2338b5d1-79d8-46af-b828-380b0f854203&displaylang=en

Visual Studio 2010 Express for Windows Phone CTP
Windows Phone Emulator CTP
Silverlight for Windows Phone CTP
XNA 4.0 Game Studio CTP

3/16/2010 11:43:39 AM

IE9 preview available:http://ie.microsoft.com/testdrive/Default.html

(didnt feel like making a new thread and its mix related).

3/16/2010 1:21:46 PM

Quote :

"Is there any good documentation on the default libraries? Coming from a java world, the standard library is really, really well documented, and silverlight is pretty stark by comparison. "

There isn't really for the Phone specifically. But for 98% of the libraries, they are functionally exactly the same as their standard Silverlight counterparts. Honestly, the way I've been learning is through sample project inspection, reading Silverlight tutorials, and the wonder that is intellisense.

For your specific question, I would have done a simple data binding in the xaml. (This is pseduocode, but with intellisense you can get the right accessors in a snap)

<Page title={Binding DocumentTitle, Element=WebBrowser1}">
//xaml content
<WebBrowser x:Name="WebBrowser1"/>
</Page>

3/16/2010 3:39:55 PM

I was actually trying to use the data binding because i thought it would be cool. However, I couldn't find an accessor that would give me what I wanted (microsoft.phone.controls.webbrowser doesn't have a DocumentTitle property) :-P.



[Edited on March 16, 2010 at 3:50 PM. Reason : g]

3/16/2010 3:42:08 PM

Yeah, that's definitely my biggest gripe with databinding (it's not hooked to intellisense). Go read a few data binding tutorials to learn the syntax and how the models work behind it. Then I use regular xaml + intellisense to get to my accessors, and then plop them into the data binding.

Also, Blend is your friend when doing anything in xaml. You can do object data binding visually in Blend avoiding having to know any of it. That's another great learning tool actually, because you can build, animate and databind visually in blend, then look at the code to see what it did, and do it yourself the next time right in the code if you so choose.

3/16/2010 3:51:29 PM

maybe im missing something b/c the properties panel in vs2010 express had a way to do data binding for the page title and it looked like it used intellisense to find available accessors. But again, the microsoft.phone.controls.webbrowser control doesn't have a DocumentTitle property. So theres no way to get document title either in code or in xaml.

3/16/2010 4:09:28 PM