Windows Phone 7 Series features

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.