Windows Mobile Louisville

Here is a great writeup from Engadget, which summarizes just about everything known about Windows Phone 7 at this point in time.

Another video from the Windows Phone Team website.

This article was written by Mighty Mike, creator of the MightyROM’s.  He posted it over at PPC Geeks earlier today.  To all those naysayers who think Windows phones are fading away, I’ll borrow from a great Monty Python quote:

With the Mobile World Congress event making its way around the corner, we can all be for certain that it is inevitable for Windows Phone 7 to make its long-awaited debut. That being said, there have been rumours floating about on what Windows Phone 7 might actually be? For months, almost a year, we have seen images being leaked all over the interwebs and although we can all admit we were quite excited, the chances of it looking so or even being real for that matter were highly unlikely. Wait no more! PPCGeeks has some truly amazing information on what the Windows Phone 7 platform will deliver to our beloved handheld devices. All information detailed within may not be entirely official, although it is definitely the closest information we have heard on actually being real. Without wasting anymore time, lets jump into the nitty gritty.

• At the Mobile World Congress event on February 15th, 2010, Windows Phone 7 will be unveilved, although at this time plans are only to unveil the user interface of the new platform.  Specific indepth functionality of the device will most likely not be shown.
• The User Interface is based upon codename “METRO”.   It will be very similar to the Zune HD User Interface with a complete revamp of the “Start” screen.   The UI is “Very Clean”, “Soulful” and “Alive”.
• Unfortunately there will be no Flash support at the get go as there was not enough time to implement these features.
• Windows Phone 7 will only support application installation through service based delivery. (i.e Marketplace). Application installation via storage card will not be possible.
• No Multi-Task support. Applications will “Pause” when in the background, however will support notifications via push notifications.
• Marketplace will now support “try before you buy” as well as an API
• No NETCF backwards compatibility. This means the original rumor of no backward compatibility for applications holds to be true. That being said, there are high hopes of porting the NetCF to the newer platform easily.
• Microsoft is confident that devices will be ready by September 2010
• Full Zune Integration
• Windows Mobile Device Center will no longer be used.  Zune software to take over syncing via PC.
• OEM Interfaces will not be allowed to run on the device.  Say goodbye to Sense UI / SPB Mobile Shell / Point UI / Infinity, etc, etc (Editors note: for those of us who heard Gordon Bennett speak at one of our meetings last fall, we already knew that!)
• Full XBOX Gaming Integration (Gamer tag, achievements, friends, avatars, merchandising, etc)
• Full support for social networking

There is a plethora of details to go through, although listed above are the biggest impact points of Windows Phone 7.This is a lot of information to consume in one shot and there could very well be the possibility of it being once again another rumor, although one thing stands true. This is the most detailed promising information we’ve seen to date in a while. We will continue to update you as we find out more information.