Menu Sidebar
Menu

The phone operating system does away with pretty much every scrap of previous mobile efforts from Microsoft, from the look and feel down to the underlying code — everything is brand new. 7 Series has rebuilt Windows Mobile from the ground up, featuring a completely altered home screen and user interface experience, robust Xbox LIVE and Zune integration, and vastly new and improved social networking tools.

Besides just flipping the script on the brand, the company seems to be taking a much more vertical approach with hardware and user experience, dictating rigid specs for 7 Series devices (a specificCPU and speed, screen aspect ratio and resolution, memory, and even button configuration), and doing away with carrier or partner UI customizations such as Sense or TouchWiz. That’s right — there will be a single Windows Phone identity regardless of carrier or device brand

From “Engadget’s coverage of Windows Phone 7 Series Launch“ regarding the need for tightly controlled UX.”

Hmm, maybe we shouldn’t count out Microsoft just yet. Bing has been great, it’s not better enough for me to switch from Google, but there are some really innovative things there. Windows Phone 7 series looks very much like the Zune; very promising.

I’m glad that Microsoft realizes that the UX is the most important factor in developing a winning product—they are about the only company (next to Apple) that has the clout to dictate a rigid stance on hardware and UX (for better or for worse) to its carriers and partners.

Pixels & Widgets

A blog by Tai Toh