Today at the Mobile World Congress Microsoft has finally shown to the market the results of its recent development effort in the OS area: Windows Phone 7 Series.

In the following we credit Engadget for images and the live coverage of the event.

The new OS, called “Windows Phone 7 Series”, has been introduced by Steve Ballmer himself.

The first approach to the new OS is its new start screen, where we find “Tiles”. These can be arranged in several ways and will serve to launch applications, take actions on selected contacts, link music playlist and seemingly more. No word was made about third party customization.

The system will support multitouch and multitouch gestures.

The UI resembles the Zune HD: bold text, lists with text cut off on the sides of the phone, and additional (hidden) space to navigate thanks to left and right arrows. The interface seems extremely clean and neat, with a linear design (no bells and whistles here). I’d say I like it, as I don’t like baroque solutions.

The interface introduces something called “Hubs”, which are integrated centers of activities. During the conference MS demonstrated or shown live the following hubs:

• People
• Pictures
• Office
• Music+Video
• Games

All of the above will do what you expect them to, and with the UI you are able to access your local content as well as remote content, e.g. contacts and pictures on Facebook for your mobile usage. Recent contacts and documents have their own place to help you access them easily with speed.

The Office and Games hubs were not really demonstrated, but only shown are being there and hopefully they will be finalized in time for the release. However, the Game hub will features Xbox LIVE.

The Music hub could be interesting for those Zune owners: every 7 Series phone is currently a Zune, and it will behave as such with your PC (and there is also a Pandora Train radio tile…).

The calendar has been shown with an Exchange and personal appointments merged in a single effective view.

The search function is left to Microsoft Bing and the browser is based on the desktop version of IE, so it will be highly compatible with lots of webpages.

Also Pocket Outlook has been revamped, with flags, attachments, and multiple message. Threaded message is not there, though.

They say they will continue to invest in 6.5, but WM 7 Series is a new generation, thus you should expect to thrash the existing app catalogue…

Windows Phone 7 Series will count on several OEM partners:

• Qualcomm
• Dell
• LG
• Samsung
• Garmin-Asus
• HTC
• HP
• Sony Ericsson
• Toshiba

thus showing the interest into the platform. I here notice the absence of Motorola.

AT&T and Orange have also been on the show to support their enthusiasm for the upcoming MS platform.

Windows Phone 7 Series will be available this holiday season, 2010.

It’s too early to evaluate if the work done by MS has taken the right direction, as very few of the new OS have been shown, and many of the leaks of the previous days remain uncertain.

Currently the OS seems more a multimedia device with phone, office and PIM capabilities rather than a more versatile business device, but maybe this is the real the aim of the new WM7, what do you think?

Via: Engadget

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