Windows Phone 7 Series: Compilation of Information

Windows Phone 7 Series by Microsoft is finally winding down for release and the company is doing as much as possible to make it successful. First announced last month during the Mobile World Congress, the development process has come a long way. Certain question's arise when discussing Windows Phone 7 though and we are here to answer them. So lets start off -

New Features

When the Windows Phone 7 Series was first announced, we didn't get much information about it but here are some of the OS and dev features that were announced by Microsoft today:

• Microsoft Notification Service: This sounds an awful lot like Apple's push notification system. As you can see above, they pop up in a small tray at the top of the screen, as opposed to the pop-up system that the iPhone uses.

• Microsoft Location Service: This is more of a developer tool than anything else "single point of reference to acquire location information.", it suggest location service's being totally and easily acessible, and not just in terms of raw data. This sounds like Bing everywhere, in both user and developer terms.

• Silverlight: Windows Phone 7 apps are largely developed in Silverlight, which you probably only know as that plugin you had to install that one time to watch the Olympics or for your Netflix fix. It can also create apps that are significantly more complicated than video players.

• Free Dev Tools: Windows Phone 7 development tools for Visual Studio and Microsoft Expression Blend (a UI dev tool) will be free to download.

• Download Dev Tools: The free tools are available at developer.windowsphone.com, as of right now. While developers won't have phones for a while, they'll have the PC emulator, which even allows for touchscreen input. (If you have a touchscreen PC, of course.)

• No Mac Dev Support: And of course, there's no development on Mac.

The Windows Phone Marketplace

The curtain was opened today on Windows Phone Marketplace and here is what was revealed:

• Hub View: Windows Phone 7 is going to be swipey and zoomy and all those things that made Windows Phone 7 interesting looking. As you already know, hubs within hubs within hubs within hubs. Hubs!

• Purchase Options: It'll handle one-time credit card purchases, operator billing, and ad-supported apps.

• App Trials: Microsoft is going to make it optional for developers to allow buyers to trial apps before buying them. You use an app until your dev-defined trial is over, or until you get tired of the missing features, then you buy it, which instantly activates the remaining functionality, no extra download required.

• Zune Client: You can browse the Marketplace from the Zune client, like you can access the App Store from iTunes. This gives Windows Phone 7 a leg up over the likes of Android and webOS, which limit app installation to the handset. But! The Zune software is Windows-only.

This doesn't just mean you won't be able to install apps from your desktop your phone on Windows Phone 7, it means that you won't be able to sync anything with your desktop, whether its music, movies or photos. And there's no USB syncing outside of the Zune software client, so you can't just copy the media onto your phone, mass storage style. In other words, if you don't have a PC, you can't really listen to your music or watch your videos on your Windows Phone 7.

• Multitasking: There will be certain provisions for multitasking—music is the one Microsoft is talking about now, for app like Pandora—but there won't be pure multitasking.

• Resolution Options: Microsoft's only allowing two resolutions —the 800x480 WVGA resolution we've seen on the first hardware already, and later, a 480x320 HVGA resolution—for Windows Phone 7 handsets. Developers will only have to write for two screen sizes, which helps keep developing for the platform relatively simple.

• Windows Mobile 6.x Apps Won't Work: Scott Guthrie confirmed to us that 6.x apps would need to be ported in order to work, and that this may not be a simple process—you could, for example, carry over some interface assets, or some core .NET programming from one platform to the other, but there'll be no simple patch from one platform to the other.

Launch Party Apps

The first round of app partners:

AWS Convergence Technologies ? WeatherBug, Citrix Systems Inc., Clarity Consulting Inc., Cypress Consulting, EA Mobile, Fandango Inc., Foursquare Labs Inc., frog design inc., Glu Mobile Inc., Graphic.ly, Hudson Entertainment Inc., IdentityMine Inc., IMDb.com Inc., Larva Labs, Match.com LLC, Matchbox Mobile Ltd., Microsoft Game Studios, Namco Networks America Inc., Oberon Media Inc., Pageonce Inc., Pandora Media Inc., Photobucket Inc., PopCap Games Inc., Seesmic, Shazam Entertainment Ltd., Sling Media, SPB Software Inc., stimulant, TeleCommunications Systems Inc., Touchality LLC and Vertigo Software Inc

Here are some pictures of some of the apps that were shown to the audience by Microsoft, all of which look visually stunning.

The first set of app previews for the Windows Phone 7 Apps all seem deeply integrated. Many developers write for the iPhone and more recently the Android which has its pros and cons for Microsoft. A pro for Microsoft because the developers love to work on any app parity with other platforms as well for more profit but a con because it shows how much catching up Microsoft will have to do in the market. Microsoft seems to be lunging in face forward into the competition with stunning graphics and a very artistic and visual theme for the whole series:

Microsoft is open to new interfaces, including those that look nothing like Zune or Windows Phone 7.

Since all the Windows Phone 7 apps are developed mostly in Silverlight, you can download and utilize Silverlight libraries that already exist. Basically what this mean sis that some elements such as animations and icons that you have seen in Silverlight app interfaces might turn up in future apps. Other services that depended heavily on Silverlight before may easily be ported to the phone, such as Netflix.

Games have the potential to be great not only because of the minimum requirements required by Windows Phone 7 but also because of the in-depth Xbox Live integration Microsoft has used. Joe Belfiore showed a demo to the audience, in which he earned Xbox Live achievement points, through his phone!

The Rest

Not everything was covered today and you still might be left with some questions. Here are some questions you might be wondering about (if we missed any, leave us a comment):

Can Microsoft's Windows Phone 7 Series multitask? Here's what Microsoft's Joe Belfiore had to say:

"The core operating system is a modern multitasking operating system. If you play music for example, the music will play back as you navigate around the experience...if you're using email, we have great support for push email and that happens in the background.

For third party applications—we'll get into a lot more detail on this in MIX—but we have a few ways we're going to make sure that third parties can bring their value to the user even when the app is not running. Live tiles are an example. Data feeds in the hubs are another example for some apps."

What about the cross-platform game demos?

Microsoft is trying to work on more visually stunning games for their Windows Phone 7 Series and have provided the necessary software tools for it to be done. It is in the hand of the developers to try to create the games to the next level and help implement this feature. Companies such as Namco are amongst the list of launch party app developers so this will most likely be integrated soon enough.

I have a Windows Mobile 6.X phone, can I upgrade to Windows Phone 7 Series?

Sorry, you are out of luck. Looks like it will be a good time to upgrade phones.