Microsoft dropped a bomb on the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona today, and it's called the Windows Phone 7 Series. If you're a Windows Mobile user, you can toss out everything you think you know about how this phone will look and feel — it's a whole new operating system for you to enjoy.
The Windows Phone comes with a touchscreen and a brand-new tiled interface that allows you to keep up with friends, photos (from your phone and from the cloud), music and videos, games from Xbox Live (including your animated avatar that you can customize right from your phone), Marketplace apps, and business-y stuff like Office easily from your home screen. But the most noticeable thing about the Windows Phone is that this thing looks pretty slick: everything from the background screen to the status update screen is minimal and totally "grown up."
Zune owners will sense some familiarity about the look and feel of the Windows Phone, but if you haven't been introduced, you can check out the demo video of the new handset and get availability details when you read more
I think it may have been an understatement to say that HTC was working overtime last year. Not only did the company assist in the launch of Google's Nexus One and is rumored to be whipping up a tablet, but yesterday at the Microsoft CES press conference, CEO Steve Ballmer introduced the HTC HD2, which will be released exclusively on T-Mobile. The super thin HD2 comes with a high-res 4.3-inch touch display featuring pinch and zoom functionality (which is great for resizing web pages and notes), and runs on Windows Mobile via a 1GHz Snapdragon processor (the same processor stocked on the Nexus One).
The smartphone comes standard with GPS and a 5MP camera with a dual LED flash to add extra light when you need it. The HD2 is slated to be released sometime in the Spring on T-Mobile, and you can sign up to be alerted when it drops.
You have a Windows Mobile phone, so you have to have a few apps from the Windows Marketplace, right? No!? Well, don't let all those iPhone, BlackBerry and Android apps fool you into thinking there aren't a number of fun and useful ones you should be loading up on your Windows phone as well. Stick with me my friends — I have you covered.
There's a new batch of phones on the block, and they're out to steal away some market share from Apple. Launching on October 6, select phones on AT&T, Verizon, and Sprint networks will begin running Windows Mobile 6.5 under the "Windows Phone" brand. Windows has seemingly taken a back seat in the cell phone department, with Blackberry, Apple, and Android obviously being the front runners to innovation and integration. I remember using Windows Mobile OS on my old T-Mobile MDA, and I have to be honest — it wasn't one of my favorite mobile experiences to date.
But now, Windows hopes to make a comeback in the mobile market with its newest operating system and Windows Marketplace, where you can browse and purchase apps for your phone. It's yet to be announced which devices will be available to run WM 6.5, but I'm curious to know — are you stoked about the launch this Fall?
No doubt, it may be torture some days to not be an iPhone or iPod Touch user and have to read about some cool new Chanel or Netflix app from iPhone's App Store when you're an avowed BlackBerry or Palm smartphone user. Windows Mobile may have its good points, but a cool feature like the App Store is not one of them. . . yet.
CNET reports that Microsoft is rumored to be preparing an application store that will be called "Skymarket" and offer developers the chance to distribute (and make money for) their applications in one place, like the App Store on iTunes.
No more jealousy over the iPhone! Well . . . maybe just less jealousy.
