Microsoft's Joe Belfiore did a really
thorough job yesterday of walking us through the
key hubs on the shiny new
Windows Phone 7 OS, but one area that was conspicuously missed out in the overview was
the Marketplace. Well, let us fill in that gap of knowledge right quick with the above image of the interface. As you can see, the first thing visible when you enter the hub is a full-screen feature for individual games or applications -- this could either work as with the music hub, wherein you see the last bit of content you accessed or, less awesomely, could function as a promotional (read: advertising) spot before you get into the market proper. The Marketplace is then fragmented into its constituent elements, with apps, games, music and podcasts leading you into their respective subsections. We've grabbed an image of how the Applications section will look as well, which you can see for yourself after the break.
posted February 16th 2010 3:25AM
where's the section for "this is the most awesomeness phone evar"
It's gorgeous isn't it? New, fresh & exciting!
@Pedobear Microsoft is making me Macrohard.
@Pedobear
Have to see it my hand before calling best thing 'evar' but so far it looks tempting.
@Pedobear - I have to agree. Watching the 20+ minute long video demo of this makes me want this phone (saw video on the "other" tech site). So glad I waited and opted not to get the N1 or Droid. I will suffer with my archaic candy bar phone for a bit longer.
@dansus
i agree, but so far o man... bye bye blackberry hellooo windows mobile 7
@Pedobear
Yeah it does look pretty epic, Losing backwards compat it a pain as I have lot's of expensive paid apps TomTom etc. But if this is really as good as it looks i'll happily replace them. Please MS remote music streaming from Home Server... please!
@Mack Stone
"Nevermind" Indeed...
To the more astute, it's obvious that going from previous smartphones to the Win-Phone 7S is like taking the leap from 'Romper Room' style icon grids to exploring the entire adult world through seamless windows of information.
With any luck, you'll be able to understand how 'grown ups' get things done soon enough.
@Mack Stone
In fact, there WILL be flash. Good job ignoring that.
Multitasking is unknown.
And we have no idea how the app store works at this point.
Good job. 0/3
@Mack Stone
One can only hope that you realize that those 'Squares and Rectangles' display constant status updates, and merely serve as the (Win-Phone 7s) device's [HOME SCREEN], as opposed to some rigid, static, grid-laden app/widget launcher parading as an actual operating system.
I hope that clears up the matter for you.
@Mack Stone
The TEXT in this GUI (much as it appears on the ZUNE HD) is made larger so as to represent information that is without boundaries i.e. endlessly expansive data/media/possibilities.
The text runs off on the screen in a manner that incites/invites the users to embark upon further exploration rather than feel confined/limited to whatever is currently displayed on the screen.
Maybe you're having difficulty grasping the philosophy behind this GUI design because you, yourself lack vision... Who Knows?
@Mike10010100
One can make an assumption (but not knowing 100% for certain) that if the software is like the Zune's, then you can load anything app you want on it, like you can load any non-Zune Marketplace music on the player now.
But I dont think this stone guy even cares, because he keeps posting the same stuff over and over again, even though people have been giving him answers.
At this point he is just spamming.
@DaHarder
I think you're trying a little too hard to explain away Microsoft's bad design. Stone is right, this design might look cool now, but when you see it on an actual phone, it will be easy to get confused.
And the overall design of reminds of me of a default template in Apple's Pages app.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/pacman3000/4361342354/sizes/l/
@Jimbob What the fuck so amazing in this OS?? Nice transitions??
@Sean Parker
Oh...
So what exactly is your point?
You dont like the design personally, so you extrapolate that as it being bad as an indesputable fact?
And is it a crime that people like the fresh look of the OS, transitions and all? Hey, it may seem shallow to people using an iPhone or Android (that was sarcasm) but people that have used WM have demanded a new, fresh direction, and that's what MS delivered. Yesterday was the UI, March will be the machine underneath.
No one guaranteed that you personally would fall in love with 10000% of it. Sorry.
@LAY
My point is, Microsoft cannot just play catch-up. They have to overtake the rest of the market with something completely out of left field. They have to come up with their own ideas. They have to change the rules on Apple if they want to outdo them. And this, as nice as it is, isn't it.
Apple brought Multi-touch, a full HTML browser, an Acclerometer, Proximity Sensor, Visual Voicemail, a Widescreen Video iPod and Google Maps, stuff that had never been seen on a phone.
Microsoft brings something you could recreate using a default template in Pages?
We saw this same reaction from people when the Zune came out at the end of 2006. "Wow, the iPod has finally met its match! Apple is soooo dead."
And then, 2 months later, the iPhone is unveiled and changes the game completely. Somewhere in the inner sanctum of Apple's campus, iPhone OS 4.0 is being tested and a few prototypes of the next iPhone hardware is being passed around. It would have helped Microsoft if these phones were being released next month rather than 9 months from now.
9 months will be too late.
@Sean Parker
It reminds you of a template in Apple Pages? Really?
Do you know who was Piet Mondrian?
Do you know what is the Swiss International Style?
@Mack Stone
I understand you aren't liking it, but you clearly don't see how the ui is meant to work. The tiles aren't static and the large cut off words are like those moving in the zune ui- which is very nice to those of us who use it.
Stop posting your hyperbole and made up facts and give a little credit to those that actually design an os as opposed to know nothing hyper critics lacking basis facts and hands on analysis.
@Sean Parker
"My point is, Microsoft cannot just play catch-up. They have to overtake the rest of the market with something completely out of left field. "
Again, another batch of cliches in the form of a "point".
Playing catchup to what? What is this magical feature that exist in the OS of Apple or Android or RIM that WM in it's current state couldnt do?
Each release of Android doesn't do more than fix a problem with the last.
Each release of the iPhone OS changes nothing about the UI, and adds some gimmick that was purposely left out of the last version.
"They have to come up with their own ideas. They have to change the rules on Apple if they want to outdo them. And this, as nice as it is, isn't it."
CAN YOU PLEASE STOP SPEAKING IN CLICHES AND START COMING UP WITH AN ORIGINAL POINT!?
"Apple brought Multi-touch, a full HTML browser, an Acclerometer, Proximity Sensor, Visual Voicemail, a Widescreen Video iPod and Google Maps, stuff that had never been seen on a phone."
Ok, so in your twisted little world, a device that puts their own spin on these things, and improves on them are completely dimissed...because they arent not 1000% brand new?
"Oh, I dont want THAT phone because the accelerometer is like the one in the iPhone from 2007. CANT THEY COME UP WITH SOMETHING NEW!"
That rationale is such a canard.
"Microsoft brings something you could recreate using a default template in Pages?"
I have no idea what you fascination with "Pages" is, but if pages was a phone UI, which it is not, then you would have a point. Right now you are referencing an obscure Apple program as a reasoning to say that the UI of WP7 is not original.
"We saw this same reaction from people when the Zune came out at the end of 2006. "Wow, the iPod has finally met its match! Apple is soooo dead.""
Um...ok Nice reach.
"And then, 2 months later, the iPhone is unveiled and changes the game completely. "
The Zune is an MP3 player
The iPhone....is a phone
I suppose you likely didnt realize that.
"Somewhere in the inner sanctum of Apple's campus, iPhone OS 4.0 is being tested and a few prototypes of the next iPhone hardware is being passed around. It would have helped Microsoft if these phones were being released next month rather than 9 months from now.
9 months will be too late."
So? You suffer from the same RDF bravado that you idiots had before the iPad dropped like a lead balloon. You have ZERO idea what this vaulted iPhone 4.0 even is, but you just, like the total cliche you are showing yourself to be, ASSUME, that it's just gonna rock everyone's socks off.
Will the grid-o-icons glow when you move them around in the next release?
And 9 months will be too late for what exactly?
Wow, fanboy frenzy over this OS is off the charts. I don't get it. Are you guys really that hypnotized by tile flip animations? Methinks it will get really old after a couple of days with the phone. Seems like a lot of style and not a whole lot of substance to me.
*Prepares for downranking by the MS fanboy brigade.*
@Sean Parker
I fail completely to see how "Apple brought..." all those features that have, for a fact, been on existing phones prior to the iPhone. Simply because 30 million people suddenly jumped on the smartphone wagon with all the doodads it brings does not equate to those doodads being new. The several hundred million smartphone users prior to iPhone would disagree with you completely.
MS is catching up only in terms of having a clear vision on where to go with their mobile OS. With WinMo 7 S, it looks like it's starting to move in a good direction. At the least, it is starting to look like they *have* a direction. Those individual components and features are easily resplicated and are not "new" nor were they "introduced" by Apple.
@LAY
Dude, you're trying way too hard to prove me wrong, but it's very simple. The Zune didn't kill the iPod because Microsoft didn't offer enough compelling features to make people want to switch.
The new Windows Phones suffer from the same problem and what's even worse, even if you do want one of these phones, you're going to have to WAIT FOR 9 MONTHS.
Meanwhile, people will be tempted with the iPhone 4.0, iPad and whatever Android phones come out. This is just a total FAIL on Microsoft's part.
@Mack Stone
"And if Microsoft were allowing Multi-tasking, they would have bragged about it yesterday and insulted Apple in the process, so no Multi-tasking, sorry."
Why would they need to brag about this? That's like saying making phone calls on it is a feature. Multitasking is the most common feature on a smartphone.
@HotFuzz Exactly. Any negative comments about how you think this OS is ugly automatically deem you a ignorant fool according to all these MS fanboys. Hey if you like this more power to you, but the best thing ever? Get real. If the zune was the best thing ever more people would use it. I know one person with a zune. I know 30+ people with iPhones/iPods.
This is an interesting OS with some different features but its far from finished and at the moment super light on details. I can't see anyone who uses a blackberry for work email switching to this.
@Sean Parker
Duuuude, you didnt even make a coherent point. You just spouted off a bunch of cliche phrases like "too little too late" or "Iphone 4.0 will be here before then". Also some bizarre diatribe about the default template in Pages, which 99% of us have never even heard of let alone care how the geometric shapes in it are similar to the ones in this OS.
Who would have thought a square in one place is the same in the other?
None of these things make any lick of sense.
Not only that you then made some comparison between the Zune (mp3 player) and the iPhone (phone). and extrapolated that out to "no one will want this".
@theinternetstom
So?
The majority of people in this country dont even have a smartphone.
Why should MS waste time trying to pry some guy, whose married to their current phone, to them when they have hundreds of millions of new users to tap into?
@LAY
Yeah, the majority of people in this country don't have a smartphone, but they do have an iTunes account. And what happens when all those iTunes users want to buy a smartphone that works with all their stuff on iTunes?
They'll buy an iPhone, that's what. Microsoft will get a few Xbox 360 Fanboys. There are 250 million people with iPods though.
@LAY because like the Zune demonstrated. Nobody wants to buy a platform that none of their friends have.
@theinternetstom
"If the zune was the best thing ever more people would use it. I know one person with a zune. I know 30+ people with iPhones/iPods."
I guess that same logic speaks to the quality of Mac OSX then. OSX must really be awful for it to have such a small marketshare. I know 1 person with a mac and 30+ people with a PC.
@Sean Parker
"Yeah, the majority of people in this country don't have a smartphone, but they do have an iTunes account."
So 51+% of Americans have an iTunes account?
The population of the US is 304,059,724.
The majority of people do not have an iTunes account, nor are the numbers that do so wedded to it that the idea of using anything else is just repulsive.
@theinternetstom
@LAY because like the Zune demonstrated. Nobody wants to buy a platform that none of their friends have.
... Am I responding to a 14 year old?
Nobody wants to buy a platform that none of their friends have? Do you also make sure your shoes and brand of hoddie match too?
@Missing Matter
I don't get why Apple fanboys always miss this point. They talk about the iPod or iPhone being the best device because it sells so well. Obviously the Zune sucks because it doesn't have marketshare. Then you bring up that Apple has about 10% of the PC market. By their very definition Apple computers MUST SUCK. Yet, they never acknowledge it.
@HotFuzz I fully agree with you in regards to the tile animations when entering a different area from the home screen. I watched the 20 minute demo video and I couldn't help but feel that the animation would quickly get stale and become a waste of time. I know what I touched. I don't need to see a 2+ second animation of tiles moving off the screen and then the selected tile promptly showing me what I chose to open. However, development is still rather early and maybe it's loading whatever I chose during the animation or hopefully I could disable it altogether.
Regardless, I am intrigued as to what WP7 showed us yesterday and what it will be capable of in the future. It could easily be the OS in my next phone, as long as the third party support is great in both the software and hardware areas.
@Pedobear The UI of this platform is quite refreshing, isn't? I believe one of the reason why the windows phone 7 series, is having a good welcome, is because of its simplicity.. If they can grow their MS marketplace, I'm sure windows phone can strike another change in the mobile industry. http://bit.ly/windows-phone-7-opinions
@Mack Stone How is market share a valid indicator of quality?
@Sean Parker A.) iTunes is DRM free for music, Zune sees the folders iTunes uses to store music. You only really have a point on video. B.) 250 million iPods sold != 250 million people owning iPods, you also need the average number of iPods owned per iPod owner to get a reasonable estimate of iPod owners. C.) There are about 16 million Xbox LIVE subscribers, about 10 million of whom are Gold subscribers.
Innovation is not about having new features. It's about making things better and easier. Nobody will know if this UI will work well or not until we get a chance to play with it. Microsoft has about seven months to make changes for the launch. It's not wise to discredit or credit an UI until we start seeing it in person, get word on how it will multitask (Possibly in a logical but limited manner [i.e, not running an Email client in the background but using push, or removing the UI from a radio app when in a game or other app...]). It's too early to start firing up the fanboy wars.
@Pedobear where were all you people when the Zune and Zune HD came out? MS wants to know. Exactly the same interface
@HotFuzz
I can see what your getting at, but personally its to early for us to have enough information to develop a fair opinion. We don't know much besides the required specifications for a WM7 handset, The UI, The integration of a marketplace, Zune, and Xbox live services. We still don't know about things like the presence of multitasking, flash, and other services. Before we make judgements, we should wait for more news of WM7
@LAY acctually he referenced the iPod, not the iPhone. And he is right to a certain extent whether or not you like it. If MS waits 9 months to release this it will be too late. We live in a impatient world and when a company announces a product and waits too long to release history shows they don't do as well. Most people are not going to wait that long if they need a phone. I switched to iPhone because blackberry was taking too long to release a good curve an I needed a smart phone. No matter how good this is between now and this release a new iPhone and a host of android smart phones will be released, and that's a fact, another fact is people will buy those over a WM 7 phone if it's not out. Another thing you are forgetting is that MS has yet to release a phone or mp3 player that has overtaken an Apple device so the odds are against them on this. If it has a chance f doin well they need to get this thing out now while it's hot and people are pumped up about it.
@Sean Parker
Sony Ericsson was the 1st company to have a accelerometer in their phones in W910 and the K850. Get your facts straight before fabricating some stuff.
@mrteeth
I wouldn't count MS out, they always strive harder with each new version until they beat their competitor. Wordperfect, Apple OS, Netscape, and etc... The verdict is still out on consoles.
@DaHarder So one guy "lacks vision" because he doesn't mind one visual style that you do? You both sound like fanboys from over here.
@theinternetstom If they would sell the Zune outside of America, I'd be happy to get one. Also, many people think iPod = music player. They don't even know an alternative exists, let alone try it. The Zune might be the best thing on earth, no one would find out. Also, many are locked into the iTunes Music Store. They have bought a lot of music, but in order to listen to it they need to buy an iPod or iPhone. If they buy something else, their music is not usable.
I'm an Android user, and I am very excited by 7. Though admittedly I was about WebOS too, though the hardware and lack of applications was too much of a let down to me.
I'm wondering what a salas has to do with applications.
(Background of second pic)
@camroncake
They're branded backgrounds, which I imagine will change on a regular basis. On a separate note... Flight Control!! This game alone could guarantee success for Windows 7.
@camroncake It's fresh and healthy, just like the new interface ;)
@camroncake
I think its a plate like from a restaurant because of the Urban Spoon app....
@tonicboy Seriously? one flying game will dictate the success of windows 7? lol.
@theinternetstom i just see your avatar and downrank. just fyi. you know, cuz yeah.
I'm wondering what a salad has to do with applications.
(Background of second pic)