Windows Mobile 7 Series

The downsides are that it shares many of the problems with the iPhone - the lack of multitasking, no Flash, and I bet it requires iTu--the Zune Software. There's also unknowns on WM7 as a development platform, and whether it requires you to use the App St--Windows Mobile Marketplace. That said, from what has currently been shown I think the good massively outweighs the bad.

One feature I'm particularly happy to see is Wi-Fi Sync. I hope this gives Apple the kick up the backside they need to include it in the iPhone.

The UI appears to lack any boundaries, rather relying on typography. It's interesting. I don't know how I feel about it, I'll reserve that kind of thing for the experts. It's certainly refreshing.

I see they've also created depth by having certain object scroll slower (or less.) Further removing the boundaries. (By boundaries I mean gradients, lines, blocks and buttons - I believe these objects give a UI a form of tactility?)

http://www.youtube.com/watchv=MdDAeyy1H0A&feature=player...

Kudos to Microsoft for realizing they need to be bold here and re-invent things. I'm encouraged by the lack of the "Start" bar. They have an incredibly brutal hill to climb if the handsets are only available at the end of the year. They should really have had a device out the door at the same time as the Palm Pre. It has taken Android a considerable amount of time to get to where it is today, and that took a no small amount of effort from Google. RIM, Google, and Apple are not going to be sitting on their hands this whole time milking their lead (well, RIM might ;)). Assuming the time frame holds true (a big assumption), by the time any appreciable number of users have these devices in their hands (early 2011), Apple alone will have released a major new OS update as well as hardware update, and be halfway to the next one. I expect Google will be similarly aggressive.

My girlfriend would ask "How do I do XXX" and before I could remember how I would accomplish the objective, she had explored her way to the solution.

Obviously a phone will have more strenuous requirements, but the interface I'm using on the Zune seems like it may be the exact outlandish interface that changes the way we think about buttons, and menus for interactive portable devices.

2) Delivery of devices by the end of the year seems a very tight schedule. That gives them basically 8 months to get to RTM. They haven't announced developer tools yet. I would expect a very basic 1.0 release this year if they make it at all.

3) It would be good if they succeeded. It's to no one's benefit to replace one 800 lb gorilla (Microsoft) with another (Apple). A counterweight is needed and Google Buzz has caused me to do a complete re-eval of that firm's worthiness.

I applaud having more choices in interface, but I am more interested in better choices as opposed to having just another choice. Hard to draw any solid conclusion just by watching that video, but not very impressed so far. IMO YMMV

So all Windows phones will look the same and work the same. I'm skeptical that hardware manufacturers will be enthusiastic about Microsoft turning their products into commodities again. Unlike the situation with PCs, this time they have a viable alternative in Android.

I have a Zune and I dig the UI a lot. Adding XBox Live games is definitely a big plus. The games give it a big advantage over Android.

Apps will again be key and this is where Microsoft strengths lie. Microsoft has the best developer tools on the market and they have legions of engineers on the .Net platform.

My only worry is that it may be a year or two late for Microsoft. I don't really want to count them out because of what they did with the XBox versus the Playstation.

However, the phone is a tougher market. It would be harder to convince people to switch phones. Phones are much more personal than gaming consoles.

"...the innovation of developers is important. We build a new foundation with a rich set of development tools which we'll discuss at MIX next month. [...] we want to take a very big step forward on [development tools]."

I wonder if this is just WPF/Sliverlight.

This seems a lot like the Palm WebOS announcement; similar reboot/new platform and breaking of backwards compatibility (unconfirmed).

Converse to their potential strengths at running an app store, Microsoft has a difficult decision posed by marketing. There are a lot of people out there addicted to Xbox Live Achievement points. If MS allows you to earn achievement points via games on it's new mobile phone, it will get a tremendous boost in market share.

The risk present here is that the achievement points system requires additional overhead and review by MS, in order to prevent system breaking games. There's no feasible way for them to populate their app store with indies and approve achievement points for all of them.

In order to have their cake and eat it to, MS needs to be able to differentiate achievement point games from indie games, but without turning indie games into an unshopped ghetto (see Xbox Indie Games). My best resolution would be to offer a small differentiation to icons on the store, specifically take those icons for games with points and apply a smaller logo to the corner, much like on a shortcut icon. Perhaps make it a little gold medal with a green ribbon falling in an X shape ;)

RIM/Nokia: Should be worried. They're jockeying over last place in the SmartPhone modernity contest these days. Hasn't hurt them much yet but it's hard to see how that lasts forever. Nokia is probably in better shape than RIM here.

Palm: Good try. Consider Open Source and/or licensing before it's too late.

Apple: Probably not much to worry about for now but they shouldn't get complacent with the iPhone platform. My biggest question here is how big of a distraction the iPad was for Apple internally. Do we have a major iPhone revision and a strong software update in the works or another minor hardware bump with a merely evolutionary OS update? If they stay off Verizon for another year (at least) it could really start to hurt iPhone sales. The iPhone is no longer so far ahead of the pack that you'd suffer with bad coverage to use it.

Android: Not much for Google to worry about but I think a lot of third party handset makers will put some resources back into Windows Mobile devices. Even more so with the existence of the N1.

One thing that's bugged me about the touch line of iProducts is the amount of wasted space around the icons (though I understand the reasoning behind it, and it would encourage an entire icon remake if changed).

Whether we like it or not, a lot of day to day business activities happen through word, outlook, and now, powerpoint. If windows mobile displays those files types cleanly, I assure you it will be a success. Blackberrys let you open those filetypes but I think they handle it pretty clumsily.

For me it would be a huge plus if I could go through a deck or read a long word document without having to always be at my desk.

But did we forget all the lessons of the "readwriteweb facebook login debacle" of last week?

This UI seems substantially less user friendly than iPhone or Android for your average end user.

Who is now, incidentally, trained on the "iphone clone" UI if they've had a smartphone in this generation.

The interface looks very limiting.

For instance where do I overview my apps?