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winmo 7 posts

Windows Mobile 7 aiming for Spring 2010 RTM?

by Chris Ziegler posted Oct 9th 2009 @ 5:41PM

Purported release dates for the first crop of WIndows Mobile 7 phones have varied in a surprisingly tight range over the past year, slipping from late '09 to the latest we've heard, late 2010, and the latest info we've got here dovetails nicely with that. What you're looking at up above is allegedly a slide out of an Office 2010 deck presented to Microsoft partners, where an updated Office Mobile suite is mentioned in passing alongside a WinMo 7 RTM date of Spring 2010. As Mary Jo Foley points out in a comment on the original post, that would put phones on shelves several months later at the earliest, which leads us back to the fact that this actually fits in very well with the Q4 2010 window we've been getting from other sources in recent memory. Though the screenshots on the slide are seemingly new, they match perfectly with the UI paradigm set by those purported WinMo 7 shots we saw nearly two flippin' years ago, which leads us to the obvious question: is the UI basically finalized? And if so, is it going to feel stale by the time it's released some three years after it first leaked?

[Via Windows Phone Mix]

Ballmer: Windows Mobile 7 should have been out, like, yesterday

by Donald Melanson posted Sep 24th 2009 @ 6:41PM

It wasn't all that long ago that Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer proudly declared that Windows Mobile 7 would be out "sometime next year," but it looks things got a bit more real at the company's just-concluded Venture Capital Summit, where Ballmer reportedly said that he wished Windows Mobile 7 had already launched by now. That initial word comes from venture capitalist Paul Jozefak (or @pjozefak), who also tweeted that "Ballmer says they screwed up with Windows Mobile," while another attendee, @beninato, directly quotes Ballmer as saying that Microsoft has "pumped in some new talent," and that "this will not happen again." Steve Ballmer's fists could not be reached for comment.

[Via MobileTechWorld]

Windows Mobile 7 chassis concept confirmed by Microsoft, not detailed

by Ross Miller posted Sep 10th 2009 @ 8:47PM

We still don't know what it looks like or when exactly it'll arrive -- rough estimate sometime in 2010 -- but Windows Mobile 7's being given special care by Microsoft with a chassis concept of "carefully defined hardware specifications" for hardware vendors, according to James McCarthy. As for what those specs are and how strictly it'll enforce adherence, we're still in the dark. If it's anything like what we saw with the rumored "Pink" specs from back in May, we're not too worried. Of course, it's in Microsoft's hands to screw up, and if they say it's okay to see StrongARM chips in WinMo 7 devices, someone'll do it, and we gotta imagine some negative vibes towards the mobile OS in general should someone ever have to manage a handset like that.

[Via WMPowerUser]

Windows Mobile 6.5 'touch interface' update in February to coexist with WinMo 7?

by Thomas Ricker posted Aug 19th 2009 @ 2:06AM

The evidence that Windows Mobile 6.5 could soon be moving beyond the stylus to gather finger-friendly, multi-touch, capacitive screens into its long, loving arms has been mounting with the leak of the HTC Leo ROM and TouchFlo 3D 2.6. Such a move would quickly put Microsoft back on track to compete with the iPhone and Android devices like the HTC Hero. Now DigiTimes, based on sourced information from Taiwanese handset makers, is reporting a "touch interface" version of Windows Mobile 6.5 set for release in February 2010 -- an upgrade to the initial Windows Mobile 6.5 launch expected on October 1st. However, instead of phasing out Windows Mobile 6.5 with the Q4 2010 launch of Windows Mobile 7, DigiTimes asserts that Microsoft will lower the price of WinMo 6.5 to compete against open-source Android devices while positioning WinMo 7 to go head-to-head with the iPhone. In other words, Microsoft appears to be adopting a dual-platform mobile strategy like we've heard before, regardless of Steve Ballmer's recent grandstanding against Google's dual-platform approach.

Microsoft "Pink" specs leak out: Tegra, Snapdragon, OMAP 3, oh my?

by Nilay Patel posted May 12th 2009 @ 3:39PM

Ready for some more delicious Zune / Windows Mobile rumors after today's June Zune letdown? Well buckle up -- the always-sharp Mary Jo Foley at ZDNet says she's got specs for Windows Mobile 7 Chassis 1, the heart of that rumored "Pink" smartphone, and they're pretty wild. According to the list, Chassis 1 phones will all have 3.5-inch or larger multitouch displays with ARM v6+ processors and OpenGL ES 2.0-compatible graphics hardware, 256MB or more of RAM and 1GB or more of storage, as well as at least a 3 megapixel camera, GPS, WiFi, Bluetooth, a compass, and accelerometer. Oh, and glory be -- a 3.5mm headphone jack is required. Here's the kicker, though: NVIDIA's Tegra platform is specifically listed as meeting the core CPU requirements, as well as TI's OMAP 3 platform and "Qualcomm 8k," which sounds to us like Snapdragon's QSD8xxx-series chips. If you've been following along, you know that all three of these (Tegra in particular) have been bandied about as potential Microsoft phone platforms, so it makes perfect sense to us that Microsoft's giving its hardware partners a choice of currently-available high-powered platforms for Chassis 1 -- especially since we've been hearing lots of whispers of hardware based on these chips in the works.

Here's the thing, though: we've also always been told that "Pink" is the codename for Zune software and services on Windows Mobile, so something tells us that Chassis 1 phones running Windows Mobile 7 will feature a strong dose of Zune flavoring -- a plan Steve Ballmer's repeatedly confirmed in the past year. So how do we think this all fits together? Well, we'll slightly revise our previous totally crazy, off-the-wall prediction: we think "Pink" is the codename for a new consumer-focused version of Windows Mobile that integrates Zune services, running not only on a touchscreen Zune HD, but on several third-party phones. Are we crazy? Yes, absolutely -- but you've got to admit the pieces are coming together.

Steve Ballmer pounds chest, decrees Windows Mobile 7 coming next year

by Ross Miller posted Feb 24th 2009 @ 6:03PM

Sure, we're still anticipating -- but not necessarily merrily -- the release of Windows Mobile 6.5, but for those who wish to look even farther into the future, Microsoft head honcho Steve Ballmer said in a conference call this week that WinMo 7 will be out sometime next year. That jibes pretty well with what we've heard from Motorola and ZDNet before, although there's probably a dozen or so known unknowns that could push it well into 2011 or beyond. For now, however, we're willing to take Steve at his word. Hey, at least they're not gearing up for a Windows Mobile 6.75 in the interim... right?

Motorola posts $3.6b loss as devices sales fall by 26 percent

by Nilay Patel posted Feb 3rd 2009 @ 11:38AM

Things just aren't getting any better for Motorola -- just weeks after the troubled phone manufacturer announced deep layoffs, it's revealing that it lost $3.6 billion dollars in the fourth quarter. The loss is mainly attributed to falling device sales: handsets were down 26 percent, and mobile devices total were down 51 percent. According to Motorola CEO Sanjay Jha, the answer for now is Android phones, which the company thinks will be more competitive than WinMo devices in 2009 -- and he interestingly said that Moto plans on continuing to make Windows Mobile devices because it thinks WinMo 7 will be a big deal when it comes out in 2010. That's the first time we've ever heard a date on WinMo 7, if you're keeping track -- and if it's right, it'll be the second time Jha's blown the lid on an upcoming version of Windows Mobile. Whoops! We'll be watching that one, but for now here's hoping Moto rights the ship with something like an Android-based SURF A3100 -- otherwise it may not even be around in 2010.

Microsoft job listing hints at App Store-like 'Skymarket' for Windows Mobile

by Darren Murph posted Aug 31st 2008 @ 11:03PM

While Apple's App Store was far from being the first of its kind, we're now seeing a job posting over in the Redmond area that suggests that Microsoft is looking to produce something similar for its Windows Mobile platform. The news comes hot on the heels of Google's own Android Market announcement, and if the Product Manager position writeup is to be believed, said platform will be christened Skymarket. Described as a "marketplace service for Windows Mobile," Skymarket could seemingly be a critical part of WinMo 7. But don't take our word for it, the proof is the pudding -- or in the read link, in this instance.

[Via The Raw Feed]