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Windows Phone 7 Series Preview. Expected Q4 2010.
Microsoft is probably the company that has suffered the most since the launch of the
Apple iPhone three years ago. A combination of exceptional ease of use and a highly enjoyable
user interface shook up the whole industry, and as manufacturers rose to the challenge
by creating new operating systems or improving old ones, it appeared the Microsoft were lagging
behind.
In an attempt to "sex up" the Microsoft look-and-feel, partners such as HTC added their own interface
on top in an attempt to give Windows Mobile some polish, and Microsoft themselves kept
tweaking the user interface, but these efforts only met with a lukewarm reaction.
Ultimately, Microsoft were being out-competed in a market they used to dominate, and perhaps
it became clear that playing "catch up" was not going to achieve what Microsoft wanted
to achieve.
Windows Phone 7 Series is an attempt to turn Microsoft around, and it does this largely
by throwing away what has gone before and coming up with a completely new user interface
with a completely new set of ideas behind it.
The new interface is designed around the concept of "hubs" - a sort of home screen that brings
together applications and documents following a certain theme, so for examples there is
a "games" hub and an "office" hub. The hubs themselves are much larger than the screen
on the phone, so the user scrolls around to find what they want on the hub. It sounds
like hard work, but other handsets have shown that users can easily adapt to this idea.
All this scrolling around does require some seriously powerful hardware, so manufacturers
are designing smartphones to go with this operating system that will be released later
in the year.
The new version of Windows Phone will also integrate Zune and Xbox Live functionality
into the phone, although Zune hasn't exactly been a great success for Microsoft recently
either.
Be prepared to wait a long time for any devices running Windows Phone 7 though, Microsoft
say that they will be ready for the "holiday 2010" which we translate as being by November
of this year. That's quite a long wait, although Windows Phone 7 capable devices might be available
before then.
Microsoft have taken a brave step by completely changing the way the interface works, but
Windows on phones certainly needs some sort of major change to make it sexy again.. perhaps
this is it.