Microsoft has confirmed that Windows Phone 7 Series will represent a clean break from the current Windows Mobile codebase that has formed the basis of Windows Phone Classic.
Because of the focus on Windows Phone 7 Series to integrate newer technologies and platforms such as Silverlight and XNA, existing applications built on the current platform up to 6.5.3 will not be compatible with 7 Series.
However, Microsoft did stress that it will continue to support Windows Phone Classic device and application development for the foreseeable future, as developer Charlie Kindel states that: “[we]will continue to work with our partners to deliver new devices based on Windows Mobile 6.5 and will support those products for many years to come”
Microsoft revealed the details ahead of next week’s Game Developer Conference and its own MIX developer conference in the middle of the month.
Microsoft should really confirm if they are going to leave the platform open or completely close it up like Apple does. If we want an iPhone I’ll buy one, cloning the iPhone in both policy and platform is a waste of time and money and hopefully will fail and cost millions in loses to MS. The iPhone is a GREAT piece of technology, but paired with AT&T which is horrible in many areas, and on the vendor side, Steve Jobs and company will be organizing book burnings and deleting existing apps telling us what we can see and do with our phones–oh wait that’s happening already isn’t it? I’d like to see my women in bikinis NOT burkas you fascist scumbag…
That was the greatest thing about Windows Mobile, the ability for ANYONE to make an application and put it out there for US to decide if it was good or not. I don’t have any issues with an APP store in conjunction with free choice but to take a step back after all this time makes no sense to me what-so-ever. I’ve been avoiding the Android OS since my Windows Mobile phone does all that I need it to but, if the above does turn out to be true, then why buy a clone when the original already has a working stable platform. Microsoft is horrible when judging an OS is ready for release, it uses the world to be it’s beta testers and usually doesn’t get it tolerable until the after the first service pack. Meanwhile, we’ll see how much of an iPhone clone it is after Apple finishes with it’s lawsuit with HTC for copyright infringement. So before I get all hyped up over this new OS I want to see how restrictive and less innovated they will be making it.
Microsoft has so many irons in the fire: Zume, Windows Mobile, Windows CE and Sidekick. At the very least Apple should be commended on making the Iphone, Ipod Touch and Ipad use the same codebase. I feel like each successive generation of the PDA / Phone OS seems to remove key functionality that either requires third party software to reproduce or is just gone forever. Not to mention the idiotic change from a full copy of Outlook to a trial version. The free version of Outlook and the built in integration with Outlook are the primary reasons I switched from the Palm OS to Windows CE.
I wonder who ever came up with the phrase, “clean slate”?!
What exactly is “clean”, about it ?
The fact,that it MS 7 Mobile fails, 100% of the time in being retroactively compatible with the product’s past line up?
Or is it, in leaving it’s customers “in the dust” of “dead upon arrival” OS’s like 6.5, or even six month old purchase of a 6.1 device? MS puts out rumors of software upgrade in the works at the point of sale, yet fails repeatedly to deliever.
Why is it that today’s Blu-ray player, has to follow the laws regarding “retroactive compatiblity”, and as such has to play back:
DVD (circa1995), CD (circa1984),
CD-R, CD+R, CD+-R, CD-RW, CD-RWDL, DVD-R, DVD+R, DVD+-R,DVD+-RW, BL-R,BL-RW, BL-RWDL…..etc?
Google’s two year old G1, the original “Android” OS device, can run the same Android 2.1 version as on their latest unit, the”Nexus One”!
MicroSoft gets to rewrite all the rules, now if they would or even could actually create a “new innovative product”, such as the “iPhone” by Apple, one could understandably argue for a ” fascist ” level of control.
One can only hope that at some point, the Service providers and the Hardware manufacturers wake up and stand up for their mutual client’s and provide alternative choices,
such as “flashing an alternative functional OS” on a device in question, or maybe even force the OS vendor to take back the product within 6 months of the sale to the end consumer, creating some sort of disclosure guideline, to protect the consumer,hence customers would remain happy to stay with their product (Hardware/Service), instead of further alienating their existing client base, by ignoring basic logical ethical standards and business practices.
Thank You
Part of Windows Phone 7 Series’s design, according to Microsoft, is that it will function more similarly to desktop Windows. Microsoft will be able to update software across manufacturer’s devices, as they have to be built to such tight specifications.
Of course, they made similar arguments when offering up Windows Update inside of Windows Mobile 6, and we know how much that got used…