Blog: Is ‘Windows Phone 7′ Releasing on October 21st?

While we are waiting for Microsoft to declare the official launch date of Windows Phone 7, many are thinking that the software would be officially released in U.S. on November 8 while on 21st Oct. 2010 in European countries.

The OS, however, is expected to first arrive in the UK, France, Spain, Germany and Italy. Microsoft’s latest mobile OS, Windows Phone 7 is a completely new mobile operating system, built from the ground up. It is of its erstwhile Windows Mobile smart phone operating system which was struggling to maintain its lead and has, since the advent of Android and iOS, seen a major slump in its market share.

User Interface: The user interface of Microsoft Windows Phone 7 is completely different from anything currently on the mobile market. It’s made up of large tiles that can be organised in any way you wish. Tiles can be “pinned” to the home screen, and the default tiles can be removed. You can simply press and hold a tile to move it around the screen. The tiles offer a refreshing look and feel, with large text and live images. Take for example, the “People” tile which is a centralised hub for multiple forms of communication with contacts. This tile will display live photos of the last few people you’ve interacted with. There’s no limit to the number of tiles you can pin to the home screen which means that it can be as long or as short as you want it to be. Once you open one of Windows Phone 7’s default “hubs” (People, Pictures, Games, Music, Video, Marketplace, Office), the UI utilises a panorama-style view. Slide left and right to browse through the panorama; for example, the People hub consists of a list of those you’ve had recent contact with, all of your contacts and a “What’s New” list that integrates real-time Facebook and Windows Live updates.

On-screen Keyboard: The on-screen keyboard is excellent. The keys are well spaced and make a soothing clicking sound when pressed, while the built-in spell corrector allows you to tap on a word to bring up a list of suggested words.

‘People’ Hub: Instead of a regular contact list, Microsoft has opted for an optimised “People” hub. You simply enter your Facebook, Windows Live ID and other e-mail accounts (the OS naturally supports Microsoft Exchange e-mail) and it automatically gets your contact list and keeps them updated in real time. Facebook status updates, e-mails, calls, messages and IMs all appear in this single People hub (you can also choose not to display your Facebook contacts).

Negative Points About WP 7: Windows Phone 7 has no support for multi-tasking third-party applications. Microsoft says that the reason for this is to preserve performance. This is something that the company is all too familiar with considering it was a huge issue in Windows Mobile 6.5. There are a number of issues with Windows Phone 7, headed by the lack of a copy and paste function. The popular social networking website, Twitter is not included in WP7. But despite of these, the Windows Phone 7 UI makes the iPhone and Google Android interfaces feel slightly dated.