Windows Phone 7 Series - Interface and Features

What do yous demand to know about Windows Phone 7 Serial? Information technology'south not Windows Mobile as you know it - the re-branding from Windows Mobile to Windows Telephone Series seven is completely appropriate. Here'south the large changes and some (very very early on) impressions.

Read on for our early on take of this early build of Windows Phone 7 Serial

First, as we mentioned, the hardware Microsoft has to evidence so far is not anything similar what the final build of the hardware will be. Instead nosotros have evolution devices for a development build. We saw some hang-ups throughout - simply for an Bone that'due south not gear up to launch until just before the Holidays at the end of this year, information technology was remarkably polished.

User Experience

Windows Phone vii Series is a lot like the Zune. We're not calling this the Zune phone, neither is Microsoft, and neither should you. That said, what we have here is a very dynamic feeling OS with lots of nice animations betwixt screens. Content flips open and airtight like a page in a volume.

Similar to Zune, in that location'south a heavy emphasis on typography instead of 'chrome.' In fact, 1 of the mantras hither is "Content, not Chrome." It sounds a little boring, merely in fact the big, clean type looks and feels incredibly elegant.

The lack of "chrome" persists throughout the entire Os. Instead of bill of fare confined, gradients, and garish colors you take a dark blackness slate, white or gray blazon, and your content filling the entire screen. Despite that, the visual cues that Microsoft provides throughout the entire OS really does assistance maintain your sense of 'place.'

OEM manufacturers cannot change this user experience. They're complimentary to add panels and apps, of course, but Windows Phone is bringing a consistent experience to all devices.

Some apps get the distinction of condign "hubs," which have the ability to swipe left and right between unlike options. For example, within Bing search you can swipe left and right to search the web and search locally. Calendar lets you swipe left and right between dissimilar calendar views. Within email, y'all can swipe between you lot inbox, unread messages, and urgent letters.

For more options, there is a pocket-sized push bar at the bottom of some apps with certain features like sending and attaching. In some of those apps you tin can tap near the buttons to pull up another carte du jour with however more options. Information technology'south not equally articulate or consequent as a dedicated card button, however, so yous just sort of have to check to see if in that location are more options there. It definitely seems a bit confusing, merely if goose egg else it'south a sign that we're looking at a different kind of aesthetic from Microsoft. Their dedication to the UI principles behind Windows Telephone 7 Serial won't be shaken.

Outset

Everything with Windows Telephone 7 starts and stops with the Get-go screen experience. At that place are ii sides to the Offset Screen - tiles on the left, a straightforward app carte on the right. You're going to be hitting the Offset button a lot, as pretty much everything requires you jump back to that screen to switch between apps. Speaking of buttons, there are only going to be three of them: Start, Search, and Back.

Allow's showtime with the App bill of fare, which is the simplest part. It'due south just an alphabetical listing of apps. Yous can "pin" whatsoever app to the tiles side by long-pressing on the item.

When your app becomes promoted to alive tile, Windows Phone will dynamically set the tile to include whatever content the tile makes available. For instance, you nearly recent photo, how many missed calls y'all have, a tiny thumbnail of the map of your most contempo location, etc.

You can have enough of tiles, though Microsoft wasn't sure exactly how many it stops at - roughly three screens worth was their current thinking. Default tiles include phone, SMS, email, Cyberspace Explorer, music, etc.

In all, the tile interface gives you lot information at a glance, like the traditional today screen only in a format that's not only much prettier just too much easier to configure.

Music and Games

Beyond the new UI, the big new features everybody will be talking about are Zune and Xbox integration.

Zune integration is simple and straightforward - it's a Zune inside a Windows Phone, basically. That means yous'll be using the Zune desktop client to sync -- and that includes sync over WiFi -- merely it also appears to mean that Windows Phone 7 Serial won't be the enterprise powerhouse at launch that Windows Mobile currently is.

Yet - Zune in a phone: this is a big bargain. Additionally, the Zune hub on Windows Telephone is also extensible for third parties. Microsoft explicitly mentioned that there would be a Pandora app inside the music hub.

The other big feature is Xbox Live integration. Games on 7 Serial will be integrated with Xbox Live - updating your gamer score and achievements. You can also view alive announcements, play social games, and see your ain gamer tag/avatar.

Search and Contacts

Bing and Bing Maps are in Windows Phone 7 and they await and piece of work great. The maps app is peculiarly impressive - with pinch-to-zoom and dynamic maps that 'blur' as you lot change zoom levels and fifty-fifty automatically switch to satellite view when you zoom in close enough.

Bing is also able to 'guess' what kind of search y'all desire - "sushi" goes to local, "definition of sushi" is more than likely to get to web.

Unfortunately, what you lot don't have here is any sort of universal search. Search is completely contextual - to search emails (assuming one can?), you go into emails. To search contacts, you need to drop into the contacts console. Hopefully Microsoft makes chop-chop finding and calling/texting people a priority between at present and launch, because the idea of droping to showtime, hit contacts, and and then searching doesn't entreatment to us. Then once again, y'all are free to add specific contacts to the tiles screen.

Contacts does have enough of social networking integration. You lot can pull in contacts from (that we saw) Facebook, Exchange, and Windows Live. Each contact console has the ability to wipe left and right as well, 1 screen showing contact info, some other their most recent status letters.

Productivity

We didn't become a deep look at part, simply it's here and OneNote is forepart and center. There is full compatibility with SharePoint and you lot tin access those documents offline.

Email looks great, though - there's a lot of white space and so you won't get a ton of emails in one screen, but scrolling is fast enough to hopefully not make that a problem. You can as well select multiple messages from within your inbox to delete or move them for faster triaging.

Contrary to previous rumors, there doesn't appear to be a 'business concern edition' of Windows Phone, although we doubtable that both Microsoft and their OEM partners will continue to invest in Windows Mobile 6.5.3 as the device that's practiced for people who demand to heavily manage devices in a corporate commutation environment.

Across that, information technology does look like Windows Phone 7 Serial takes one step forwards and ii steps astern when information technology comes to multitasking. The step frontwards: everything is faster and smoother and amend looking and of course you tin do stuff like listen to your Zune music in the background. The pace astern is that it doesn't look similar we have 'true' multitasking simply yet - but nosotros'll see if that'southward really the case.

Wrapping up

We will patently accept plenty more to talk about and plenty nosotros haven't covered here - we've had some face up time simply not nearly every bit much as we'd like.

That said, Windows Phone 7 Series is some good looking stuff and it looks like information technology'south great for people who love Zune or Xbox, but whether or not traditional Windows Mobile super users will be interested may depend on the application and multitasking story.

Stay tuned - Windows Phone vii Series is a game changer.

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