The Windows Phone 7 Series emulator is out and here’s a first hand look at what you can do, change the phone’s settings! The emulator ROM coming in at approximately 75MB allows for a limited number of activities outside of testing your WP7S applications.
This screencast takes a look at the Windows Phone 7 Series settings panel including some options related to the themes – yes you can change it to white instead of black, regional settings and date. There also seems to be a placeholder for managing apps, but due to the lack of any, it’s not entirely clear how it works.
The Windows Phone 7 Series hardware specifications have been officially detailed at the first Microsoft MIX10 WP7S session including but not limited to the capabilities of capacitive touch, sensors, camera, multimedia processing, memory, GPU, CPU and display resolution.
In the same presentation Joe Belfiore also took the time to thank ASUS, finally revealing that they are the manufacturers of the prototype device which Microsoft is using at its various events.
Furthermore Joe also give a sneak peek of a new previously unannounced Windows Phone 7 Series slate device by Samsung, highlighting the high-quality camera on the device.
In the first of many Windows Phone 7 Series sessions here at Microsoft MIX10, Joe Belfiore showed off more details of the phone operating system that hasn’t been shown publically before.
Obviously being a phone, one point of focus was the actual calling experience. Making a call brings up an overlay that sits on top of the previous screen faded out, a nice touch over replacing the entire screen to provide some context of what you were looking at, a related email for example.
Those wondering where the usual status icons are – cell signal and provider name for example – it turns out they only appear when used. For example, when internet connectivity is used, the WiFi icon appears. As such, the signal and provider only appears when in a call.
It’s the first day at Microsoft’s MIX10 conference on all things design and hip in Las Vegas and to kick things off we anticipate a blockbuster keynote on all things Windows Phone 7 Series.
To bring you the event live, join Ed Bott, Mary Jo Foley, Kip Kniskern, Benjamin Rubenstein, Paul Thurrott and myself in our hallmark group liveblog. Audience participation will be enabled by default so feel free to ask questions and provide your thoughts on the announcements live.
Fans of the “Metro” user experience which made its debut on Windows Phone 7 Series will be pleased to know desktop applications featuring large fonts and simple shapes too are coming soon to a PC and Mac near you.
Ahead of the MIX10 event next week, Tim Heuer of the Silverlight team let out a sneak peek at some new application themes developed by Microsoft for Silverlight 4, including one inspired by the Zune desktop software appropriately called “Metro”.
Although themes support was introduced with Silverlight 3, none of the built-in themes have been any compelling. These new themes on the other hand are much more extensive and modern which should make it easier for Silverlight developers to create more polished Silverlight applications without much if any investment in customizing the UI. For users, it means more better looking applications.
I, for one, welcome our new Metro overlords.
As the release date for the Office 2010 suite trickled out last week without much fanfare, news about its younger sibling, Office Web Apps, was nowhere to be seen. This was rather odd in context of Microsoft’s announcement in the same week that it’s “all in” for cloud computing
In a briefing with Microsoft representatives this week I was assured the consumer version of Office Web Apps in Windows Live is indeed still coming, scheduled with the next version of Windows Live, Wave 4. Although no specific dates were disclosed, it’s likely Office Web Apps will be available at a separate time to the Office 2010 client and confirmed to be later according to a similar briefing by APC.
Although the initial version 1 release of Office Web Apps will not feature many changes to the technical preview secluded in SkyDrive today, albeit with the full editing functionality of Word Web App and the missing OneNote Web App, Microsoft was able to confirm updates to the Office Web Apps are not necessarily tied to Office client releases.
You can expect us to regularly update Web Apps. For consumers using Web Apps via Windows Live SkyDrive, you can expect us to roll-out features on a rolling basis consistent with the rest of our services including Messenger and Hotmail.
Personally I wouldn’t consider Messenger and Hotmail “regularly updated” but it’s good to know that Office Web Apps will not remain dormant between major Office releases which could take 3 to 4 years.
As the Microsoft representative also pointed out consumers over enterprises are much more comfortable with (and to a degree, expect) updates more frequently, I speculate it won’t be too far before we see new features introduced in Office Web Apps before it hits the client.
