Mobile phone operators predict smartphones will have a 70% market share in just three years. Microsoft says it has made Windows Phone 7 more user-friendly, rebuilding the operating system from bottom up.
The phone system’s experience is built around so-called hubs that aggregate content like contacts, pictures, documents, and music and video. The content on the phone is then synchronised both with storage services on the internet and the owner’s computers at home.
Windows Mobile 7 provides Outlook functionality–e-mail, contacts, and calendar–both as part of its basic smartphone features as well as from the Office Hub, which provides a single home for access to Office applications, SharePoint, and OneNote.
So it’s great that Windows Phone 7 Series is a really classy-looking OS that appears to run true and fast. If it can fulfil its potential, it can at least keep Microsoft in the game. And that’s all the software giant can have expected.
In the UK the phone will launch on 21 October, while the US launch will be in early November.
I wonder who will be first to try out the new smartphone here at Apex Computing…