The top Twitter hashtag for Seattle right now is #WP7, as the smartphone crowd hashes out what the advent of Windows Phone 7 means. TechFlash has “what they’re saying,” and what they’re saying is very complimentary (except for the name, Windows Phone 7). Gizmodo says it’s “the most groundbreaking phone since the iPhone.” But don’t expect to see it until the holiday season.
The short story is that Microsoft has thrown out the old WinMo experience and adopted an augmented Zune HD interface that’s heavy on live animation, so that its integration with external sources like Facebook is, to the user, seamless and always-on. “You never see an annoying ‘loading…loading…loading,'” says Microsoft’s Joe Belfiore.
This, combined with the news that two dozen cell phone providers are forming their own mobile app store, is keeping the mobile marketplace very interesting. That next iPhone had better be a doozy.
This thing seems all well and good, but something that’s not going to launch until the holiday season is vaporware, pure and simple.
Unless the holiday is Easter. Or perhaps Arbor day.
The holiday season is when you’ll see it wide on phones, I’m told. The manufacturers will need time to make it “native” on their devices. But I give them two thumbs up on this: for one, they focused on their strength, which is software. And for two, they leveled up. The smartphone experience has been all about specific apps up to now–this represents an attempt to knit a user experience together that gets beyond opening and closing this or that app.
Ths is nothing but a shell HTC Sense and SPB mobile shell already does this!
If my phone had a 1 GHZ processor it aleady has 512 RAM.
I have WinMO and if they take away copy and paste and file explorer, etc,etc,etc…. Android here I come. I want windows Device that allows customization Not an iPhone light!
um…the next iphone IS a doozy – WP7 is going to be dead in the water – I feel bad for those working on it…Steve Jobs trumps microsoft again