February 15th, 2010 by Arjan Olsder Posted in Platforms: Windows Mobile | No Comments »
For all who that think a Liveblog is a horrible thing to read through, we summarized the keynote about Windows Phone 7 Series in a more logical order in this post (including video’s and other PR materials).
During the keynote, our information from this morning was confirmed. The new naming convention is Windows Phone 7 Series and the thing is connected with the Xbox Live environment. The home screen will consist mainly out of Widgets (named Live Tiles) and also it was confirmed that the phones will have all the functionality of the Zune HD.
The phones will have only three hardware buttons. This is extreme downsizing to what I have on my Touch Pro. One of the bad sides of this move is that the D-pad will be gone. In other words, games will have to do with on-screen controls. On the other hand, capacitive screens are supported by this new WM version and it knows how to work with multitouch and gestures. So it will be more like an iPhone.
The phone’s UI will also have an icon/button bar at the bottom as we have seen on both the iPhone and Android interfaces. As an addition, those button bars can be sliding up to reveal more options. Of course, the device will also support multitouch (like the older WM devices) and Microsoft has no objections if Adobe wants to bring in Flash support. Windows Phone 7 Series will not go Open Source as Microsoft builds products in order to sell them. Steve Ballmer made clear that that is the only way to be transparent about the costs of an OS.
Technology partners are Toshiba, HP, HTC, Dell, Qualcomm, Gamin Asus, SonyEricsson, Samsung and LG.
