Microsoft, a company famous for releasing jillions of SKUs at bazillions of price points, wants you to know that in a few months, everything's going to get a lot simpler. The software giant has lifted the curtain on Windows Phone 8, a next-generation handset operating system that for the first time will share the kernel that's underneath the company's next flagship OS for PCs and tablets, Windows 8.
So starting sometime this fall, if you see any new product that's got "Windows" slapped on it, it'll have the same basic ingredients as the software platform used by more than a billion PC users around the world.
PCMag's lead mobile analyst, Sascha Segan, broke down that news and what it means earlier today, so we'll stick to relating what Microsoft showed us in several Windows 8 demos at an event in San Francisco on Wednesday.
Keep in mind that this is the stuff we actually saw Microsoft execs and a few partners doing on the Windows Phone 8 platform in real-time, albeit from onstage and with a crew of dedicated technicians backing them up. There were also plenty of exuberant declarations about how great the new software platform is at the Windows Phone 8 Summit, plus some flashy pre-packaged videos, but what follows is what we witnessed working (and on one occasion not working) on the new OS.
The Start Screen: When you turn on a Windows 8 Phone, you're treated to a mesmerizing cacophony of Metro interface "live tiles" that pop, flip, and slide around on the screen like a Gem Puzzle on steroids. With various alerts, feeds, photos, and notifications constantly buzzing around the screen, this is your digital life in all its eye-straining glory. The first two questions that spring to mind when seeing the Windows Phone 8 start screen are, "How much battery does this chew up?" and "How do you turn it off?" But not necessarily in that order.
Microsoft execs dubbed the start screen the "sexiest" feature of Windows Phone 8. Since existing Windows Phone owners won't be able to upgrade from Windows Phone 7.5 to Windows Phone 8, Microsoft is throwing them a bone with the release of Windows Phone 7.8, a version that includes the live-tile start screen.
The guess here is that some folks will have a steeper learning curve than others before they find the packaging of data as eye candy useful.
IE 10 and Security: Microsoft didn't offer a full-blown demo of Internet Explorer 10 running on Windows Phone 8, but we did get to see a new Web security feature that the company's put in place for its next-gen handset OS. The simple demo, which also showcased email as a kind of afterthought, ran us through what happens when a Windows Phone 8 user gets sent a dodgy link to a get-rich-quick scam site and clicks on it. What happens is that IE 10 smartly alerts the foolish user that the site is unsafe and blocks it. The only issue here is that there was no obvious way that we saw to click through to the site anyway. Granted, that's only a problem if you think IE 10 might occasionally block an innocent site.
The Windows Phone 8 Wallet: The Wallet feature on Windows Phone 8 can store your credit card info, frequent flyer miles, deals you've been offered, PayPal account, coupons, and more. You can use it to buy stuff online—like the in-app purchase Microsoft's Joe Belfiore made with his Windows Phone 8 demo device. Microsoft also built a lot of NFC capability into the OS, but it's not clear if it'll combine with the Wallet to make tap-purchasing with your phone possible just yet.
As a side note, the Microsoft executives demoing Windows Phone 8 were pretty cavalier about sharing their (possibly concocted) personal data during the presentation. For example, Belfiore has a little over $1,300 in the (maybe mocked up) Chase account that he used to (pretend) purchase some Inrix Pro traffic navigation software.
Continue Reading: Fun With NFC, Games, and More>
Games, Games, Games: It's fun to pick on Microsoft given its small slice of the mobile market, but there's one thing you can't deny—this is a company that knows gaming. From here, the guess is that Windows Phone 8 has a very good chance of becoming the mobile gaming platform. After all, Microsoft's got tons of experience directing gaming ecosystems with its Xbox console and for PCs. Now that DirectX, native code support, and the Windows driver framework is being put in place for Windows Phone 8, it just makes sense that Microsoft will enjoy the same success here.
Microsoft demoed a couple of early Windows Phone 8 games ported over from Windows at the event, including the bundled-in Marble Maze game and Spell It, a Scrabble-like social game. Both looked great, but most impressive was a demo of tough-to-render game design templates from physics engine developer Havok.
The Dulcet Tones of Not-Siri: Microsoft has been messing around with voice recognition for quite awhile, so it's not surprising that the Audible voice software running on Windows Phone 8 works pretty well. As with Apple's Siri, at which Microsoft took a not so subtle dig during the demo, it's not perfect. To wit, when Microsoft's Kevin Gallo asked his Windows Phone 8 phone to "read Game of Thrones," it answered back with some nonsense about "St. Louis, Missouri" before getting it right on the second try.
Gallo went on to say voice recognition on Windows Phone 8 allows users to actually "have a conversation" with apps, which seems like a pretty loose definition of the word. By the same token, you can also have a "conversation" with a vending machine, where you say something witty in the form of a dollar bill and it answers back with an archly phrased can of soda pop.
Nokia in the House Microsoft partner Nokia was the only handset maker to take the stage for the Windows Phone 8 unveiling, hardly surprising given the tightness of their relationship. Nokia's Kevin Shields had a couple of cool demos specific to Windows Phone 8 on Nokia hardware, including a traffic navigation app that looks like it'd be really helpful on the mean streets of Helsinki and a photo-editing app called Smart Group Shot, which mixes and matches the best facial expressions of individuals in a series of group photos for a more satisfying final version.
For more on that, see Nokia: Windows Phone 7 Will Live On. Also check out AT&T, T-Mobile, Verizon to Carry Windows Phone 8.