Archive for the ‘Windows Mobile’ Category

In a 123-page Chinese Office 2010 PDF document I found residing on Microsoft’s servers, dated December 11, 2009, there’s a slide which essentially mirrors the exact same slide I previously unearthed in an English Office 2010 presentation which mentioned a Spring 2010 RTM date for Windows Mobile 7. Also included in the presentation are the exact same images that make reference to Office Mobile 7 and SharePoint for WM7.

All-in-all, the only significant thing to take away here is the date of the document which shows that — up to as recently as December 11, 2009 — Spring still appears to be the time frame Microsoft is shooting for to RTM Windows Mobile 7… at least, that’s what they’re presenting to various partners/conference participants.

-Stephen
http://www.msftkitchen.com/

In my near-desperate quest to dig up Windows Mobile 7 *anything* prior to its rumored upcoming announcement, I found a rather interesting UX mock-up by one Jeremiah Whitaker, freelance UX designer who has done some UX prototyping for the Windows Mobile 7 team as noted below (description snipped from his LinkedIn profile):

Now, while that job description is certainly enticing, it lends absolutely nothing if not to the imagination. Luckily, he links to his portfolio where something a bit more visual can be found. In his own words, here is how he prefaces the images to follow:

NDA dictates I keep this vague. For a leading cell platform I created UX flows of common controls and usages. After client review I created flash demos. Those demo’s were then reviewed and passed on to SectionSeven development to create interactive prototypes. This process allowed for very efficient UX development.

So, between what we see on his LinkedIn profile and that little description, we know which “leading cell platform” he’s referring to (Windows Mobile, just in case you haven’t been following along *cough, cough*). Unfortunately, the interactive demos he references are not to be found, but he provided a screen shot of the development of one of them along with a rather telling set of UX flows that screams multi-touch. Check ‘em out and take note of the 2 gestures I enclosed in the red box:

Windows Mobile 7 UX Flows: Common Controls and Usages

Windows Mobile 7 UX Demo Development Screen Shot

As noted, you can see a multi-touch gesture in images 2 and 3 within UX flow 02, so that only contributes more to the speculation that Windows Mobile 7 will contain support for multi-touch gestures (even if it doesn’t for whatever reason, this is confirmation that Microsoft has at least considered it to a very high degree). I think WM7 is shaping up to be a fairly awesome mobile OS in theory, but we’ll just have to wait and see how things play out when they finally announce it here soon. Personally, I’m holding out on upgrading my phone for the time being. If Windows Mobile 7 ends up reeking of as much awesomeness as is implied, I’ll be hard-pressed not to wait as long as a year to get it on the first wave of devices it comes standard on. What about you?

-Stephen
http://www.msftkitchen.com

This morning, I awoke to an email sent to me by an individual who travels on forums by the name of Interframe. Keeping a long story short, he pointed me to a post he made nearly 2 weeks ago regarding some Windows Mobile 7 discussion that took place in October of this year at the Windows Mobile DevCamp event. Equal parts astonishing are the lengths of time both the video and his post went unnoticed (especially considering the forum he posted it on was a Windows Mobile site). Even though he emailed me directly about it, I’d like to credit WMExperts as the source of this information since they’re the lucky candidates Interframe decided to grace with this information. Though there’s nothing here that makes you want to run out and slap your nearest mobile provider, the fact that questions were addressed in ANY capacity regarding Windows Mobile 7 back in October is worth this post.

In part, this is what Interframe had to say in his original post on the WMExperts forum:

Back in the beginning October of 2009, the Windows Mobile DevCamp event happened. The Windows Mobile DevCamp people decided to live stream on the web, on uStream. There were exactly 4 people from the Windows Mobile team to help out for the event (which wasn’t being hosted by MS) . Three of these team members were just there to anwser questions about developing on Windows Mobile. However, and this is where it gets interesting, there was one developer from the Windows Mobile 7 team from Microsoft. And he answered people’s question about it during the event’s Q&A session.

 

uStream webpage: http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/2268849

 

This stream is 2 hours long BUT luckly for you, I will point out where the imporant parts are. First skip to about 01:58 (one hour and fifty-eight minutes, edit: watch it from here to the end of the video, its worth it, trust me. Its about only a half hour) wait a while as your skipping through an hour , eventually, they’ll stop talking about WM7 (until they start talking about a “Zune Phone”, if you’d like to hear what they say, go ahead). After that, skip to about 02:34 (two hours and thirty four minutes) and again, be patient and wait for it to load, it will be worth it. You won’t regret what you’ll see and hear I PROMISE YOU THAT.

 

For those who are to lazy to watch, I will place the Q&A session conversation about WinMo 7 here (as much as i can):

 

First question (roughly translated): “So Steve Ballmer went out and recently said “Windows Mobile 6.1 wasn’t what we wanted it to be, neither was 6.5″, so with that in mind, when is 7 coming out?”

 

(The WM7 developer added to what the others from the WM team had to say about the question)

 

Windows Mobile 7 developer and his anwser (He is the guy in the blue shirt in the video): “I can give you a little inside information there Mike. I’m not gonna give you anymore than Loke gave you, but i can give you some context. My day job, is working on Windows Mobile 7. I own the calendar feature in fact. I had to try really really hard to convince my manager to let me come down here in San Fransisco and take a day off. All day long, working on 7, staying focused. Its on track. The reason its been delayed and you haven’t heard much about it is cause we had to go back to the drawing board with our strategy. Change things a little bit to be more competitive when we come out the door, so were not laughed at. We wanna make the same kind of impact the Zune HD made, if you look at Engadget and the blogosphere, people were very impressed with the Zune HD in many ways except for the lack of an app store. We wanna put out something that we’re all proud of, which is competitive on day one, we don’t wanna wait any longer.”

 

IF YOU LIKE WHAT YOUR HEARING, PLEASE, I BEG YOU, WATCH THE VIDEO AND SKIP TO THE PARTS I WAS TALKING ABOUT ABOVE! THIS STUFF IS 100% REAL!
There was a bit more so i hope you watch the Video!!!

 

Another question asked (roughly translated, at 02:19 two hours and nineteen min. in)
Q: “Are we gonna see better graphics support for Windows mobile? So one of the things i think made the iphone very succesful was how easy it made making rich graphics and UIs, are we going to see anything like that for Windows Mobile?”

 

A: “Yes! For sure!”
Windows Mobile 7 developer: “Yeah, it’s about time” (for Windows Mobile to enable rich graphics for developers)

 

Another question asked (roughly translated, 02:34, two hours and thirty-four min. in):
Q: “So one of the only ways to update your (Windows Mobile) phone is to either A: Wait for the carrier to release a patch or B: go to like XDA developers or something, are we gonna see that change for Windows Mobile so that it’ll update like the iphone?”

 

A: Windows Mobile 7 developer: “So (Windows Mobile) 7 isn’t as far away as you think it is”

 

(laughter)
“Yes, we are taking over-the-air updates very seriously”

 

(Guy who asked question: “So will it be in 6.5″)

 

(no one anwsers the question, laughter and long pause)

 

Windows Mobile 7 developer: “It’s coming, its not in 6.5″ (Here, he pretty much confirms over-the-air updates will appear in Windows Mobile 7, similar to the iphone and the Palm Pre)

In addition to all of that, Windows Mobile 6.5.3 was apparently inadvertently documented on MSDN recently, so the Windows Mobile news is beginning to liven up a bit. To add my own contribution to it all, I did some digging around a while back after running across the resume of one Kimi Porter. Therein lies the following:

In other words, that’s referencing a Windows Mobile 7 video. With that in mind, I decided to find out everything I could about it. Naturally, an email to Kimi came back a nil, so I looked up Ben Mor and RSA/Little Minx. Unfortunately, all I found was his little spot on the web on the RSA/Little Minx site. BOO! I was really looking forward to finding something I wasn’t supposed to. lol.

With that being a total bust, I thought back to a video I originally saw on Long Zheng’s site, but since neither of us could find it again on his site when I asked him about it (lol), I dug it up on YouTube. Well, low and behold, there was another video on YouTube I had never seen before. Since neither of these videos seem to showcase Windows Mobile 7 specifically, I don’t think either of them are the video references in Kimi’s resume. Either way, if you’ve never seen them before, check ‘em out:

Windows Mobile 7 in Live Mesh Ad:

SaaS Promo with Windows Mobile 7 Central Menu Experience UI (this was the one Long originally posted way back when):

So, that about wraps up this edition of Windows Mobile 7 stuff. I’ve got my eyes on a couple of other places where information is imminent (some nice placeholders are up but that’s it as of yet), so as soon as something juicy gets posted, I’ll be the first to bring it to you!

*Special thanks to Interframe for the email.

-Stephen
http://www.msftkitchen.com

Update 12/1/2009: I’m refreshing this article (originally posted on 9/3/2009) based on a number of comments I’ve seen people make in response to my latest WM7 post.

When I originally posted this article, it didn’t garner much interest, but it seems that with the latest Windows Mobile 7 news I’ve posted, a number of people are making comments like, “I didn’t realize Windows Mobile 7 had been developed for this long,” “Windows Mobile 7 appears to have been created from scratch,” and, “Microsoft had better get it right with Windows Mobile 7, because 6.5 is horrible.” The list goes on, but I couldn’t help and think to myself, “I wonder if these folks even realize just how long WM7 has been on the drawing board… and how much seems to be going into it at that.”

Well, back in September, while digging through LinkedIn profiles (which has almost become a hobby of mine, it seems, lol), I ran across a rather interesting mention of Windows Mobile 7 on the profile of one Vivien Park:

Product / Interaction Designer, Illustrator
Microsoft
2004 – 2005 (1 year)
Illustration for user research and internal communication materials communication applications for Windows Mobile 7 (blue sky exploration)

If you’re unfamiliar with the term “blue sky exploration,” the following is a great explanation:

In some creative circles, ideation is sometimes used along with the phrase “blue sky” exploration. Research and development efforts many times start with a blue-sky phase, meaning a phase of initial work without pressure for particular result. Blue sky efforts often allow all possible alternatives to be placed as possibilities for further examination. Ideation differs from “blue sky” efforts primarily in that “blue sky” thinking is a means of kick-off for a creativity process, while ideation is a process of managing towards final-form ideas.
Source: Adventure Studios

So, basically, if Windows Mobile 7 does indeed hit the market in 2010 as currently planned, that will give it a total planning and development time span of ~6 years. Naturally, things change and change again through the course of development (especially in Microsoft), so there’s no doubt in my mind that the OS we will see in 2010 will barely resemble the original WM7 plans that began back in 2004. And though it’s merely coincidental, is Windows Mobile 7′s 6-year course of development – along with Microsoft’s mention of how big of a bet it is for the company – bringing back memories of Longhorn for anyone else? In all seriousness, the main difference there is – unlike with Windows Longhorn – Microsoft has made no promises or official mention whatsoever in regards to Windows Mobile 7. Any build-up and expectation at this point is purely the result of speculation, rumor, and leaked information (slide decks, resumes, job profiles, etc.).

With that said, that doesn’t mean we haven’t gathered enough from it all to expect (or hope, at least) to be blown away! Something tells me Microsoft won’t disappoint with this one, though. What do you think?

-Stephen
http://www.msftkitchen.com

If you’re wondering why I keep resorting to LinkedIn profiles, it’s due to the fact that great information can be found… but there are two sides to that coin, as I recently addressed, so from this point forward, all of my posts based on LinkedIn profiles will come standard with the caveat that you can’t be too sure about the information posted within them (though a little bit of common sense goes a long way). Oh, and an honorable mention goes out to, “they help provide content when none is coming in from any of my alternate avenues.”

With that said, my latest scouring through pages and pages of Windows Mobile 7-related profiles has landed us some interesting results! We have references to an RSS application Motorola is developing for WM7, WM7 Silverlight prototypes and applications, Internet Explorer 7 for WM7, and even a glimpse into which web technology Microsoft is looking to launch Windows Mobile 7 on (SharePoint)! Now, since these profiles typically end up either deleted or revised more times than not, I’m just going to take a screen shot of the sections of interest from the profiles. Apologies for the tagging as well. I know it’s not very pleasant to look at but digging through all this data takes time and work. Not to mention, there are some results here that won’t come from a simple search alone. Onward!

Windows Mobile 7 Motorola RSS Reader Application and New UI Controls

 

 

Windows Mobile 7 Labs and Add-on Projects

 

 

Windows Mobile 7 Mirage UK BSP

 

 

Windows Mobile 7 Launch SharePoint Web Site

 

 

Motorola Windows Mobile 7-based Smart Phone

 

 

Qualcomm DirectShow-based Components for Windows Mobile 7

 

 

Touch Gesture Support in Windows Mobile 7

 

 

Windows Mobile 7 Silverlight Applications

 

 

Internet Explorer Mobile 7 for Windows Mobile 7

 

 

Qualcomm Video Encoding on Windows Mobile 7

 

 

Windows Mobile 7 Modular Client for MTP Protocol

 

 

Motorola USB Stack on Windows Mobile 7

 

 

Windows Mobile 7 Browser Platform Team

 

 

Windows Mobile 7 Game UX

 

 

Windows Mobile 7 Prototypes for Soft Keyboard Input Methods

 

 

And that does it for the latest round of Windows Mobile 7 on LinkedIn! The aforementioned 15 profiles were cherry-picked out of 80+ profiles. Most of the other 65+, I’ve either mentioned previously or they contained vague/generic references to Windows Mobile 7 which served no purpose for reporting. Stay tuned for the next batch!

Source: LinkedIn

-Stephen
http://www.msftkitchen.com

*Thanks to Tom Warren for the heads-up.

On Microsoft’s Office 2010 for Mobile website, they have posted an image of the mock-up UI I first discovered in a presentation back in October of this year. Though I’m sure the image may very well be pulled soon (I’m always amazed how this stuff just randomly happens for them), here is how it currently looks:

Although I initially discovered this image in a presentation residing on Microsoft’s download center, this marks the first time they have placed this UI on their site, front-and-center.

-Stephen
http://msftkitchen.com

It’s been a while since I’ve done the good ol’ scouring of LinkedIn to find Windows Mobile 7 content, so I figured I would snap to it today to see what I could find. Luckily, I found a couple of great things along with a few honorable mentions! First, we’ll start with what appears to be the name of a central element of Windows Mobile 7′s user interface. If I’m not too far out of bounds here, I would venture to say the UI we’re all familiar with in regards to WM7 is the one the following is speaking of:

Program Manager
Microsoft IDC, Hyderabad
(Information Technology and Services industry)
April 2008 — May 2008 (2 months)

Designed a completely New feature (Central Menu Experience) which is integrated in Windows Mobile 7. Responsible for getting Central Menu Experience features code-ready for CTP release well within specified time-frame. (Link)

“Central Menu Experience” does indeed sound like the perfect (if not downright obvious, but I’m not going to just assume) description for the UI we have seen in all the supposed Windows Mobile 7 screen shots, considering it all looks, well… central, I suppose. But as I’ve said before, I can’t imagine Microsoft will actually launch Windows Mobile 7 using said UI. Perhaps it has been used for the CTP UI for developers/vendors working with it (considering the mention of Central Menu Experience features being code-ready for the CTP). Obligatory image:

Catalyst For WM Seven:
Client : Microsoft Corporation (Since December 2007 to May 2009)
Team Size/Role : 7/Onsite Coordinator

Description: Catalyst for Seven is designed to work with Windows Mobile powered devices. This is the next version of Windows Live for Windows Mobile. The new Windows Mobile 7 devices will give the richest mobile connection to Catalyst. Catalyst consists of Messenger, Mail, Spaces and Photos. All these applications help user keeping in touch with friends, family, and co-workers. (Link)

That one is fairly self-explanatory. Any of you Windows Mobile fanatics out there have any additional information on, “Catalyst?”

Lead Led a PM team and responsible for the strategies define, design and implementation for Windows Mobile 7 camera and photo application. (Link)

And now, for the honorable mentions:

On assignment at Microsoft to edit documentation for Windows Mobile 7. (Link)

 

Primary engineer on the touch gesture support in Windows Mobile 7 and 6.5 and did the initial specification of the touch gesture API. (Link)

 

Responsible for Windows Mobile 7 Outlook development. (Link)

 

Led HW Board bring-up activity effort for Window Mobile 7 OS based Mobile product having QUALCOMM 72xx chipset. The board bring up activities includes implementing MAX controller based keypad driver, configuring I2C and GPIO driver and coordinating HW-SW architecture meetings. (Link)

Beyond everything posted above, there were additional mentions of Windows Mobile 7, but they were all generic/vague, so I didn’t worry about posting them. Likewise, I didn’t elaborate as much as I wanted to on all of the information above, but I wanted to post something since it’s been a while (things are busy here aside from the freelance journalism thing, so bear with me). With that in mind, I’ve got a lot more to post here in the near future, so stay tuned!

-Stephen
http://msftkitchen.com

After a long bout of silence regarding Windows Mobile 7, I’ve finally stumbled across some recent information (where, “recent” = August 2009). Back in May of this year, I posted a slide which contained a Windows Mobile 7 device release date of April 2010, which – at the time – jived well with what Mary Jo Foley had previously reported. According to an Office 2010 presentation recently given to partners, there is a slide maintaining detailing (see update below) a Windows Mobile 7 Spring 2010 RTM time frame.

Also included in the slide designated for, “Office Mobile 2010″ are a couple of, “Office Mobile 7” UI prototype images. They greatly resemble the long-ago leaked Windows Mobile 7 UI prototypes to a, ‘T’. I can’t imagine that Microsoft has chosen to stick with that UI up to this point, so I’m going to take a wild guess that those images are equally as old as aforementioned leaked images they so closely resemble. Not to mention, with Mobile UI concepts like these floating around, I have high hopes for a stunning Windows Mobile 7 UI the likes of which we have yet to see.

With that said, here is a snap-shot of the Office Mobile 2010 slide, along with an image I threw together that includes a better look at the Office Mobile 7 images in the slide:

 

Office Mobile 7

 

If you will notice, those two mock-ups are a bit sloppy. In the left image, you can see the Excel icon sitting on top of the task bar. In the right image, the text in the task bar runs under the center button and outside of the inner gradient border. Despite those, “flaws” (they are mock-ups, after all), this is the first reference to, “Office Mobile 7″ I’ve yet to see. Likewise, this is the first time I’m aware of Microsoft actually showing images of this mock-up UI in a fairly public format. As such, I’ll certainly keep my nose to the grindstone and bring you any further information I can get a hold of!

UPDATE: Mary Jo Foley commented below and provided some valid insight:

The original roadmap showed phones preloaded with WM7 being available in April 2010. So if RTM of WM 7 is spring 2010, that’s about 6 months later than it was supposed to be. The big question is: If they RTM in April 2010 or so, how much of a lag will there be till the OS gets on phones? If MS can take this lag out, as they claim they plan to do, that will help them get to market a little faster.

-Stephen
http://msftkitchen.com

With Microsoft gearing up for Windows Mobile 6.5 to officially hit the market, training material for partners and advertisement templates, banners, etc. are being made available. Amongst all this content, there is one bit of material in particular from June 2009 that caught my eye: Windows Phone Cobrand Guidelines

Yes, right on Microsoft’s servers, there is a set of guidelines which teaches partners how to make the sell and do it by Microsoft’s book. In a section labeled, “Communicating to Customers,” there’s a subdivision labeled, “use only when necessary.” The content in that section is a breakdown of how partners should get down to brass tacks if need be with the customer. When discussing how they should go about discerning Windows Mobile versions, they give a nod to Windows Mobile 7 as seen here:

For those of you who aren’t familiar, Contoso is a fictitious company name used by Microsoft to represent anything from non-existent products to examples for how to use products already on the market. As such, the Contoso Alpha and Contoso Zeta phones mentioned are purely fictitious. Again, though it isn’t much, this is just another non-public mention of Windows Mobile 7 by Microsoft. I suppose the next step will actually be a build in between 6.5 and 7, though. As always, I’ll be sure to post whatever I can dig up!

Source: Windows Phone Cobrand Guidelines on Microsoft’s Website

-Stephen
http://msftkitchen.com

This article has recently been updated to reflect recent information. It can be found here: Windows Mobile 7: 6 Years in the Making (Refresh)

-Stephen
http://www.msftkitchen.com