Author: l3v5y

This is all the information from the official press conference video that refers to the interface, specs etc.

• Live "tiles" replace start screen and today screen, get updated dynamically unlike the static icons of the old Start Menu. Virtually anything can be “pinned” to the new start menu letting you jump in to programs, contacts, media, webpages etc.
• Multiple, independent calendars: live, Exchange etc: "Work and phone together"
• "App Bar" replaces task bars buttons, some icons always displayed, other less frequent ones displayed one a tap, so more screen real estate available. The “App Bar” appears icon based (like 6.5.3) though the extended menus are text
• A lot of fancy animations
• System wide detection of addresses, phone numbers etc. linked to actions like calls
• Bing maps changes to show satellite on close zoom in
• Multitouch consistent with Windows 7 (PC) – required on all devices, requires 4 point multitouch.
• Standard sensor architecture.
• New software keyboard much like the one on the Zune HD
• Search – context sensitive, can pick local, web, news etc as data source.
• "Bing as a decision engine", integrated in to lots of things, and also the search button.
• Panorama of screens rather than individual, not connected screens. Pan between pages. This replaces the pivots in 6.5.3.
• Brand new browser, based on desktop IE, so widely compatible. Double tap + pinch zoom. Sub pixel positioning on text, new text engine. Text legible on pages when zoomed out. Multiple tabs. Pin web page to start menu
• New exchange client, “works just like outlook on the desktop”. Data cached locally. Check boxes to delete email, same method to delete one email as many emails (think HTCs email deletion from the latest Sense)
• “Hubs” to organise data for common tasks. Integration with third party software and services
• Phone primarily about communication, people centric communication like HTCs sense. All contacts brought together, people. Commenting on peoples statuses etc direct from contacts “hub”. Can pin contacts to start screen.
• Pictures hub has pictures from web sources, on device etc, images synced from PC.
• “What’s new” feeds from Facebook, other social networking. Can integrate services in to hubs, like upload images.
• Central data sources used by individual “hubs”. Log in once to Facebook, all data available from relevant applications – Facebook albums, contact updates etc.
• “Great for business users as well as consumers”. OneNote great on a phone. “Office hub”. Office 2010 derived judging by the orange everywhere! All data synced to desktops. Panorama with SharePoint, local files, most popular etc. Edit, creation “consistent with desktop applications”. Maybe MS haven’t completed Office yet, no in-depth look at it.
• Syncs with Zune PC software. Browsing of data stored on phone.
• Games. Most popular category for software. Linked to Xbox Live. Xbox live games. Games as a social experience. Interaction across three screens (TV, PC, mobile).
• Trying to bring together web, local data etc. “designed for Life In Motion”.
• Media on one central hub, multiple music sources. “One stop shop for music and video” including third party. “Every WP7S device is a Zune”
• WP7 is described as “Start over”
• Continue to invest in WM6.5, coexisting perhaps?

One key point made was “it’s a phone, not a PC”.

Really, all of this is good, and gives a massive overhaul to the OS. Forget the shortcomings, and just look at what could become a very intuitive, very fast user interface. Unfortunately, words such as “synergystical” appeared quite frequently. That cannot be a good sign!

Check out the video of the WP7 launch at MWC here.

As of a few days ago, my Multitouch launcher was released, and today, v 0.2 is released.

It has been developed in co-operation with noname81 from XDA-Developers, and is available for download now on XDA-Developers.

It features a few more gestures than shown in the video above, including arrows and a “learn” mode.

– DoubleSquare: Close LMT
– DoubleQuestionMark: Learn mode; the following gesture will be connected to the process related to the foreground window. Next time the gesture is done, LMT will start the connected process
– DoubleLineUp: Close the current process
– DoubleLineDown: Connect e.g. to TaskFacade as a “Multitouch Taskmanager”
– DoubleLineLeft, DoubleLineRight
– DoubleArrowLeft, DoubleArrowRight

It also features the ability to send “back” messages when in things like Opera, so you can swipe to go back a page

It can be downloaded from here.

I’ve just spotted a neat little application that synchronises your SMSs with a GMail inbox.

The idea behind it is to upload/backup your messages to a GMail account so you can use them from a computer. It doesn’t do the other way round so if you need a backup, MyPhone might be a better bet, but it does have a much nicer web interface (Google Mail instead of MyPhone).

Steps to use it.
1. Install it
2. Choose your Gmail Account.
3. Open the application, and fill the Send To: with the gmail id to which you want to backup sms.
4. Go to Menu "Login"(it is not an actual login, you need to configure your Gmail account for it).
5. Login should enable the SMS folders dropdown with all your SMS folders.
6. Select the folder to backup.
7. Go to Menu "Sync SMS Folder". This should start the message conversion to mail format. Progress will be displayed.
8. On completion it will prompt and then ask you if you want to sync
8. Syncing would send Emails with Subject IMAPSMS|<FOLDER NAME> :Sender and the body will contain Message and time, the subject should help you to create proper rules in your gmail account.

From XDA-Developers.

Freyberry from XDA-Developers has put in to words something I think may well be the case with regards to Windows Mobile 7.

There are numerous rumours around about things like the “Zune Phone”, and WM7 “Business” and “Media”, but what if the two are interrelated? The “Media” edition could well be a specific build for a Microsoft/Zune branded device.

I don’t think it will be two versions, rather two “experiences”, which means there will be phones with custom UIs like HTC Sense and other phones with Microsoft’s UI plus additional services (a bit like what Google does with the Nexus one, but in the case of WM7, the Microsoft controlled phones will probably offer additional features).

So, the Microsoft hardware could well be marketed as the “Zune Phone” and be heavily linked with the Zune services, with OEMs free to continue as they are with WM ad custom UIs. The Microsoft build could also have some of those limitations that are mildly worrying like no multitasking (seems logical given the Zune HD doesn’t support it).

Would Microsoft doing what Google have done be suicide for the platform, or could it boost sales of their much improved mobile OS? Would you by a Microsoft Phone?

In what could possibly be another nail in the coffin of Windows Marketplace for Mobile, 1800pocketpc have discovered some possibly faked images.

The screenshot on the left is from the developer, whilst the one on the right is from a review of the application (Speed City, by OmniG).

There is a clear difference in the quality of the two renders, with the one on the left seeming much crisper than the one on the right, which some are taking to mean the images are faked.

I’m not so sure about that though. There is a massive difference between the hardware in a lot of devices, and it could just be that the hardware in the developers device is better at rendering than the reviewers device. The lack of antialiasing is apparent in desktop games when run on different hardware, and I see no reason why it wouldn’t apply to mobile devices using 3D libraries as well.

Has anyone used this on a different device and gotten images more like those on the left? Let us know below!

Thanks to Saijo at 1800pocketpc.com for alerting us to this.

There have been a few rumours around about Windows Mobile 7 not being based on Windows CE. Sources that prefer to remain unnamed have confirmed the opposite to us, and that Windows Mobile 7 will in fact be based on Microsoft’s latest CE kernel, CE7.

Windows CE 7 has been in development for some time now, and we have written about the purported features of the OS some time ago:

Chelan is to support the following key features.
   – Dual Core Support (SMP, ARMv6)
   – Visual Studio 2008 Plug in
   – WIFI Positioning System
   – Bluetooth 2.1
   – Cellcore
   – DLNA (Digital Living Network Alliance) 
    -DRM
   – Media Transfer Protocol
   – IE7 Rendering Rich Media Plug-Ins
   – NDIS 6.1 support
   – UX C ++ XAML API using technologies like Windows Presentation Foundation and Silverlight for attractive and functional user interfaces
   – Touch Input

This certainly mesh well with other rumours regarding the advances specs support of Windows Mobile 7 including support for the latest processor technologies such as on the new QSD8672 – a dual core snapdragon device supporting 1080p video and WSXGA screens (more specs here).

Seems a bit of an overkill for a Zune phone, but we are still expecting to find out pretty soon about the many brnaches of Windows Mobile 7

There have been rumours spreading around of a dual platform approach for Windows Mobile, with WM6.X being a low end oriented OS, and WM7 being a high end OS.

Whilst browsing around jobs at Microsoft, I found one describing

Here’s your chance to join a team where you can truly make a difference in one of Microsoft’s fastest growing businesses. Windows Mobile has been a great platform for building phones that meet the needs of the business user. With the aid of Moore’s law however, the majority of phones sold in 3 years will have smartphone capabilities. Microsoft recognizes where the industry is trending and has increased its investment in consumer experiences.

So, as far as Microsoft is concerned, everyone will have a smartphone soon.

Perhaps Microsoft want to get in first with the low end before everyone else does? What do you think?

The full job description can be found here.

Here’s something most other multitouch mobile devices do:

Rotate gestures!

It’s not perfect, it needs tweaking, and that may take some time… And yes, I’ll be releasing the code for it soon

Are there any gestures you’d like to see working?

l3v5y ScreenSaver is a small application that runs in the background and pops up a nice UI with a clock when the device is plugged in. I’ll be adding more things such as notifications, but for now, all you need is

• WM6.5+ device (touchscreen only)
• 20kb storage, (up to) 200kb free RAM (on a WVGA device, so less on smaller resolutions)

It can be got from here.

Let me know what you think, and what you want!

It’s not quite a Parrot AR.Drone, but it’s what I can do in an afternoon with left a bunch of leftovers.

I’m trying to show off what WM can do apart from being a very good mobile email platform.

I’m using the HD2 with its accelerometer to send data about a heading to an Arduino via bluetooth. The Arduino then controls the motor speed, enabling turning and things. Currently, there’s a computer sat between the HD2 and the Arduino because I don’t have a serial bluetooth module. (The computer just takes the bluetooth data and dumps it down a USB cable).

What do you lot think? What can I add?