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Windows Phone Summit: the quick summary

Jun 20, 2012 11:50 am by Kip Kniskern | 6 comments

Today in a 2 hour keynote, Microsoft spoke for the first time about Windows Phone 8, the next generation of Windows Phone Operating system, and revealed a number of platform improvements coming to new devices “this fall”. While no specific phones were shown or announced, Terry Meyerson did announce that 4 device manufacturers would have Windows Phone 8 phones ready at launch: Nokia, Huawei, HTC, and Samsung.

Microsoft also announced that while current generation Windows Phones would not be upgradeable to the new OS, an interim version, Windows Phone 7.8, will be made available that will bring the new Start Screen (featuring a new smaller size of Live Tile) to at least some current Windows Phone owners.

Terry Meyerson, Joe Belfiore, and Greg Sullivan took the stage to announce that Windows Phone 8 will include a number of platform and system improvements, including:

A “Shared Windows Core”, meaning Windows Phone 8 will be running the same core as Windows 8
The shared core will mean that common software drivers for hardware devices (printers, etc) will work on Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8
Multi-core support
NFC
A new SIM-level “Wallet” experience
removable Micro SD cards
New screen resolutions, now supporting WVGA, WXGA (768 lines of resolution in landscape mode) and 720p. Current apps will work on the new resolutions
Native Code support for 3rd party apps
Nokia Maps built in (apparently replacing built in Bing Maps support)
IE 10
All 100,000 apps currently in the Marketplace will be recompiled by Microsoft to run faster and better on Windows Phone 8 (no need for developers to recompile or re-submit). WP8 will run all current apps
Zynga Games coming to Windows Phone later this year, Audible app will be “available today”
Improved speech integration, including app level speech integration, allowing “conversations with apps” (announced while taking a shot at Siri in the process)
Full multitasking
Built in VoIP support – developers will not have to code for answering VoIP calls, send to bluetooth, etc.

In addition, Nokia’s Kevin Shields took the stage to announce a number of new Nokia apps and improvements to existing ones, including Nokia Drive, Plays To, Counters, Nokia Music 3.0, and Camera Extras. These should be coming to Nokia devices as early as next week.

What are your favorite features for Windows Phone 8 (and remember that these are just platform improvements, user feature improvements are still to be announced)?

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http://doctorwhofan98.wordpress.com/ doctorwhofan98
I think the new Start screen looks… interesting. At first look, I thought it looked quite cluttered (I still kind of think that), but I know the different tile sizes will make it more useful. As for my favourite feature, I don’t know what “full multi-tasking” is, but it sounds good.
I have avoided buying a WP so far because of WP8, and I hope it will be worth the wait.
- Mario Albertico
  I’m right there with you on the new Start screen. At first glance, I was “what is this cluster mess…” (and still kind of think that too), but I agree that the different sizes for Tiles could potentially be useful. I’m not entirely sure how I feel about the now-gone black space / arrow from the right, but I suppose if they want to get as close to resembling Windows 8, it would not make sense to keep them.
- Sascenter
  I’m not sure how I feel about it either. I was expecting something like http://goo.gl/eTkOk/ for more consistency and maybe groups.
  I tried fitting one of those screens on my HTC Titan, and wow. The medium size tiles are huge! I think that useless space from the right made the start screen look cleaner.
  I don’t know. Maybe they change it later on again? Also, I’m more excited about where the “all apps” screen went, and if we have a “notification center” now. :)
- MisakGhazaryan
  i have a 1st gen wp, a htc mozart, my contract will end ~a month after wp7.8/8 are released, so i should get to try out both, though i presume the only difference will be things that current hardware wouldnt be able to support anyway, like multicore, NFC, wallet, microSD, new resolutions etc
Nilantha Aluthgedara
what about cheap windows phones??? are they going to keep wp7.x around just for that or in 18th are they dumping 7.X??? if wp8 wont be able to run on single core, OEMs wont be able to make cheap WPs to compete with Android phones. Waiting to see what they are going to say about that.
- MisakGhazaryan
  they said that windows phone would be more versatile and able to target a wider price bracket, so cheaper phones will come out, besides its support for multicore not exclusive to multicore