Has Microsoft outdone the iPhone with Windows Phone 7 Series?

Alex Zaharov-Reutt
Tuesday, 16 February 2010 02:33

Your IT - Mobility

Microsoft has finally launched its long awaited Windows Mobile 7 Series operating system, promising a unified interface no matter which telco you buy your phone from, a totally fresh new user interface with graphical pizzazz and wow, Zune and Xbox Live integration and more - but we still don't know if there's 'true' multitasking.

Microsoft's Windows Phone 7 Series is here at last'¦ except you won't be able to buy any new 7 Series models until 'holiday 2010', which is  still around 9 months away, and likely 4 to 5 months after the expected birth of the iPhone 4.0 hardware and OS.

That's good news for telcos with plenty of Windows Mobile 6.5 phones they still want to sell, and Microsoft is even promising to continue some WinMo 6.5 development, but if you wanted to buy a Windows 7 phone now, or even in '60 days', you're out of luck and will have to persevere for some months longer.

So, Windows Phone 7 is the new phone platform for Microsoft, taking the Zune HD software platform and extending it to drive a much more capable mobile system, one that brings a new UI paradigm into play, takes the emphasis away from apps that you enter and exit into, according to the promotional video, and a series of hubs of activities we'll go into in a moment that are tightly integrated with various social networking platforms.

Although Microsoft's video seems to suggest a whole stack of multitasking going in the background is going on, at least for Microsoft's own apps, there's no clear sign as to whether or not you'll be able to listen to streaming radio from your favourite online radio station while waiting for a Skype call or IM message to arrive, so Microsoft is clearly making us wait even further on this one.

The WindowsPhone7series.com website is now live, where you can watch the Barcelona Mobile World Congress keynote speech that featured extensive demonstrations a prototype of WinPho 7 Series phone in action, see other multimedia assets (images etc), read up on the buzz and join the backstage free of charge, where you can ask questions in the forum, participate in upcoming live chats and even win prizes for forum participation.

To really get a feel for the UI and how it compares to the iPhone, Android, Symbian, Maemo or anything else, you'll really need to watch the video above to see it for yourself.

All WinPho 7 phones will have three buttons - one 'start button' in the middle, a back button on the left hand side, and a Bing search button on the right hand side, while the screen offers four points of multitouch (I've read the iPhone offers six multi-touch points) that is 'consistent with the way multitouch is implemented on Windows 7 computers'.

At the Barcelona event, Microsoft's CEO Steve Ballmer said: 'Today, I'm proud to introduce Windows Phone 7 Series, the next generation of Windows Phones. In a crowded market filled with phones that look the same and do the same things, I challenged the team to deliver a different kind of mobile experience. Windows Phone 7 Series marks a turning point toward phones that truly reflect the speed of people's lives and their need to connect to other people and all kinds of seamless experiences.'

So, what are these hubs? Please read on to page 2.