Microsoft’s new Windows Phone 7 Series of phone software marks a bold new approach to this exploding marketplace. For the first time Xbox LIVE games and Zune music/video will be available on a mobile phone. The Bing search engine has direct hardware support, and the “live tiles” feature replaces static icons with active real-time content. But perhaps the biggest news is the creation of a set of phone hubs – content-related views integrating the Web, applications and services tasks.
The roster of phone hubs includes:
People Hub: Live feed of social network content and photos that tell an individual’s story. Supports centralized posting of updates to Facebook and other social sites.
Picture Hub: Share pictures and videos from various sources, including social network sites, home computers, and remote devices. Provides easy access to picture and video collections.
Game Hub: For the first time, you can experience XBox LIVE games on a phone. You will be able to view a gamer’s avatar and profile data, and play with any of the 23 million XBoxers world-wide.
Music & Video Hub: Access to Zune, including content from online music services, home computers, and FM radio. Socialize the experience with Zune Social and share your music reviews with friends. Rich playback and easy navigation are featured as well.
Marketplace Hub: Find and load certified applications and games onto your phone.
Office Hub: Access to productivity software such as Microsoft Office, OneNote and SharePoint Workspace. Allows users to perform document operations and sharing. Outlook Mobile provides email, calendar and contact functions to phone users.
Windows Phone 7 Series was truly designed for “life in motion”.