First Look: Windows Phone 7 Series Hands on Demo

I have been holding back on my free handset upgrade for almost 10 months now waiting for these. Orange had better be offering Windows Phone 7 else I'll be moving network. Bring 'em on.

Man I hate and love technology. I want a Windows Mobile 7 Series, but I just got a Zune HD and and an Android Phone. 

Great work Microsoft, truly something great. It is just a shame that it'll be two years before I can enjoy your work in this area Damn that sucks.

Where is Silverlight Mobile?

This is an awesome phone OS. I wonder what will happen with HTC's TouchFlow? I hope companies wont be able to mess with the rom too much.

I know what you mean. I'm just going to give my phone to my daughter and get the HTC HD2. I hear it will be able to take an upgrade to Win Phone 7.

I love the cutom ActiveSync actions. Is their going to be any support for Office Communicator Mobile? or any SIP VoIP

While I have really enjoyed my iPhone, when the Zune HD came out, I thought to myself that Microsoft had just toasted Apple on UI/UX design. I was a little sad they didn't launch WP7 then, but the quality is apparent and should help make up ground over the next few years. Well done!

I am really excited about this interface and the hardware.  Terrific work!

The good news is that Orange will be a partner

The good news is that they won't be able to do that from my understanding anymore

@Laura

Feeedback - I like the retweet count on the channel 9 content. It was neat watching the number of retweets grow on this video/demo.

cannot watch the video .... 

WMV is broken

WMV ( high ) broken as well...

tried to download but that too is breaking all the time.

Is it just me or was the "start screen" pretty unimpressive, "tiles" are you serious?  I would hope that this is just a default UI and phone companies and providers can override it.  Compared to other SmartPhone "start screens" WinMo7 was a joke; dynamic or not.  Other than that the rest of the phone was pretty sweet.

That's hot! I'm in the market for a new smart phone in May... any chance this will be out by then?

Also, I noticed a couple of times, the demo person swiped, but the screen did slide along... then pop! it's in... What's the deal with that?

No sound for me. Win Xp Sp3, IE 8, SL 3.

Impressive.

I think the keynote mentioned the holiday season 2010.

My feedback for the Phone7 product team is: refine, refine, refine. I noticed that touch drags were slightly jumpy and sometimes the gestures were 'missed'. This product has huge potential but it must not suffer a death from a thousand cuts. Perfectionism and obsessing over details is what made the iPhone.

This is absolutely amazing stuff.  My big question: when will all of this beaufiul social and media integration just be a part of Windows on the desktop?

This thing looks awsome, way to go Microsoft! I think, you're back in the bussines

Just waiting for MIX, to see what's in it for developers. 

I have also write a post on my blog what I think about it, if you want to read it: http://shelastyle.net/blog/windows-phone-7-and-developers/

New OS looks great but I hope that microsoft realizes that whether this product will be a success or a failure will be at least partially dependant on how many developers embrace this platform. When one considers the number of OS's on the market already and the dominant position of Apple they've got an uphill fight ahead of them.

Why is there 0 discussion about the development side?

Silverlight for Windows Mobile will be announced at Mix10 (IMO):

scottgu re: Windows Phone 7 development: I can't say more right now other than we'll discuss it at MIX - and that it is very, very cool

I have been a Windows Mobile consumer for many many years and recently gave up on Microsoft and went with the Palm Pre.  I was looking forward to today but unfortunately was disappointed.  Nothing innovative.

I'll stick with my Palm Pre and Zune HD.

a lot of us need actual hardware buttons on the face, a d-pad, and hardware keyboards. we're not interested in updating our fb status, doing whatever you're supposed to do with xbox live on your phone, and looking at pictures.

i need something more functional/efficient so that i don't need to flick through a dozen menus to send out a text/email. if i'm listening to music, i'd like to be able to change tracks/volume without having to take the phone out of my pocket and flick the screen. ideally, take the sprint mogul and update it for the new decade. hopefully, since this is windows 7 series, you'll have a "pro" version.

please, please don't forget the business/power user!

Is there any backwards compatibility here, or is 6.5 the end of that era? When will development kits be available for this? 

yay, finally! 

Was holding Diamond to HD2 upgrade in favor of WP7. 

Looks awesome! Really like the Person oriented concept like in HTC Sence. 

Great job! Looking forward to buy one

Looks cool and but I hope more progress is made.  UI seems very sluggish.  Hopefully it's the hardware and can be fixed.  When user swipes, the display does not follow, it updates behind the user interaction.

is there a beta test available to join?

How do you know some of the apps aren't writen in silverlight?

In the demo, Corporate Vice President of Windows Phone Program Management Joe Belfiore uses pinch to zoom/unzoom. Isn't the "pinch" gesture to zoom/unzoom patented by Apple? (and that's why Android doesn't use that gesture--as far as I know):

"According to the US Patent Office Apple was awarded patent number 7,479,949 on January 20, 2009. The patent which was filed on April 11, 2008 covers multi-touch and all associated gestures such as pinch, swipe and rotation."

from http://news.worldofapple.com/archives/2009/01/26/apple-awarded-multi-touch-patent/

No Audio! Frustrating!

This is in reply to GonzoJr as well. on the subject of OEM alterations and Custom ROMs.

Are You Serious??? The only reason windows mobile is still alive is thanks to HTC and custom roms! If I hadn't custom built the ROM I'm running, I don't know what I would do. The stock rom that shipped with this thing was garbage!  The Microsoft UI is ugly, and seems streamlined for single-tasking. I don't seem much Pc in this phone and that is very dissapointing. I don't care about social networking if windows phone 7 doesn't even have a file explorer. We can't tell yet for sure. But it seems to me Microsoft sold WinMo's soul to apple. And traded all the power windows mobile users in with it.

I hope I am wrong. But this looks like Microsoft gave the concept of PocketPC the axe.

Still not as easy to use, powerful, or as many apps as an iPhone.  Nothing can ever pull me away from mine.  Good try by Microsoft, but Apple will just come out with something even better.

Am I the only one that thinks the UI on the start page is horrible?  In any case, congratulations to the WM team, I am sure this will compete well with Android and IPhone especially if we can use Silverlight and WCF straight from the device.

Please make the start screen more appealing and try to make it look like a designer worked on it not a developer

Cheers

Lino

LOL more powerful! thats funny. HD2 running winmo 6.5.3 is more powerful than an iPhone. Go tranfer some files or do some multitasking? wait the iphone can't do that! lol I'd rather have the Droid than the iPiece.

will the windows phone 7 series be available in europe?

I had to blog about this one.  - http://www.xdaroms.com

Let me first start off and say that I love Microsoft and its products so this is not meant to bash.  It's just my weekly rant!

I just watched a video speaking about Microsoft's new OS WM7. 
http://channel9.msdn.com/posts/LauraFoy/First-Look-Windows-Phone-7-Series-Hands-on-Demo/?wa=wsignin1.0

First this new OS works and sounds a lot like HTC sense UI.  I don't see any significant innovative features that will set Microsoft back on top of the Mobile world.  Rather I see a poor attempt to try to stumble through the door of technology evolution. 

The Mobile platform IS the future of PC!

The sooner Microsoft shifts gears the better off they will be.  Here is what they should do....

Create a dual "VIEW" booting OS sell a cradle and allow my dual monitors, keyboard and mouse to interface to the device.  This would give me the flexibility to have my hand held as a phone when out-and-about and when I came back to the office convert to an office PC to interface to my dual monitors.  Two views on the same device.  Sounds like a MVP pattern lol. 

Apple had the right idea witht the iPad but failed on implementation.  What they should of done is made the iPad brainless so that you could plug your iPhone in to the back and view your apps on a larger screen.  Throw a $99 price tag on it and I am sold!

Still a Fan 
I still love Microsoft and will continue to develop in Microsoft technologies but come on guys lets get innovative!

Read it at http://www.xdaroms.com/

Interestingly, In 22 inutes, they never show us the Phone Interface. Making Calls, Speaker Phone, etc !! We need the phone to be awesome - everything else is fluff.

Silverlight issues! Cannot hear sound for this video

Running XP SP3.. can hear sound on other silverlight videos, only not this one

No audio, why?

I just bought a ZUNE HD...but this is my next buy...Great work and Great Hardware.....

Just a suggestion: Looking at the Applications, it looks a little slow, can we optimize it to be a but faster....

I'm confused. Is this a new phone and OS? Or just another zune HD? Am I the only person that wanted an update to windows mobile, not a Zune HD with a microphone and internet connection. I didn't see much that looked like an operating system (installing/running applications, file and system management, user customization), and I didn't see much that hinted at a phone (phone calls, phone dialer). Pretty much just a Zune HD+ at this point. I hope MS has more to show at MIX10, or sadly they have crushed my dreams of owning a device worthy of the being called a PocketPC.

man i like this as much as I could like something in the first 10 minutes.. the devil is in the details right...

it would be cool if you could run a windows 7 business edition along side with this and be able to log into your companies domain and automatically download settings, apps etc..  for a business application platform.

you should also be able to press a button and turn on low battery consumption mode

where everything is black and white and stripped down in case you only have a bar left on your battery.

the sscreen is still too small for real life webbrowsing.  i think the iphone is almost just right

is this the same size it looks smaller on video.

i think if the hardware was nicely kindof modular

like your able to buy third party plugable modules to do watever

one of thise could be a screen like the ipad you could carry in your bag.

which would have its own battery but also be able to get ac or get through the phone.

this pad could even work wirelessly with the phone so the "desktop" is projected onto the screen

if the screen is inside a restaurant and your phone and your buddies phone are nearby

e.g. at the same table..

then icons of both your phones show up and even a menu from the restaurtant

yeah thats a good question... how much of this is zune HD.  at some level though does it matter?  if its easy for developers to kindof plug into the whole social networking/application platform... maybe its just some stripped down OS  e.g. the zune HD plus thier social data hub.. and maybe thats all you need right..

we have been moving away from needed full blown operating systems on anything except servers in datacenters.

the iphone OS is real stripped down right .. noting like the pocketPC OSs but they gave what the customer needed

the early windows phones failed cause theres was too much OS and not enough of anything else.

Hi guys! I LOVE the zune like interace. Really good! Took you guys some time to wake up but this looks promising!

Thanks!  I'm on a lenovo btw.

I don't agree with that.  The early OS failed because technology surpassed the OS.  Example: nobody wants to deal with a stylus anymore.  I love my HD2 and its built on too much OS.  I think that playing Apples game is a mistake.  Build a better OS with features that are easier to get to.  Don't strip out great features only to make it single threaded device.  Learn from HTC because "Made in Taiwan" is no longer something to laugh about.

I agree.

The UI needs some designer's touch and be more responsive.

Unless of course shading, transparencies and gradients were removed for performance reasons. But wait, then what are we talking about?

Yes, Silverlight, .Net compact, and other .Net goodness is a must. Apple has a very good library for managing program icons, while WinMo 6.5 was a.... behemoth.

Make it business ready. Oh, and make sure it truly supports VPN encryption. Not like Apple fake encryption, which forced many enterprises to ban iPhone from their networks.

The actual hardware peice still looked like a brick, not very appealing. I personally don't care much about appeal, but I know some people do. But it is up to the hardware manufacturer.

The dynamism of menues looks cool (not that I need that) but it takes too much time to get where you need. Shorten menu transition times, or change transition effects all together.

Make App development platform with many "out of the box" features just like in iPhone, so that a Ph.D. in chemistry guy would not need Ph.D. in CompSci to write an app for his students.

Also pricing, I know Google Android is free and Microsoft charges for WinMo quite a bit. Make prices appealing to manufacturers as well.

I think WinMo has a lot of potential, it just looks like it was put on the back burner by Microsoft, and was often unfinished.

Come on! Take for example transferring files to iPhone. It is such a pain, you really need to get a SPECIAL APPLE TRAINING for that, while in WinMo it was always a click of a mouse and very intuitive. Build on that. Simplicity yet extensibility for power and advanced users. Apple also has a very good customer support. You come to their store, tell it doesn't work, and they fix it, fast and easy.

DON'T - there is NO confirmation yet whether the HD2 will or will not run WinPhone7. FAR better to wait until the officially supported phones are announced and released.

The device shown in the videos around launch is:

1) An internal-only prototype device

2) Running unfinished software

3) Running untuned software

The software is currently being driven to completion and will be tuned to handsets as their designs and implementation details are finalized.

OT: Even MSDN should use defacto standards or even better HTML5 for embedding videos. This is a ridiculous attempt to force people to use the unneeded Silverlight.

This is a Microsoft Developer network website. You'd think they'd showcase their technologies. Better than flash. Not better than native players though

Or maybe emblend Flash or create a SQL command promt to write your "SQL queries here". 

It's kind a silly to create a car, and use a car from a competeters.

As and option, you can get the WMV link and stream it in Windows Media with (Open URL...).

From the presentation, it's not clear.. 

1. Does the OS will allow multitasking? ie. I open Internet Explorer / Oper (whatever), then i get a Incoming call or I remember that I need to arrange a meeting and go to calendar. Does the open app will forcedly closed? Or I could continue where I left?

2. Is there a legacy app support? The native Windows Mobile 5x apps and .net apps. Is there will be some transfer wizard? Or some emulation (like XPmode on Windows 7?)

As a winMo user I want to multi-task and I love the app collection that I use day-to-day  

I wonder if it makes phone calls...

Show me the phone interface, show me how it links with the contacts.....after all it is a phone!!!

I agree.  It wasn' very clear.  I sure hope its not single threaded.  As far as legacy apps who cares.  I think that making a clean break is the best bet.  With VS2010 silverlight mobile integration you will see a whole slew of apps including mine. lol

Show me the phone interface, show me how it links with the contacts.....after all it is a phone!!!

I don't believe that MS will hit the "vista bump" again! 

I just can't!  

For the apps to get to the market, it takes time! Even if the SDK and emulators will be released in spring, you still don't get the variety of the app that WinMo 5x-6x  have. You'l be stuck like in Vista with bare OS and broken drivers (sorry, bad experience) 

Some sources say it's CE 7.0 core.. so, it should be multi-tasking..  

I really don't mind some xda patches if the multitasking is not available by "default" ^^

I'd make sure that you can first.  In the keynote, they said that WP7 will require three buttons including a "Search" button which the HD2 doesn't have.   HTC previously took down the annoucement that the HD2 would get WP7 and my suspicion is that the announced HD3 will have the three buttons and WP7 on it.

Will we be allowed to access the phones storage like a current wm phone? IE like a portable hard drive so we can manually choose what should end up on the phone or will we be forced to use proprietary software or some cloud like middle man?

Wow pinch and zoom, recognize phone numbers and addresses on the web pages.... Wait a second?? Didn't Apple already do that? Yup.... So much wait for something truly not revolutionary to the World.  Perhaps to the Windows crowd but not to the World.   Good effort nevertheless.  

I'm pretty sure this is an HTC prototype. I kinda recognize the special waaaaaaaay it reacts to some touches. 

What's the battery life with the phone being almost constantly online and running a lot of animations and the mandatory GPS?

Does ActiveSync really work this time? Also via WiFi? No more duplicate contacts, appointments or notes? 

Does the e-mail client still know IMAP?

And: Developers! Developers. Developers? Let me make a guess: HTML5/Javascript, Silverlight Mobile, XBox Live app store.

Godspeed, PocketPC.

Looks nice-- unrelated to the content, is there something Channel 9 can do about improving the video streaming?  I'm on an AT&T T1 connection, Win7/64bit/IE8 (tried with Chrome too) and the video stops every 15-30 secs to buffer.  Ordinarily I'd hit pause and watch it after the contents were finished downloading but this seems to stop streaming as soon as you pause it.   I know it's HD and even YouTube has the same problem, but at least I can pause that and come back to it once it's finished downloading.   Kind of frustrating.

I like the aesthetics of the UI, please don't muck it up with gradients and other junk like this guy is suggesting.  But yeah, some of the transition animations seem a bit slow (to cover up load times?) and touch responsiveness seems dubious.  I guess there's still time to improve performance, so we'll see.

Heh...the Microsoft developers still say "Start menu" even though they tried to remove that name.

Looking like a great improvement on WM6 but I doubt it'll be enough to tempt me back from Android.

It's a shame that the "home page" looks like that but the rest of the interface is so nice because it doesn't make for a good demo because it's the first thing people see.

I mean, simple solid coloured rectangles aren't going to impress anyone especially when you already have the great HD2 interface out there.

Like other people have said, what about the phone?

The Zune stuff is exactly as I expected and that's great.

This has made me want to actually make an app even though I'm not a programmer. I'd love to make something like a very customizable MIDI/OSC controller like TouchOSC or JazzMutant Lemur.

I love it.

But How is this going to launch in Canada with none of their partners being a Canadian Phone company... :/

I Hope Rogers, Bell or Telus Picks this up at launch and please don't wait 2 years to come to Canada MSFT.

Enough already were next door stop leavin us last on the list.

Volume turned up all the way on my computer but I'm still not getting any audio from the video...

did anyone else notice that Joe didn't actually make a phone call?

We "PICKED THE TOP TASKS"  uhh oh...you picked what I'm going to do with my device?

...that could be an issue...

new Windows phone will not be compatible with 6.5. That's what I've heard!

After watching the video, I still have no idea what this is. Is it a new OS, a new version of Windows CE, or a new shell? How does it support third-party applications, if at all? Can it make phone calls? Does it support 24-bit colour or multitasking?

Man  that user interface bites. I'm sure there's some turtle-neck wearing designer that's loving the big text everywhere and having stuff clipped off the sides of the screen all the time, but to me it just looks incredibly sloppy. And it's not like that's something that's going to be fixed before shipping because IT'S DELIBERATE. I was looking forward to this phone, but frankly it makes be sick in my mouth a little.

Technically, from the video, there seems to be a lot of lag during scrolling. I guess that's something they'll work on.

What about Imap and Pop3 accounts?  my Blackberry pushes and marks items deleted on the handheld and updates the online service by putting those in the trash.  I don't use the top 5 email sites but love my blackberry for this reason..  can we connect and sync with any email system that allow POP3 and IMAP connections [and with SSL]?

Also what will be the supported media formats?

What about Wifi and CDMA support?

I love my blackberry and may not give it up for this.. so I'd like to know how much suppose we're looking at..  I don't own a mp3 player yet either.. but I like Zune Software for the PC and Media Player for organizing/visualations for parties over ITunes by far.

Blackberry is by far the best business compatible phone and easy to use over all other phones on the market.  Will there be standard apps like a blackberry device?

Task list

memos

Notes

What if you don't have all these social sites or exchange?  how useful will this be? 

I hope Win7phones will have support for all this, otherwise I'll just upgrade my blackberry to a new one and Finally buy me an ipod.  The zune buttons are also too small for big fingers and I didn't find ZuneHD's interface that professional looking and too hard to use with big hands.

This UI looks rad, but what about silverlight? I know they are not going to put Flash on it.

They need to update Joe's photo on the official press page:
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/exec/joeb/

I agree, I don't like it running off the page and off the screen, If your going to make a screen, at least make the text fit on the screen and not so big I cannot see all my SMS text messages in conversation view like Blackberry.. That start screen looks dumb.. I would rather see www.fav4.org, buttons for each item.  Though I think Windows 8 would do nice to provide a nice quick start desktop, rather than just rely on the start menu.. more like BlackBerry and Android OSs ..  and we can hide the startmenu finally as the main feature after taskbar..

I have good apps on my blackberry.. and that UI makes sense to me..  this doesn't.  Here it looks like I have to swipe half a dozen screens just to get to SMS and contacts?  Seriously.. I want a phone 1st with other functionality second.  This certainly doesn't cover Keep It Simple Stupid.. the Font's are way too large.. and the back and forth button are too small.   The start menu on that phone looks like the quick start screen on Zune Software 4.  which I don't like either.  I like ZuneHD's start with a list.  There should also be a decent menu that applies to each screen on the phone like blackberry does.. I would like my Txt Messages and my Calendar and My Contacts and Call Log and Email easily accessable, thats why I use Blackberry..its simple and powerful.  I prefer texting over every other form of communication.. social or otherwise, its fast and easy. 

This guy wants a social networking device.. I seriously don't want all that together which is why I turned off syncing windows spaces too..I wish he would of showed off using email, texting and calling.. not just everything else..  That calendar needs some color.. blackberry has a decent calendar color scheme already.. copy that. 

I want a good looking business and media device that allows me to connect with people..  and the problem with facebook is people want to chat with you while your at work, so we don't like to be logged into facebook all the time.. I like the Zune Features he showed, the Email Features and Bing Search..  I totally hate Facebook.  Its too integrated..its like the poparatizy and everything all rolled into one place.. I want some friend seperate and there is a reason the people are on seperate social networking systems.. they don't need to know everything..   this guy wants to combine work and everything together.. and that is a horrible idea!!!!!!  Hello!  Just because you make Exchange and Have windows Live doesn't mean I want all these things merged together.. work is work and home is home, I'd like to keep it that way.

i like silos.. it helps me keep everything organized!!!  One stop shop doesn't have to be about total integration, but total accessability, my blackberry is way more intuitive and easy to use, these things look knida vague and you need map with directions on how to get to a feature on this thing.

I don't think that there's been any official announcement about what existing phones will support WP7. I wouldn't make the assumption that the HD2 will support WP7

Would be nice to view this video but I won't be installing Sliverlight to see it!  Death to propriatory formats on the web (that includes Flash)!

Any word on how this thing will behave for people who have no contact with any version of Windows, Exchange, Zune, or pretty much any other Microsoft products?  All the talk about ActiveSync, and the discussion of email back-ends that didn't mention IMAP... is this a product I'm going to be unable to use, whether I want to or not?  And is there a way to say "no thanks, don't want Bing, let me select another search provider instead"?  (In my day-to-day life, the only Microsoft product I have really regular exposure to is the XBox 360.  Which, incidentally, is the device I watched the video on -- thanks for providing a raw MP4 file!)

Prickett, the URL for the raw MP4 video stream is http://ecn.channel9.msdn.com/o9/ch9/wp7.mp4, which I was able to see by simply mousing over the video.  This is a fine use of Silverlight, offering a more advanced player for folks who have it installed while still making the raw video available to those who can't or won't use it.

Impressive.

Would like to find out more about WP7S' multi-lingual support. iPhone has a beautiful Arabic interface and the fonts chosen there are delictable. Can't say the same at all about any of WM6 phones I used where the Arabic interface is done by a third party and licensed by Microsoft. When installing that 3rd app (including from HTC the hardware vendor), the size of the fonts shrink by 40%. Making it impossible to edit text you typed in both Arabic and English as both get affected by the shrink. The display font is not elegent.

Would like to hear from MS dev team on these issues too.

aQ.

Cool thing.. At last something really to kill iPhone .. Multitouch is cooll..

looks great..

I would like to know about the SDK to develop apps for windows mobile 7 series, and its new features for developers in comparision with windows mobile 6.x sdk.

This is still a work in progress. My bet is that the home screen will be customizable and may have an Areo effect simliar to Windows 7

Seriously? Are you kidding?

Actually you made a good point if you already have a Zune HD and a smartphone that fits your needs, why bother?

Obviously, this version of windows mobile is in responds to the iphone and android generation. It's a very natural evolution to intergrate the Zune into windows moble but what bothers me about this demo is the lack of information of windows mobile itself. The only thing I heard that mentions the WinMo side is Activesync and the fact that the devlopement team are trying to make this phone for business also.

This is concerning when Nokia and Motorrola are not on board. MS Mobile is always weak on major OEM support. Certainly it gives HTC, LG, and Samsung a good shot at taking a big pie though. HP and Dell probably will fail again. I mean, I don't even understand why they sign up when they obviously not going to take it seriously.

folks, this video would be so much better if your crew had corrected the lighting to match the display's color temperature... it's such a basic precaution!  you ended up ruining a beautiful design by making it blueish and cold.

The Blue Box home screen is tragic.  Dead on arrival.  Have no idea why anyone would ever demo it except to make Steve Jobs laugh.

Nice to see MS work on IE after all these years, but why not demo Flash?  Silverlight?  If it  ships without both of those, it's road kill and Android takes #2 spot while MS is finished.

This is clearly the social media phone.  But, is it Facebook only, or is it able to adapt as the world changes?

All in all, this demo didn't recognize the competition.  Microsoft has stood by and let Apple score 3 unanswered touchdown passes.  The score is 21-0 and we're in the fourth quarter.   If it isn't far better than this demo, it looks like they are thinking about scoring one field goal. Ballmer should resign over the losses in the mobile space thus far alone.

Let's hope this demo does not show us WM7, or we all need to sharpen our Android dev skills.

Sounds perfect to me...  You just got a phone and you have to wait 2 years...  Well, your contract is 2 years, right?

I'd like to see it working well outside of US, including "Zune Experience" and games.

Just now my country is not listed when creating Zune profile, and it's unavailable for XBox Live. Bing might work a little better too.

You've shown a great device in both terms of software and hardware, but I wouldn't want to buy something limited. If you want to sell it ourside of US, make it work in these locations. If MS don't do that, people will buy products from the competition. There are really more countries out there.

Pure Thank You

True, with 1 billion downloads from the Apple App store - You cant go wrong.

However, 80% of those were free apps. per Apple 2009 4t Qtr Call for Wall St.

As a DEV - that is a poor model for making Cash.

Great news and I can't wait to get my hands on one of these windows 7 phones. I just hope it doesn't take too long to come over here to the UK. My contract runs out in March with my Samsung i900 and it couldn't be a moment too soon. I was thinking do I give up the fight and go over to the very successful iPhone. How glad I am that I came across you guys and this review. If you ever fancy someone to test drive a windows7 phone over here in England, I'll happily volunteer.

Wicked! I ditched my Winmo 6 phone for Android because it was just so dang clunky. I was planning on upgrading to a Nexus One, but this is actually exciting and makes me want to wait a bit.

Somewhat offbeat request, but if you get a chance, can you ask if the Windows 7 series OS will support (or better yet come with!) something like the Eyes Free Android shell for Android phones?  These phones are becoming so powerful and useful that they can be more than just phones to people with low or no vision.   I work in the blind and low vision field, so am always looking for options for my clients and counselors.  A decent "eyes free" option would translate to a very usable smart phone as well as a blind accessible ZuneHD.

Exactly !  Plus - it appears to be unable to be used with POP3 e-mail accounts - too bad.

Of course it is going to support POP3. The specific support of various protocols and technologies has not been detailed yet. The information that has been released is only to introduce everyone to the new bits. There's no point in making any assumptions about things that were(n't) shown in any of the released materials.

This is a pretty different approach then anything MS has done in the past with Mobile. They have switched from specific applications fulfilling specific use cases (with heavy multi-tasking) to a more data oriented design. One problem with phones is the small screen which makes managing and switching multiple applications a real pain. Apple resolved this issue by removing that functionality (ie, no multitasking or any hint thereof. Later they added a few things that sort of helped). Anyway MS has taken a different approach all together and reduced the reasons to multi-task. The hubs replace an infinite number of applications that fall under that hub's group of services. It gathers, sorts and allows filtering and searching of that data (from all sorts of places) without you having to open any additional application(s) or switch between two+ applications. It also allows basic use cases on that data (like commenting on a photo) without opening or launching anything. Between reducing the amount of applications you need to use to get at the data you want, and some sort of limited multi-tasking for apps that need it, like games and other stuff that runs in the background, this could be an epic implementation.

As for the UI. The parts that look like Zune, I would recommend people play with a Zune HD before dismissing it, it actually works very well and comes off a lot better when its in your hand, then these videos.

As for the launch screen, it depends how far along the UI is. Windows 7 UI when it was first shown was pretty weak. It didn't have the new task bar which is a pretty big UI element. From what they were saying in the Ping interview is that they are still working on every part of the UI and it is pretty customizable. I would not be disappointed if it ended up exactly the way it is now, but some might.

I think they thought about more what people want, then what they wanted to give people. This is a huge step in the right direction and if this thing is half as polished as Windows 7 then it will be a huge success. Hopefully ATT and Orange are capable of effectively driving the devices in the marketplace. ATT has about 18 M customers (which is a lot here in the USA) but Orange has about 130 M customers so I'd say if they are both committed to selling these devices (which they sure seemed like they were, being premiere carriers and all) they will kill on total devices sold.

I am sure Apple wishes they had access to a 130 M customer base to drive their sales. Maybe if they do not renew with ATT exclusively they will be a little better off, but man MS is not fooling around with this.

I'm liking most things so far.  I feel the xbox integration is going to be huge and is currently the real advantage over the iPhone.  I'm personally not liking the home page so far.  I like the idea but on the whole there's too much empty space especially on the right under the arrow.  It would also be great if the top right looked abit more like the bottom right of Windows 7 ie have more icons (battery, signal indicators etc).

Now the next thing to do is to really fine tune this so that the the touch screen feels snappy.  I currently own a Samsung Omnia with Windows Mobile 6.1 and there's a few things i don't like on it:

• The touch just doesn't feel as good as the iPhone's
• Opera Browser - clicking links can be a real pain
• The predictive text is sometimes sluggish

I'm liking everything about the OS, the only thing I don't understand is the homescreen, on my zuneHD the idea of having 2 layers side by side is perfect, one of the layers is quickpicks, favs, last thing done, and the other layer beeing the main navigation...  

Wouldn't this layout be more practical on the mobile OS ?   be pins, shorcuts, favs, and now playing, and the other tab the main menu... ???

  just a though

I'm am happy though, I never liked the iphone but this is truly the best phone os....   I love my ZuneHD...

Is there a landscape view for apps, videos, webpages etc? I didn't see any of that..waste of a large touch screen if it is not there.

Yeah it is there. If you have the time to watch the Ping video on it he quickly shows the device in landscape and he also shows the phone dialer for 1-2 secs.

He then mentions that the landscape support is not done as they are still deciding what buttons will do when you rotate the screen. Currently the buttons rotate with the screen to keep the text readable.

I like what they've done with it thus far. With the Zune and Xbox Live integration I hope that XNA development can be ported to the phone as well.

There was no mention of navigation.  If there was integrated Bing mobile navigation via car or on foot this phone would be amazing.

You know I wonder if Microsoft will bring the Zune software to the Mac. Will Microsoft alienate all Mac users from using the Windows 7 series phones effectively? No music sync for them

Dude... I see a big lag there from the time he scrolls the window with his finger to the time when the window actually responds by moving.  So far, I found iPhone's response time to be the best.  I own a myTouch Android and when we compared the response between it and the iPhone, the iPhone own hand's own.  Based on this video where, it doesn't windows 7 response is any better.

Hope MS presents other themes at MIX - the animations are quite nice - but i would prefer if the response of the OS is as fast as the BlackBerry Storm 2 - in daily life its just interesting for the first weeks in my opinion Also hope that the hub stuff can be disabled - here in Austria mobile internet fees are sooo expensive My WM 6.5 lives with 50MB max. - hope WP7 will do that too But all in all - very nice work

I'm an aging developer primarily based on the Microsoft stack, and this is disasterous IMO.

Others have pointed out the horrendous looking "tiles" on the home page, the disfunctional touch screen, the painfully slow transition animations, the absurdly large fonts on a small screen, and bizarre partial glimpses of neighbouring screens (again wasting precious space).

The iPhone was released how many years ago?  I reluctantly bought one, and iTunes is as bad as the notoriously bad QuickTime, but the device itself is functional and fun to use!

Microsoft is missing the boat on portable devices.  There is a space between closed Apple and open Android.  Disappointed that no-one seems willing to fill it.

I don't want to come across as a hater, but I'm amazed by the excitement this launch has created. The whole UI and feature list is very meh. Most if not all of it has been done before. Joe gets "super excited", about his new UI as if it's all new stuff - hasn't he seen HTC's Sense UI? Didn't he see the Xperia's tiles? As a WM developer, I'm pleased that Silverlight is finally coming to WM, but as an end user, this looks like a step backward from my current HTC Diamond2. That said, the browser looks better, that's about it.

I'm afraid to say so, but I think that, again, Microsoft is way too late behind their competitors. Everything I have seen so far is nothing more than a "Hey, me too" hailing at Apple and Google. Even worse, the list of features and available applications is even smaller than what you get from Apple and Google now. Seriously, who except other than a real Microsoft-fanboy would really want to wait at least 6 more months for a product that can do less and probably cost more than the current competition does (because the mobile phones required to W7M will certainly be more expensive due to the higher hardware requirements)? The same is true for the OEMs: Why would large mobile phone vendors want to pay the licence fees for W7M when they can have Anroid for free and can do whatever they want with it, modify it, rebrand it and deploy it on as many devices as they want and not what Microsoft dictates them? The current situation on the market proves my argument, as you see that nearly every manufacturer has now Android-devices in their line-up while on the other hand, Skype, for example, just recently dropped support for Windows Mobile. Skype being one of the "killer applications" for mobile phones.

Windows Mobile was there before iPhone OS and Android. But Microsoft did not take any advantage of it. Like many other companies in the position of market leadership, they forgot about their customers and thus left the battlefield to the competitors. For example, Windows Mobile 6.x still ships with an Internet Explorer version which is somehow based on Internet Explorer 6 which was released in 2001. Likewise, at least in Europe and especially Germany, the majority of Internet users have switched to alternative browsers like Firefox and Opera because these are years ahead of the Microsoft product. While the competition was already aiming or already achieved 100% at completing Acid3-test, Microsoft developers celebrated that they finally passed a 100% on the old Acid2 with Internet Explorer 8 beta. Funny, but this somehow always reminds to the leaders in former communist countries who claimed that they will "overtake the West in near future" while in reality, they were not even close to the Western countries regarding their economies. This just shows how arrogant and escapist Microsoft behaves. Two other examples that just came to my mind are the experience I had yesterday installing Windows 7 on a 5 year old IBM ThinkPad X40 (that once cost around US$3000!), realizing that Microsoft does not provide a driver for the graphics chipset while on Linux, the current stable driver supporting this Intel chipset was released two months ago with the next release, 2.11, already being in the pipeline. Note, that Windows 7 runs like a charm on the X40 though, it's only the missing graphics driver. Likewise, I have been waiting for an updated version of Microsoft Messenger for Mac for over a year now after the Microsoft Mac team promised a Beta for mid-2009 (hint: Make your code platform-independent with technologies like Qt and you will be able to provide MSN Messenger in the latest release for all supported platforms at the same time; Pidgin and Skype show how easy that is and I'm a Qt-developer myself, deploying my software on Linux, MacOS and Windows at the same time).

Still, even though people are slowly turning away from Microsoft away in many sectors of business, economy and home use, Microsoft still tries to tie their users to Windows with proprietary standards and technologies. They come up with technologies like Silverlight and OpenXML which, despite Microsofts claims, are everything but open and free, since they contain technologies patented by Microsoft and people using these technologies will always have to fear that Microsoft will change their mind and start asking for licence fees or sueing them otherwise. Funny enough that I had to read in the comments here that users of Windows XP and Internet Explorer 8 had trouble watching the video here while I could just copy and paste the link to the .mp4-file and open with mplayer on Linux . So much for the openness and the interoperability of Silverlight when it doesn't even work with Microsoft-only clients.

I'm sorry if my post appears to be pure Microsoft-bashing, that is not my intention. Furthermore, I do not intent to attack anyone, I'm just reflecting my own opinion and my assessment of the current situation with Microsoft. What I want to say is that Microsoft finally needs to open their eyes and accept the fact that they are no longer the only global player on the software market. And if they want to be able to compete in future they will have to open up to the rest of the world which is non-Microsoft otherwise they will fall behind more and more. Things like Microsoft opening the documentation of the SMB-protocol for Samba and even running Linux servers in their headquarters at Redmond to be able to provide patches the Linux kernel for Hyper-V are already a good start. I hope that Microsoft will continue their efforts in this direction!

I hope my comment will not be deleted though.

Adrian

watch eclipse online

Interesting. They still call that Phone, but they just even made on simple demonstration of a phone call...

If htc hd2 doesnt get windows mobile 7 apple iphone will remain on top. the phones that were shown on demo suck.

I'm looking forward to a version of the Windows Phone that does video conferencing with the camera on the front. This way people can do videoconferencing on the Windows Phone like the way the news does it -- with both members visible at the same time and with fancy borders.

Nothing exciting. I will be very very hard to convince people to not go for iPhone or Android.. even with a Windows7 advance spec.

Guys, if I wanted an I phone, I would buy an Iphone.. You are doing an 180' turn.. trying to loose your current customer base? in order to maybe swipe some from the iphone base.. First tip.. come up with a concept.. then stick to it.. not 1 year we have a business phone that is fully customisable.. next year we have a teenage party bopper phone that you can hmm hmm change the color of the tiles on..  I was/am waiting.. waiting for the next win7.. and frankly am kinda deflated.  Rather then being market leader, I see win7 as playing catchup with the competition..  I'm a technical consultant.. when people see my phone at woirk, I do not want my drunk party pictures coming from my personal social sites.. how proffesional. Shouldn't I the owner decide what and when gets uploaded and available on my phone?  Not one of the many windows phones I owned had a nice day to day phone GUI.. but thats what made windows phone great, because companies such as htc could change them.. Window7 phones have now got this great concept that think that every person, from a 15 year old princess to a 55 year old CIO will all like exactly the same GUI????????????? Are you guys serious?  Honestly if this is what Microsoft has to offer.. good luck.. your definetly going to need it.. And i really did not want to touch an android phone.. but if this is what i have been waiting months for.. then i might as well stop waiting and jump ship.  I wownt even go into the development of apps, where it seems many people and companies that made winmo6.x apps, can chuck them in the bin.. then have to pay an extra $150 to be able to get into winmo7 market.. on top of what they allready paid microsoft for the VS, etc. I really see great incentive there.. 

P.S. dont think i'm a Iphone fanboy, or android fanboy.. I am actually quite a strong Microsoft technology pusher. Heck some of my collegues would say I push Microsoft products to much.. I have been in the Microsoft space providing solutions with Microsoft products for approx 15 years..  however I see this as a big failure.. and that would be disapointing because this is the last chance Microsoft has in this space..  With previous mobile OS's it left them on the backburner for too long.. and whilst it was at the top of technology (possibly prematurely), rather then using that (being at the top) to Microsofts advantage, it just "parked" the concept.. until all its competitors not only equalled but now even beat Microsoft. Releasing what I see here to the market, that many people have been waiting for many many months, what be a big disapointment. You might get the marketing sheep buy a few units because its new.. and thats about it..

Just ask yourselves this.. How will this phone outshine the others, whats the differentiating factor?  Organising the data slighly different (some may say better, some will say worse) is not what I would class as a differentiating factor.. It doesnt do anything extra.. actually does a lot less.. why would someone bother chnaging from say an Iphone4 to it?

No no no, no the HD2 cannot make the upgrade. You need to research stuff like that. I hope I save you from making a faulty purchase. Just today, I watched an HD2 bug out and vibrate for about 7 minutes before its owner returned. It has 4 buttons, and WP7 requires 3. Sorry dude, pick up a Mondrian or a Lightning when they come out this Christmas.

Did anyone notice the email section that Joe Belfiore was demostrating had a FLAGGED, FORWARDED emal with "FW: What is ProjectX's current status?" as the Subject and associate that with the Name on the email "Katie Price", searching the web throws up results to a potential links to questionable content - Huh!!!!!

WOW, Microsoft is doing something relevant & exciting for the 1st time in decades. From someone who's claimed to throw a party when I hear the news of Microsoft filing Chapter 11, though this is definitely a serious bit of catchup, looks like it could actually be fresh & doing some relevant, cool, intuitive stuff that has not been done yet. Microsoft has been sitting cocky & over-comfortable on its laurels for WAY too long, making ridiculously sad improvements for way too long. Constantly disappointing with all their claims to new & future greatness.  I am still about to jump ship to the Droid X, and still waiting eagerly to seewhat the Chrome (Google) OS is all about or go back to Mac, but this is DEFINITELY a hardcore step in the right direction tha may provide doubt with people like myself leaving, or hope if I cannot adjust to the Android migration. When it comes to technology (not people!) I'm all about survival of the fittest, and Microsoft has been way overdue for a complete & significant overhaul! C'mon....HOW MANY YEARS has it been they they haven't fixed even simple annoying things like not being able to have any character (like ?, /,! etc.) be in a file or folder name!??!?!??! This is a manufacturer OUT OF TOUCH. (Don't get me started! Uhhh........$69. just to get a yes/no question answered for PCs or even mobile devices. Microsoft is SO hated!! Even more than highway ticket patrol! LOL) Up til now, I try to replace every app, utility (like defrag) or browser with a non-Microsoft app since they're all usually faster, leaner, more private, FREE, and actually work right. (Anything Microsoft does, someone else can do better, free or cheap usually. ) IS THE WINDOWS M.O. & REPUTATION FINALLY GOING TO CHANGE........................................? This is actually looking promising!

BAD NEWS IS:     RUMOR HAS IS THAT BECAUSE WM7 IS GOING TO BE SO DIFFERENT AND HOPEFULLY REVOLUTIONARILY GOOD (UNLIKE CERTAIN OTHER RECENT CLAIMS FOR MICROSOFT ABORTIONS), THAT NO  ( R E P E A T ) N-O- PHONES BEFORE THIS COMES OUT WILL BE UPGRADABLE HARDWARE-WISE TO WM7, INCLUDING NEW WM6.5 DEVICES LIKE TOUCHPRO2 or OMNIA2. I'm guessing the screens alone would be a reason.

QUESTION:  Since the new screens will be heat-reactive, will  the new devices come with heat-reactive STYLUSES for classic Windows apps like handwriting recognition?

: )

It looks very promising.  I only hope all those hubs/aggregators will be configurable.

Waw that looks very cool, I was supposed to change my iPhone 3G for a HTC Desire with Android but I think I'll wait the WP7 release to see how is it..

I just hope there will be a lot of useful applications like on the iPhone or Android (and not rare and overprices applications like Blackberry market...)

I don’t think Apple cares as much for, or believes in the long term. They seem to always think and act to maximize present profits at future expense. They did it again recently with the iPhone as a quasi-closed platform. The first time they did this was years ago with the Macintosh. It’s not hard to imagine that the Mac could of been the dominant PC today if it weren’t closed. It’s also easy to imagine millions more sales of iPhones if they didn’t insist on getting a piece of the providers business and leaving the door wide open for Google.

Saw a post here on gesture copyright which raised an eyebrow. I think this would go the same way as when Apple went after Microsoft for overlapping windowing, icons, etc., They were just too public domain, and really can a single company get total control of how my fingers move  naturally?

It's probably too late for this but wanted to add the home page UI is no doubt form following function, and is excellent, but it's not sexy, or good eye candy. Business users might look past this but you can bet my daughter won't.

just hope there will be a lot of useful applications like on the iPhone or Android (and not rare and overprices applications like Blackberry market...) 

yea I got the htc hd2 its awesome but I haveto even if it does get it go for the latest hd3, manly cuase I want the hdmi option but the other upgrades to it will be welcome, I may keep my hd2, or work out some thing with my friend
@GonzoJr:

The touching screen is not really good when scrooling.
Sometimes work with delay, sometimes does'nt work.
Check this!
That's very important!

@CP12:
Although you do have a valid point, need I mention that nobody complains about the iPhones lack of hardware buttons, or the iPhones lack of a genuine business use. Lets face it, any phone that is designed for the user is going to be limited for the power user. Likewise, anything "innovative" like the iPhone, is inevitably gonna have a unneccessarilly complicated UI
 

@dot_tom:go goole  HTC,window won't have apps

Tomorrow is the big day!  Looking forward to it.  I will consider shuttering my iPhone in a hearbeat as long as the O/S and hardware is as good as advertised. 

Hi there, I'd just like to take this time to tell you personally how much I loved reading your blog. I believe that everyone would benefit from reading this as it has a slew of wonderful information and knowledge that could be gained in reading your post. So, I'd just like to tell you thanks for taking the time out of your busy schedule to write this valuable post as I'm certain that I am not the only one that gained a great deal of information out of reading this personal loans . I will be checking back on this blog periodically to check and see if you've written more great posts, as I'm sure a lot of other people will be too. Take care, can't wait to see what else you post!

@CP12: I'm with you CP. I'd like to see a Pro version of this phone.

@GonzoJr: Yes! I need Office Communicator compatibility!

@SajuSathyan:Hello,I'm a chinese boy,for .net development in UFIDA company;
I always wanted to make a foreign friend, SunChina4@163.com is my email,feel free contact me,Thank you !
                                          -- Xing

I had a chance to look at Tmobile's HD7 and the phone is wonderfu and very appealing, atleast to those who never had a windows mobile phone. Me being a pocket pc user since the early 2000's I am dissapointed in this phone. In my opinion this platform is trying to attract android and iphone users and in doing that lost its windows mobile/pocket pc spirit. Where is the file explorer? Other than microsoft office, I don't see much to remind me of windows mobile in this platform.

It's going to be a more and more limited system ..
but it's good for developers.They can make more money through WPMarket.

Well it's true that new WinPhone is quite different from those old ones.I'm still using WM6.5 .I feel it's just like a desktop windows, very easy to modify.Comparing with Android ,iOS, I prefer WM6.5,but not WP7.

@dot_tom:good

功能强大，就是界面欠缺。。。

一直在学Android ，现在打算学wp7 ,纠结呀

学习一下。

I had a chance to look at Tmobile's HD7 and the phone is wonderfu and very appealing, atleast to those who never had a windows mobile phone. Me being a pocket pc user since the early 2000's I am dissapointed in this phone. In my opinion this platform is trying to attract android and iphone users and in doing that lost its windows mobile/pocket pc spirit. Where is the file explorer? Other than microsoft office, I don't see much to remind me of windows mobile in this platform.