Windows Phones 7 Series

Ugly.

"which the kiddie gadget blogs will drool over for a week and then move on to The Next Big Thing" Bitter much? Wow. If MS wants their product to have permanent buzz, they should build a solid game-changing device like Apple did with your beloved iPhone.

Ocean said: www.windowsphone7series.com ------ They just announced an unfinished product yet this web link provides individual and media testimonials about this product. Did they not let Paul use one?

No flash. No multitasking. Steve Jobs and co. were right again. This is interesting: "Partners such as HTC will no longer be able to "re-skin" phones with their own user interfaces. Instead, their energies should be drawn to "hubs," or tiles in the standard Microsoft interface that could then expand into app-like experiences, Woodman said. Microsoft is also throwing out ActiveSync and Windows Mobile Device Center. You'll now sync with a new version of the Zune software." pcmagazine.com

YAWN!!!!!! Whats the point?

It's a nice bold refresh on Microsoft's part. It's a shame that it's still 9 or 10 months out though.

Not enough was said yet to really know how this will play out. Nothing was said about multitasking, though the hub focus seems to indicate you're going to be moving back and forth between them. Can it play Pandora while you're working an email? That we don't know, but it may be able to do that. We also don't know how third party apps will work. The hub concept breaks the current app market. So is a new app a hub, or does it integrate into an existing hub? We just don't know yet. And, MS has pretty much killed sales of Windows Mobile 6.5 until WM 7 comes out.

No, it cannot play Pandora in the background. Only its own built-in music player.

"More than two years ago, Microsoft started plucking top executives away from companies in a wide variety of industries, hoping they could revitalize its mobile software group. Mr. Peters brought some marketing muscle over from Staples, where he helped to create the popular “Easy Button” campaign. Other executives arrived from Procter & Gamble and Nike, as Microsoft sought to find a new way of talking to consumers, since about 86 percent of phones running Windows are sold through retail outlets." Link above.

Microsoft killed off Mac OS X with Windows 7 and Windows Phone 7 is going to be the iPhone killer.

Now, that's a phone I was waiting for. I have had 2g and 3g iphones, and while the experience was generally good, a few nagging limitations, and the fact that iTunes software was seriously bogging down my windows machines (plus apple's less than "stellar" component reliability (not service support, but reliability) ensured that I will not order iPad or iPhones anymore; now, this is a truly remarkable phone, one that I will wait for about 6 months after its release to buy, so there will be fewer early adopter issues, more choices in hardware and cheaper phones. And, the UI is well thought out (as opposed to the spartan UI of the iPhone, Palm, Google Android etc.) Pl. read the following interview if you have time: (http://news.cnet.com/8301-13860_3-10452710-56.html?tag=newsLeadStoriesAr...) Great job, MS! (Another Windows 7 moment :-) )

WaooWW do you see the demo!!! Great Microsoft the UI is perfect!!! The UI seems to be greater than the Zune UI ... Good Work!! I will buy this phone for sure!!! The problem is WHEN??

"I will buy this phone for sure!!! The problem is WHEN??" December at the earliest. I too may go this route. I do want one with WiFi though. I'm impressed with the talent MS brought in-house to develop and market it.

Nice to see all the ms haters (paul haters?) out today. Not so much lemmings as habitualists... Finished watching a video demo on engadget. Nice UI although I am not hugest fan of the Zune UI (have a Zune 30). Happy to see MS provide a MS centric solution for the consumer space. I am unsure how it will play out in the corp space. Nothing, iphone or android (I use a Droid) seems to knock BB from its corporate throne. On the consumerist front, however, this seems to have great potential against iphone, which is getting very stale but still completely relevant and formidable, and android which is currently the IT thing. Hopefully MS can keep the buzz up around Windows 7 phone. They always seem to show their hand early and then go dark which kills the buzz. Good luck MS finally something worthy to add to the MS vision of a connected home....

I can't help but feel underwhelmed by the Windows Phone 7 Series announcement. Sure, it's a significant departure from previous incarnations of WinMo, but I just find it hard to believe that the average consumer would go for this. Most of the average Joe's, I suspect, have never seen a Zune UI, don't know if their phone even runs Windows Mobile, so I can't imagine them flocking over to a Windows Phone 7 Series phone based on what was shown today. Plus, it's 10 months - almost one year away! That's almost an eternity in the tech world. Plenty of time for the inevitable iPhone OS and Android upgrades, whose new features may outshadow Windows Phone 7 Series before it even arrives.

@chipwinter: here is someone who have touched it and raves about it (and from an usually Apple friendly site): http://gizmodo.com/5471805/windows-phone-7-series-everything-is-differen....

"The iPad reactions were interesting in that the negatives were from people who had not touched it, while those that had touched one responded positively." Funny, but you could say the same thing about Windows Vista, and then 7. "This morning we have the opposite reaction to the Windows Phone: To not have touched one is to want one, while those who've touched it are disappointed." ....except that bloggers that HAVE touched Windows Phone 7 with a hands-on review are raveing about it. Getting that pre-launch hype out early seems to almost all but promise a winner nowadays. Two things I'm interested in: a) Is it still the IT workhorse phone? ie. does it have Remote Desktop Connection included? b) This is called a consumer phone, but when will we hear about business phones that would run in a managed IT environment? How do you get server certificates on this guy, through Zune software on business desktops?? What's the deal with manageability of the Zune software? Or will there be an alternate way for users to transfer media and get linked up with Exchange? (On SBS 2008, there's a dedicated desktop app for transferring the server certificate to a Windows Mobile phone, but you need to have the WMDC software and driver installed) c) Podcasts, or more generally, RSS feeds. I love RSS feeds on my mobile phone. Why? Because the format is suited to any size screen by default - because there's no formatting to get in the way. They need to have a good RSS client that also integrates podcast content (ie. audio and video attachments to RSS feeds). I don't like the idea of having to sync podcast content as separate audio and video files via the desktop. Podcasts are perfectly suited to be synced OTA.

From the link that Ocean provided (thanks for that), I would actually consider getting a Windows Mobile 7 phone. I think it looks pretty cool. Even if the blue icons look a bit ugly.

I love Pauls headline: "Microsoft drops some shock and awe on the smart phone industry with a surprisingly strong Windows Phone 7 Series announcement. " http://www.winsupersite.com/mobile/wp7_preview.asp

@dallasmay: I second your thoughts about a data centric approach and its challenges. The more I think about WP7, I see that Microsoft might have a game changer here: Wireless syncing, a useful home screen, concept of hubs and live tiles, excellent gaming opportunities, good media system, one note on the mobile, various hardware choices that have a high bar for LCD (least common denominator)... all these make the current phones look plain. Add to this the inevitable Netflix streaming and other apps currently banned on the competitor's products because they pose a threat to their revenue, apps and third party games that will flood the WP7 marketplace that will take the USP of the iPhone, and the scales are heavily tilted in WP7's favor. Just got to give this a bit of time to mature and flourish, get rid of early adopter difficulties, better marketing... this, I think, will be the phone to have. -This coming from a guy who had bought multiple iPods, iPhones and Macs, (and unfortunately, Apple TV) :-)

"iPhone OS 4.0 will come out long before then, much will happen with Android, and then....finally, Microsoft may arrive very late to the party with an entry that can struggle for 3rd place, much as the Zune has in the mp3 world. " I'm not sure we should use the past as a guide to the future for MS here. They've got a lot of different talent in-house this time around.

I will certainly be dropping my iphone for a win7 phone. So sick of itunes on windows that is just a slug of program and music can be purchased and is currently from other sources other than Apple

hmm, let's see if I can put this in Paul-speak. Here goes: "It's just not interesting. Sorry. Apple's won the mobile space. Get over it." that sounds pretty close to something he'd say about non-Microsoft technology.

MS is much tighter these days with release schedules, so it 99% won't slip. That's a common and correct summation of where MS used to be, but not anymore. The tight integration that they are playing up with carriers and hardware partners would also lead me to believe that we will see handsets available in multiple markets within Q4. I'm not sure how PC Mag missed the keyboard, since I saw it on display in the video MS had made available online. It of course is very early software, hence the reason that it isn't coming out until Q4. If it was totally ready, the release date would be closer to MIX. The comparisons to Palm are not really that similar. WebOS was released with one handset in the US on the bottom tier Sprint, and that remained for nearly a year. They have still been slow to grow. The lack of a complete SDK has also hurt Palm, and while we will have to wait till MIX, I don't think that will be the case with MS.