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Quick picks
Wishmaster89 submitted his thoughts on what he thinks Windows Mobile 7 (WM7) is/or is going to be over at WMPoweruser. Here I will try to comment and give my opinion and thoughts regarding this matter.
1) for now it is based on .NET CF 3.7 but in the end should run .NET CF 4Giving WM7’s current time frame I doubt that it will support .NET CF 4 at release
2) It will support Windows Presentation Foundation 3) the whole OS should be rendered by a compositing window manager fully supporting openGL ES, probably 2.0I can tell you that Microsoft is betting heavyly on Silverlight for mobile. SL 3 support is going to be the key here (there’s no need to support WPF given that SL 3 does nearly everything WPF does). What is known is that WM7’s UI is Vector based to be totally resolution independent. This will enable developers to develop once for all phones (using MS’s latest release of Expression tools). As seen here Microsoft designers have been working on Silverlight for WM7. This will also enable Microsoft to push even harder the Widgets development (introduced in 6.5) now that Silverlight support out-of-the-browser applications.
4) openGL ES will be the main API used by OSIt’s true that Microsoft dropped Direct3D support from Windows Mobile 7 (and that’s a good thing giving how bad it was). But never underestimated MS’s ability to turn something that’s supposed to be simple (only supporting one GFX API) into a mess (trying to re-introduce Direct3D later on). As I posted here MS is looking for a lead developer to build a “general-purpose graphics platform for mobile phones”
5) it will have integrated Zune Player similar to the one from Zune HDIt should in the futur.
6) it will have full support for multi touchThat’s more than 100% sure
. Even 6.5 may have multi-touch support with HTC’s upcoming capacitive WinMo phones.
7) MyPhone will be improved and will tie all live services into one allowing remote management of device and many moreCloud services are supposed to be one of Windows Mobile’s key feature in the future. Myphone will first have a boost in storage space (from the current 200Mb to 5GB) and the 2.0 version is supposed to run on Live Mesh. Now givin’ that Live Mesh is still a bit far from ready for prime time (and Robie Bach saying @ the Analyst Financial Day that features are not going to come to WM all at once but evolve in time), I’m not sure if WM7 will ship with the live mesh enabled Myphone and other cloud services (like the augmented reality enabled Live Search)
1) Windows CE 7 as the coreGivin’ the current time frame, I wouldn’t be surprised if it supports CE 7..
2) Consistent UI for the whole OS and the 3rd party applicationsSilverlight should help here, but like on WM 6.X nothing is going to stop devs or OEMs to develope UI’s etc using OGL (like TouchFlo 3D)
3) Full SDK that would allow developers to easily write apps for every type of deviceMicrosoft’s Expression tools is going to rock for devs
6) Full Flash GPU acceleration for smooth web browsingDon’t worry Wish..you know that SnapDragon (and Tegra!) is here to save us
and we shall see how is goes on the ZuneHD
Here are the Windows Mobile 7 Chassis 1 specifications:
WM7 Chassis 1 Specification Core requirements: Processor: ARM v6+, L2 Cache, VFP, Open GL ES 2.0 graphics HW (QCOM 8k, Nvidia “Tegra” AP15/16* and TI 3430 all meet spec) Memory: 256MB+ DRAM, 1G+ Flash (at least 512MB fast flash – 5MB/s unbuffered read @4K block size) Display: WVGA (800×480) or FWVGA (854×480) 3.5” or greater diagonal Touch: Multi-touch required Battery: Sufficient to meet Days of Use LTK requirements. Controls: Start, Back, Send and End are required (soft controls allowed as long as they are always present). Peripherals: Camera: 3MP+, flash optional, 2nd camera optional (VGA resolution sufficient) GPS: aGPS required Sensors required: Light Sensor, Compass (3 axis, 5 degrees, 100 Hz sample rate), Accelerometer (3 axis, 2mg resolution, 100 Hz sample rate) USB: High speed required, 20 MB/s transfer rate. BlueTooth: BT2.1 required, must run MSFT BT stack, CSR BlueCore6 or later recommended. Wi-Fi: 802.11B/G required, must run MSFT Native Wi-Fi stack, Atheros 6002 or Broadcomm 4325 recommended. Connectors: Micro USB and 3.5mm Audio required. Options: FM tuner: If tuner HW is present it will be detected and supported by the Media application. Haptics SD Card (Micro SD recommended) DPAD, qwerty or 12/20 key keyboards all optionalThat is all..for now Anybody wants to comment? feel free to do it.
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