If you haven’t yet seen the new features in Windows Phone 8, here’s Joe Belfiore giving a quick run-down of some of the most important additions:
Tag: windows phone 8
Windows Phone 8: HTC, Nokia and Samsung
As of a few days ago, the current count of phones that will ship with Windows Phone 8 is…five. Two from Nokia, two from HTC and one from Samsung.
With Windows Phone 8 set to officially launch in October, it seems that many phone manufacturers wish to jump on the wagon and make some money. In this day and age, any competition is good, pushing companies to one-up one another creating the better device and consumers reaping the rewards. As long as no company is copying another, all is good (won’t go too much into the recent Apple vs Samsung fiasco because to be honest, who cares?). So what is currently being offered by the three big non-fruit phone makers then?
I shall start with the Samsung Ativ S. For all those hoping for something different, you will be disappointed. It is as if Samsung has taken the Galaxy S3 and put WP8 on it with a compatible CPU. The Ativ S has the same 4.8 inch display, almost the same form factor (although less “round” than the S3) and the same 16GB or 32GB option plus microSD card slot.
The Nokia Lumia 920 and 820 are a different story. Building upon the reasonably successful design of the Lumia 900 and 800, the successors are set to take back what was rightfully Nokia’s – the claim to the mobile phone throne. The only differences between the two Lumias are the Lumia 820 has a smaller form factor and has a 4.3 inch 480 x 800 pixels display using AMOLED technology, 8GB of on-board memory plus an added microSD slot. The Lumia 920 does away with the microSD slot and gives everyone 32GB of memory. There is a 4.5 inch display pushing 1280 x 768 resolution, yes that is beyond HD 720p (slightly taller than widescreen) @332 ppi density – higher than retina. The touch screen technology is IPS with ClearBlack offering incredible vibrance contrast and is super sensitive meaning that one no longer has to use just their fingers to navigate their phone; a great feature especially if you use gloves or prefer to use a pointer for writing and drawing. The Lumia 820 has interchangeable covers one of which includes a wireless charging backplate but the Lumia 920 has this as standard.
.jpg)
Both phones will have front facing cameras, albeit the 820’s one only being capable of VGA whilst the 920 one is capable of 1.2MP. As with the main camera, the 820 will have an 8PM camera plus flash whereas the 920 will have a 8.7MP one with PureView with Optical Image Stabalisation and a camera backlighting technique that captures low light images as if they were shot during the day.
Both phones will be available in a selection of colours, are LTE (4G) capable and will be offered exclusively on UK’s 4GEE (Everything Everywhere) network, which is a bummer for guys like me who aren’t on T-Mobile or Orange, EE’s partner networks, and wanted to upgrade later this year.
And finally we get to HTC. HTC unveiled its newest Windows Phone 8 devices, the 8X and 8S. With a similar naming scheme to the One X and One S, one would expect the WP8 siblings to have similar specs and appearance, just like with any HTC product, and one would be right, sort of. The HTC 8 series boast unibody designs and a selection of colours with the 8X being the larger one with a 4.3 inch display and the 8S with a 4.0 inch one. The 8X display sports a nice 720p resolution and the fact that is it 0.2 inches smaller than the one in the Nokia 920 means it has a density of 342 ppi, giving it the crown of density along with Sony’s new Xperia range. The phones will have the same processor as the one in the Lumia range. Like with all HTC phones, the classic flip clock interface is now present as a large live tile. Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer praised the newfound partnership with the Taiwanese mobile giant but mentioned nothing of the all important billion dollar partnership Microsoft has with Nokia. What is interesting is that the HTC phones are WP8 signature ones, whatever that means, and Nokia’s Lumias aren’t. It is doubtful that this will make any difference to any of the sales, followers, stocks, arguments or trolling at all.
During all the announcement events, the most anyone had to see of any software was at Nokia’s, where it showed apps such as City Lens – augmented reality showing POIs overlaid on your camera display. Microsoft has been very tight lipped about its operating system, which can either mean it is still unsure about something, perhaps a bug, and is unable to suppress it during any demo, or that it is highly proud of its creation and doesn’t wish to display anything until the actual release. Whatever the case, here’s to hoping it will be great.
While the selection of devices is a bit thin, all the phones released offer something that the Apple iPhone 5 does not and that is the fresh factor – the feeling of using something new that no longer feels outdated. BlackBerry has suffered this recently and the more learned of the iPhone 5, users are definitely feeling that Apple’s innovation may be grinding to a halt. There will no doubt be those arguing about the amount of apps in the iTunes store compared to the Windows one but the point is that the main and most useful apps such as the social networking ones, RSS and mail clients, camera and productivity tools are available on both platforms.
Microsoft: Back in the Game Part 2 – Windows Phone 8
So we are now into the second half of our “Back in the Game” coverage. While there has already been an article on Windows Phone 8 already, this article aims only to introduce all of the features we know of at the moment of the upcoming mobile operating system without venturing too deep into actual buying advice or other criticisms.
Microsoft first released its Windows Phone operating system (up from Windows Mobile 6.5) less than two years ago with Windows Phone 7, which received an update to “Mango” less than a year ago. While plentiful in features, Windows Phone 7 lacked one thing. This one thing is probably the first thing that people think of when when they buy a smartphone today – apps. Yes, Windows Phone has never had that massive big name app support that Apple and Google have had with iOS and Android respectively. However, Microsoft aims to put that to rest with their new Windows Phone 8 ecosystem.
The Kernel
What is this kernel you speak of? No, Microsoft have not planned to use corn to power their latest smart phones. The kernel is the core, the base, the operating system in its barest form, and what Steve Ballmer and co. have done, is to use the same Windows NT core that drives Windows 8…named the truly imaginative “Windows Core”.
Now, this won’t amaze most readers out there, and those with good memories may remember that during the keynote for the first iPhone, Scott Forstall said that iOS, or what was named iPhone OS back then, was also a version of OS X, their Macintosh operating system. Doesn’t that mean that Redmond is simple copying Cupertino? No, iOS was implemented in a way that OS X provided the simple and most basic operating system to install apps and run like it should. App developers were still required to learn how to use the iPhone Software Development Kit (SDK). WP8 running on the same Windows Core enables those currently developing Windows 8 apps to immediately start developing WP8 apps using their current SDK because of this new ecosystem. WP8 will have the same file system, encryption etc as Windows 8. This does not mean that Windows 8 programs will be able to run on WP8, but it means that there will be no time wasted when it comes to rolling out apps. Those developers who have been reluctant to learn the iPhone SDK or any other mobile SDK no longer need to and can get to work immediately. This radical change has not affected current apps though as the 100,000 apps present in the Windows Phone Store at the moment will still run fine on any new WP8 handsets.
So what does using the Windows Core bring to the table for app developers then? The Windows Core will bring features such as Multi-Core Processor support, HD resolution and SD card support. Windows Phone 8 can theoretically support up to 64 cores. The shared codebase allows developers to use existing libraries such as C++ and SQLite, which will run natively on the mobile OS. Probably the best news for games developers is DirectX support. Games developers can be building the Windows and Windows Phone game at the same time. With series classics such as GTA 3 and Max Payne being ported to iOS and Android, in a few years time as mobile graphics power improves, we may see more PC games of now and yesteryear being easily ported to the Windows Phones. Crysis anyone?
Carrying a wallet was so last year
WP8 phones will also have built in NFC support. Near Field Communication is a feature that Google built into its Android operating system allowing contactless payments…and that’s about it. Remember Apple’s Passbook app that saves our tickets, and other e-paperwork? Well what do you get when NFC + Passbook have a love child? I present WP8’s Wallet hub. A place where credit cards, membership cards and other pieces of valuable plastic can be stored and then USED from the phone in participating stores. I can just imagine Orange taking advantage of this with the Orange Wednesdays deals – get your code, reserve seats, save into Wallet hub, go to cinema, hover phone on top of NFC device, claim free seat and purchase ticket using the credit card information already saved in the Wallet hub. Simples.
It is now safe to remove your…
I am sure that many of you iPhone users have been frustrated over the fact that your iTunes library on your iPhone cannot be altered through interfacing with the phone itself. I personally have been. It needs a connection to the computer wired or wireless. Well because Windows Phone 8 uses the same Windows Core as Windows 8, users can find a friend with the another WP8 phone with a song that they like, load it onto an SD card, plug it into their own phone and then either save it to their own or play it through the Media Centre thanks to WP8’s ability to simply register the SD card as removable storage and easy interacting with files and folders on it. I can’t for the life of me get the SD card to register on my iPhone, wait…
Windows Phone Start Screen
What about the interface? Any phone’s UI is the thing that people will interact with most and arguably is a make or break for any phone. Can’t really have a phone that does amazing things but people actually hate using it. The Windows Phone interface has always been a love or hate affair. Windows Phone 7 introduced a new meaning to the word “Tiles”. No they aren’t icons, they are tiles, just like widget and gadgets are different, right Microsoft? Anyways, Windows Phone 7 offered a thing called Live Tiles where the icons representing their respective apps are animated showing relevant information from how many emails or missed calls there are to the latest trending photos on flickr. They simply provided additional bits of information. The main page was also rather unbalanced as there would be a small arrow to the top left of the screen which led to the list of all the apps.
Windows Phone 8 introduced Windows Phone Start Screen. Gone is the arrow and gone is list of apps. Now, all your apps seem to appear on your main screen but I’m sure that we will get some kind of a launcher or something in the final release. Now, users can customise the size of their live tiles allowing them to easily view what they are interested in and reduce the size of the lesser viewed tiles. I can just imagine that I’ll be spending hours getting the perfect tessellation of different sized apps with little to do with use, purely aesthetics. A game of tile tetris maybe?
Skype
Windows Phone 8 has Skype integration to the max (or to the deep…deep integra- oh you get the picture). Skype will be an app available for download and upon installation will integrate with the People Hub, Phone Dialer and probably the Wallet hub too. Microsoft has done the simple task of not bothering to create its own single platform communicator such as BBM or FaceTime and instead use an already existing, good communicator that is Skype.
Where are we again?
Nokia has always been well known for its ability to deliver a good and reliable Maps experience and since last year, after announcing the partnership with the Finnish mobile company, Microsoft’s Bing service has been slowly aligning with Nokia Maps. Nokia Maps will bring offline support and much better global coverage, something Bing Maps and even Google Maps have been lacking in. The Nokia NAVTEQ data will now also be available to developers that can take advantage of the Maps system that will be present on the phone and use it within their own applications. This potentially means that if an enterprising third party wished to develop a Navigation app for Windows Phone 8, the final product could actually be just a front-end that is utilising the existing Maps data present on the phone.
Business and Enterprise
Finally, Windows Phone 7 lost a huge chunk of market share to the leading business mobile brand RIM due to its lack of many features useful to the business user. With this new move to Windows Core, the same Enterprise encryptions that are used in the Windows Desktop environment have been made accessible on the mobile platform, opening up all kinds of business and enterprising applications. I would not be surprised to see some kind of seamless native synchronising between Windows Phone 8 and Windows Home Server.
What about current Windows Phone users?
There is good news for those on previously released handsets as Microsoft will be rolling out Windows Phone 7.8, which adds many but not all of the features of WP8 to existing handsets. Although Microsoft has not disclosed what particular features will or will not be available for upgrade, the new Windows Phone Start Screen will be.
So as we see, Microsoft has opened the door to the great possibilities of Windows Phone 8 – but remember that the summit was for developers, and new consumer features will be announced nearer to the launch date. I look forward to seeing a future where at the swipe of a phone, I can redeem my vouchers, pay for and save my flight tickets in one go, play on a game that was written by experienced PC game developers whilst chatting to a friend on Skype and copying over some files from an SD card I borrowed from my brother. I can currently only do one of those things with my iPhone. I believe Microsoft is truly back in the game with an amazing concept that if executed well, should be able to dominate the mobile market. DeThroning the fruit and the robot is certainly going to be hard but when the final product comes out, I have a feeling we are going to see some game changing.
Why Microsoft’s Windows Phone 8 Upgrade Path is Correct
Since Microsoft unveiled key aspects of Windows Phone 8 yesterday the company has received some flak for not allowing current generation Windows Phones to get the new operating system in full. Instead, handsets running Mango will get updated to Windows Phone 7.8, which brings the new start screen, continued updates, new apps, and more details will follow nearer the release date. While some users feel betrayed by buying a new handset like the Nokia Lumia 900 only to find it won’t receive Windows Phone 8, Microsoft is right in its decision.
The reason for the ire against Microsoft is because today people buy a phone and expect it to receive software updates in future. However, a look at competing systems shows it isn’t rosy for them either. Android is well known for its fragmentation, and there are modern Android phones that are at least one or two software updates behind the latest. Ice Cream Sandwich was supposed to be the operating system that changed that, but Gingerbread is still the most widely used Android software on the market. To make matters worse, while Microsoft is offering Windows Phone 7.8 to existing users, Google offers nothing to handsets that can’t get a full update. It also often leaves the update process to OEMs and carriers, whereas Microsoft is offering Over The Air (OTA) updates to bypass the carriers. This means that all Windows Phone users will be getting something, while a competing provider often offers nothing.
Microsoft’s approach also circumvents Apple’s problematic approach. Apple does not offer all features to all phones, even if it can run – Siri was an app that worked fine on the iPhone 4, but when Apple baked it into the OS they made it so it can only work on the 4S, forcing users who wanted it to upgrade. When the company offered iOS5 to the 3G and 3GS handsets, the Internet was awash with disgruntled customers who had notice a massive decline in performance and speed of their phones, because the hardware wasn’t capable of running it properly.
So what Microsoft has done is the sensible option – release a “Windows Phone 8 lite” for existing handsets so that the features that will run will be provided, and anything that can’t be provided will be reserved for new handsets. While it isn’t yet known exactly what features will be coming in 7.8, like Skype integration, at least users know they will definitely get an update to improve their experience, which is not true of Android users. Most of the changes in Windows Phone 8 are hardware related, like MicroSD support, multi-core support, higher screen resolutions and NFC, and of course these changes cannot come to existing phones just like previous iPhones did not sprout a front-facing camera or Retina display when Apple announced them. Indeed, this is a main point in the online discussion of events – while the tech blogs are quick to bash Microsoft’s decision, when Apple does something similar or even worse to its mobile consumers, silence ensues.
More to the point, Microsoft’s changes were wholly necessary. The existing kernel for Windows Phone does not allow for the seamless integration and interaction between Windows Phone and Windows 8, so a change had to be made. This change was better to happen now while the userbase is relatively small rather than wait for the operating system to gain more marketshare. By causing this disturbance now, Microsoft has hopefully laid a path to prevent an identical situation happening in the future, and more importantly has laid a very solid foundation for users to enjoy an excellent product in the near future, with unparalleled communication between the phone, tablet and PC. While some users may be peeved that they’re not getting Windows Phone 8 in full, the upshot is that a very new experience in computing will come out of it.