Monday, February 28, 2011

Most Wanted Windows Phone 7 Series Differences Today

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Most Wanted Windows Phone 7 Differences TodayWindows Phone 7 is a mobile operating system developed by Microsoft, and is the successor to its Windows Mobile platform. It is aimed at the consumer market Check out for Windows Phone 7 coverage, including up-to-the-minute news about the latest tablet announcements, in-depth reviews, blog posts, and videos at Most Wanted Windows Phone 7 Differences Today.

One question we hear often is: What’s next for Windows Phone? We’re obsessive about listening closely to our customers and improving our phone software. So over the next few months, look for updates that add some new features you’ve asked for and also tune up your phone’s performance. We've got a serious hands on for you to check out, but here is everything that you need to know.

Most Wanted Windows Phone 7 Differences Today

The name—Windows Phone 7 Series—is a mouthful, and unfortunately, the epitome of Microsoft's worst naming instincts, belying the simple fact that it's the most groundbreaking phone since the iPhone. It's the phone Microsoft should've made three years ago. In the same way that the Windows 7 desktop OS was nearly everything people hoped it would be, Windows Phone 7 is almost everything anyone could've dreamed of in a phone, let alone a Microsoft phone. It changes everything. Why? Now that Microsoft has filled in its gaping chasm of suck with a meaningful phone effort, the three most significant companies in desktop computing—Apple, Google and Microsoft—now stand to occupy the same positions in mobile. Phones are officially computers that happen to fit in your pocket.

Windows Phone 7 is also something completely new for Microsoft: A total break from the past. Windows Mobile isn't just dead, the body's been dumped, buried and paved over by a rainbow brick road.

The Interface

It's different. The face of Windows Phone 7 is not a rectangular grid of thumbnail-sized glossy-looking icons, arranged in a pattern of 4x4 or so, like basically every other phone. No, instead, an oversized set of bright, superflat squares fill the screen. The pop of the primary colors and exaggerated flatness produces a kind of cutting-edge crispness that feels both incredibly modern and playful. Text is big, and beautiful. The result is a feat no phone has performed before: Making the iPhone's interface feel staid.

Most Wanted Windows Phone 7 Differences TodayIf you want to know what it feels like, the Zune HD provides a taste: Interface elements that run off the screen; beautiful, oversized text and graphics; flipping, panning, scrolling, zooming from screen to screen; broken hearts. Some people might think it's gratuitous, but I think it feels natural and just…fun. There's an incredible sense of joie de vivre that's just not in any other phone. It makes you wish that this was aesthetic direction all of Microsoft was going in. Another, sorta similar interface, in terms of data presentation, is this Android Slidescreen app, which gives you a bunch of info up top.

Most Wanted Windows Phone 7 Differences Today

Windows Phone 7 is connected in the same sense as Palm's webOS and Android, with live, real-time data seamlessly integrated, though it's even smoother and more natural. Live tiles on the Start screen, which you can totally customize, are updated dynamically with fresh content, like weather, or if you've pinned a person to your Start screen, their latest status updates and photos.

Most Wanted Windows Phone 7 Differences Today

The meat of the phone is organized around a set of hubs: People, Pictures, Games, Music + Video, Marketplace, and Office. They're kind of like uber-applications, in a sense. Massive panoramas with multiple screens that are each kind of like individual apps. People, for instance, isn't just your contacts, but it's also where social networking happens, with a real-time stream of updates pulled in from like Facebook and Windows Live. (No Twitter support announced yet, it appears—a kind of serious deficiency, but one we're sure will be remedied by ship date.)

As another example, Music + Video is essentially the entirety of Zune HD's software, tucked inside of Windows Phone 7. A piece of interface that's shockingly not there: A desktop syncing app. If anyone would be expected to tie their phone to a desktop, you'd think it'd be Microsoft, but they're actually moving forward here. All of your contacts and info sync over the air. The only thing you'll be syncing through your computer is music and videos, which is mercifully done via the Zune desktop client.

Most Wanted Windows Phone 7 Differences Today

Hello, Connected World

The People hub might be the best social networking implementation yet on a phone: It's a single place to see all of your friends' status updates from multiple services in a single stream, and to update your own Facebook and Windows Live status. Needs. Twitter support. Badly. But you have neat things going on, like the aforementioned Live tiles—if you really like someone or want to stalk them hardcore, you can make them a tile on your Start screen, which will update in realtime with whatever they're posting, and pull down their photos from whatever service. There's also your very own profile page, where you can scan your current social state and post updates to multiple services simultaneously.

All of your contacts are synced and backed up over-the-air, Android and webOS style, and can be pulled from multiple sources, like Windows Live, Exchange, etc. Makes certain other phones seem a little antiquated with their out-of-the-box Contacts situation.

Faster apps and games

“Nobody likes to wait. That’s why we’ve whittled down the time it takes for apps and games to start up and resume. It’s all part of our focus on getting you to the things you love, easier and faster.”

Better Marketplace search

“We’ve streamlined Marketplace search to make it easier to find specific apps, games, or music. Press the Search button in the apps or games section of Marketplace and you’ll see only apps or games in the results.”

Holy Crap! The Zune Phone!

Microsoft's vision of Zune is finally clear with Windows Phone 7. It's an app, just like iPod is on the iPhone, though the Zune Marketplace is integrated with it into the music + video hub, not separated into its own little application. It's just like the Zune HD, so you can check out our review of that to see what it's like. But you get third-party stuff like Pandora, too, built-in here. Oh, and worth mentioning, there will be an FM radio in every phone (more on that in a bit).

Most Wanted Windows Phone 7 Differences Today

Pictures is a little different though, and gets its very own hub. That's because it's intensely connected—you can share photos and video with social networks straight from the hub, and via the cloud, they're kept in sync with your PC and web galleries. The latest photos your friends post also show up here. Of course, you get around with multitouch zoom and zip-zip scrolling stuff.

Most Wanted Windows Phone 7 Differences Today

Xbox, on a Phone

I'll admit, I very nearly needed to change my pants when I saw the Xbox tile on the phone for the first time. Obviously, you're not going to be playing Halo 3 on your smartphone (at least not this year), but yes, Xbox Live on a phone! It's tied to your Live profile, and there are achievements and gamer points for the games you can play on your phone, which will be tied to games back on your Xbox 360.

If Microsoft's got an ace-in-hole with Windows Phone 7, it's Xbox Live. Gamers have talked about a portable Xbox for years—this is the most logical way to do it. The N-Gage was ahead of its time. (Okay, and it sucked.) The DS and PSP are the past. The iPhone showed us that the future of mobile gaming was going to be on your phone, and now that just got a lot more interesting. The potential's there, and hopefully the games will be plentiful and awesome enough to meet it.

Most Wanted Windows Phone 7 Differences Today

Browser and Email

Yes, the browser is Internet Explorer. And yes, the rumor's true: It won't be as fast as Mobile Safari. Not to start. But it's not bad! Hey, least it's got multitouch powers right out of the box. Naturally, you've got multiple browser windows, and you can pin web pages to the Start screen, like any other decent mobile browser.

The Outlook email app makes me question how people read email on a BlackBerry. It is stunning. I never thought I'd call a mail app "stunning," but, well, it kind of is. It's the best looking mobile mail app around. Text is huge. Gorgeous. Ultrareadable. Of course, it's got Exchange support too.

Most Wanted Windows Phone 7 Differences Today

Apps, Office and Marketplace

Remember what I said earlier about Windows Mobile being dead? So are all the apps. They won't work on WP7. Sorry Windows Mobile developers, it's for the best. Deep down, we all knew a clean break was the only way Windows Phone wasn't going to suck total balls.

Apps will have some standardized interface elements, like the app bar on the bottom for common commands. But here's a question: Will they multitask? Um, that depends on your definition of multitasking! When we asked Joe Belfiore, the guy running Windows Phone, he alluded to live tiles and feeds as some ofthe ways that third-parties will be able to "bring value to the user, even when their apps aren't running." Which sounds to us like a big ol' "shnope," but we'll see more next month at Microsoft's developer event MIX.

The Marketplace is where you'll buy apps. Since we've got like 6 months 'til Windows Phone 7 launches and people should be excited to develop for it, hopefully there'll be plenty of stuff to buy there on day one.

Most Wanted Windows Phone 7 Differences Today

Naturally, Bing and Bing Maps are built into the phone as the default search and maps services. They're nice, smartly contextual, and very location-oriented. Bing's also used for universal search on the phone, via a dedicated Bing button. (There is no search but Bing search, BTW.) Bing Maps is multitouchable, with pinch-to-zoom. It's rich, with built-in listings with reviews and clever ways of searching for stuff. And yeah, Office! It's connected to that cloud thing, for OTA syncing and such. Business people should be happy.

Hardware and Partner

Another way the old Windows Mobile is dead is how Microsoft's handling partners and hardware situation. With Windows Mobile, a phonemaker handed Microsoft their monies, and Microsoft tossed them a software kit, and that was that. Which is why a lot of Windows Mobile phones felt and ran like crap. And why it took HTC like two years to produce the HD2, the most genuinely usable rendition of Windows Mobile ever.

Microsoft's not building their own phones, but they're going to be picky, to say the least, with Windows Phone 7. Ballmer phrases it as "taking more accountability" for people's experiences. There's a strict set of minimum hardware requirements: a capacitive, multitouchable screen with at least four points of touch; accelerometer; 5-megapixel camera; FM radio; and the like. There are serious benchmarks that have to be met. And only chosen OEMs get to build the phones now, not like before, when anybody with $20 could get a license. The OEMs that Microsoft's announcing they're working with at launch are: Qualcomm, LG, Samsung, Garmin Asus, HTC, HP, Dell, Sony Ericsson, and Toshiba. AT&T's their "premiere partner" in the US (dammit). (Take note people! Premiere does not mean exclusive!)

Every phone will have a Bing (search) button and a Start button. Custom skins, like the minor miracles HTC worked, are now banned. The message to hardware makers is clear: It's a Windows Phone, you're just putting it together. Basically, phonemakers get to decide the shape of the phone, and whether or not there's a keyboard.

One other word on hardware, in a manner of speaking. Hardware it won't work with? Macs. Which is kind of stupid to us—a lot of the people Microsoft wants to use Windows Phone 7, like college students, have been going Mac in droves. You wanna lure them back Microsoft? Let them use your phone with any OS.

Most Wanted Windows Phone 7 Differences Today

The Big Picture

Windows Phone 7 Series is, from what we've seen, exactly what Microsoft's phone should be. It's actually good. It brings together a bunch of different Microsoft services—Zune, Xbox, Bing—in a way that actually makes sense and just works. But there's a real, lingering question: Are they too late? The first Windows Phone 7 Series…phone—goddamn that is a stupid name—won't hit until the end of this year. That's more than three years after the iPhone, two years after Android, hell, even a year after Palm, the industry's sickly but persistent dwarf.

Most Wanted Windows Phone 7 Differences Today

History is on Microsoft's side here—we know what happened the last time Apple had a massive head start. (Update: To be clear, in computing.) Microsoft is, if nothing else, incredibly patient. Remember the first Xbox? Back when it was crazy that Microsoft was getting into videogames? It's cost them about a billion dollars and taken nearly 10 years, but now, with Xbox Live, Project Natal and their massive software ecosystem, they arguably have the most impressive gaming console you can buy. That was a pet project. Now, mobile is the future of computing. What do you think Microsoft will sink into that?

The mobile picture is now officially a three-way dance: Apple, Google, and Microsoft. The same people who dominate desktop computing. Everybody else is screwed. Former Palm CEO Ed Colligan famously said a few years ago: "PC guys are not going to just figure this out. They're not going to just walk in." That's precisely what's just happened. Phones are the new PCs. PC guys are the new phone guys.

This action is pretty logical: Microsoft employees want Windows Phone 7 to succeed than the average outside developer, and so allowing employees to gain financially through their app development efforts is a big incentive to come up with interesting app ideas Windows Mobile for the next generation dubbed Windows Phone 7 Series upon its launch at MWC.

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Blackberry Tips and Trick Must Have

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Blackberry Tips and Trick Must HaveTop Best BlackBerry Tips All of Time Tips Blackberry Blog about Tips Blackberry Top Best BlackBerry Applications All of Time Tips and Trick Latest Blackberry. transferred their smartphone affections to the iPhone, there are many of us still rocking the BlackBerry. I don't claim to be a BlackBerry expert, but I have come across a few tips and tricks that will make any user's life easier and more entertaining.

 

1. Use the keyboard less

BlackBerry has always had a QWERTY keyboard and you can type everything out in full - but you can save time with the built-in shortcuts. Press space twice at the end of a sentence to get the full stop and an automatic capital on the next word.

Don't bother with apostrophes in words like I'm and isn't (type im and the BlackBerry will correct it for you); there are other handy abbreviations like 'wel' to get 'we'll' and 'il' to get 'I'll' and you can add your own with Options > AutoText.

Blackberry Tips and Trick Must Have

AUTOTEXT: Speed up typing by creating your own abbreviations and corrections

2. Quick capitals

You don't need Shift - press and hold a letter key to type the upper case letter.

3. Skip Symbol

If you're typing an email address into a field that expects an email address, don't bother looking for how to type the @; just hit space and BlackBerry with put the @ in for you. Press space when you need the . in the middle of the email address and it will fill that in, too. Do the same for URLs in the browser; pressing space fills in the periods faster than typing them by hand.

4. Fast select

There's a Select command on the menu for choosing what to copy and paste - but you can make a selection just by holding down the Shift key as you scroll the trackball.

5. Keyboard shortcuts

Save on scrolling by using 't' to get to the top of any email message, web page or other long screen and 'b' to get to the bottom. There are specific shortcuts for all the built-in apps like using the Mute button to pause videos or music or skipping to the next or previous track by pressing and holding the volume up and down keys (which also zoom in and out in the camera - although many apps use I and O to zoom); there's a list in the Help tool.

Blackberry Tips and Trick Must Have

SAVE TIME: Put the keyboard to work with shortcuts in every built-in app

6. Choose dialling or shortcuts

Under Options > Phone Options > General Options you can set Dial From Home Screen to Yes or No; if you set it to Yes you can start typing a name to dial the number on the home screen, if you set it to No you can type the first letter of apps on the home screen to open them (M for Mail, B for browser, C to compose email - and oddly N for Messenger, L for Calendar and U for Calculator).

7. Web columns

Press Z in the web browser to reflow the page into a column the size of the BlackBerry screen so it's easier to read; press Z again to go back to a normal page view you can scroll around.

Blackberry Tips and Trick Must Have

EASY READING: Switch between seeing the original layout and a version of the page reformatted as one long BlackBerry-sized column

8. Turn on JavaScript

To save memory and make pages load faster, the BlackBerry browser usually has JavaScript turned off by default; use Options > Browser Configuration > Support JavaScript to turn it back on and make more pages load correctly.

9. Which browser?

There are three different browsers on the BlackBerry; a WAP browser for viewing content from your mobile network, the BlackBerry HTML browser (and a hotspot browser that prioritises the Wi-Fi connection). If you have problems accessing or loading Web pages, choose Options > Browser Configuration and set Browser to BlackBerry Browser and make sure Options > General Properties > Default Browser is also set to BlackBerry Browser.

10. Don't get mobile Web sites

You can also try changing Browser Identification from BlackBerry to Firefox or IE to force the full versions of specific pages to load instead of the cut-down mobile versions - but they might be slow or not load fully.

Blackberry Tips and Trick Must Have

BROWSER SWAP: The BBC web site always loads the mobile version on BlackBerry; if you want to see the full site, have your BlackBerry pretend to run Firefox or IE

11. Fast search

You can search for contacts, messages and inside files and web pages - press S to search in contacts and messages and F to search in other apps.

12. Color-code messages

If you get both work and personal email on your BlackBerry, you can change the color of either set of messages. Choose Options > Security Options >Information> Message Outline Colors and either Enterprise Messages or Other Messages.

Blackberry Tips and Trick Must Have

COLOUR-CODED: Show work and personal messages in different colors

13. Menu multi-tasking

BlackBerry has had multitasking for years but it's subtly done; apps stay running so you can switch back to them (unless you run out of memory when they're closed automatically). To get back to another app, press and hold the Menu button to get the task switcher.

14. Lock with mute

Some BlackBerrys have both a lock and a mute button on the top edge, others - like the original Bold - only have a mute button. You can always lock the screen by scrolling down to the Lock icon but it's faster to just press and hold mute until the screen locks (do the same to unlock it).

Here Are The Top 10 Basic Blackberry Tips And Tricks In No Particular Order Top BlackBerry Problems Solutions Top 10 Basic Blackberry Tips And Tricks from. BlackBerrys have a lot of settings hidden in the OS. Here are some of the most popular BlackBerry Tips for any user. There are some tips you won't need often - like pressing Alt, Del and the right-hand Caps key at the same time to reboot instead of just restarting; others you'll use all the time, like pressing the red 'hang up' key to get back to the home screen and clicking the spanner icon on the home screen to open Options.

15. Real convenience

There are two 'convenience keys' - one on each side of the BlackBerry; you've probably found one of them by knocking it and hearing that irritating 'say a command' message. If you never use voice command, choose Options > Screen/Keyboard to change the buttons to something more useful - starting the camera, opening the music player or launching your favourite app.

Blackberry Tips and Trick Must Have

QUICK START: Put two apps or commands you use all the time at your fingertips

16. Tweak your trackball

Use Options > Screen/Keyboard and scroll to the bottom of the page to choose the horizontal and vertical sensitivity (how far it moves across the screen when you move it) and whether you hear a click as it rolls.

17. Turn off speakerphone

The slightly confusing way to put a call on speakerphone is to use Menu > Activate Speakerphone; the even more confusing way to turn it off is Menu > Activate Handset - or you can use the $ key to turn it on and off. (And the $ key produces the $ sign in email, use Options > Screen/Keyboard > Currency key to set it to £ instead).

18. Say a command

Voice command does more than voice dialling; if you want to check your signal and battery strength you can wade through the Options menu or you can hit the voice command button and say 'status' or 'check battery' and 'check signal strength'.

19. Say it again

Voice recognition works quite well, but you can train it by reading a list of numbers and words; choose Options > Voice Dialing> Adapt Voice.

Blackberry Tips and Trick Must Have

VOICE TRAINING: Choose Adapt Voice and your BlackBerry will ask you to read a list of sample names and numbers

20. Hidden Help

The hidden 'Help Me!' screen shows the signal strength, battery level, device PIN, free space, space in use, IMEI, OS version, how long the BlackBerry has been on and some other info that can be useful for troubleshooting. View it by pressing Alt + Caps + H.

Blackberry Tips and Trick Must Have

MORE INFO: The Help Me! Screen collects key information together

21. Archive, don't uninstall

Only the very latest BlackBerry models have anything like enough memory for all the apps you want. When you run out of space, pick the ones you use least and archive them to your microSD card (this only works with apps from App World). Select the app in the My World sections of App World and choose Menu > Archive; archived apps have a green arrow on their icons and you can click them to reinstall - but you may have to restart to archive or restore an app.

Blackberry Tips and Trick Must Have

ARCHIVE APPS: You can't run apps from the SD card but you can archive them to save space

22. Save power overnight

BlackBerry is very frugal on battery life and you can make it last even longer by having yours turn itself off overnight and back on in the morning. Choose Options > Auto On/Off; you can have different on and off times for weekdays and weekends.

23. Master Control Program

Use the free third-party tool MCP (http://mcpfx.com) for tweaking your BlackBerry, doing a factory reset in an emergency - or just installing updates more easily than with the sprawling and inefficient BlackBerry Desktop software.

Blackberry Tips and Trick Must Have

TWEAK BLACKBERRY: Install a new OS or tweak the modules on your BlackBerry with the excellent Master Control Program

24. Install any app

If you want to run an app that doesn't have an installer - including alternative email clients like Astrasync and NotifySync which RIM won't sign for installation - connect your BlackBerry by USB, switch to mass storage mode so it shows up on your PC as a drive and copy the JAR file to the root folder. On your BlackBerry use the Media app to open the folder and select the JAR file to install it.

25. Save money on texts

If you're sending a message to another BlackBerry user, BlackBerry Messenger is free -but you need to know their BlackBerry PIN.The easiest way to get someone in your contact list is to invite them.

Get BlackBerry Tips, Tricks and Key-Press Shortcuts Learn Read the Top 10 Phone Tips from BlackBerry: This list includes simple tips. BlackBerry Troubleshooting Tips & Tricks from RIM What follows is RIM's recent list of BlackBerry troubleshooting tips. Read our top tips for BlackBerry Bold 9700 if you just got the latest Its the best thing to do closest to what we're used to doing with.

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