Windows Phone 7 Is a Mobile Operating System Developed by Microsoft, and Is the Successor to Its Windows Mobile Platform
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Win Phone 7 Windows Phone 7 is a mobile operating system developed by Microsoft, and is the successor to its Windows Mobile platform. Unlike its predecessor, it is primarily aimed at the consumer market rather than the enterprise market. Timeline of Win Phone 7 related events: Windows Phone would become the primary smartphone operating system for Nokia. 10 devices operating Windows Phone 7, made by HTC, Dell, Samsung, and LG. For programmers, Windows Phone 7 is also exciting, for it supports two popular and modern programming platforms: Silverlight and XNA. Silverlight—a spinoff of the client-based Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF)— has already given Web programmers unprecedented power to develop sophisticated user interfaces with a mix of traditional controls, high-quality text, vector graphics, media, animation, and data binding that run on multiple platforms and browsers. Windows Phone 7 extends Silverlight to mobile devices. XNA—the three letters stand for something like “XNA is Not an Acronym”—is Microsoft’s game platform supporting both 2D sprite-based and 3D graphics with a traditional game-loop architecture. Although XNA is mostly associated with writing games for the Xbox 360 console, developers can also use XNA to target the PC itself, as well as Microsoft’s classy audio player, the Zune HD. The Silverlight and XNA platforms for Windows Phone 7 share some libraries, and you can use some XNA libraries in a Silverlight program and vice versa. But you can’t create a program that mixes visuals from both platforms. Programs you write for the Windows Phone 7 will be sold and deployed through the Windows Phone Marketplace, which provides registration services and certifies that programs meet minimum standards of reliability, efficiency, and good behavior. Hardware Chassis(Specifications) The front of the phone consists of a multi-touch display and three hardware buttons generally positioned in a row below the display. From left to right, these buttons are called Back, Start, and Search: Like many recent phones and the Zune HD, the Windows Phone 7 displays will likely use OLED (“organic light emitting diode”) technology, although this isn’t a hardware requirement. OLED’s are different from flat displays of the past in that power consumption is proportional to the light emitted from the display. For example, an OLED display consumes less than half the power of an LCD display of the same size, but only when the screen is mostly black. Because battery life is extremely important on mobile devices, this characteristic of OLED displays implies an aesthetic of mostly black backgrounds with sparse graphics and light-stroked fonts. Regardless, Windows Phone 7 users can choose between two major color themes: light text on a dark background, or dark text on a light background. Most user input to a Windows Phone 7 program will come through multi-touch. The screens incorporate capacitance-touch technology, which means that they respond to a human fingertip but not to a stylus or other forms of pressure. Windows Phone 7 screens are required to respond to at least four simultaneous touch-points. A hardware keyboard is optional. Sensors and Services A Windows Phone 7 device is required to contain several other hardware features— sometimes called sensors—and provide some software services, perhaps through the assistance of hardware. These are the ones that affect developers the most: • Wi-Fi The phone has Wi-Fi for Internet access to complement 3G data access through the cell provider. Software on the phone includes a version of Internet Explorer. 0 Camera The phone has at least a 5-megapixel camera with flash. Programs can invoke the camera program for their own input, or register themselves as a Photos Extra Application and appear on a menu to obtain access to photographed images, perhaps for some image processing. • Accelerometer An accelerometer detects acceleration, which in physics is a change in velocity. When the camera is still, the accelerometer responds to gravity. Programs can obtain a three-dimensional vector that indicates how the camera is oriented with respect to the earth. The accelerometer can also detect sharp movements of the phone. • Location If the user so desires, the phone can use multiple strategies for determining where it is geographically located. The phone supplements a hardware GPS device with information from the Web or cell phone towers. If the phone is moving, course and speed might also be available. Vibration The phone can be vibrated through program control. • FM Radio An FM Radio is available and accessible through program control. • Push Notifications Some Web services would normally require the phone to frequently poll the service to obtain updated information. This can drain battery life. To help out, a push notification service has been developed that will allow any required polling to occur outside the phone and for the phone to receive notifications only when data has been updated. Features of Windows Phone 7 1. It’ll be available for all current Windows Phones Perhaps the best news of all. Microsoft isn’t cutting off any older Windows Phones, meaning the likes of the HTC Mozart and Samsung Omnia 7 will be getting the update. This should give it good ammunition to fling at Apple and Google, both of whom have copped flack for not upgrading legacy devices. 2. Bing search has been given an overhaul This is a seriously impressive update, with visual, audio and voice search. Visual search lets you snap pics of products and barcodes, before delivering local pricing and availability. A new Local Scout feature will track your location and give you results fine tuned to where you are. Local Scout — Bing will aggregate activities and events that are going on around your current location, and allow you to rate each activity. 3. Twitter and LinkedIn are coming One of the big misses with Windows Phone 7’s contacts app was the lack of Twitter integration. Happily, this is being added, along with LinkedIn, so you’ll be able to see the latest updates from contacts on these social networks in one place. Social networks — Mango will add Twitter and LinkedIn feeds to contact cards and includes built-in Facebook check-ins, along with integrated face detection to easily tag pics of your pals before you upload to Facebook or the web. 4. New partners are on board for 7.1 Nokia is obviously the big new addition to the Windows Phone family. But Microsoft has confirmed that Acer, ZTE and Fujtisu are also joining the party. That means it should be able to expand hugely in Asia, as well as offer more choice on top of phones from the likes of HTC, LG and Samsung. 5. Supports IE9 6. Conversation threads integrate IM, text and Facebook chats Cross platform integration has been one of Windows Phone’s strong points. Mango adds a new conversations feature so you can natter with any given friend no matter what service they’re using. That means if they stop using text and switch to IM, you’ll still be able to see your previous conversation. Threads — Switch between your active texts, Facebook chats, or instant messages in one threaded space so you can keep the conversation going no matter where it takes place. 7. Multitasking is here at last This has been known for months, but one of Windows Phone 7’s biggest misses is finally on its way. Multitasking should hopefully mean more devs are willing to bring their apps to WP 7.1. App Shortcuts — Kind of like multitasking, App Shortcuts are a handy feature in Mango. For example, if you're reading about a movie while surfing the web, Mango will create a quick shortcut to your IMDB app so you can check out the film's details 8. Live Tiles have been bolstered with more live app info Arguably the best feature of WP7 was its Live Tiles’ ability to show real time information without having to dive into apps. The National Rail app was a great example. Microsoft says it’s bolstering this, with the chance to get more essential news delivered to the homescreen. 9. Contact group tiles promised With Mango, you’ll be able to pull together groups of contacts, pin them to the homescreen and then email, SMS or call them at the press of a button. This will help push WP 7.1 is a decent workplace solution, as well as a winning consumer OS. 10. Devs can get working on it straight away Devs have been told they can get going on updating their current apps and working on new ones straight away. Microsoft has already released the software development kit, so app fanatics can bring new Live Tile layers and improved features to their add-ons from the get go. 11. Hands-free — When you're driving, Mango can announce an incoming call or text message, and will allow you to respond to either without ever picking up your handset. Safe driving FTW! Structure of the OS Windows Phone 7 is the successor to Microsoft's line of Windows Mobile phone operating systems. The 32-bit operating systems have a dual- layer architecture with the kernal layer and user layer. Phone OS Windows 7 has two layers of software components that run on the hardware layer, the kernel space and user space. The user space for the shell and the application platform. Run in kernel space including the kernel itself, the file system, and graphics rendering and Phone Update, the system that updates for Windows 7 Phone added to the system. The kernel, which is based on Windows Embedded CE 6.0, could theoretically 32,000 processes running simultaneously and each process can get 1GB of virtual memory allocated.