Microsoft Unveils Windows Phone 7 Series
Microsoft showed off its new phone platform for the first time.
The last three years has seen an explosion in new smartphone operating systems. The one company missing from that list is, of course, Microsoft. Though a long-time player in the smartphone OS market, Windows Mobile is outclassed by its competition. The recent 6.5 release has done little to redress the balance. Windows Mobile is slow, unstable, clunky, and fundamentally not designed for use with fingers. Yesterday at Mobile World Congress, Microsoft showed off its new phone platform for the first time.
Everything that we knew and loathed about Windows Mobile is gone. Even the name is different. It's now "Windows Phone 7 Series."
Microsoft really has changed nearly everything. Most obviously, the user interface is new. Touch is mandatory for all 7 Series devices, and the user interface reflects that; it's touch-driven through and through. No longer will phone users have to use small, fiddly, desktop-oriented scroll bars; smooth finger scrolling with inertia is the order of the day.
The finger-friendliness is exemplified by the new start screen. There are large panels in a smooth-scrolling grid. The look is clean and crisp, balancing at-a-glance information—counts of unread text messages and e-mails neatly displayed in their squares, for example—with simple thumb-sized accessibility.
Each panel represents a particular "hub"—a place where all related information (be it contacts, photos, music and videos, etc.) is brought together and managed. As you move between the screens of each hub, smooth animations rotate and slide information into place, giving the user interface a kind of cohesive "joined up" feel.
Comments
Be the first to write a comment
You must me logged in to write a comment.