Windows Phone 7

Windows Phone is an operating system for mobile phones from the software manufacturer Microsoft and the continuation of the Windows Mobile software, which has been renamed Windows Phone Classic as part of the launch of Windows Phone 7. The associated online shop for applications and games is the Windows Phone Store.

Devices running Windows Phone 7 are available in Germany and Austria since 21 October 2010. The development of Windows Phone was completed in early September 2010.

Windows Phone is designed to operate with his fingers and multi-touch, while Windows Mobile was inspired by the surface of the desktop versions of Windows, and sat down on the operation with the help of input pins.

Conceptually, the user interface of Windows Phone is based on the surface of the Zune HD.

ZTE has to pay for a Windows Phone 7 license 18 to 24 euros per unit.

Revision history

  • First version
  • Improvements in the update process
  • Preparatory update for " NoDo "
  • Copy & Paste
  • Speed improvements
  • Improved search in the Market Place
  • Security Update ( Fix for fraudulent third-party digital certificates )
  • Preliminary update to the "Mango" update

Marketing as "Windows Mobile 7.5 "

  • Multitasking for third-party applications
  • Task Switcher
  • In the list of installed applications can jump directly to a first letter ( from 45 installed apps ), or searched for
  • Individual ringtones
  • Saving the Camera Settings
  • More Live Tiles per app
  • Configurable background services
  • Support hidden WLANs
  • Additional languages ​​for Windows Phone
  • When playing music track information on the lock screen will be displayed
  • Smart DJ mix ( similar to iTunes Genius )
  • The shutter sound of the camera can be turned off
  • Integrated Facebook integration for uploading videos
  • Support a front camera for video calling on Skype
  • Tethering (initially only for devices from the factory have the Mango update, although this can be disabled from the supplier )
  • Visual Voice Mail
  • Hardware- accelerated graphics
  • Access to the Facebook calendar
  • Support for multiple Windows Live Calendar (eg shared calendars of colleagues and friends )
  • Internet Explorer 9 mobile with HTML5
  • Downloads of podcasts over- the-air
  • Various improved displays, for example in the Pictures hub
  • Support for Office 365
  • Integration of SkyDrive (25 GB of storage in the cloud)
  • All communications with a contact ( e- mail, Facebook, MSN, chat) are presented centrally and bundled
  • E -mail folders and messages gradients can be pinned to the start screen
  • Twitter and LinkedIn integration in the People Hub
  • SMS dictation
  • Integrated Windows Live Messenger and Facebook contacts in and / or Messaging Hub
  • Summary of contact groups, group messages
  • Smileys
  • Notifications and own the latest news from Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn can be displayed / updated and the own status be specified
  • Check-in feature for Facebook
  • Improved navigation in the Windows Phone Marketplace
  • New Design for the Marketplace
  • Web Market Place
  • Beta and private applications are made possible
  • Bing search is expanded to include a video and image search
  • Bing Audio and Bing Vision ( Sprach-/Musikerkennung or Bild-/Barcodeerkennung )
  • Bingsuche can interact with apps
  • Bing Voice Search
  • Local search results
  • Update / redesign of the Games Hub
  • Automatic synchronization of games via Xbox LIVE
  • Turn-by- turn navigation
  • Building plans ( "indoor navigation " )
  • Microsoft Lync Mobile App
  • Private and Beta Marketplace
  • E- mail search on the Exchange server, enhanced security and rights management
  • TCP / IP Sockets
  • SQL CE database
  • Live Agents
  • Bugfix in Exchange Server communication related to Microsoft Exchange Server 2003
  • Bugfix in the representation of voice mail messages
  • Fixes a bug where the on-screen keyboard has been hidden during the writing
  • Fixes a bug when syncing with Gmail
  • Information about Wi-Fi access points and cell towers positions will only be sent if the user has allowed this
  • Removes fraudulent digital certificates from DigiCert Sdn Bhd
  • Bugfix in Exchange Server communication related to Microsoft Exchange Server 2003
  • Bugfix in the representation of voice mail messages
  • Preliminary update to the "Tango" update

Marketing as "Windows Phone 7.5 Refresh"

  • Reduced hardware requirements.
  • At SMS and MMS more photos, videos, voice memos and ringtones can now be attached.
  • Phone contacts can now be exported to the SIM card and when you import SIM card contacts single contacts can be selected.
  • Letter Jumplist the app list now disappears when the number of installed applications falls below 45.
  • Further quality improvements.
  • Fixes an issue with application purchases in some regions.
  • Changes the default times for the e -mail synchronization.
  • Support for devices without physical camera button.
  • Further quality improvements.

Marketing as " Windows Phone 7.8"

  • Resizable small, medium and large live tiles on the home page.
  • The number of available accent colors has been expanded to 20.
  • Extends the lock screen functions to provide additional protection against accidental contact and the Bing image of the day as background.
  • Extends Support for Windows Phone Marketplace and Xbox to new countries / regions.
  • Improves Chinese characters and the representation of Arabic and other languages.
  • Includes many other quality improvements for Windows Phone.
  • Various bug fixes
  • Fixed a problem with the " Live Tiles "

Note: A complete list of changes can be found in the official Windows Phone update history.

Microsoft plans to mainstream support phase for Windows Phone maintain 7.8 to 9 September 2014 an Extended Support is not planned.

"Hubs " and " Live Tiles "

Microsoft has the focus contacts, office, photos, social networks, music, video and games in "hubs" divided. These hubs are the basis for other functions which are integrated directly into the operating system and can be integrated on the home screen called " Live Tiles " using drag and drop as an interactive button. His performance changes if there is a software update or a status change in the application. So come under the Hub " contacts " all contacts from Facebook, Outlook, Gmail and Twitter, for example, summarize and status changes directly show on the home screen. Also, the user can interact with the device 's contacts.

Xbox Live and Games

The Hub " Games " represents a connection to Xbox Live dar. Thus, it is possible to relate about the Marketplace multimedia products for the device. These games can be fully integrated into the Xbox Live services. For example, two players (one on the Xbox 360 and one on a Windows Phone device ) play against each other. In addition, games with Visual Studio allows you to create as a project across platforms for the PC, Windows Phone device and Xbox. Thus, a user can start a game on the PC, play on the mobile phone on and finish on the Xbox.

Hardware Requirements

Phones that use Windows Phone 7 must meet certain conditions laid down by Microsoft requirements. Thus, the unit must be at least 512 MB ​​of RAM and 8 GB of flash memory have. Furthermore, a compass, a GPS receiver and an accelerometer and position sensor must be installed. Another requirement is a capacitive multi-touch screen. In addition, a device must have at least a 5 - megapixel camera and a cellular and WLAN interface. For mobile phones with Windows Phone 7, only three housing forms may be used, touch screen mobile phones, touch screen mobile phones with fold-out QWERTY keyboards and the classic bar form. On the housing itself must be subject to the touchscreen three buttons for the " Back ", " search " and find "Home Screen".

Furthermore, the integrated processor must have a minimum clock speed of one gigahertz and a discrete graphics processor to be installed with DirectX 9 support. In this configuration, all Windows Phone 7 devices should be HD -capable. Microsoft also prohibits manufacturers to customize the interface of Windows Phone 7 as it did in Windows Phone Classic by means of its own HTC Sense interface, for example HTC.

With the HTC Arrive also CDMA2000 mobile networks are supported in the USA.

Baptized with the " Tango" update to "Windows Phone 7.5 Refresh" were the minimum hardware requirements lowered in order to bring better devices on the market. The minimum requirements here are a processor with 800 MHz and 256 MB RAM. Phones with such a stripped down hardware but also bring loss of function in the operating system itself. Features such as background tasks, Bing Local Scout and automatic upload of photos to OneDrive are not available here. In addition, due to the lower memory about 5 % of the applications in the Market Place does not work, including Skype and Angry Birds. The first representative of this weaker -equipped Windows Phones, the Nokia Lumia 610

Devices with Windows Phone 7.X and market share

On 11 October 2010, the first Windows Phone devices were presented. Two months after the launch, according to Microsoft a total of around 1.5 million mobile devices running Windows Phone 7 have been shipped to dealers, but Microsoft did not specify how many units were actually sold to end customers.

In the first quarter of 2011, about 2.5 million devices worldwide have been put on the market with WP7 and sold 1.6 million units to end users. The Windows market share in the smartphone market (along with Windows Mobile, from the first quarter of 2011 around 2 million units have been sold) decreased compared to the first quarter of 2010 from 6.8% to 3.6%. In the second quarter of 2011, Microsoft 's market share was estimated by Gartner about 1.6 % ( after 4.9 % in the second quarter of 2010 ), and decreased in the third quarter of 2011 to 1.5%.

With the announced on 11 February 2011 alliance between Microsoft and Nokia, Windows Phone; future be the preferred operating system on Nokia smartphones. On 26 October 2011, the Nokia World 2011 were the first two devices with the operating system Windows Phone 7.5 presented in the frame. Since 15 November 2011, is the first Nokia device running Windows Phone 7.5 operating system - the Nokia Lumia 800 - available in Germany and Austria in the trade. To use Windows Phone Microsoft pays Nokia, in the 4th quarter of 2011, this support payments amounted to 250 million euros.

Software-Entwicklung/Anwendungskompatibilität

Software for Windows Phone 7 is developed with C # and Visual Basic. NET technologies in Silverlight and XNA. Thus, the available for Windows Mobile 7 applications no longer work on Windows Phone. Among other things, Firefox Mobile will not be released for Windows Phone 7. For the development of the Windows Phone system, Microsoft provides the free packet "Windows Phone Developer Tools " is available. It includes Visual Studio 2010 Express for Windows Phone, an emulator, the Silverlight and XNA resources and Expression Blend to design the surfaces. The developer tools are compatible with Visual Studio 2010 and is only available for Windows Vista and Windows 7.

Multitasking has been restricted on the grounds that background processes can reduce the battery life greatly. Native applications such as phone, music player or web browser can remain open in the background. Third-party apps, however, will not run in the background. However, when ending the status is stored ( tombstoning ), so that a jump is made to the recall of the point at which the application has been abandoned. The concept is similar to the implementation of " multitasking " in iOS. Since Windows Phone 7.5, there are interfaces for background tasks like audio playback or data traffic. The user can specify for each application whether background tasks are allowed to optimize energy consumption.

Criticism

Windows Phone 7 has harvested in the trade press and by user some criticism, including due to the fact that it is a similar closed system like Apple's iOS and various Windows Phone Classic, formerly known as Windows Mobile, familiar functions are missing. For example, you could copy in Windows Mobile programs on a memory card, this plug in the phone and tap the exe file in the supplied file explorer to start.

To make full use of the mobile phone functions, in particular the Market Place, a Windows Live ID is required. Once this is established, Windows Phone 7 sync without warning the entire mobile phone book and calendar entries with the live account on the web. The synchronization can be subsequently made ​​available through the account management to "manual" and thus deactivated.

Another point of criticism is that with Windows Phone 7 is no direct synchronization with Outlook via local connections (WLAN, USB, Bluetooth) can be performed. The internal memory of a smartphone is not detected by other devices as mass storage (in Windows can this be changed by a registry database interaction). It is not possible expansion through memory cards. However, since it itself is only about microSDHC cards in the internal memory, can this replace only void the warranty, because the housing of the device must be opened. In addition, many standard Bluetooth profiles of Windows Phone 7 is not supported, a receiving files via Bluetooth is not possible.

Also, the original, based on the Internet Explorer 7 browser of Windows Phone 7 has been criticized because it reaches only 5 % of the points in the Acid3 benchmark. After updating to Windows Phone 7.5 (Mango ) which is now based on the Internet Explorer 9 browser reaches 100 % of the points in Acid3 browser test.

There are problems in addition to the mobile office suite. For example, more complex, created on the desktop Excel sheet on Windows Mobile 6.1 can be easily run, with Windows Phone 7 is a partially use only under restrictions. This lack of compatibility ensured criticism. Nor is it possible to add an Office document directly from the Windows Phone native email program.

The end of January 2013 released update to version 7.8 led to complaints. The order in which the Home " Live Tiles ", who asked provide the user with information constantly looking for new information on the Internet and could not update. This meant that the battery life of smartphones shortened tremendously. After the network operator Vodafone stopped the delivery of updates for its branded devices, and Microsoft responded to the complaints and stopped the distribution of updates completely for all devices. The error was corrected on 15 March 2013, a new update.

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