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Posts Tagged ‘windows mobile 7’

There has been many Windows Mobile 7 rumours, but the one that made the LG Apollo appear pretty ridiculous was the 720P screen on the device, which frankly appeared impossible last month.

Fats forward 3 weeks however, and we have the Qisda QCM 330, a MID-type device with a 4 inch screen and an amazing 1280x 1024 screen.

The OS is unknown, but likely Android, but that wont stop LG from using a similar screen on their 3.8 inch monster.

Read more about the Qisda QCM-330 here, and the LG Apollo here.

Thanks Hugo for the tip.

Chainfire, via Tweakers.net, has posted this collection of Windows Mobile rumours:

Microsoft will drop much of the business side of WM in favor of the consumer side. The traditional business offerings like Office / Exchange functionality will of course still be supported, but the focus will be shifted to gaming and multimedia. The Xbox and Zune brands will be represented, the Zune player willl be included and it will be possible to wirelessly exchange data, multimedia, and games with the Xbox 360.

The first batch of phones that will be released will have pretty much the same chip specs, and HTC, Samsung, LG and SE will be the ones to deliver this first batch of phones. In this first batch (September 2010), the OEMs are apparently not allowed to make big changes, they all have to use the same interface.

This means, no custom UI like Sense, no Opera Mobile either. Instead the default WM UI will be used and a new PocketIE based on IE7, but with some functionality from IE8.

The second batch (end of 2010) will be allowed to have small changes, but likely only theme-based and addition of some custom application.

Only at the third batch (early 2011) will the OEMs be allowed to add their own interfaces, like Sense, Panels, TouchWiz and S-Class.

The official announcements of the WM7 phones are not expected to occur more than a few weeks before actual release of the OS, [CF: so we probably won't see official (unleaked) specs and such before the end of July (based on the September release date)].

As hardware goes they say mostly the same as the chassis 1 specs. 1 Ghz+ CPU, Open GL ES 2.0, 800×480+, 3.5"+, 384mb+ (possibly 512+).

According to those we have seen the WM7 interface, it is nothing revolutionary. It should have standard multi-touch support and supports only capacitive. The interface is said to be a hybrid of iPhone / Android / Zune HD elements.

Apparently those that have used WM7 builds differ in opinion about the software. Some state it is much faster than for example the 3GS, while others mention apps are slow to start and experiencing ‘hickups’.

Apps-wise, old applications will in principle not be compatible with Windows Mobile 7, throwing away many thousands of apps that are currently available. It may be compatibility for old apps will be emulated, but this is not clear yet. How exactly this will work will likely be explained at MIX 2010 in March.

It certainly seems like only .NET apps will be supported [CF: ugh!], however it is not clear if the Compact Framework will be a part of that .NET support.

Read more at Chainfire here.

What do our readers think? Let us know below.

PPCGeeks claims to have come accross a treasure trove of Windows Mobile 7 information, and most are consistent with other rumours we have heard, but no less controversial.

They claim:

-The User Interface is based upon codename “METRO”. It will be very similar to the Zune HD User Interface with a complete revamp of the “Start” screen. The UI is “Very Clean”, “Soulful” and “Alive”
-Unfortunately there will be no Flash support at the get go as there was not enough time to implement these features.
-Windows Phone 7 will only support application installation through service based delivery. (i.e Marketplace). Application installation via storage card will not be possible.
- No Multi-Task support. Applications will “Pause” when in the background, however will support notifications via push notifications.
-Marketplace will now support “try before you buy” as well as an API
-No NETCF backwards compatibility. This means the original rumor of no backward compatibility for applications holds to be true. That being said, there are high hopes of porting the NetCF to the newer platform easily.
-Microsoft is confident that devices will be ready by September 2010
-Full Zune Integration
-Windows Mobile Device Center will no longer be used. Zune software to take over syncing via PC.
-OEM Interfaces will not be allowed to run on the device. Say goodbye to Sense UI / SPB Mobile Shell / Point UI / Infinity, etc, etc
-Full XBOX Gaming Integration (Gamer tag, achievements, friends, avatars, merchandising, etc)
-Full support for social networking.

Hopefully what PPCGeeks are talking about is a Zune Phone rather than the real Windows Mobile 7, because otherwise… Do I hear Android calling?

What do our readers think?  Let us know below.

Microsoft is slowly lifting the veil on their Windows Mobile plans, and in this VisitMix blog announcement finally revealed that there will be 12 MIX 10 Windows Mobile sessions.

One of them will be hosted my Microsoft UI heavyweight Joe Belfiore, who will be delivering the keynote.

Corporate Vice President of Windows Mobile Program Management at Microsoft, Joe Belfiore, will be speaking at MIX in March.  Belfiore is responsible for the overall design and product definition of the software that powers Windows Phones.  A huge consumer advocate, Belfiore has led the design and development of some of Microsoft’s more consumer-friendly products, including Zune, Windows Media Center, and the user experience for Windows itself.  Along with Belfiore’s keynote, eleven new Windows Phone sessions have just been added to the MIX10 agenda.

The sessions remain place holders however, and no information regarding the content has been revealed yet.

Thanks Adam for the tip.

NFC is an increasingly popular technology that allows contactless data exchange via smart card chips, and is often used for small payments via smartcard or cell phone.

INSIDE Contactless, a leading provider of advanced, open-standard contactless chip technologies, today announced it is making its Open NFC commercial-grade NFC protocol stack (formerly MicroRead Software Foundation) available in a free and open source edition under the Apache License,Version 2.0.

The also announced the stack will be compatible with WinCE 6.0 and Windows Mobile 7, and is available for download now.

"Our decision to release Open NFC under the Apache license demonstrates our willingness to lead the way in bringing high quality, well documented NFC software into the open source arena," said Philippe Martineau, executive vice president of the NFC business line for INSIDE Contactless. "Open NFC fits right in with the trend toward open platforms in the mobile industry, and will benefit device makers as well as software developers and others in the mobile ecosystem in several ways, providing greater impetus to implementing NFC solutions across a broad range of consumer products."

NFC has appeared prominently in several Microsoft Windows Mobile job postings, and there is therefore some indication they are intending to implement the technology broadly in Windows Mobile 7.

Open NFC supports several levels of functionality, from low-level RF control to high-level NFC Forum tag handling, peer-to-peer communications as well as Bluetooth and Wi-Fi pairing, interactions with single-wire protocol SIMs and other secure elements and compatibility with smart cards and RFID tags.

Qualcomm now offers two complete NFC handset reference designs, one based on an HSUPA Mobile Station Modem (MSM ) chipset and one based on a Qualcomm Single Chip (QSC ) solution for CDMA2000 . The two reference designs leverage INSIDE Contactless’ NFC solution enabling device manufacturers to bring next-generation NFC handsets to market more quickly and at significantly reduced development cost.

Read more about the announcement here.

Microsoft has been doing it all it can to stage manage their Mobile World Congress event, including trying to to suppress all (of their own) Windows Mobile 7 leaks.

This effort included to not giving any indication to who will be speaking at Microsoft’s MWC event on the 15 February.

Unfortunately it seems there was again some communication error inside the computing giant, and a banner has been popping up on the site advertising Steve Ballmer’s presence at the event.

This, amongst many other things, is another indication of the importance of the event, and with the Windows Mobile 6.5.3 announcement out of the way, again raises the odds of Windows Mobile 7 being shown off.

Read more at MSMobiles.com here.

Developers have been concerned by the lack of Windows Mobile development tools in the latest Visual Studio 2010 betas from Microsoft.

Beta 1 of VS2010 and .NET 4 were made available last May, followed by beta 2 in October. Participants in Microsoft’s Technology Adoption Program and Visual Studio Industry Partners had access to limited community technology previews (CTPs) after the beta 2 release.

Senior VP of the Microsoft Developer Division S. Somasegar has confirmed that Visual Studio 2010 tooling for Windows Mobile 7 and smart devices will be made available after the official release of Visual Studio 2010.

Somasegar said it will be released as out-of-band in conjunction with the technology itself. 

Microsoft is slated to offer a public release candidate (RC) of Visual Studio 2010 this month, delaying the formal "launch" of the upcoming IDE and .NET Framework 4 by a few weeks, according to the company. If Microsoft adheres to that schedule, VS2010 should be released to manufacturing (RTM) by April 12, the new launch date.

Visual Studio 2010 is still waiting for Silverlight 4, expected still in the first half of the year.

The Visual Studio Magazine article notes developers can expect to learn more about Windows Mobile 7 at the World Mobile Congress later this month and at MIX10 in March.

Read more about Visual Studio 2010 here.