Computer Interface
This month’s tech update is about the recently announced
Windows Phone 7. In December 2009 itself Microsoft had announced its intention
to release this version (and the latest offering from Microsoft’s stable) by
November 2010. Needless to say, this was one of the most eagerly awaited
announcement of this quarter. This write-up merely summarises some of the
stories on this new software.
Behind the scenes story :
For the uninitiated, Windows Phone 7 Series is Microsoft’s
reboot of its mobile platform previously named Windows Mobile. Even though
Windows Mobile had the first-mover advantage as the smart phone operating system
of choice, the platform last year suffered significant losses in its market
share. Apple’s iPhone and Google’s Android platform ate into Microsoft territory
by offering better user experience, a more robust platform and offering phone
apps.
The development team at Microsoft was clear that they would
be rethinking a lot of things and that there would be a sea change in the
approach to the development process itself. They revamped just about every
aspect of building the phone software, ranging from how they perceived customers
to how they would go about engineering for the product. An obvious course,
considering that they were attempting to regain their mobile groove by offering
a brand new user interface integrating applications and multimedia into ‘Hubs’
(i.e., software experiences organised into main categories or menus) as well as
a tidier platform for third-party developers to create and serve apps.
For development the plan was that, Windows Phone 7 Series
would employ the Silverlight and XNA programming environments. Silverlight would
serve as the coding toolkit for ‘rich Internet applications.’ (As Microsoft’s
alternative to Adobe Flash, this is not surprising, and potentially gives
Windows Phone 7 an edge over phones that don’t support Flash or Silverlight —
namely, the iPhone). XNA, on the other hand, refers to a set of programming
tools that makes it easier for game designers to develop games for multiple
Microsoft platforms, including Windows XP, Xbox 360, Windows Vista and Windows
7.
Simply put, it meant that most mobile apps would be made with
Silverlight, while more graphics-intensive 3D games would most likely be
developed with XNA. The objective was that Microsoft would make the tools
friction-free for developers and to enable them to get in as easily as possible.
The user interface (UI) while similar to iPhone was intended
to be different from any other smart phone in the market. The phones would
support the same touch gestures seen on the iPhone: pinch or double tap to zoom,
and swipe in a certain direction to pan. For hardware, each Windows Phone 7
Series phone would include seven standard physical buttons for controlling
power, volume, screen, camera, back, start and search.
Comparison of some innovative and unique features :
With the lucrative mobile ecosystem getting crowded, the
existing players are battling hard to retain their market share (in some cases
to remain relevant). Up to 2009, developments were not as fast-paced as they are
today. In fact, while Microsoft took the lead over the other mobile/ phone
operating systems, iPhone and Google Android devices took a few years to refine
their user interface and features, giving them plenty of time to get ahead of
Microsoft’s ailing Windows Mobile OS.
Once they got in to the fray, the only way out for Microsoft
was to come up with a totally new user interface i.e., Windows Phone 7 OS, that
too without the luxury of time. Add to this, Microsoft had to build the system
from scratch and that it could ill-afford significant delays in release, the
likelihood that they would leave out several features that we now take for
granted on our smart phones was pretty high. Nonetheless, Microsoft brought in a
few interesting new elements to the table with Windows Phone 7, elements that
they thought would be preferred over the usability of an iPhone or an Android
phone.
All this has generated quite a bit of chatter on the pros and
cons of some of the features, the more popular topics of discussion are as
discussed below :
- Microsoft’s new mobile OS doesn’t have copy/paste capabilities :
Some of you may recall, the first, the second, and even the third iPhone did not initially have copy/paste functionality as well — but that was over a year ago (copy/paste for the iPhone arrived later as a software update). Interestingly, Android had this capability from day one. Besides this, both iPhone and Android have office apps that work a lot better than Microsoft’s. On Windows Phone 7, office work is impossible due to lack of Copy & Paste.
Microsoft reportedly revealed during a Q & A session at its MIX10 conference that it believes that people don’t need copy-and-paste on their phones. Instead, the new OS offers new functionality the company believes people actually want. For example, the new Microsoft handsets will identify addresses and phone numbers, and you will reportedly be able to send this information to different applications such as the phone or your contacts manager.
Notwithstanding, the exclusion of copy/paste in Windows Phone 7 doesn’t earn the new OS any gold stars for functionality.
- Second on the list of missing Windows Phone 7 features is true multitasking :
Windows Phone 7 does not allow third-party apps to run in the background, but pauses them until you return to the app. Apparently, multitasking was something that Android had from day one, and that was later introduced for the iPhone. This puts the OS in the same situation the iPhone was over a year ago, when only Apple’s apps could run in the background.
It is interesting to note that one of the most highly criticised points against the iPhone is its inability to multitask, which prevents you from using more than one third-party application at a time. You can’t for example, use Blip.fm, while reading something on your Kindle or New York Times app. Apple’s solution to this problem was to create a push notification system where the content provider pushes information to your phone, instead of having applications on your phone you can call the content provider to get it. One reason critics are able to live with Apple’s strategy is that the iPhone can switch between applications fairly quickly, and most developers make sure their iPhone apps can open up from where you left off. So the downtime between closing and opening different apps, and finding the content you need, isn’t that significant on the iPhone.
If Windows Phone 7 apps aren’t as equally fast and smart as their iPhone counterparts, Microsoft could end up being heavily criticised for its no multitasking-push notification system.
The third debated feature oversight for Windows Phone 7 is the lack of Adobe Flash, Silverlight, or HTML5 support in the browser:
Steve Jobs squashed any ideas of running Flash on an iPhone, so Android is the only one left in this round. It took Google and Adobe over a year to come up with Adobe Flash support for Android, but now the latest generation of Android phones has the feature. If Microsoft really wanted to have an edge over the iPhone and fight Android, it could have at least supported its own Flash-competing technology, Silverlight, on Windows Phone 7 devices. It is surprising considering that Silverlight was supposedly part of the original plan.
Android and iPhone have equivalent of hubs:
Android has notifications. iPhone has folders. While Windows Phone 7’s hubs are touted to be dysfunctional because it only notifies you with Microsoft messages. In effect, there are no notifications for third-party apps that you use, because those third-party apps cannot multitask. The apps are frozen, or tombstoned, and can’t notify you of anything. The moot question is “So what, then, is the point of the tiled hub interface if you can’t get notifications from the things you want (rather than what Microsoft wants)?”
For the benefit of the readers, I have compiled a small list of what’s missing and what’s new.
Features available in either iPhone or Android phone (but not available in Windows Phone 7):
Copy and paste
Multitasking
Flash support
HTML 5 support
Unified inbox
Threaded email
Visual voice mail
Video calling
Universal search
Limited removable storage
Not enough applications (Microsoft 1000 plus as against over 3 lakh offered by iPhone and about a lakh by Android)
Features available in Windows Phone 7 (but not available in either iPhone or Android phone):
Limited removable storage
Facebook integration
Microsoft office support
Widget tiles on home screen
X-box live integration
Panorama view of hub content
Animated transitions
Unlimited music download from Zune, unlimited video download from U-verse
XNA game developer platform
While it is too premature to say whether Microsoft was right or wrong, Windows Phone 7 has (may be rightly) received a lot of flak from reviewers for not having some features that many owners take for granted on their current smart phones. The next write-up will have more on the story as it unfolds (Windows Phone 7 is scheduled for launch on 7th November).
