At a press event in Barcelona, Spain at the World Mobile Congress event, Microsoft have unveiled the newWindows Phone 7 Series, and it’s very different from any version of Windows Mobile that’s come before it.
Full multi-touch is supported including pinch-zoom and the whole UI, from what we’ve seen so far, looks to have been revamped to make it finger friendly.
The front screen is made up of ‘customisable ‘hubs’ and there are a great many of these you can use. This new screen is reminiscent of what Nokia introduced last year. I’m not entirely certain if it’ll be what users want from both a usability and aesthetic view, but only time will tell on this and I’m looking forward to the first, hands-on, reviews in the next day or so.
These first reviews will also give us a much clearer idea of how this OS compares, and how it can compete with iPhone OS and Android, which are both significantly ahead of the current Windows Mobile 6.5.
Microsoft have said that with the move towards ‘app-driven’ smart phones companies have forgotten how to interact with these devices as phones. I couldn’t agree more. They went on to say that they still love apps, but they wanted to create a connected environment in which these apps can work together and share information to help you organise your life.
The Zune influence is seen throughout the software and the Zune branding has made its way into the media player.
There’s also a full suite of connected apps for social and other networking and, in the way some companies such as HTC and Vodafone have already been doing, your contacts are connected throughout all the services you use in way that makes it easy for you to see what’s going on in their lives.
One thing Microsoft have said they wanted to do was to make the experience, where appropriate, much more like Windows 7. In this they have said that multi-touch works exactly like it does in their current desktop OS.
The new OS is based around panels, similar to other mobile OSes, that you pan left and right on using finger gestures. I can see a potential criticism of the new OS here however, as people have to pan left and right too far to get to the information they need in each panel.
In the hardware Microsoft are dictating that all devices running the new OS have three buttons on the front. Search, Start and Back and there’s a new pop-up menu-bar that should make it very easy to use applications.
Applications such as the browser, contacts and email are also now better connected, automatically performing tasks such as linking phone numbers to web addresses. Hopefully this should make having a better net-connected experience much easier.
There’s also a new integration with Xbox live for people who use that service and there’s a new “People Hub” (below) where you can keep in touch with people whatever service you’re connected with them on.
Microsoft haven’t shown what’s deeper in the OS yet, such as system settings and it will be interesting to see if these have also been given a finger-friendly makeover. They will certainly need to have this in order for Windows Phone 7 Series to succeed. In the mean time though it’s all looking very good indeed.
More images are below.
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