Windows Phone 7: The AnandTech Guide
by Brian Klug on March 21, 2010 12:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- Windows Phone 7
- Mobile
Office and Email Integration
Microsoft will tightly bundle its Office suite with WP7S. So far, we've seen examples of Outlook, OneNote, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and SharePoint up and running. Of course, these have all been given a healthy dose of "metro" UI inspiration, with the selection of typograhpically-dominant pivots at the top, content down below. Of course, Office itself is a hub, although Outlook will exist outside as its own email application. Interestingly, the focus of the Office suite is no longer creating and editing documents, but quickly viewing and adding comments to prexisting documents synced or emailed. This shift in focus Microsoft is attributing to its own user feedback and research - they claim most users simply use Office to quickly glance at their documents. We'll see how close to the truth that is as time progresses. As an aside, I honestly have to wonder whether this data was generated from the same user demographic that can't be trusted with multitasking because they leave every application open...
We got the chance to see excel on its own, populated with real data as well as a relatively complicated chart. In addition, there have been a number of shots of Outlook out by itself. Outlook's focus is now on what the WP7S team is calling "email triage" - quickly being able to select and manage a number of messages at once. We only saw bits and pieces of Office at MIX10, and it's obvious that most of the suite isn't done yet. Microsoft has promised to unveil more about Office this June.
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Hrel - Friday, March 26, 2010 - link
Yeah, pretty sure I'll never buy any portable ANYTHING that doesn't support expandable memory. I don't need more iphones out there, thanks anyway.jconan - Tuesday, March 23, 2010 - link
Will Microsoft support Unicode in its WP7S phones? They never got around to it on the Zune. I hope they do for WP7S and hopefully in Courier. It's easier to read text the way it's meant to be read than in gibberish ascii with diacritics.MonkeyPaw - Monday, March 22, 2010 - link
Wow, all this talk about Web-capable smartphones sure makes me wish for a mobile version of Anandtech.com. :|toyotabedzrock - Monday, March 22, 2010 - link
We have heard this promise of adding features before!RandomUsername3245 - Monday, March 22, 2010 - link
The article says, "There's also of course the stigmata attached to buying a phone preloaded with a bevy of carrier-branded applications."The author should have used "stigma" rather than "stigmata". Stigmata is a Roman Catholic reference: (from dictionary.com) marks resembling the wounds of the crucified body of Christ, said to be supernaturally impressed on the bodies of certain persons, esp. nuns, tertiaries, and monastics.
CSMR - Monday, March 22, 2010 - link
Stigmata is just the plural of stigma. "Stigmas" is normally better but stigmaga is correct. So the problem with the sentence is that "is" is singluar and "stigmata" is plural.jhh - Monday, March 22, 2010 - link
Applications can't currently run in the background, but they can process push notifications. Does this mean that any application that wants to provide background processing needs to wake the phone via push notifications? If so, do those mean that the push notifications need to come through a Microsoft back-end notification server? If so, that would be another case of application lockdown. I can't see Facebook or Twitter wanting to run their traffic through Microsoft just to be able to use the notification service.ncage - Sunday, March 21, 2010 - link
Is it perfect? Nope but i still think its pretty dang good. Can't wait. I will still probably get a nexus one when it comes out tuesday but will get a wp7 near xmas. Have a BB Tour now and i hate it with a passion. If your not an email addict then i don't think you would ever like a BB. I'd get a palm pre instead if it didn't sound like they were just about to die. RIM should buy them.hessenpepper - Sunday, March 21, 2010 - link
Will the tight hardware requirements allow Microsoft to release upgrades directly to the end users or will they release in to the manufacturers/carriers? Will we be at their mercy for timely upgrades?MGSsancho - Monday, March 22, 2010 - link
Part of the reason Microsoft wants tight control over hardware is so they can focus on other stuff and not write 9000 drivers. Windows CE works on ppc, x86, arm with varying amounts of ram and configurations. It is the same strategy Apple has, only have a few select hardware platforms and focus on the user experience.