Windows Phone 7 is also something completely new for Microsoft: A total break from the past. It’s based on the Windows CE 6 kernel, like the Zune HD, while current versions of Windows Mobile are based on Windows CE 5. Microsoft announced the new OS at Mobile World Congress 2010 in Barcelona. Microsoft hasn’t directly addressed the issue of backward compatibility with old Windows Mobile applications, but based on rumors and chatter we’ve heard, it’s looking like this is a clean break, or at least it would require significant tweaks to get old software up and running on the new platform.
Microsoft wants themselves revolutionary and brings Xbox on Windows Phone 7 as Xbox Live. Gamers have talked about a portable Xbox for years—this is the most logical way to do it. The N-Gage was ahead of its time, PSP is the past. The iPhone showed us that the future of mobile gaming was going to be on your phone
Windows Phone 7 is connected in the same sense as Palm’s webOS and Android, with live, real-time data seamlessly integrated, though it’s even smoother and more natural. Live tiles on the Start screen, which you can totally customize, are updated dynamically with fresh content.
How exactly is Windows Phone 7 Series different than previous versions of Windows Mobile? The question is probably better phrased as “how isn’t Windows Phone 7 Series different than previous versions of Windows Mobile. There’s no longer a Start menu, drop downs, check boxes, radio buttons, windows, lists of icons… we could go on and on, but suffice to say this thing is just a totally different beast altogether. Microsoft clearly worked long and hard developing new ways to navigate a phone, and this doesn’t even bear a resemblance to other phones currently on the market. There are no icon grids, no pull down menus, no card view, and no task manager. Microsoft says it’s drawn on its Zune and Windows Media Center UI concepts and come up with something it calls “Metro.” A typographic and motion heavy interface based on primary colors and lots of minimal, negative space.
Windows Phone 7 Series brings together a bunch of different Microsoft services—Zune, Xbox, Bing—in a way that actually makes sense and just works. But there’s a real, lingering question: Are they too late? The first Windows Phone 7 Series (Microsoft has so lack of fantasy in naming their products!) won’t hit until the end of this year. That’s more than three years after the iPhone, two years after Android, even a year after Palm (yes, still there in the industry).
Read more and see some pictures on engadget.com