Posts tagged windows phone 7
Browser Shootout: Windows Phone 7 vs. iPhone, Android
Aug 25th
A new video from Pocketnow compares browsing speed on a Windows Phone 7 prototype from LG, the iPhone 4, and Google’s Nexus One on Android. Even though the software’s not finalized yet, Internet Explorer on Windows Phone 7 is surprisingly competitive with the WebKit-based browsers on the iPhone and Android, beating or matching them in most tests. No Flash, Silverlight, or HTML5 A/V support yet, but the browsing experience is at least on par with the competition and at least won’t be a hindrance to the platform’s success.
While the rendering engine is a mix of IE 7 and 8, Microsoft has clearly put a lot of effort into the user experience, with silky-smooth scrolling, multi-touch zoom, and tab management. It’s a completely different animal from IE Mobile 6 on Windows Mobile 6.x (though most WinMo owners use Opera Mobile or other browsers in any case).
Video after the break.
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Microsoft reveals Windows Phone 7 games: Xbox Live in your pocket
Aug 17th
Microsoft has finally launched a portable Xbox. It’s neither a dedicated gaming device like Sony’s PSP or Nintendo’s DS nor just a casual gaming platform like the iPhone/iPod Touch. The software maker has fully integrated its Xbox Live experience into its upcoming Windows Phone 7 operating system– every WP7 phone will be able to play Xbox Live Arcade-style games with graphics reportedly exceeding anything seen in mobile gaming so far. The platform includes avatars, achievements, and more, though head-to-head multiplayer is not on the cards for the initial version.
Microsoft revealed over 60 launch titles, including Assassin’s Creed, Crackdown 2, Castlevania, Earthworm Jim, Guitar Hero, Halo: Waypoint, Splinter Cell, Star Wars, and more. Let’s just say it’s a pretty solid lineup.
Head over to Engadget for a full preview of what Windows Phone 7 gaming will have to offer.
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HTC Schubert: Windows Phone 7, aluminum unibody
Aug 13th
247WindowsPhone has obtained a prototype of a Windows Phone 7 handset built by HTC. The HTC Schubert will be a Windows Phone 7 launch device, and while we have no confirmed details, it is an aluminum unibody design and appears to have around a 3.7″ screen, likely with WVGA (800×480) resolution.
Photo and video after the break.
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Microsoft Kills Kin
Jul 2nd
Microsoft has killed its Kin social phone line just a few weeks after it launched. Gizmodo reports that the company has merged the whole Kin team into the Windows Phone 7 team. Rumors suggest that a mere 500 Kins have been sold to date, and while the figure’s probably higher than that, it might explain such a large project being folded so suddenly.
Kin was accompanied by some strange advertising, but the biggest problem was that Verizon only offered Kin phones with its $30 monthly smartphone data plan. Kin was supposed to be a cheaper, social-oriented alternative to a smartphone, but without a cheaper data plan, it became almost pointless. Even drastic price cuts to just $20/$50 for the Kin One/Two (from $50/100) didn’t help, and Microsoft’s ads promoting Kin as a Windows Phone just caused further confusion.
Read on for the full story behind Kin’s demise.
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Microsoft to bring “good” copy-and-paste implementation to Windows Phone 7
Apr 3rd
We’ve heard official confirmation that Windows Phone 7 (notice the “Series” is gone) will lack copy-and-paste and that it was an “intentional design decision” because no one actually uses the feature. According to Tweakers.net, however, Microsoft’s Charlie Kindel said that the company’s working on it and will build a “good” implementation for WP7. Here’s what he apparently said during his DevDays Keynote in The Hague:
“We look at this case and we will do the right thing. … We’ve heard your feedback loud and clear.”
It’s still not clear whether copy-and-paste is slated for the initial release of Windows Phone 7, but at least it now seems like Microsoft’s working on it.
Source: Tweakers.net
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Microsoft renames Windows Phone 7 Series to Windows Phone 7
Apr 2nd
Are you wondering why Microsoft’s upcoming mobile operating system is named “Windows Phone 7 Series”? Well, looks like Microsoft is too– the company just announced on its Windows Phone Twitter account that it’s dropping the “Series,” so the OS will now just be called “Windows Phone 7.” Two less syllables to deal with, though still three more than “iPhone.”
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Windows Phone 7 Series interface makeover for your Windows PC
Mar 31st
Want to make your desktop look like the Windows Mobile 7 Series Metro interface?
You’re in luck, because some DeviantArt users have created the Omnimo theme for Rainmeter, the highly-customizable, open-source desktop information app for Windows. Omnimo overlays the desktop with a faithful port of Metro’s minimalist interface and includes 30 different tiles that launch programs or hook into services like Gmail, iTunes, Twitter, Steam, SpeedFan, and more.
It’s all free and works on Windows XP, Vista, or 7. Lifehacker has some helpful installation instructions.
We can’t help but imagine this would be perfect on an HP Slate.
More photos after the break:
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Windows Phone 7 Series already ported to HTC HD2
Mar 28th
Microsoft won’t be shipping Windows Phone 7 Series till the end of the year, but a team of Russian developers has already ported it to the HTC HD2, which won’t be receiving an official update. GPS, WiFi, and Bluetooth are working, but the graphics driver still has issues and the interface is a bit laggy.
The team is apparently planning a beta release soon, which would be interesting given that official devices with the OS won’t be out for another 6-8 months. The OS relies on a completely new bootloader that, at least as of now, is not reversible, so once you load this, you won’t be able to go back to Windows Mobile 6.5.
More photos and videos after the break.
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Windows Phone 7 Series Back Story: The Sleeping Giant Awakes, Reboots Windows Mobile
Mar 26th
Microsoft stopped developing Windows Mobile 7 (left) in favor of a total reboot to create Windows Phone 7 (right)
In early 2008, Microsoft was busy working on Windows Mobile 7. The OS was an evolutionary step forward from WinMo 6.x, based on the company’s Windows CE 6.0 embedded OS, with bigger changes planned for the next version, Windows Mobile 8. But in the fall of 2008, after seeing Apple’s iPhone 3G fly off store shelves and the iTunes App Store grow exponentially to soon overtake Microsoft’s decade-long lead in mobile apps, Microsoft realized that Windows Mobile was dying. An evolutionary step was not going to be enough to save it, so Microsoft decided to take drastic measures to respond, and today the result is Windows Phone 7 Series.
How exactly did this come about, though? Read on to find out.
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Microsoft Team Builds Windows Phone 7-Controlled T-Shirt Cannon Robots
Mar 19th
Looks like Windows Phone 7 Series is capable of handling more than user interface demos after all. A team at Microsoft was given two weeks to build a pair of Windows Phone-controlled t-shirt-firing cannon robots to be used at the MIX conference on March 15. At somewhere around $10,000, their budget was a bit higher than most of us have to spend on such things, but we have to admit, what they came up with looks pretty cool.
The team mounted an industrial t-shirt cannon on a heavy-duty pan-tilt servo unit, tossed those onto a 100-pound battlebot kit, and added some Phidgets microcontrollers and an onboard HP Envy 13 to run it all. Of course, the robot’s camera doesn’t just stream video over IP, as you might expect– it uses an onboard web server with Microsoft’s IIS Smooth Streaming technology. Then they built a Windows Phone 7 Series app to remotely drive the robots around and shoot out t-shirts.
A Windows Phone 7 Series app remotely controls the robots
The team consulted with two outside designers– normally, you’d imagine this could be a problem given the secrecy around Windows Phone 7 Series at the time, but since WP7S apps use Silverlight, they just told the designers they were making Silverlight desktop apps! The full details, along with more photos and the complete source code for the project, are available at Microsoft’s Coding4Fun site here.
Source: Microsoft Coding4Fun
Update: Video posted after the break.
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