The differences to name a few between the window Phone 7 Series and 6 Series are that the Windows Phone 7 Series has the Windows CE 6 Kernel while the current versions of Windows Mobile are based on Windows CE 5, an upended user interface, with an emphasis on finger-based touch screen input, deep social networking integration, Xbox components (Game Console), etc.. A couple of familiar functionalities from the past include plans for Outlook and Office support, as well as licensing to a wide variety of third party hardware vendors.
The Windows 7 Series Operating System will be supported by mobile phones with features like Large WVGA screen with a single aspect ratio, five buttons on the device (Start, Back, Search “Bing button”, Camera, and the Power), Multi touch capabilities, Wi-Fi, AGPS, Accelerometer, FM radio, High resolution camera, etc.
With the introduction to the Windows 7 Series, Microsoft is said to have declared a full-scale nuclear assault on everything we knew about Windows on phones. The user interface itself is so unique with no Start Menu, drop downs, checkboxes, radio buttons, windows, list of icons, icon grids, pull down menus, card view, and task manager. Microsoft has clearly worked long and hard on developing new ways to navigate a phone, and this doesn't even bear a resemblance to any other phones currently available in the market. Microsoft says the concept developed from its Zune and Windows Media Center User Interface and now terms the Windows 7 series concept as "Metro"- a smooth and motion heavy interface based on primary colors and lots of minimal, negative space.
The Windows 7 Series Operating System user interface consists of an unlock screen and a large photo that can be dragged up to unlock the device. The unlock screen provides details such as time, date, upcoming calendar items, number of unread messages, and number of missed calls even before unlocking the screen. After unlocking the device a Start screen appears, that is composed of user-configurable and movable “tiles” placed in narrow strips. Each tile can be placed either in sets of two across, or longer single tiles. These tiles are links to applications, a specific contact or website, a photo gallery, playlist and can function as a standalone widget that reaches out to one of the "hubs" (which comprises of the majority of the phone's functionality). All these are fully customizable. When you jump into a hub, you land in a horizontal-scrolling interface, with a series of scrollable data streams and views in parallel that you can "pivot" to. The content in a hub is composed of both locally-stored data and cloud-sourced information. There is no limit to the number of tiles that may be placed on the Start Screen. All the screens viewed are animated and live, providing information online about status updates from friends, Pictures, Messages, Events, etc.. The user interface screen has a feature to automatically adjust the screen layout according to the usage of the device. At the bottom of the screen is an "app bar" that has a few icon shortcuts to common commands (like add calendar item or back and forward in the browser), but which also can be pulled up like a drawer to reveal further commands available to the user.
Hubs and apps
This department promises some awesome offerings. For now details for the following hubs and applications is provided in brief:
People hub:
Unlike the current phones where data has to be fed individually, this new feature picks up the contact details directly from your social networking sites (Gmail, Exchange, Facebook, Twitter, Windows Live, etc.). Customizable options are provided where the contacts can be arranged according to your preference.
Pictures hub:
All your locally stored photos/cloud-based pictures will be picked up directly from your social network (Gmail, Exchange, Facebook, Twitter, Windows Live, etc.). Contacts may upload or provide comments inside the hub which will update the social network with the changes made.
Here users have an option to create their own miniature versions of the person in 3D, popularly referred to as avatar. All games that you can play online can be enjoyed directly on your mobile device. The Xbox (Microsoft based Game console) Live has not yet been revealed. Either this feature will help in hooking up your Xbox console to the mobile device or do something similar. Exactly what it will do is anybody’s guess at this point.
Here users may download new applications for the device, something similar to the Apple “app store”. Users may download free/purchased applications on demand.
This allows the user to create and edit documents of all sorts. Office is one of the most commonly used tools across the world, providing this feature enhances the capability of this device.
Other Applications:This also includes features like: Email, Calendar, SMS, Phone, Internet Explorer, Bing Search and Bing Maps. All the features mentioned above are common to end user’s, and provide a beautiful and user friendly way of interacting with the applications.
Windows Phone 7 Series does not lack any required features unlike the iPhone. The iPhone has always been a standard with which all phones have been compared to, but this is the first Operating System (Windows Phone 7 Series) to be installed on a mobile that will give iPhone a run for its money.
For all you gadget freaks, who are waiting to get your hands on this beauty, it’s time to save some bucks!!!
Published in March 2010 - Unibytes.