“Seven”
[Update: Added links to some others from the team who’ve blogged about Windows Phone 7 Series.]
It’s been so very interesting to read all the press leading up to today. Some speculation, some hype, some rumor. Today, we’re announcing Windows Phone 7 Series – a different kind of phone operating system.
The genesis
The Windows Phone 7 Series was built fundamentally with the end-user, the consumer, in mind. The Windows Phone team is committed to building an operating system, which handset manufacturers integrate, and carriers sell to end-users. In the past, somewhere along the way, it may have appeared that our immediate end-users were the handset manufacturers – our end-user is the consumer. While we still want to enable innovation in the hardware space, we also want end-users to benefit from a consistent and brilliant software experience from the phone.
The creative mastermind behind most if not all aspects of this experience is Joe Belfiore, a name you may recognize as the lead of the Zune.
Given said, here are 7 things about Windows Phone 7 Series that excite me the most. Narrowing this list down to just 7 was extremely hard, that said, there’s more of where this came from.
Seven
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Design
The Windows Phone 7 User Experience is different from what you may have experienced before, not just with Windows (Mobile) Phones 6.X, but others. Bottom-line – the experience is intuitive – whether you are navigating on the phone, taking pictures, sending and receiving mail, looking up a person to see their latest Facebook status or trying to purchase an application, things just plain work in an
intuitive fashion.
Today, with the majority of the phones out there, all you see are pages of icons. Every now and then I find myself staring at an icon for a few seconds before I associate the icon with an application. The icon is useful to me, but not as much as the name of the application I’m about to launch. That said, the User Interface in Windows Phone 7, as JoeB likes to say, is predominantly typographical. You’ll find clear and concise text in several menus, like signs at airports or terminals that are meant to help you get to your destination quickly and easily.
The Start experience is one that we’ve always believed is invaluable. At a glance, you want to get vital information. If you need to perform involved tasks, you may want to launch an application. The Live Tiles feature is meant for just that. More importantly, end-users can add and remove tiles to the start screen. -
Consistency
The experiences I’ve described above are meant to be consistent – when a user picks up a Windows Phone 7 Series device, any Windows Phone 7 Series device, the interface the user will get to experience will be the same.
While the software experience will be consistent, users also have growing expectations of hardware, and rightfully so. We’ve set forth on defining a base Hardware Design for phones running the Windows Phone 7 Operating System – the devices will have 3 buttons along the bottom of the phone – one for going back (to whatever you were doing last), one for getting back to the Start screen, and one for Search (more on Search below). There are several consistent hardware features you will see in Windows Phone 7 devices, such as a 3.5mm headphone jack, a minimum of 5 megapixel camera, sensors like an Accelerometer or A-GPS, 480×800 resolution, capacitive dual symmetric multi-touch screens, etc. -
Pervasive Search
The name says it all – one click of the button on the bottom far right, and you are taken to Bing, to search locally on the device or search on the web, with the option of searching for items that are contextually location aware.
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People are more than just contacts
I use the ‘contacts’ feature on my phone today to call, text or email someone. This information about my contacts primarily comes from our Exchange server. While contacting a person is key, today that’s just not enough – I want to know what pictures have they recently posted, what are they currently doing, or what does this person look like today? While I prefer text to icons with applications, I prefer photographs to names of people when I’m looking someone up.
That said, the integration with Facebook and Windows Live lets a user ‘pivot’ on a person on your phone – you’re not just looking up a contact, you’re learning more about them by associating with the social networks they might be on. I don’t need to launch a specific app just to learn about my sister’s latest Facebook status update, for example. -
Marketplace++
We all know that the notion of an on-deck Marketplace where users can discover applications, games and music is paramount both for users and the developer community. The Marketplace experience, everything from what you see on the device to the portal that developers get to use to submit applications, has received major facelifts. As much as I’d like to, I can’t dive into too much detail just yet, but the experience will want users to keep using the Marketplace.
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XBox Live Integration
Game changing – no pun intended. From what we’ve heard, this is a dream come true for XBox gamers.
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Zune Integration
The reviews for the ZuneHD have been amazing. The experience that the Zune player provides is nearly unparalleled and it is fully integrated into the phone. Your music and videos go with you on your phone.
If you haven’t already, have a go at this Channel 9 Video with JoeB demoing the experience:
Developer Platform
The developer platform on Windows Phone 7 Series deserves its own section and mention. This is the team that Charlie Kindel (@ckindel) leads, and Loke (@lokeuei) and I amongst others work on. We have so much to share about this topic, that we thought it deserved its own conference, really. So, come to MIX, and hear the likes of Charlie, Scott Guthrie, Loke and others talk about the application platform. Let me wrap this up by saying, based on what you’ve seen and heard, you’ll want to develop for this platform. Watch ’#wp7dev’ or follow ‘@wp7dev’ and ‘@ckindel’ for more.
Excited?
I hope the Windows Phone 7 Series excites you as much as it does us. We’re hoping to provide more details about the application platform soon enough so that you can start developing.
I hope to see you at MIX!
In the meanwhile, here are blog posts from fellow Windows Phone 7 Series team members:
- Hello from Seattle (@ckindel)
- Predicting the Future (@shawnhargreaves)
- Multiple Screens is the New Main Screen (@gameozymandias)
- Windows Phone 7 Series – Show and Tell
now playing in my head: “Stronger”, Kanye West
Shreya Chopra on 
Jay Cuthrell on 
Joel on 
Umesh Nawani on 
Ken Yeung on 