-:: Malaysia Mobile Tech News ::-

Here are some videos shot by MobileCrunch at the recent Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, on a device running a very early build of the Windows Phone 7 Series, the successor to Windows Mobile 6.  The unbranded device is said to be a prototype device from Garmin-Asus, from the limited and blurry shots of it, the device does indeed have that signature “boxy” look of Garmin-Asus devices, so it may be true.

Source.

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That was the big question on everyone’s lips, and strangely, this doesn’t seem to have been addressed in a big way by the major blogs and websites out there.  It’s interesting because whenever anyone brings up the issue of multitasking on a smartphone, much derision is thrown Apple’s way because none of its mobile devices, not even the iPad, multitasks in the most understood definition of the term.  And now we have Windows Phone 7 Series behaving pretty much the same way – it moves from the old WinMo model to the iPhone model.  And yet no one is making a big fuss out of it.

Click here to read Gizmodo’s explanation of how Windows Phone 7 Series would work.  Notice that it is very similar to the iPhone though not exactly identical.  No task manager is mentioned at all, anywhere, in Windows Phone 7 Series.

Soon, we will also be jailbreaking Windows Phones in addition to iPhones.  I guess when one can’t beat them, one joins them?  Will Android, Symbian and MeeGo follow suit?  :P

Interesting, no?  ;-)

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No, no, I didn’t win a BMW in any competition.  I’m talking about the Windows Phone 7 Series, which is the new name for Windows Mobile, which Microsoft unveiled yesterday at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.  So much important was put on it that Steve Ballmer himself, the CEO of Microsoft, was on hand to kick it all off.  As in kick the event off, not kick Windows Phone 7 Series off the stage.  My initial impressions are that it is a huge change from Windows Mobile – almost all of the things that we’re accustomed to are not there anymore – the Start button is no more, and hardware buttons have been trimmed down significantly.

Also, with 7 Series, hardware  manufacturers are more restricted in terms of the number of changes they want to make to the hardware.  There will be a set of minimum hardware specifications from Microsoft that needs to be met before a device can be equipped with 7 Series.  But the most significant change is that no major changes to the software will be permitted – so that means that user interface enhancements such as HTC’s Sense and Samsung’s TouchWiz interface will be no more – but this then raises the question – how do handset manufacturers differentiate their products from each other?  I fear that this will just be a price driven device – with the manufacturers who deliver value-for-money grabbing a large chunk of the market.  By value-for-money I mean the price of the device vis-a-vis the competition and judged by the hardware features it offers.  Which is rather sad, I think.

The biggest change in 7 Series is that the icons are much much larger.  The font (size of the text) is much larger.  This is to accommodate touchscreen devices, which I think will be the way of the future.  No more struggling with easy-to-lose styli.  No more poking at the screen using your fingernails and be the subject of much derision from iPhone users.  The interface has been completely revamped – whether it will be intuitive to use remains to be seen.  In fact, the interface is very “Zune” like – similar to the interface found on Microsoft’s portable media players (PMP), aka MP3 players, which is Microsoft’s answer to the Apple iPod.  In fact, Microsoft yesterday said that every 7 Series phone will be a Zune (every iPhone is an iPod) – so we know who they are targeting with this new software!

Further, there will be integration between a 7 Series smartphone and Microsoft’s gaming service called XBox Live.  Nice if you like XBox games; nothing interesting if you don’t.  But this is another smart way of hauling people slowly into using Microsoft’s products exclusively for the things that matter in your life – from Microsoft’s services such as the Bing search service, MSN services for email and instant messaging, XBox for gaming, and now the smartphone.  Neat move, Microsoft.

One of the central themes with any modern smartphone is its focus on social networking, and 7 Series is no different.  It attempts to consolidate the activities (eg. Twitter, Facebook, etc) from your contacts, for example, into one easy to find screen.  In fact, Microsoft uses the term “hub” to describe the place where you can find this consolidated information.  The word “hub” is also used by Samsung in its new Samsung Wave product, so it must be one of the big PR/marketing words this year at the Mobile World Congress (the other being “ecosystem“).

7 Series will be available in time for the holiday season this year, which means towards the end of the last quarter of this year.  I’d be most interested to see what kind of devices we will see and what hardware specifications they will carry, as the minimum specifications were not revealed by Microsoft at the unveiling.

Click here for the 7 Series website.  Click around, there’s quite a lot to explore; I personally think this may put Microsoft back into the mobile operating system game.

Here’s a promo video from Microsoft:

And here’s another much longer look at 7 Series (Microsoft Silverlight required).

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