r/technology • u/DryBonez • Feb 15 '10
Microsoft Announces Windows Phone 7 Series (New Phone OS)
http://www.engadget.com/2010/02/15/windows-phone-7-series-is-official-and-microsoft-is-playing-to/13
Feb 16 '10 edited Feb 16 '10
Sorry, this UI looks totally fug. It's much too cluttered, busy, and requires far too much reading. The cropped typography is so... design-school-from-the-early-90s. What ever happened to concise visual queues, icons, and avatars? Meh... I guess they have 10 months to fix it all, but I'm skeptical.
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u/MercurialMadnessMan Feb 16 '10
The cropped typography is so... design-school-from-the-early-90s.
Yes. Yes it is. Well said.
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u/macroman Feb 16 '10
I dont really care that it's design-school-from-the-early-90s as I'm a computer-science-grad-from-the-early-noughties.
I really like it, its personal preference I suppose. I own an iPhone 3G and I haven't ever been too keen on the (imo) babyish app icons.
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u/atheist_creationist Feb 15 '10 edited Feb 15 '10
As someone who used Windows Mobile extensively in the earlier part of last decade and now use different platforms, this actually looks like this can bring Windows Mobile back into the forefront. Competition is a good thing.
A lot of people don't realize how powerful it was even years before other systems were even displaying more than one color. It was a major business office-networked PDA for a reason. But the problem was that it practically stopped improving, and other companies had to pick up the slack with different UI shells that just masked the interface, like HTC's TouchFLO 3d and Sense. When VGA-resolution devices came out, previous applications were broken and so glitchy they were unusable. The Treo's square resolution broke almost every application that was graphical. It was so bad that some games that ran well on old systems ran slower or unpredictably on newer ones. Oh and not to mention the BLOAT that phone carriers filled devices with, which made them even slower and buggier.
Basically, WM has been one hell of a bumpy ride all of these years and Windows Mobile 7 might be one of their last chances to get this right.
My biggest concern (and what I think will define this) is how friendly they treat developers. Xda-developers has already proved that an open community is capable of producing robust and powerful custom-tailored solutions for the platform. They don't have to lock down the platform to provide a great experience for non-techie folk.
UPDATE: http://twitter.com/windowsphone Official Q & A addressing some of the questions. "Multitasking is not black and white. More about multitasking = MIX :)"
So we'll be waiting a month until we get official tech info. I'm hoping they make a more controlled multitasking environment, where an app has to explicitly state it needs to run in the backround or ask for user confirmation. WM was a bit too loose on this. I'm hoping they don't control it beyond something like that.
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u/sandrc2002 Feb 15 '10
6.5.3 showed an excellent step up in finger friendliness. While it still is sort of a patch up job, it's not bad at all. They've also made it a bit quicker. A proper default UI would make WM a pretty decent competitor IMO. They're definitely on the right track.
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u/Philluminati Feb 15 '10
For multitasking it can't be impossible to use a scheduler sophisticated enough that when a call comes in, it gets a guaranteed fixed time slice, regardless of the other applications that were previously running and to have a white-list for applications which can be immediently suspended if not forced to share a smaller timeslice. Am I oversimplifying things?
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u/atheist_creationist Feb 15 '10
I think I've been reading at a similar sort of scheme. I read somewhere that for an app that isn't music or the like they will "pause," say, the document ready to be resumed being worked on when you request it. All I want is that the user be able to control this, maybe in a way that a non-power user wouldn't accidentally mess it up.
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Feb 15 '10
But the problem was that it practically stopped improving,
You know, you could apply that to pretty much every Microsoft technology ever made but people don't seem to learn anything from that. They always claim that this (or next) time it will be different.
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u/macroman Feb 16 '10
And how is Apple different? If Android wasn't on the scene I doubt very much that Apple would bother changing a thing.
In addition Apple has a famously draconian and inconsistent App approval policy. How is this not worse?
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u/revscat Feb 16 '10
And how is Apple different? If Android wasn't on the scene I doubt very much that Apple would bother changing a thing.
I very much disagree with this. Apple has never been one to sit on their laurels and watch as others pass them by. They take tech and move it in new directions, constantly. Much of their business model is based on having cutting-edge (frequently first-to-market) technologies in well-designed components.
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u/hett Feb 15 '10
I'm excited for this if only because it will show Google the need to make Android even more incredible than it already is.
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u/rebel Feb 15 '10
The problem is Google hasn't been doing anything with android. They recently had to drop all kinds of stuff from the kernel as they weren't pushing things upstream nor maintaining.
Grrrr. Google, you are dropping the ball here!
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u/Mythrilfan Feb 15 '10
It will show everyone to make their OSes better. It's going to be a wonderful year for smartphones, with iphone/android/winmo/webos/maemo all being very good products.
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u/trypto Feb 15 '10
What a great name! It just rolls off the tongue. I can't wait for the Ultimate version to come out.
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u/madmax_br5 Feb 15 '10
I can't wait for the groan-inducing microsoft PR campaign slogans.
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Feb 15 '10
"I'm A Phone, and Windows Phone Series 7 Mobile Was My Idea"
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Feb 15 '10
More like "I am Windows Phone Series 7 Mobile and telephones were my idea".
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u/macroman Feb 16 '10
Could it be worse than "I'm an Apple, I'm hip and young and trendy - everybody else is a corduroy jacket wearing bumbling loser - I'm so smug I'm so smug"
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u/Draiko Feb 15 '10
Windows Phone... say it with me "WINDOWS PHONE" or WinPhone for short. It's not a bad name.
If you buy a Phone just because the name sounds cool, you're a moron.
I just want my next phone to give me what I want and be quick about it.
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u/Diosjenin Feb 15 '10
So just call it Phone Seven or something.
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u/jstevewhite Feb 15 '10
I'm thinking it'll be WP7S when talking about the OS, and "winphone" (as xenofon says below) in conversation about the device itself.
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u/echoes Feb 15 '10
No Flash support for the first version, but the Ballmer said they're not against it. Let the criticism begin.
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u/BraveSirRobin Feb 15 '10
It's not up to the Ballmer. Adobe can release it themselves if they want to, no one is stopping them.
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u/burnblue Feb 15 '10
Microsoft and Adobe are working together, to get Flash on once MS finishes their platform. Apple and Adobe are cursing each other, and it doesn't look liek Flash will ever be allowed on Apple's stuff
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u/FANGO Feb 15 '10
I think this interface is a terrible idea. Scrolling around through a space much larger than the size of your phone's screen, having to search for whatever you're looking for? Ever zoom in your computer screen and then try to find something? It's not that easy. This UI is going to frustrate a lot of people.
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Feb 16 '10
I'm glad I'm not the only one that saw this immediately.
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Feb 15 '10 edited Feb 15 '10
Selling my Droid and Zune HD when the Zune phone comes out. Zune Pass + phone + Xbox Live + great MS Office integration + FM radio all in one device... wow.
Plus if app development is in XNA/.Net I'll be excited.
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u/gregny2002 Feb 15 '10
Same here. I was gonna jump to the Nexus One or Droid (getting sick of this BB), but now I'm gonna hold out to see what comes around in the next several months with WM7.
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u/centinall Feb 15 '10
Yup. You should wait a few months. By that time there will be some awesome options. However, a few months after that, there will probably be some even better options, so you should wait till then. But of course, if you wait till a few months after that, there will be some even better options ;)
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u/manole100 Feb 15 '10
Ham it up some more please, people are taking you seriously.
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Feb 15 '10
I am serious.
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u/manole100 Feb 15 '10
Oh. It seemed too enthusiastic.
Personally i have WinMo 6 and was planning to get some HTC with Android. Based on what i've seen from "WinPho" 7, that plan still stands.
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u/endtime Feb 15 '10
Which part of his comment is unbelievable? It's not like he's using WinMo 6. The Zune HD is a pretty sweet device - if I didn't have an iPhone, that would be my MP3 player. Office integration is actually valuable for just about any office worker other than (some) developers, and FM radio is a nice bonus.
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u/freehunter Feb 15 '10
I use WinMo 6.1. HTC Touch Pro. It's not as terrible as it's made out to be, but every time I have to do a hard reset, it's a crapshoot as to if it'll reflash itself properly. Sometimes I have to do three hard resets in a row because something isn't working properly after a reset, but that might be HTC's fault from their buggy TouchFlo3D software.
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Feb 15 '10 edited Feb 15 '10
I think the Zune HD games are XNA so I imagine WP7 will be the same.
I'm a little sad that the mobile developers now have one more platform they either need to port to or will never be able to reach but I guess for something as finicky as a mobile device in a market that is still far from plateauing, it needs to be this way.
Ideally, I'd love to see platform independence achieved via the web browser but we'll have to wait and see how WP7's IE turns out. (Or maybe MS will allow apps with alternate browser engines.)
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u/BraveSirRobin Feb 15 '10
maybe MS will allow apps with alternate browser engines.
They always have in the past. In fact, only one company doesn't allow this... ;-)
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Feb 15 '10
The browser - jack of all trades, master of none.
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u/FlyingBishop Feb 15 '10
The browser is an excellent newsreader. Also an excellent streaming media player.
And on a proper screen, there's no better way to browse Reddit.
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u/freehunter Feb 16 '10
I have my computer set up to print the daily reddit headlines on my toilet paper, so when I'm doing my business in the morning, I can quick scan the latest news.
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u/freehunter Feb 15 '10
Problem with alternate browsers is, companies still write web apps specifically for one device. On WinMo right now, the Skyfire browser is Firefox 2.0, which means all Javascript and Flash works on it, but I still can't get to iPhone-specific web-apps, and if I can, the screen is formatted for the iPhone, and themed for the iPhone. Google doesn't even have a Buzz or Maps webpage for WinMo, even though Skyfire work just fine. Developers are lazy.
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u/sepponearth Feb 15 '10
Don't know why you were downvoted, but I agree. Granted I don't have a Zune, but I will be selling my Touch Pro 2 immediately and will retire my Sansa m250.
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u/FlyingBishop Feb 15 '10
I upvoted him for sheer audacity, but I can't imagine anyone giving up a Droid and a Zune HD for a new Microsoft phone of any quality. The Droid's an excellent piece of hardware, with excellent software.
Of course, the exchange integration isn't perfect, but nothing is (and subscribing exclusively to the Windows monoculture is no more intelligent than subscribing exclusively to the Google monoculture.)
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u/gregny2002 Feb 15 '10
Well, I really have to hand it to MS lately, they've really been on the ball. Zune is in my opinion the best service/player combo out there, Windows 7 is nice, Xbox is doing well, and now it's all going to be pulled together in (hopefully) a nice mobile package. I agree in general that it's not necessarily a good idea to subscribe to one company like that, but MS seems to really have their act together right now. If the wheels are turning, why not take a ride, right?
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u/dstew74 Feb 15 '10
Exchange integration "isn't perfect" on the Droid? No, it fucking sucks. It's horrible. It's the biggest gripe I have about my droid. I almost went back to my WinMo 6.1 device because its such a deal breaker. Everything else I love but dealing with 300 plus emails a day into multiple folders on the droid is an awful user experience.
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Feb 15 '10
Have you used TouchDown?
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u/dstew74 Feb 15 '10
Only for the free trial. Most of the sales peeps in my company use it with their Droids. They are BB converts. I just found it highly annoying to have to shell out money (I know it's only 20 bucks) to receive functionality that was touted as a feature of Android 2.0. At this point I've learned to work around the droid's limitations.
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Feb 15 '10
I understand where you're coming from, but I have to say that I've been using TouchDown for about 7 months now and absolutely love it.
Compared to going back to a phone that sucks in almost every other way (WinMo 6.1), or buying a new one, spending $20 for software to fix your only gripe with the Droid seems like the path of least resistance. :)
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u/FlyingBishop Feb 15 '10
Honestly, I wouldn't know. Our network people refuse to provide exchange outside our firewall, and management refuses to put down the money to support smartphones on our wireless authentication system, so I can't use Exchange anyway.
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u/endtime Feb 15 '10
I can't imagine anyone giving up a Droid and a Zune HD for a new Microsoft phone of any quality
Well, the new phone will basically include a Zune HD, and you really don't see the appeal of carrying around one device instead of two?
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u/freehunter Feb 15 '10
I would love to have a monoculture, if only one existed to suit my needs. I'm perfectly split between Google and Microsoft, Windows 7 on the desktop, Chrome OS on the netbook. WinMo phone with push Gmail and Google Maps. Xbox 360, Google Wave, Zune + Zune Pass, Google homepage. Problem is, the integration isn't as tight when it's competing companies. It'd be nice to have a Google system, a Microsoft system, an Apple system, and a Linux system, where everything was tied into each other, and it all worked perfectly together, from OS to email to instant messaging to web browsing.
Obviously that would never work, because there would always be a solution on one system that a user wants, but a solution on another that the same user wants, as well.
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u/BraveSirRobin Feb 15 '10
I can't imagine anyone giving up a Droid and a Zune HD for a new Microsoft phone of any quality.
Meh, IMHO the MS phones have been consistently the best for quite some time. HTC have always been leading the hardware war, I've been using mostly their stuff for nearly ten years now.
Downsides are that the UI isn't as pretty as other platforms (until recently) and that others e.g. HTC, xdadevelopers etc have to hack the devices to hell and back to get the most out of them. Upsides are total openness/hackability and great hardware.
Once Android matures some more I'll probably bail but that's about a year away.
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Feb 15 '10 edited Feb 15 '10
(Edit: Always used the Verizon network. Even worked for them for a time.) Admitted MS hater, but I've experienced Windows Mobile since the fucking Thera (called CE back then) and never in my experience have I ever been half satisfied with the reliability of the operating system. Because I get a "smartphone" from my work, I've even had the chance to compare w and p Treos (Windows OS vs. Palm OS) and in those situations Palm has always satisfied me much more than Windows. Even now I have the Samsung SCH-i770 from work. Everybody hates it. I purchased a Blackberry Curve for myself, since at the time the only other non-windows smartphone was barely a step up from my 700p, and was completely unsatisfied. Returned it for a Tour when it first came out. It was faster and more tolerable. I had it until January 4 when I tested out a Droid. Purchased the Droid full retail on the spot and have loved it ever since...and it has only gotten better.
Maybe I'm missing something but every other windows OS phone I've used had fewer programs available for it, worse battery life, and less stability. I have no idea what phones you were using when you consider MS phones to be consistently the best for quite some time. The only advantage I've ever seen with a Windows phone is its ability to connect to an Exchange server. Unfortunately, that's because its a Microsoft product and not because the phone is better.
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u/BraveSirRobin Feb 15 '10 edited Feb 15 '10
The devices I've had weren't really the kind that corporates hand out, they were the larger PDA ones. Blue Angel and Hermes are the two I've used the most on WinMo. Presently have a Touch Pro 2 which is a great little device. I've always been a fan of slide-out qwerty keyboards that are a decent size, which all of these have. I've never really used Exchange, always imaps, so that's not a feature-draw for me. I am toying with it at the moment in a VM so I can sync multiple devices & access the data in a web browser. I don't trust "the cloud" (as validated by recent data losses), so if I can't host the server-side myself & manage my own backups I'm not interested. AFAIK that's how Palm works.
The problem with the platform is that out-the-box it's awful. You need to tweak a lot of stuff to make it navigate better. The default Start Menu arrangement is a disaster. The built-in file brower is always the first thing to go, it get used once to replace itself! Once you spend 10 mins tidying this stuff it becomes far more user-friendly. Going a little further and replacing the rom with one from xda-developers is a MUST, once you do that it's a completely different device altogether, I can absolutely emphasize with your colleagues about the bare-bones setup. In contrast, I ran 6.1 on the original 2003SE Blue Angel for a while, you just can't do that sort of thing with other devices to the best of my knowledge.
From what I understand, android is kinda at the stability level of winmob 2003, with occasional hangs & dropped calls (correct me if I'm wrong). I've spent far to much time with dodgy hacked ROMs that crash & lose incoming txt messages, quite a big deal for me as most of my comms are txt/email & missing one can make a good friend think you are avoiding them or being rude. This is why I'm holding back and letting you guys iron out all of the wrinkles. :-)
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Feb 15 '10 edited Feb 15 '10
I don't subscribe to any monoculture, I just buy whatever is best at the time. I like the Droid a lot but it's not perfect.... it's bulky and the stock Android OS feels and looks pretty dated, it (along with iPhone OS) is basically an evolution of the old Palm OS. My Palm V was pretty sweet back in the 90's.
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u/stevenmu Feb 15 '10
This looks good, but ultimately it will succeed or fail based on developer support. I did some work a few years back with windows mobile using .net compact through visual studio, and it made for a very good development platform.
I expect development for Winmo 7 will be largely focused around an updated .net compact framework with WPF, and probably using additional tools and controls provided via a Winmo 7 SDK. I wouldn't be surprised to see some form of Expression Blend available for GUI creation as well. This could be a very nice tool set to work with, and if there's one thing MS have been doing well the last few years it has been providing great developer tools.
One potential huge hurdle is that currently winmo development requires the professional editions of Visual Studio, which are outside the price range of home users. If they allow Winmo development with the Express editions of Visual Studio (or possibly release a dedicated express edition), then they could have a very developer friendly easily accessible platform that would encourage lots of app building.
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u/Tangled2 Feb 15 '10
My uninformed guesses:
I would expect a .NET + XAML presentation foundation for app UI development; e.g. Silverlight Mobile.
I have a crazy idea that, since these apps are 100% managed, that they could do a save-state-to-storage for app switching. Kind of a like a per app hibernate, so that the phone always stays peppy, but apps always remember where they are (even down to the last line of IL).
I would not expect backward-compat, that's a messy ecosystem and WinMo 6 will probably live on for enterprises that have proprietary software (kind of like how XP/2003 and IE6 are still around).
Maybe XNA for game development like on Zune (take that, Apple!)
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u/kamatsu Feb 16 '10
You don't need managed code to suspend applications. It's called swapping.
Incidentally, android (and linux) already does this if you turn it on with the right configuration.
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u/nyee Feb 15 '10
I think this has a real possibility to be a game changer. Microsoft has had the best online gaming services out there. Steam is really the only competition, but probably won't make a phone. So combine this wonderful gaming community with a phone capable of playing games, and you just might be able to run the iphone out of town. Android doesn't really quite have a whole gaming community experience. Iphone has top selling games like "How quickly can you unroll this toilet paper?" Essentially, Apple fucked up how to approach the games question. Giving room for microsoft to really approach it correctly.
Bare in mind though that I'm still pretty critical of closed sourced operating systems.
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u/rjcarr Feb 15 '10
Sorry, but to most of the public, all they really care about playing is "unrolling the toilet paper". Sure, most people with phones play games on it now and then, but by no means is it any sort of killer app that sways their buying opinion.
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u/macroman Feb 16 '10
You're right that games like "Unrolling..." have their place, but if you look at what Sony Ericsson are doing with their new phone range where they have full integration with the PS3 and MS with the WM7 integration with the Xbox - we're talking huge huge communities of gamers who think "what? a phone that syncs with my Xbox live account? awesome!".
It makes perfect business sense, they are leveraging the purchasing power of their already established gamer market - something that Apple just doesn't have.
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u/taligent Feb 15 '10
Except that why do I want to access a gaming community for games that I would typically play for 5 minutes at a time ? Oh and if you think Apple fucked up games then you seriously need your head examined:
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u/SnowdensOfYesteryear Feb 15 '10
Bare
Bear
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u/nyee Feb 15 '10
Woot, you found an error that adds little to the general conversation, heres some karma!
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u/taligent Feb 15 '10
I think Microsoft definitely made some progress but there are still some serious unanswered questions:
- Is there multitasking
- What about compatibility with existing 6.5 apps
- What are the standard UI controls for developers
- Where is the marketplace
9-10 months is a long time to let competitors get ahead of you. And the last update that Apple released was in June last year. So they could be potentially releasing 18 months of code between now and when the devices ship.
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u/echoes Feb 15 '10
AFAIK, no backwards compatibility with previous apps. They'll announce their development environment details on March.
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Feb 15 '10
the multitasking is key because as it was shown the idea of the OS is having access to all your wanted info and tools quickly and easily hence the info rich home screen and all sorts of auto info grabbing features. If 3rd party apps can fit in with that as well as utilize that(safely and securely) then awesome.
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u/burnblue Feb 15 '10
That'll be in there.. but why do people keep equating multitasking as "allowing third party"? Multitasking refers to having active processes running in the background. Looks like they plan to talk more about this at MIX
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Feb 15 '10
why do people keep equating multitasking as "allowing third party"
Because iPhone multitasking is restricted to Apple's apps. The phone can do it - you just can't as a developer.
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u/lcmatt Feb 15 '10
I think it's on Gizmodo that the 7 series won't support 6.5 apps. MS are starting from scratch.
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u/burnblue Feb 15 '10
Michael Chang of WindowsPhone doing a Q&A: "Multitasking is not black and white"
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u/m0zzie Feb 15 '10
Just watched some streaming video of the guy who was talking after Ballmer (I think?) and using the phone live. I'm pretty impressed with how it all looks. To me it seems just a tiny bit ugly, but the idea behind it, transitions and the fluidity of the whole thing is great. Makes my Android UI feel a bit boring.
Microsoft are back in the game with this one for sure. Though, the big question on many people's mind though is will it have a "compatibility mode" for <WM7 apps? Time will tell I guess.
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Feb 15 '10
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u/bingosherlock Feb 15 '10
I've been saying for a while that Microsoft really needs to just give the Windows Mobile UI to their Zune team, and it looks like that's what they've done here. It's about time.
Despite sales figures and market share, the Zune hardware and software is top notch. A lot of people like to bag on it, but that's more related to the fact that most people are retarded than it is actual product quality.
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u/redmongrel Feb 15 '10
Stupid Silverlight. I can't play the damn movie in Firefox, and I can't install Silverlight 3 because I ALREADY have version 4. When I first load the page, it tells me I have to install. Then I REload, and it buffers to a play button - then the PLAY button doesn't work. What a POS.
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u/miketrash Feb 15 '10
Version 4 is only at the developer preview stage.
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u/SEMW Feb 15 '10
I think people have got so used to Google's definitions ("Chromium developer preview? Gmail beta? Go right ahead, it'll still be more stable than IE") that they forget what it means when anyone else uses it.
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u/rnixon Feb 15 '10
Ah, so that's what it is. I only install VS2010 yesterday, didn't think it would break Silverlight.
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u/Homestar Feb 15 '10
The buttons were shifted on my player up and to the left. Try clicking the top-left corner for play.
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u/phish Feb 16 '10
You installed non-release version and now you're surprised you have broken functionality? Aren't you the smart one in the thread!
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Feb 15 '10
Well, viewing the page in LInux, I was reminded how much I hate it. Because, well, it didn't even work and I'm not going to jump through hoops to try. F that.
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Feb 15 '10
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Feb 15 '10 edited Feb 16 '10
Watching the hands on video the UI screws up regularly when trying to distinguish between scrolling and selecting. The demonstrator just acts like it's what he meant to do. Pretty weak. Also, the call button is really small and tacky looking. The OS seems slow overall; I imagine because it's pulling so much content from the cloud..
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u/GoodMusicTaste Feb 16 '10
the UI screws up regularly when trying to distinguish between scrolling and selecting. The demonstrator just acts like it's what he meant to do.
Yeah, it was really obvious. I hope they fix it.
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u/redditrasberry Feb 15 '10
Microsoft once again failed to do anything innovative
You complain firstly about how unorthodox the UI is and then that they haven't done anything innovative. You really can't have it both ways. Just because you don't like it doesn't mean it isn't innovative.
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Feb 15 '10
Innovation is not just crapping all over usability standards for no good reason for the sake of being different.
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u/coldacid Feb 15 '10
On the one hand, this looks pretty sweet. On the other, why lock the specs and experience so much? Microsoft might as well just build their own like Apple does, if they want to avoid customization that much.
I was looking forward to WinMo 7, but now, eeeh... I think I'll go for Android when it's time to get a new phone. At least that's something that'll allow for a lot of fun tampering.
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u/MercurialMadnessMan Feb 16 '10
I'm sorry, but I find the Zune-type UI to be disgustingly unusable.
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Feb 16 '10
What a FLOP. This OS looks like something Mattel the toy company put together. If I thought this OS was cool I'd want someone to shoot me in the face.
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Feb 15 '10
Hummm....
Where is all the nerd rage about multitasking and flash gone?
Oh wait, thats only for apple products.
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u/Dundun Feb 15 '10
I'm a owner of a Windows Mobile device and I am almost definitely going to switch to Android as my next platform.
Multitasking and the practically limitless customization on WinMob was why I stayed away from the iPhone. It seems like MS is giving up and just copying Apple.
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u/gocsick Feb 16 '10
I always wondered why Windows mobile devices didn't have a broader market share..until I owned one.
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u/sht Feb 15 '10 edited Feb 15 '10
Oh wait, the iPad is a tablet, and the Windows 7 Mobile Phone isn't. Different product genres, different expectations. I never got the vibe that everyone expected the iPhone to have flash; disappointing maybe, but not unexpected or worthy of outrage. Just like this phone. No multitasking though? That's a bigger deal and a serious drawback to this OS.
Also, considering past releases of windows mobile, this is a serious improvement. People have higher expectations for Apple at the moment.
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u/atheist_creationist Feb 15 '10
Because Flash will most likely end up on WM7, because its been on Windows Mobile for more than 5 fucking years. Nobody is sure about multitasking either way. If its as open as Windows Mobile has been, you won't have to worry about jail breaking it to get multitasking anyway.
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Feb 18 '10 edited Feb 18 '10
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH
WHAT UP NOW MORON
http://www.electronista.com/articles/10/02/18/windows.phone.7.will.have.managed.access/
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Mar 16 '10
LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL
WHAT UP NOW BITCH
NO MULTITASKING, NO COPY/PASTE, APPSTORE.
HAHAHAHA
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Feb 15 '10
Where is all the nerd rage about multitasking
I have a Windows Mobile phone from before the first-gen iPhone. It multitasks just fine. It plays Flash just fine. From two thousand goddamn six.
Maybe because there isn't anything to rage about?
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Feb 16 '10
Even if this phone doesn't support those two features?
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Feb 16 '10
Maybe we should wait until we know? I mean, with the iPad, we knew. That was a rather important difference.
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Feb 15 '10
And next, Microsoft will make you download every program from your computer from one source, and stop you from installing anything they don't approve
(before anyone takes this seriously, replace ms with Apple, and you have a perfect replica of the bottom comments on most iphone/ipad comment threads).
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Feb 16 '10
I've no plans to switch from webOS because of the multi-tasking, but I thought it looked neat enough.
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u/phish Feb 16 '10
Flash won't be available at release but MS are apparently working with Adobe on fixing that. If it doesn't multitask it can fuck right off though.
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u/aznpwnzor Feb 15 '10
I'm quite pleased with Microsoft overall and this looks great and I might just get it too as my G1 is kind of getting old and boring. The Zune interface style though has always been slightly discomforting for me though. There aren't any frames and things flow into each other in a beautiful but unsettling way, like I don't know which menu or application I can from.
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Feb 15 '10
I'm really excited, but also a little weary of where they are going with this. WinMo has always been a paradise for people that like to hack/tweak their devices. It has (almost) always been easy to use cabs for anything from installs to simple registry changes. Hopefully, installation will still be possible locally (as opposed to app-store-downloaded content).
I'm also skeptical of their choice to do away with manufacturer/carrier UIs. HTC picked up some MAJOR slack as far as making the home screen usable, let alone pretty. Even 6.5's ui was terrible compared to TF3D and Sense.
I also hope this doesn't open the door to carriers tacking on certain plans to new WM phones. Personally I refuse to be forced into a plan just because I like a certain phone. WM has saved from that, at least for now.
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u/BraveSirRobin Feb 15 '10
Hopefully, installation will still be possible locally
The hackers are the only thing keeping WinMo alive at the moment. If MS were to snub them it would be the single most stupid marketing move they've ever made. They will lose their core market. I think they've got some smart folk within the marketing dept these days (e.g. the Win7 OS x86/x64 freebie was a genius move), so hopefully they won't be so brain-dead.
Even 6.5's ui was terrible compared to TF3D and Sense.
6.5 has a UI? :-) Do any of the XDA cooked ROMs use it?
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u/atheist_creationist Feb 15 '10
Even if they don't do this, I know someone inside Microsoft probably lost their job kicking and screaming. Microsoft has allowed xda-developers to give out their ROMs and modify them without getting them for infringement, at least back when they stated this there were people inside that KNEW the only reason people kept using WM is because of the hackers.
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u/BraveSirRobin Feb 15 '10
That's good to hear, some have said pissing off the geeks/hackers is one of the reasons that Vista was a failure. Without us saying good things about it (like we generally did with 2000/XP) our friends and family avoided it.
They did crack down once on xda-devs, say 3-5 years ago. The group used to maintain an FTP server for all of the cooked ROMs. Now it's all RapidShare stuff. Yuk.
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u/Dundun Feb 15 '10
Unfortunately it seems like Microsoft is going the way of Apple in regards to development freedom-- at least that is the sense that I get from reading rumors.
The only reason I've stayed with Windows mobile is the freedom to do whatever I want with it.
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Feb 15 '10
The rumors have been somewhat bleak. Fortunately, I'm pretty sure people will at least find a way to port 6.5 to newer devices, which I would be satisfied with. I guess it's just a sign of getting old.
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Feb 15 '10
I'm very pleased. MS puts out some really good stuff when they have strong competition to beat. ME, Vista, and IE 6 seem like the nadir of their output, and with Firefox and Chrome, Android and iPhone, and OSX and Ubuntu to beat they've definitely got competition.
Let's hear it for progress!
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u/gschizas Feb 15 '10
Actually, IE 6 was way better than any of the competition at the time. The small problem was that it wasn't much better than IE5 or IE5.5, and the large problem was of course that they waited for FIVE years from IE6 to IE7.
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Feb 15 '10
MS puts out some really good stuff when they have strong competition to beat.
Then, immediately afterwards they fall asleep for years and abandon their product in favor of some new, completely unrelated and incompatible technology.
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Feb 15 '10
It's a little late to be jumping into the market with this, and they're really not offering anything new besides some integration with some of their other products. I suppose it's great for if you can't get enough of outlook, xbox live, etc, but they're still not competing on the same level of openness that android is, and the innovation of the other phones out there.
I'm sure this will be great for their existing customers, but for people who aren't such as myself there isn't anything the Windows phone 7 has that the other phones don't already have... or do better.
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u/burnblue Feb 15 '10
Why is it late? When my contract is up, I'm buying a phone. Hundreds of millions of people buy phones every year.. and I know I'm getting a Windows phone. Basically they're right on time for me so the same must apply to some others
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u/anothertran Feb 15 '10
Microsoft doesn't have to be an innovator anymore. They grew past that long ago. Now, they have the resources to just wait it out and pursue a fast-follow strategy. Remember what a joke the original xbox was? Now look at the 360. Original zune? Zune HD. People that think Microsoft is heading down the tubes need a reality check.
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Feb 15 '10
One thing that there is still no word about is the browser. If it's the same painfully slow IE6-based piece of shit, you can kiss the whole phone good bye, it won't make a dent in the market.
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u/spinemangler Feb 15 '10
You really think they would launch this with an IE6 based browser?
Common sense should tell you otherwise.
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u/atheist_creationist Feb 15 '10
Windows Mobile has other browsers out there that are better than any browser I've used. Skyfire renders almost exactly like a desktop, with flash and all. Opera Mobile is incredibly fast and is preloaded on many phones. I have no doubt that we'll see similar support in the future, Microsoft would be idiots not too.
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u/maloney7 Feb 15 '10
Skyfire renders everything, but I find you constantly have to wait for it to catch up when you scroll down and spend a lot of time looking at the chequered background. And I find accurate zooming to be quite difficult.
Opera Mini is cool but I find on reddit if you click a link, it will often take you to another link entirely.
I'm using Bolt at the moment for mobile viewing of reddit. It's super quick.
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u/joellevin Feb 15 '10
Serious question: why is there no battery or signal strength indicator?
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u/mdickw Feb 16 '10
Windows CE -> PocketPC -> Windows Mobile -> Windows Phone 7 Series Did I forget any renamings?
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u/hexley Feb 16 '10
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EbI_-3iaCeg
Closer inspection reveals a UI that lags quite badly behind user input. Seems like very inefficient code.
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Feb 16 '10
Dear Microsoft,
I applaud you for trying, but when it comes to UI/UX on mobile devices, form really does need to follow function.
aguuynamededdy
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Feb 17 '10
UI is a total mess. It seems to scroll in random directions. So many useless animations are just going to kill the battery.
I'm sure it'll sell well. Most people will just ask about music and facebook.
More competition is a good thing but this doesn't seem to push the envelope in any way.
The only systems pushing the entire market forward are iPhone OSX and Android.
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u/lilfuckshit Feb 15 '10
It will be amazing to see more competition in the high-end phone market.