No Rumor, Xbox Live on Windows Phone 7

[scooby_dooby]

Sorry but there's no way in hell WP7 will take off and become a major player.

Android has all the momentum right now, and with 2.2 is really an excellent product. Android will not become more splintered, but rather less, as more 2.2+ phones are released and the old 1.x builds are made obsolete.

I don't know why MS felt the need to muddy the waters, but hey that's what they do I suppose.

Wake me up when they port this to Android

 

[dobwal]

Sorry but there's no way in hell WP7 will take off and become a major player.

Android has all the momentum right now, and with 2.2 is really an excellent product. Android will not become more splintered, but rather less, as more 2.2+ phones are released and the old 1.x builds are made obsolete.

I don't know why MS felt the need to muddy the waters, but hey that's what they do I suppose.

Wake me up when they port this to Android

Given the way Android was able to gain major momentum while technically being the youngest mobile OS on the market, serves only as proof that WP7 can become a important player with a relevant userbase within a relatively short time period. Since Android really has no brand recognition in the general market (Android isn't really marketed and is really not branded on the phones at all) and geeks will flock to latest and greatest technology. If MS and Sony can attract that crowd and carriers jump on board with massive marketing it won't be hard for either to gain marketshare.

Furthermore, 2.2 will give way to 3.0 in very short order as dual core Armed Android based phones hit the market as early as next year even though the new T-Mobile G2 slated for this year is rumored to be dual core. Regardless if Android ends up moving 40-60 million phones a year, fragmentation is hardly going to discourage developers from entering such a massive market.

 

[obonicus]

I'm more curious as to what piracy will look like on these devices, if it exists at all.

 

[scooby_dooby]

Given the way Android was able to gain major momentum while technically being the youngest mobile OS on the market, serves only as proof that WP7 can become a important player with a relevant userbase within a relatively short time period. Since Android really has no brand recognition in the general market (Android isn't really marketed and is really not branded on the phones at all) and geeks will flock to latest and greatest technology. If MS and Sony can attract that crowd and carriers jump on board with massive marketing it won't be hard for either to gain marketshare.

Furthermore, 2.2 will give way to 3.0 in very short order as dual core Armed Android based phones hit the market as early as next year even though the new T-Mobile G2 slated for this year is rumored to be dual core. Regardless if Android ends up moving 40-60 million phones a year, fragmentation is hardly going to discourage developers from entering such a massive market.

I don't know, I think there's only so much room in the space. You need support from the major carriers, and right now they are all putting their marketing efforts behind Android. Everybody is getting on board that train, and here's MS totally scrapping their existing platform and coming way late to the game.

It is not impossible, but it would require a really excellent product, and truth be told, I don't see Microsoft offering that compelling of a product. And definitely not with V1!

Android succeeded so easily because there was a giant gaping hole in the space, but it's now been filled. You've got RIM, Apple and Google as the primary players, RIM is steady, and Apple and Google are both surging.
I don't see room for a 4th.

Regarding OS changes, of course it's true, but I've used previous versions and I have 2.2 now and this is truly a mature OS at this point. The also made huge changes to the Java compiler, converting it to a JIT compiler, and saw big speed boosts there. So I really do think Froyo was a bit of a landmark OS.

 

[Exophase]

What's your point? A cortex A5 could still meet the requirements and it's a slower processor according to that chart.

Yeah you could use a Cortex-A5 and clock it down to nothing. You could also conceivably implement DirectX9 on a pretty sub-par GPU. That isn't the point.

The idea isn't to establish minimum performance, it's to establish capability.
By requiring ARMv7 it means that all WM7 phones will implement the same basic instruction set and so all WM7 software, not to mention, WM7 itself, will be able to leverage it.

If a vendor decides to release compatible hardware that runs like crap then that's their prerogative - the market will probably choose to ignore it, meaning that it won't dictate software development.

I think the XBL integration and lineup is a really major move for MS and will go a long way towards improving WM7's viability. I hope we end up with some real gaming phones out of this too, you know, with gaming controls.

 

[Florin]

Yeah but phones are first and foremost vanity items. People are mainly buying into a particular lifestyle and features are far less important than one might think (except to a handful of techies, but let's face it, we are simply maintaining our own brand of snobbery).

This is why kids are walking around with Iphones and Blackberries while Nokia's N-Gage and Sony Ericsson's Walkman phones never went anywhere.

So uhh.. XBL integration? I can't seriously imagine a large crowd wanting to be associated with that.

Frankly, I suspect that WP7 will hit the market like a wet fart.

 

[Richard]

not me but ppl have
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acid3
you will see ie9 (latest preview) scores quite well esp to compared to ie9 from a couple of mnths ago, though it's still scores the lowest of all the major browsers

You said HTML 5, which isn't even a standard yet. Don't get me wrong, I'm not too hopeful MS can improve on the standards landscape with IE9 but you're complaining about a not-even-beta browser supporting a non-even-final spec. Complain about how it took so long for MS to give a damn about internet standards, instead.

 

[argor]

complaining about a not-even-beta browser supporting a non-even-final spec. .

the the spec is coming together for example
webgl will have Spec Freeze in September

 

[Dural]

not me but ppl have
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acid3
you will see ie9 (latest preview) scores quite well esp to compared to ie9 from a couple of mnths ago, though it's still scores the lowest of all the major browsers

Not according to this article on engadget.


edit-sorry didn't read the wiki page, you're talking compliance to the standard not speed

 

[mrcorbo]

Copy-Paste could be more tricky than you might think at first glance. Keep in mind, Copy-Paste on the desktop has evolved far beyond the early text-only days and is expected to handle all kinds of different data. MS could just try to quickly implement a dumb text-only copy paste, but once it's part of the OS, updating it without breaking application compatibility could be tricky. Or not. <shrugs>.

The lack of application multitasking and the inability for applications to run in the background (a la Pandora) OTOH is a design decision. The OS core still supports it. This is kind of a big deal to me given how I typically use my phone, but for the general consumer? Didn't seem to hurt IPhone sales, so who knows?

To be more on topic, the XBOX Live integration is a definite plus here in terms of the appeal WP7 has for me. Especially the asynchronous multiplayer concept. I'm officially off contract now, so may the best device, OS and carrier win.

 

[Grall]

Copy-Paste could be more tricky than you might think at first glance.

A fair concern perhaps, although the situation sure is ironic with MS having panned the iPhone for not featuring copy-paste for years, and then their own next-gen mobile OS doesn't feature it either...

The lack of application multitasking and the inability for applications to run in the background (a la Pandora) OTOH is a design decision.

Multitasking isn't so important in a phone IMO. There should be hooks for light-duty things like music players or GPS trackers and so on to run in the background, and if all other apps - such as browsers, games, productivity apps and whatnot suspend to flash memory in the exact state you left them, and then are able to resume, that should be good enough for pretty much everyone.

Do you really NEED full-blown pre-emptive MT in a phone or other portable device? I'm dubious. For one thing, the screen isn't big enough to show more than one app at a time, so why should anything other than the current one be running?

To be more on topic, the XBOX Live integration is a definite plus here in terms of the appeal WP7 has for me.

Personally I couldn't care less about XBL. It's totally uninteresting to me ever since MS announced you have to pay to play through it. I paid once for their feckin' console, and I pay for the games, that should be good enough for them. MS doesn't run the internet, so I don't see why I should pay them to play games hosted right on my own hardware...

Then again, maybe gamescore epeen and achievements are important to the kiddies today, I haven't the faintest clue. Maybe having that in their phone too would appeal to them, who knows.

 

[Helmore]

Personally I couldn't care less about XBL. It's totally uninteresting to me ever since MS announced you have to pay to play through it. I paid once for their feckin' console, and I pay for the games, that should be good enough for them. MS doesn't run the internet, so I don't see why I should pay them to play games hosted right on my own hardware...

Then again, maybe gamescore epeen and achievements are important to the kiddies today, I haven't the faintest clue. Maybe having that in their phone too would appeal to them, who knows.

You only need XBL Silver to make use of XBL on WP7, so no need to pay MS anything if you want to make use of XBL on WP7.

 

[AzBat]

Here's a pretty good video demo of the Xbox Live integration on WP7...

Here's a short one discussing asynchronous game play...

Here's another showing the hub, but also has demos of IloMilo and Rocket Riot

Here's one that has demos of Star Wars Battle for Hoth and Crackdown: Project Sunburst:

Looks really robust, but they really need to make a non-phone version too.

Tommy McClain