Windows Phone 7 And Zune 4.7 Officialy Launched
Last Updated on Monday, 11 October 2010 08:05 Written by Alan Monday, 11 October 2010 04:53
Today, with live events in New York and London, Microsoft officially launched Windows Phone 7, although you can’t actually buy one until November 8. The Microsoft press release I received states:
The new Windows Phone 7 arrives in stores starting Monday, November 8. It’s a different kind of phone, designed to get to everything you love easier and faster. We’re giving our Windows Phone Insider subscribers direct access to the latest details.
The phones announced today included the Samsung Focus, LG Quantum, and HTC Surround for AT&T and the HTC HD 7 for T-Mobile, as well as the Dell Venue Pro.
Microsoft’s blog gave a short update on today’s NYC launch with Steve Ballmer:
Just a short while ago Steve Ballmer took the stage here in New York City to take the wraps of the Windows Phone 7 global portfolio, revealing nine new handsets from leading mobile operators in Europe, North America, Asia Pacific and Australia. He talked about how Windows Phone was designed to help bring together the stuff you care about most to help you get things done faster, whether that is going through work email, updating your Facebook status, taking pictures of your night out or playing games, music and video.
Windows Phone is all about deep, integrated experiences and a unique, elegant design. These integrated experiences come from all across Microsoft including Xbox LIVE, Microsoft Office Mobile, Zune, Windows Live, Bing and more. But it is not just about Microsoft services, Windows Phone 7 is a powerful platform for third party developers as well, allowing them to build applications that are visually stunning and functionally unique. Only Windows Phone 7 has Live Tiles, that display real time updates like news, appointments or status updates. The Live Tiles and Start screen mean you can have a customizable and deeply personal experience with your phone. Like it should be! Our mobile phones are increasingly important to our lives, and they should be uniquely ours. I love that every time I unlock my Windows Phone my family and best friends are staring back at me on the Start screen, and I can get a quick read on what is happening in their lives.
That is my quick update from the press conference. I am going to scoot around the event this morning and post some more about gaming, music and video and of course some more shots of the cool new hardware from Dell, HTC Corp., LG and Samsung.
As for features, here’s what we know now:
- It will have email, calendar, and contacts syncing automatically from your Hotmail account, much the way Google integrates into Android phones.
- Social networks such as Facebook and MySpace also integrate themselves with Phone 7.
- Photos will sync with your SkyDrive account.
- OneNote will also sync with SkyDrive and also with Office 2010.
- Locate a lost phone via maps on http://windowsphone.live.com
Unlike the Phone, the Zune 4.7 software update is available today. When I opened the Zune program on my PC I was immediately greeted with the news.
Once I’ve had more of chance to play around with it I will do a writeup on the features and changes. Although, I do not yet have a review phone to try it out with so for right now I can only look at the Zune features. I’ll leave you with this sneak peek.
Add a Playlist to Your Zune – Not As Easy As You Think
Last Updated on Saturday, 14 August 2010 09:41 Written by Alan Sunday, 15 August 2010 08:00
A few days ago my daughter decided to add a playlist to her Zune. She came to me shortly after this and asked if I knew why it wasn’t working. I asked what she did, she ran through the steps, and I had to agree that it was exactly what I would have told her if she’d asked how to do it.
Well, it turns out that it requires a step that seems, well, not counter-intuitive, but unnecessary.
Logic would dictate that one would create a playlist, save it, and then drag it to the Zune. As it turns out, that will add the songs in the playlist, but not the playlist istself. The last step is actually a bit different. So, here’s what you do.
1. Open you Zune software, click on Collection and then Playlist and then click New Playlist at the bottom left of the screen.
2. Create your playlist by dragging and dropping songs to the right column or right-clicking on a song and choosing Send To.
3. When you are done adding and ordering your songs click Save Playlist.
4. Now, logic would dictate that you drag and drop your playlist to the Zune icon at the bottom left. You can do this and it will add the songs from your playlist are not already on your player (it will not duplicate songs), but it will NOT add the playlist itself. In order to add the playlist you will need to click on Device and the Start Sync.
That is all there is to it. As I said, it’s just that last step that seems to throw people. You would think that dragging and dropping a playlist onto your player would add it, but in Zune’s case it’s not that easy.
What Will Be In Zune 5.0?
Last Updated on Monday, 26 July 2010 09:40 Written by Alan Tuesday, 27 July 2010 08:00
This fall, probably in conjunction with the release on Windows Phone 7, we will probably see a refresh to the Zune software. It could possibly be called Zune 4.7, but I would think the update will be more comprehensive and be known as Zune 5.0. What will it contain?
That is pure speculation at this point. Microsoft has said nothing, as far as I have been able to tell. We can make a few educated guesses based on what has been learned of Windows Phone 7 so far. The new phone syncs via Zune and right now Zune software will update music, podcasts, pictures, videos and games.
That’s not everything the phone will need to sync though. What about apps, to-do lists, contacts, calendars….?
I haven’t found out yet, and Microsoft didn’t send me the the review phone. But, I think if you use Windows Live then it will sync up automatically and wirelessly. But if you are in the Google-verse I am not sure how well, if at all, the sync will work. They need to add that though, because many of us use Google and Yahoo for these things. The current Windows Mobile does recognize Gmail and downloads push email from it, but for everything else you need to install the Google App – it’s not native.
So, will Zune include Calendar, To-do, etc.?
What about the App Store? Microsoft has one for Windows Mobile 6+. But it should really be integrated into Zune.
So, now we are putting together a wish-list for the next version of Zune and here it is:
- The ability to rearrange the menu
- The App sore fully integrated
- A menu item for Audio Books
- Sync with calendar and contact from multiple sources including Google and Yahoo
- Tabbed browser
And those are just the highlights. I would think that at least some of this will be included. Hopefully all of it.
