Microsoft announced Windows Phone 7 during its press conference at Mobile World Congress 2010 in Barcelona yesterday. The new Windows Phone 7 Series refers to a set of phones that will run on the new operating system, and not various editions of the OS. From here on out, the Windows Mobile name is considered dead.
Carrier partners including Telstra and Vodafone, and on the OEM front, Dell, Garmin-Asus, HTC, HP, LG, Samsung and Sony Ericsson have committed to incorporating Windows Phone 7 Series in their portfolio plans.
Microsoft says Windows Phone 7 Series will bring apps together as features in "hubs" where users can access related content all in one place. Click through the photo gallery for a closer look at what that means.
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It all starts on the home screen, where thumping great icons Microsoft is calling "tiles" act like widgets. The calendar tile, for example, shows a list of your upcoming events — tap it and you launch the calendar app. Like Google's Android OS, Windows Phone 7 Series requires a selection of hardware buttons on devices that run the software. Three keys are mandated: Start (represented by the Windows logo), which is similar to the Android home button in that it takes you back to the tiles, plus Search and Back.
(Credit: Microsoft)
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Windows Phone 7 Series gathers your contacts in the "people" hub, which sorts your peeps in several ways. The first screen sorts the friends you've contacted recently in a mosaic of photos. Swipe through to the next screen to see all your mates, then a list of their recent status updates in Windows Live, Facebook and an unknown number of other services.
(Credit: Microsoft)
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The "music + video" hub syncs music from your PC using the Zune software — which we haven't seen much of, since we don't have the Zune in Australia. Like the iPhone's iTunes software, the Zune software syncs your tunes and other media to the phone.
(Credit: Microsoft)
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The pictures hub pulls in photos from the phone's camera, from online photo-sharing services including Facebook and galleries you've synced from your PC. Third-party apps can add features to the hub when you install them on the phone — so you can add the ability to upload to a new online service, for example.
(Credit: Microsoft)
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Windows Phone 7 Series also connects to your Xbox Live account, showing your friends' avatars and game-related data. You'll be able to buy games and earn gamer points, but the real hook here is the possibility of interacting with proper Xbox or PC games.
(Credit: Microsoft)
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The Office hub is one nod to Windows Phone 7 Series' link to the Windows home planet. There's support for OneNote, Office docs and SharePoint.
(Credit: Microsoft)
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