Windows Phone 7

Doctor Glyndwr · **Joined:** 30th Mar, 2008 **Posts:** 32619

Biggest "why did they do that" moment I've had with WP7S yet: Zune and the phone OS don't have a unified app store. The iPod Touch is a huge win for Apple; it's allows them to sell iPhone OS devices to people who don't or won't buy an expensive contract mobile phone. I can't understand why Microsoft rejected that angle.

DavPaz · **Joined:** 27th Jun, 2008 **Posts:** 38460

Craster wrote:

It would be a pint of Volvo.

Sounds slutty

Dr Lave · **Joined:** 30th Mar, 2008 **Posts:** 5979

Doctor Glyndwr wrote:

Biggest "why did they do that" moment I've had with WP7S yet: Zune and the phone OS don't have a unified app store. The iPod Touch is a huge win for Apple; it's allows them to sell iPhone OS devices to people who don't or won't buy an expensive contract mobile phone. I can't understand why Microsoft rejected that angle.

Or going by the school I'm currently in, can't yet by an expensive contract, but now know who they will be getting...

Cras · **Joined:** 30th Mar, 2008 **Posts:** 49232

Doctor Glyndwr wrote:

Biggest "why did they do that" moment I've had with WP7S yet: Zune and the phone OS don't have a unified app store. The iPod Touch is a huge win for Apple; it's allows them to sell iPhone OS devices to people who don't or won't buy an expensive contract mobile phone. I can't understand why Microsoft rejected that angle.

It does mean tying your music player platform into similar hardware refresh cycles to your phone platform. Considering they won't have a single manufacturer for WP7, but they do for the Zune, I can see reasons to avoid linking them.

myp · **Posted:** Tue Mar 16, 2010 18:43

Dr Lave wrote:

I think the idea that some games are more 'properer' than others and so 'deserve' more 'gamerpoints' to be amazingly abstract, meta and messed up.

I'm only talking in the terms of what we already have. 1000GS for retail releases and 200GS for XBLA games. If Chinatown Wars was upscaled resolution-wise, it would easily sit well alongside stuff like Battlefield 1943 and Darwinia+.

Doctor Glyndwr · **Joined:** 30th Mar, 2008 **Posts:** 32619

Holy shit, it looks more like an iPhone every day. It won't have copy and paste. WTF?!

myp · **Posted:** Wed Mar 17, 2010 15:31

There's no way I'd buy a phone without copy and paste. It's a dealbreaker.

Malabelm · **Posted:** Wed Mar 17, 2010 15:34

I didn't really understand the need for Copy & Paste until it arrived. Now I use it all the time, but more specifically, I use the iPhone's ability to highlight text. Formatting replies on this forum without it was a nightmare!

Cras · **Joined:** 30th Mar, 2008 **Posts:** 49232

Doctor Glyndwr wrote:

Holy shit, it looks more like an iPhone every day. It won't have copy and paste. WTF?!

That's not the only thing that makes it look like an old iPhone. Under NDA unfortunately, but suffice to say I am displeased.

Malabelm · **Posted:** Wed Mar 17, 2010 15:58

Craster wrote:

Doctor Glyndwr wrote:

Holy shit, it looks more like an iPhone every day. It won't have copy and paste. WTF?!

That's not the only thing that makes it look like an old iPhone. Under NDA unfortunately, but suffice to say I am displeased.

There's an Apple logo covered up by a sticker on the back, isn't there. I knew it.

kalmar · **Posted:** Wed Mar 17, 2010 16:23

myoptikakaka wrote:

There's no way I'd buy a phone without copy and paste. It's a dealbreaker.

Cras · **Joined:** 30th Mar, 2008 **Posts:** 49232

Doctor Glyndwr wrote:

Biggest "why did they do that" moment I've had with WP7S yet: Zune and the phone OS don't have a unified app store. The iPod Touch is a huge win for Apple; it's allows them to sell iPhone OS devices to people who don't or won't buy an expensive contract mobile phone. I can't understand why Microsoft rejected that angle.

Looks like that's exactly what they are doing. The Zune HD2 will be the WP7's iPod Touch:

http://gizmodo.com/5489587/zune-hd2-wil ... or-suckers

Doctor Glyndwr · **Joined:** 30th Mar, 2008 **Posts:** 32619

Craster wrote:

The Zune HD2 will be the WP7's iPod Touch:

OK, good, that makes sense. But my god:

Quote:

"Development for the Zune and Zune HD will continue to exist in XNA Game Studio 3.1, however, in XNA Game Studio 4.0, we're encouraging you to migrate your games over to the Windows Phone 7 Series platform."

ZuneHD owners have been shafted in a rather uncool manner. The device is less than six months old.

Doctor Glyndwr · **Joined:** 30th Mar, 2008 **Posts:** 32619

I just realised -- they just Osborned the ZuneHD.

Grim... · **Posted:** Wed Mar 17, 2010 23:12

Doctor Glyndwr wrote:

Holy shit, it looks more like an iPhone every day. It won't have copy and paste. WTF?!

viewtopic.php?p=381885#p381885

Still, it's got a while before it comes out, so they might change their mind (even if it has been super-mega-double-confirmed). Have they been dumb enough to say that it "won't need copy and paste" yet?

Doctor Glyndwr · **Joined:** 30th Mar, 2008 **Posts:** 32619

Grim... wrote:

Have they been dumb enough to say that it "won't need copy and paste" yet?

Yeah, I saw that quote somewhere, Microsoft Dude of some type says "copy and paste isn't imoprtant".

kalmar · **Posted:** Thu Mar 18, 2010 11:27

I must admit, I've used copy and paste a total of once on the iPhone, and only then because I didn't realise you could forward text messages (which would have been easier).

Doctor Glyndwr · **Joined:** 30th Mar, 2008 **Posts:** 32619

I don't think it's a dealbreaker. I didn't feel the iPhone was fatally flawed without it. But I do think it's much more than a nice-to-have; I use it a lot.

Bobbyaro · **Joined:** 18th Apr, 2008 **Posts:** 11843

I don't get it, is copy and paste a really difficult thing to implement? Why wouldn't you include it?

myp · **Posted:** Thu Mar 18, 2010 13:20

Doctor Glyndwr wrote:

I don't think it's a dealbreaker. I didn't feel the iPhone was fatally flawed without it. But I do think it's much more than a nice-to-have; I use it a lot.

Quite. Obviously I wasn't exactly being serious with my earlier comment, having bought a 2G iPhone pre-v2 firmware.

Cras · **Joined:** 30th Mar, 2008 **Posts:** 49232

Bobbyaro wrote:

I don't get it, is copy and paste a really difficult thing to implement? Why wouldn't you include it?

My understanding is that a lot of it is down to the app segregation/sandboxing. Because you run the apps in a dedicated "mini-VM", there's some thought that needs to go into how you build a buffer that persists across apps without breaking the integrity of that sandbox.

Bobbyaro · **Joined:** 18th Apr, 2008 **Posts:** 11843

But shirley, if Nokia can manage it, Microsoft with there much stricter app control, and there, well being one of the biggest software developers in the world, can do so also. And does Windows 6.5 have CaP?

Cras · **Joined:** 30th Mar, 2008 **Posts:** 49232

6.5 does, but it doesn't have app segregation. It's just like your desktop, you can install an app that talks to another app no problem. You can't do that on an iPhone or WP7. That said, I don't think it's actually technically that difficult, it's just something you'd have to design from scratch rather than using some existing code.

Quote:

being one of the biggest software developers in the world

Heh. I work for a bank. We have more developers than MS do.

Doctor Glyndwr · **Joined:** 30th Mar, 2008 **Posts:** 32619

Craster wrote:

That said, I don't think it's actually technically that difficult, it's just something you'd have to design from scratch rather than using some existing code.

It's not so bad when you restrict the things you can cut and paste -- note that the iPhone's buffer can only handle unformatted text and JPGs, for example. But there's also UI issues around how you build the feature on a touchscreen device that are probably harder to solve than the technical ones.

Cras · **Joined:** 30th Mar, 2008 **Posts:** 49232

Looks like it'll be there, just not at launch (sound familiar?)

http://www.istartedsomething.com/201003 ... ventually/

Cras · **Joined:** 30th Mar, 2008 **Posts:** 49232

Doctor Glyndwr · **Joined:** 30th Mar, 2008 **Posts:** 32619

I saw that. I think it's fan-made though, not official?

Cras · **Joined:** 30th Mar, 2008 **Posts:** 49232

Doctor Glyndwr wrote:

I saw that. I think it's fan-made though, not official?

Correct.

WinPoPad7?

Doctor Glyndwr · **Joined:** 30th Mar, 2008 **Posts:** 32619

http://www.engadget.com/2010/03/18/wind ... lete-guide

A good round-up of the news so far.

Aha:

Quote:

Apps aren't simply killed off after the user stops using them, though. The platform supports "page states," which Microsoft equates to cookies on websites -- they're lightweight packages that can easily be kept in memory to preserve the look, feel, and data of an app while discarding the memory-heavy UI elements. When a user navigates away from a screen within an app, the page state is committed to memory; when it's needed again, the UI is reconstructed from the state, a process cleverly called "dehydration" and "rehydration."

This is EXACTLY WHAT PALM OS DID A DECADE AGO and SHOULD NOT BE NEW NEWS, APPLE.

kalmar · **Posted:** Thu Mar 18, 2010 17:45

subst APPLE MICROSOFT

Doctor Glyndwr · **Joined:** 30th Mar, 2008 **Posts:** 32619

kalmar wrote:

subst APPLE MICROSOFT

No, I meant what I said. It's news that Microsoft do this because Apple don't, but Apple bloody well should.

Doctor Glyndwr · **Joined:** 30th Mar, 2008 **Posts:** 32619

myoptikakaka wrote:

Blucey wrote:

By cheap I mean that any piss-poor phone app can now provide people with a max.

Some might say that playing shit like Avatar for an easy 1,000GS is cheapening achievements, though.

Quite.

LewieP · **Joined:** 29th Apr, 2008 **Posts:** 7600

I heard from someone that had a hands on with it that copy and paste is sort of in, but done a but differently.

You select text, the in looks at it, and give you options of how to use it. If it is an adress, it might have "search for on bing maps" as option number 1, "insert into message" as option number 2, and so on.
For a phone number it might have "ring" or "add to contacts" and so on.

Seems like a good idea, if done well.

Doctor Glyndwr · **Joined:** 30th Mar, 2008 **Posts:** 32619

That's how the iPhone v1 did it, more or less. Phone numbers would be in blue and when you tapped it you get a pop-up with "add to contacts", "call", "SMS", and so forth. The WP7S implementation sounds a little richer but it's still not remotely copy-and-paste.

Cras · **Joined:** 30th Mar, 2008 **Posts:** 49232

It's not copy and paste at all, it's just context-sensitive actions.

Cras · **Joined:** 30th Mar, 2008 **Posts:** 49232

I'm tentatively interested in making my next upgrade be to a Windows 7 phone, there's plenty of stuff in there to interest me - and having an iPad means I wouldn't be locked out of that platform.

Fairly in-depth reviews of the preview handsets are now available:
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/cell-phones/m ... in;content

Mr Dave · **Posted:** Tue Jul 20, 2010 13:58

The only thing stopping me getting an android phone right now is wanting a W7 phone.

Doctor Glyndwr · **Joined:** 30th Mar, 2008 **Posts:** 32619

Early previews do look good, I have a few reservations (like the non-optional barfing up of Facebook contacts all over your phone). I think it'll live or die by the app support, and we won't really know that until mid-2011 or so.

Doctor Glyndwr · **Joined:** 30th Mar, 2008 **Posts:** 32619

That interests me actually -- who would buy this during launch month, and who would want to take a wait-and-see approach to the applications?

Cras · **Joined:** 30th Mar, 2008 **Posts:** 49232

I would buy early - because I'm not interested so much in side-apps on my phone, I'm more interested with the core ones that will be in there at launch or very shortly after.

It can get fucked with the Facebook stuff. It's the same moronic idea as Buzz. My Twitter audience, facebook contacts, XBL friends, and actual family aren't the same people believe it or not, morons.

Malabelm · **Posted:** Tue Jul 20, 2010 14:27

I wouldn't touch a phone system at launch with a barge pole, now I rely on my phone for far more than calls and text messages.

Cras · **Joined:** 30th Mar, 2008 **Posts:** 49232

I'm kind of counting on being handed a free phone by Microsoft, admittedly.

Doctor Glyndwr · **Joined:** 30th Mar, 2008 **Posts:** 32619

WP7 isn't for you Enterprise boyos though, is it?

Cras · **Joined:** 30th Mar, 2008 **Posts:** 49232

Oh, don't care about that. I just want a phone. They'll care enough to give us a few even though they're blatantly not suited. Nothing stopping us using a 3rd party solution like the ones available for iPhone, either.

Cras · **Joined:** 30th Mar, 2008 **Posts:** 49232

Some details about the xbox live stuff for WP7, and what games are looking to be there at launch:

http://gizmodo.com/5614244/xbox-live-on ... mpressions

Malabelm · **Posted:** Tue Aug 17, 2010 11:01

I do still really like the look of the WP7 interface. Whether or not it'll stand up as being usable, consistent and intuitive or not, I don't know. But I do like the screenshots, which is more than I can say for all the other phones being advertised now, copying that boring grid of icons with a few docked at the bottom.

Zardoz · **Posted:** Tue Aug 17, 2010 11:03

Will it run Mine Craft?

LewieP · **Joined:** 29th Apr, 2008 **Posts:** 7600

Get an Xbox.

Grim... · **Posted:** Tue Aug 17, 2010 11:27

If you look closely at the video, at about 33 seconds in, you can clearly see a mouse cursor on Bejeweled.

Zardoz · **Posted:** Tue Aug 17, 2010 11:29

Oh mouse support!

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Windows Phone 7
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Be Excellent To Each Other

Windows Phone 7 I want one

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Windows Phone 7
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