X’10
Chapter 6 – Can You Play Me Now?
By Jorge Figueiredo - August 24th, 2010
In a land dominated by two different mobile OS powerhouses with fruity sounding tie-ins, it’s hard to imagine anyone breaking the mold. Microsoft’s previous portable OS’s have not really rocked any boats; they are reliable, not really too flashy, and honestly overshadowed fairly easily by iOS and RIM’s proprietary OS. However, Microsoft may have just evened the playing field with their new mobile OS. Intrigued? So was I, so I made sure to snag a demo when I was at X’10.
Right off the bat, I just wanted to clear up something. Inevitably, everything cool is going to resemble iOS; whether or not iOS is the original platform for whatever that cool thing is not really the question – most people will think that it is, because everyone is on board the iOS bandwagon for whatever reason.
When my friends from GameNorth and I walked up to Greg Milligan for our interview (we decided to spare them at least one extra repetition of the pitch), we were met with a large HDTV (showing off features of Windows Phone 7) directly behind a clearly excited and enthusiastic guy. Greg looked up as we approached, a prototype phone in his hand.
“Woah. My sensei always told me that when faced with multiple opponents, one should always take the biggest one out first,” he laughed. But he didn’t do what his sensei told him to do; he simply let the OS do the talking. If the demo is any indicator, this OS is going to be a huge contender.
Launching this holiday, WP7 was built from scratch; steering the way from the “phone-as-PC” model, the OS was designed with touch in mind, and appears to be primarily driven by social media connectivity. The fully configurable start screen is composed of a series of tiles (of different sizes); each tile is based on a hub which is made up a combination of local and online content. With a tap of the finger on the multitouch screen, you can open up any of these hubs to interface with the content.
As indicated before, social media connectivity looks to be a huge part of this OS. One of the cool things that Greg showed us was his contacts list. Each contact in the list contained a ton of information; not only the traditional phone/address/e-mail data, but also Facebook/Windows Live/Twitter; there is even Exchange Server integration. Greg indicated that he could click on his son’s contact information and read his latest Facebook status updates from that screen; and from that very location he could actually comment on his son’s Facebook wall without loading a Facebook app. This is pretty handy.
Even though it was a prototype phone, everything flowed very smoothly. I made a comment about this and Greg informed us that there were very stringent standards for any manufacturer that wanted to create a phone that used WP7. For instance, WP7 phones must have, by default, a 5 MP camera, accelerometer, and at least 8 GB of flash memory. There are many more standards, ensuring that developers for WP7 can rest assured that whatever apps they design will work on every phone type that supports the OS. There are also strict controls: the interface will not be able to be changed by any developer.
Of course, Xbox Live is integrated into the phone as well; the Xbox layer is built on top. Word has it that some games will be cross-platform (turn-based for now) and fully integrated with your Gamertag (avatar, gamerscore, etc.). This is a huge bonus for people that like to keep track of all things XBL!
My overall impression of WP7 is very positive. The design is keeping the user front-and-center (can you say ‘concealed keyboard’?) and is going to make using the phone a great experience for everyone! The hub system is fantastic, as is the push/pull functionality of a lot of the integrated social media tools; instant updates will be easy to see, and your phone will always have the latest software, as it is automatically loaded to the phone.
I’m looking forward to checking one of these phones out when it debuts in the next few months!
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