Microsoft strikes back, announces Windows Phone 7 Series smartphone OS

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Posted on 16 Feb 2010 at 13:10

MWC 2010: At Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Microsoft has unveiled its next-generation Windows Phones, the Windows Phone 7 Series, sparking a clean break away from the firm's ageing Windows Mobile platform.

The Windows Phone 7 Series operating system is a fresh approach to mobile phone software and is an evolution of the company's Zune HD software. It's a massive step forward for Microsoft and one that could be a huge hit with consumers, but we're not so convinced about its appeal to businesses at the moment.

For the first time, Microsoft has integrated Xbox Live and the Zune's music and video experience together on a mobile phone, but the innovations go deeper than that.

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said he "challenged the team to deliver a different kind of mobile experience. Windows Phone 7 Series marks a turning point toward phones that truly reflect the speed of people's lives and their need to connect to other people and all kinds of seamless experiences."

The interface is a complete departure from Windows Mobile, and even early versions of Windows Phone, and uses a very simple tiled home screen. These tiles are updated in real-time, feeding information from various sources to deliver a more interactive experience - it's the first major interface overhaul we've seen since Apple introduced iPhone OS more than three years ago.

You can create customised tiles, for a particular friend for example, and the Windows Phone 7 OS will deliver an up to date and readable view of that friend's latest pictures and status updates from popular social networks.

Microsoft's Bing search engine will be directly integrated into every Windows Phone 7 Series handset (that's a bit of a mouthful - thanks for your genius naming scheme Steve!) thanks to a dedicated hardware button for one-click access to search, no matter where you are in the phone's interface. The search engine has been optimised to provide intent-specific results depending on the type of query.

Windows Phone 7 achieves its simplicity through a series of Windows Phone hubs, which essentially mash up related content from the web, applications and services into a single view. There are six hubs built into Windows Phone 7: People, Pictures, Games, Music + Video, Marketplace and Office.

These are fairly self-explanatory, but the implementations look very slick. Upon opening the People hub, you're greeted with a tile view of your most popular contacts - those that you interact with the most. Scrolling sideways brings up your full contacts list and then scrolling sideways once again opens a central place from which to post updates to Facebook and Windows Live, while also checking on your friends' latest posts, in one place.

The Pictures hub also has similar functionality, where you can view the latest photos uploaded by your friends. Currently, Windows Phone 7 Series appears to be limited to sharing information over only Facebook and Windows Live, but we're hoping that it'll expand to other social networks and photo sharing services. Microsoft said that every Windows Phone 7 Series handset must have at least a five megapixel camera built in.

Under Games, you can connect with your Xbox Live friends, play games, collect achievements and view your gamer profile. If Microsoft can deliver a sufficient amount of content at decent prices, this could be a decent competitor to the iPhone and iPod touch, which currently rule the roost when it comes to gaming on the move. The Music + Video hub is, in many ways, very similar to the Zune HD's interface with a collection of content from your PC, a selection of online music services and there will also be a built-in FM radio transmitter in every Windows Phone 7 Series handset.