[eastmen]

http://www.engadget.com/2010/02/06/r...unch-zun/?s=t5

On the upside, the OS is said to have full Xbox gaming integration (including gamertags, avatars and, yes, achievements), full Zune integration, full support for social networking, and a try before you buy system in the Marketplace.

This is great news

Update: MobileTechWorld looks to have also received the same batch of rumors, and has revealed a few more, including word that the browsing experience is currently "better / faster" than the iPhone 3G, and that Microsoft is "aiming towards" the 3GS. They also say that while there will be no Microsoft-made device, the company will have tighter control of the manufacturing process, which promises to simplify things for everyone involved and allow for over-the-air updates.

Live anywhere and a zune like interface would make it a fav around many xbox live fans. Also the speed sounds pretty good .

What are your thoughts on live anywhere or possibly a psn anywhere .


btw i posted here more so for talk of the possiblitys of a live or psn anywhere set up and what it might mean for games moving foward. Digital distribution would be something that would get pushed foward with this. Esp if teh stores are connected between the devices. Zune , xbox live and win mo 7 being linked so apps worked on everything would push them foward. Might even get many used to DD and the cloud where you can pull a game down on your account anywhere.

[Squilliam]

Sounds pretty smart and obvious. Leverage your console userbase for greater adoption of Windows Mobile 7 and vice versa with Xbox 360 and Xbox Live.

[RobertR1]

I'd be happy for a Live anywhere. I'll be looking for a new phone this summer and I hope they get some good Win Mo 7 phones out by then.

[Nesh]

I was waiting for PSN integration and remote play through more devices, as envisioned by Sony but it looks like Sony may be much slower in its integration than MS

[Florin]

I hope it's just as succesful as Windows CE/PocketPC/Mobile has been so far.

[Graham]

There is only part of these rumors I don't believe. Microsoft would be utterly foolish to launch a new mobile OS without support for the .Net compact framework.
It makes even less sense, as all the zune models support it (eg XNA runs on .net CF). AFAIK all zune HD apps are .net CF.

I could believe that the UI libraries are incompatible, but not the entire framework.
I also doubt it would lack flash support, given IE in WinMo 6.5 supports it.

With all that said, I'd be all over a ~3" HTC HD2 / Diamond2 like WinMo7 device, and I really don't like touch screen phones.

[eastmen]

Originally Posted by Nesh

I was waiting for PSN integration and remote play through more devices, as envisioned by Sony but it looks like Sony may be much slower in its integration than MS

I think MS started talking live anyhwere up in 2006. Sony on the other hand did get remote play with the psp working. So i'd say sony is ahead.


If all this pans out though ms will take a jump foward.


I really hope that since these are smart phones we are able to do a voip to other xbox live members who are on their 360. That be a great way to chat with them and plan out gaming that night.

[Shifty Geezer]

Aren't Sony rolling out their PSN services through their internet enabled TVs?

[Nesh]

Originally Posted by eastmen

I think MS started talking live anyhwere up in 2006. Sony on the other hand did get remote play with the psp working. So i'd say sony is ahead.


If all this pans out though ms will take a jump foward.


I really hope that since these are smart phones we are able to do a voip to other xbox live members who are on their 360. That be a great way to chat with them and plan out gaming that night.

The PSP is not a widely used device though and they didnt move further for a long time

Sony was planning to do it with phones and other devices too, and they demonstrated it in one of their conferences (in 2006 or 2007) but never saw them extending it beyond the PSP which is "slow" in comparison

The XMB was supposed to see its way in more devices as well

[Shifty Geezer]

XMB is finally getting rolled into other products. They're slow, but at least they are getting there. Probably.

[Asher]

Seriously doubt the lack of .NET CF compatibility. There's a LOT of overlap between the .NET CF runtime and the Silverlight runtime, and Silverlight is pretty much guaranteed to be supported on the phone...not to mention XNA.

[BoardBonobo]

Originally Posted by Shifty Geezer

XMB is finally getting rolled into other products. They're slow, but at least they are getting there. Probably.

The Sony Ericsson Aino is probably their most complete mobile device with PSN and remote play integration. Now if they'd only got a lightweight PSP in there as well so you could play some games they would have had a winner, missing the App store of course...

[AzBat]

I'm not totally convinced about the rumors, but would love for Xbox Live Anywhere to finally show up. Just hope it's not just for WinMo7 devices. Hopefully some WinMo6 phones get some love too. All this news just when I'm about to buy a new phone for the wife & I. We almost settled on the Palm Pixi. Now I have to convince her to wait just a bit longer. LOL

Tommy McClain

[Arwin]

Originally Posted by BoardBonobo

The Sony Ericsson Aino is probably their most complete mobile device with PSN and remote play integration. Now if they'd only got a lightweight PSP in there as well so you could play some games they would have had a winner, missing the App store of course...

I reckon PSN will start filling that App Store role for Sony on other devices besides the PSP and PS3 it is already servicing now. In fact, they've said as much.

[eastmen]

Originally Posted by AzBat

I'm not totally convinced about the rumors, but would love for Xbox Live Anywhere to finally show up. Just hope it's not just for WinMo7 devices. Hopefully some WinMo6 phones get some love too. All this news just when I'm about to buy a new phone for the wife & I. We almost settled on the Palm Pixi. Now I have to convince her to wait just a bit longer. LOL

Tommy McClain

we should know more in a week or so when the confrence happens.


People are talking sprint up in all this. Apparently they had balamer at thier ces show to show off winmo 7 ad some exlcusive phones. But neither the phones nor the software was ready last minute.

[Tchock]

Originally Posted by Graham

There is only part of these rumors I don't believe. Microsoft would be utterly foolish to launch a new mobile OS without support for the .Net compact framework.
It makes even less sense, as all the zune models support it (eg XNA runs on .net CF). AFAIK all zune HD apps are .net CF.

I could believe that the UI libraries are incompatible, but not the entire framework.
I also doubt it would lack flash support, given IE in WinMo 6.5 supports it.

With all that said, I'd be all over a ~3" HTC HD2 / Diamond2 like WinMo7 device, and I really don't like touch screen phones.

They might be pushing for a complete different/unified UI approach for apps using Silverlight.

Which is why direct (aka "lazy") backwards compatibility might be sacrificed, replaced by devs easily porting the existing code but adding more cowbell through Silverlight, approved by MS in the end. (??)

[zed]

Originally Posted by Florin

I hope it's just as succesful as Windows CE/PocketPC/Mobile has been so far.

wot! ~1% (and dropping) of shipped phones
Im expecting a discontinuing of the OS in 2011/12

[Asher]

To be fair, Windows Mobile still has more marketshare than many people think. The 1% of shipped phones number is downright misleading -- you need to look at smartphone marketshare.

Their marketshare is declining, but not as rapidly as some people will have you believe.

http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/news/...rket-share.ars

Smartphone marketshare for Windows Mobile was 19% in 2008, 18% in 2009 in the US. To put that in perspective, Android is still only at 5.2%.

[eastmen]

Not only that but there has been an explosion of google phones while winmo phones have basicly died off.

Once win mo 7 comes out there will be a ton of win mo phones again.

[Florin]

Originally Posted by eastmen

Not only that but there has been an explosion of google phones while winmo phones have basicly died off.

Once win mo 7 comes out there will be a ton of win mo phones again.

You'd think the market woulda learned after 6.5 times an utter failure. It's almost like someone is throwing money at this.

[corduroygt]

Cell phones don't work like the PC market, you can't just make an OS to be used by different phone makers. That's why iPhone and RIM are successful, and Google realized this and made Nexus one.
WM7 is going to fail, unless it's sold with a phone made by MS and tuned for it.

[Asher]

People are too quick to write off WM7. The reason it's being delayed so much is they're going back to the drawing board on many ideas that are obsolete in WM 6.5 and before. WM6.5 was a quick bandaid, no one expected it to be wildly successful.

If WM7 is mainly powered by Silverlight apps and they refresh the UI paradigms, there's a lot of promise.

I say this as a guy who does iPhone and Android development predominantly right now, but I've made a couple .NET CF WinMo apps as well. Google gave me a free Nexus One on Monday, and I love it (and Android) to death, but it's far too quick to write off WM. Especially with how little is actually public about WM7.

[eastmen]

Originally Posted by Florin

You'd think the market woulda learned after 6.5 times an utter failure. It's almost like someone is throwing money at this.

Considering how great win mo 5-6.1 was for the time they were released shows how little you know.

Before the iphone or google I was able to surf the web on my smart phone . I was able to sync my outlook and check my emails and get my work done.

Its easy to start from scratch with a new idea and put it out there with no baggage . But MS was doing their thing and now have to switch gears. It happens.

[Florin]

Originally Posted by eastmen

Considering how great win mo 5-6.1 was for the time they were released shows how little you know.

Before the iphone or google I was able to surf the web on my smart phone . I was able to sync my outlook and check my emails and get my work done.

The rest of the world was doing that on Nokia and Ericsson phones without the clumsy user interface. The early HTC WM devices were pretty awful phones. These days they're a bit better mainly thanks to HTC Sense but there still isn't any feature that makes them really stand out. Before that, PocketPC got thoroughly trashed by PalmOS (I had an Ipaq, eeew), and the WinCE Casio things before that were just laughable.

Windows Mobile has always been an OS looking for a reason to exist. If it were made by any other company, it would've long been dead and buried. So when you feel you need to post here how great it is that it is going to be resurrected again (this time by leveraging their XBox market share) then scepticism seems a fair component of such a topic.

[Florin]

Originally Posted by Asher

Google gave me a free Nexus One on Monday, and I love it (and Android) to death, but it's far too quick to write off WM. Especially with how little is actually public about WM7.

I'm not writing it off. I'm sure it'll eventually be succesful, maybe with release 8, or 9, or 18. The zombie OS can't be killed after all.