Thanks to Google India for taking an opportunity to introduce Cyber Monday in India. Cyber Monday is well known in US and is celebrated every year in the month of November, where Americans can get big deals on Electronics, Apparels, Books, Gifts, Mobiles, Tablets, Laptops, Cameras, TVs, Jewellery etc.
The same was introducing by Google in India which was partnered with many Indian E-Commerce players and celebrating on 12-Dec-2012.
Multi product sellers - Ebay India, FlipKart, Snapdeal, Infibeam, Indiatimes Shopping, Homeshop 18, Apparel stores like Myntra, Zovi, Inkfruit, Basics Life, Shoppers Stop, Yebhi, Zovi, First cry, 99 Labels, Electronics stores Gadgets in, eZone online, Airtel, Croma retail, naaptol and other like allschoolstuff, Bookadda, JewelsKart, Watchkart, bagkart, 21 Diamonds, Caratlane, Skoda, HDFC, ICICI, makemytrip, Yatra.com, redbus, goibibo, Jet Airways, Monster group, Shine and more are participating on Great Online Shopping Festival on this 12th.
You can get the deals upto 50% on this day.
You can find the participants in official homepage - www.gosf.in
"The online shopping industry is already over $1.5 billion and with this initiative, we want to reach out and promote online shopping to the first time buyers," Google India MD and VP Sales and Operations Rajan Anandan said.
"For this 24 hour sale, we have lined up some really exciting offers from our portfolio of 500 brands and we're confident that shoppers will come back for more," Myntra.com Co-Founder and CEO Mukesh Bansal said.
So shop till your mouse breaks....!
So what are you shopping for this festival ? Share with us.
Tags: Cyber Monday in India by Google, Deals, Buy online, Buy Phones, tablets, laptops online, list of websites participating in Online festival, revenue, iPads, Laptops, Mobile phone deals, online deals in India.
Windows 8, the totally revamped GUI is finally in the hands of users. Infact, it is the biggest change ever happen for Windows. Microsoft is also promoting their product through electronic media with an album Everything At Once by Lenka and the lyrics by Versuri, describes the windows 8 in extreme.
Watch the Windows 8 Promo - Everything At Once (Via Youtube):
Lyrics for Everything At Once (Windows 8 Promotional song):
As sly as a fox, as strong as an ox
As fast as a hare, as brave as a bear
As free as a bird, as neat as a word
As quite as a mouse, as big as a house
All I wanna be, all I wanna be, oh
All I wanna be is everything
As mean as a wolf, as sharp as a tooth
As deep as a bite, as dark as the night
As sweet as a song, as right as a wrong
As long as a road, as ugly as a toad
As pretty as a picture hanging from a fixture
Strong like a family, strong as I wanna be
Bright as day, as light as play
As hard as nails, as grand as a whale
All I wanna be, all I wanna be, oh
All I wanna be is everything
As warm as the, the sun, as silly as fun
As cool as a tree, as scary as the sea
As hot as fire, cold as ice
Sweet as sugar and everything nice
As old as time, as straight as a line
As royal as a queen, as buzzed as a bee
Stealth as a tiger, smooth as a glide
Pure as a melody, pure as I wanna be
All I wanna be, all I wanna be, oh
All I wanna be is everything.
Do you like the Album ? Post your comments.
Tags: Windows 8 Music, Promotional song, By Lenka, Everything At Once lyrics, Windows 8 Theme song, Lyrics of Windows 8 music Album, download, Youtube, Lenka, Windows 8 Song download, Album, Video Lyrics, Full HD, Windows 8 complete song with Lyrics, Ringtone.
Google Inc; made its foray into the market for bundled Internet and television services with promising access speeds more than 100 times faster than traditional US cable and telecommunications.
The search engine giant will start its ultra high speed internet service Google Fiber in Kansas city, Missouri. Installations will be deployed in Kansas from September 2012 and later Google hope to roll out its services to other cities later.
After building the infrastructure using fiber optic communication in July 2012, Google announced its pricing and plans. Google fiber service will have 3 options - Free internet for 7 years, 1 Gbps Internet and a version that includes television service.
Plans & Pricing:
Plan
TV+Internet
Internet
Free Internet
Cost
$120/month
$70/month
Free (for at least 7 years)
Installation
$300 construction fee (waived with 2 year contract)
$300 construction fee (waived with 1 year contract)
$300 construction fee (one time or $25/mo for a year)
Internet Speed (Download / Upload)
1Gbps / 1Gbps
1Gbps / 1Gbps
5 Mbps / 1 Mbps
TV Access
Yes
No
No
Storage
2 TB DVR Storage (8 Shows can be recorded simultaneously)
1 TB Google Drive
1 TB Google Drive
None
Additional Hardware
Nexus 7 tablet
None
None
TV Box:
With HD ready TV Box you can get access to Live TV, on-demand shows and internet content.
You can extend your access all over your home with integrated Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and Ethernet port.
Fully compatible with HDMI, component or composite video outputs for TV or stereo and optical S/PDIF for audio.
Network Box:
Access Google Fiber all over your home by connecting to one of the four Ethernet ports or through 802.11a/b/g/n Wi-Fi and stay safe with Gigabit firewall.
Storage Box:
Storage box comes with a 2 TB capacity and with this you never miss a show or you can record upto 500 hours of HD content. The content can be accessible from any of your devices over your home network.
Tags: Google Fiber, About Google Fiber, Pricing, Infrastructure, Google Fiber plans and Pricing, installation cost, free internet, videos, Ads, 1 Gbps internet, high speed internet, technology, TV box, network box, storage box, Kansas city, register for Google fiber, How to get Google fiber connection, 100 times the faster internet, 100 times the possibilities, Google Fiber - The Internet next chapter starts here.
Online shopping in India was growing in a tremendous manner, number of people shopping in online found 70% YOY from 10 to 17 million. Increase in Internet connectivity and speed, handy gadgets, applications, logistics coverage, products availability, deals and discounts, different mode of payments, user reviews, lack of time to go malls may be the reasons for growing online shopping.
Many corporate brands, retails chains started their e-commerce websites in India, along with their existing physical stores to target online users. As per the credit card issuer MasterCard survey, most of the people are using the cards for buying Tickets, home appliances and CD/DVDs.
You can buy various products like Gifts, cakes, Books, clothes, jewelery, baby care, book tickets, softwares, computers, laptops, mobiles, gadgets, groceries, vegetables right from your device with bare foot.
I came across some online websites, which may help you. If I miss some websites, intimate me by writing down in comment box. You can also share your online shopping experiences with our readers by writing in the comment box.
Why can't you share your online shopping experience with a particular web store or add a new website to this directory? Write it down in comment box.
Get Free Alerts:
Tags: Online Shopping in India, Online Shopping websites in India, About online shopping, precautions, Shop online, for Books, cakes, send flowers, gifts, apparels, Toys, watches, jewelery shopping, prints online, buy mobile gadgets online, recharge your mobile, DTH online, Best online websites directory, electronic gadgets, buy Shoes online, book movie, railway, train, bus tickets online India, buy vegetables, cosmetics, bags, sun glasses, spects, T-shirts, baby care online.
We all know few days back, Microsoft releases their next version for Windows 7, naming it as Windows 8. Many of you already installed it on your PC. This time Microsoft introduced its Windows version with lesser boot time, we have to appreciate Microsoft. It was done by introducing special architecture in designing the Operating System.
Following is the performance comparision of Windows 7 and Windows 8. The test was done on a PC with the hardware: 3.8 GHz clocked i7 processor, 6GB RAM, Nvidia GE Force 9800 GT, 2 TB Hard Disk, 20 Mbps Ethernet connection.
Windows 8 Vs Windows 7 performance test results.
The above scores shows that Windows 8 wins in every aspect, although the differences are negligible, those can be counted on a low power PC.
Get Free Alerts:
Tags: Windows 8, Windows 7, Windows 8 Boot performance, Windows 7 Vs Windows 8, Boot time, Windows 8 Design, Architecture, Download, Microsoft tools, Tips and tricks for computers, computer issues, Free downloads.
Facing difficulty in finding the local transit (public transport like city buses) information when you came/living in metro cities like Hyderabad, Bangalore, Chennai.... ?
If you know how to use technology, then now its very easy to get the local city bus routes with their service numbers and time tables. Today Google announced its Google Transit service to Hyderabad and Chennai. Just you need a computer with internet or a mobile with GPRS/3G. So you can get the information while you are on go.
Point your browser to http://www.google.com/transit , just enter your source and destination with time of travel. It will display the route on a map with bus numbers and time taken to travel.
Google Transit sample image
With this service, Google has mapped 446 APSRTC bus routes criss-crossing Hyderabad, with plans afoot to keep adding other modes of public transport, a Google spokesperson said. "We work through tie-ups with local transportation authorities in various cities. The entire data on Hyderabad's bus services, which are run by APSRTC, was collected and as we go along, we will keep adding various modes of transport like we did in Mumbai and Delhi where transit services of local trains and metro rail are also mapped along with bus services," the spokesperson explained.
Google first unveiled its Transit services in India in the middle of 2010 and currently seven cities, including Hyderabad, Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Pune, Chennai and Ahmedabad, have their public transport mapped on it. Globally, the services are available in 447 cities.
Get Free Alerts:
Tags: Google Transit, India, Hyderabad, Chennai, Google transit link, What is Google transit, Hyderabad, Local city bus information, Timetable, routes, Google maps, APSRTC city bus routes, Timetables.
On the night before yesterday, Mark Zuckerberg launched what the Facebook users wanted and waited a 7 long years for. Even though, this need was completed by a not-so-famous application, everybody wanted Facebook to launch their own video chat feature. No one could convince them to do so but thanks to Google+ Hangout, the feature which allows you to chat with up to 10 people at a single time. Many people liked this feature and this feature made Google+ more and more famous over the next few days. Mark Zuckerberg, then did what he should have done a long time ago, introduced the video chat. Facebook partnered with Skype to launch the Facebook Video Chat which lets you do video-chatting with people(quite expected,heh). The sad part was that Facebook didn’t announce the group chat which was totally expected by a lot of people and that would have given a nice competition to Google+ Hangout. Even with that feature excluded, Facebook Video Chat is said to be giving competition to Google+ so I decided that I should try both of them and see which is the better video chat client.
Facebook Video Chat vs Google+ Hangout
1. Starting a Video Chat
It’s really important to see how do you start a video chat because of the start gives you a headache you won’t like to try it again but if the start is done easily, you would use the video chat feature to chat with more friends. In both the social networking sites, you can start a video chat by clicking a “video chat” icon in your friend’s chat box. The plus point here would be the group chat that Google+ offers unlike Facebook Video and that puts Google+ in the big lead. To start a group video chat, you have to click “Start a Hangout” at the right side of your homepage and then you have to invite your circles to join in the hangout. You may wait till they join in and the fun you will have using that feature would be unforgettable.
The Winner: Google+ Hangout
2. The Interface
A user-friendly interface would be the requirement of the people because the interface is what the viewers might see in the first look. Judging the interface was easy. The interface of the Google+ hangout was amazing, nice and simple. When you start a hangout a new window opens and the background is quite clean and elegant and I loved to chat with that background. Facebook Video Chat doesn’t have a background. When your friend accepts the video chat request, a new box opens where you can see his face and in a corner, your video can be seen. You can drag the box anywhere in the tab. Google+ is better in the interface as well as they have a user-friendly interface so the users would like to use Google+ Hangout.
The Winner: Google+ Hangout
3. Picture Clarity
Whenever you are in a video chat you would like to see the clear picture of your friend or whoever you are talking to. So, the picture clarity needs to be good. This was the most difficult section for me to judge. Facebook Video Chat or Google+ Hangout. Which one has the better picture clarity. So, I chatted with the same person on both the video chats at one time. That surely made my netbook a little slow but I managed to find out that Facebook Video Chat has a better picture quality, thanks to Skype. Google+ Hangout’s picture quality seemed a little grainy in front of Facebook Video Chat.
The Winner: Facebook Video Chat
So, after those three rounds. Google+ Hangout got 2 points and Facebook Video Chat got one point meaning that Google+ Hangout is the better video chat client in my opinion. What do you think? Which one is better according to you? Do comment.
Get Free Alerts:
Tags: FaceBook, Google plus, Google hangout, Facebook vs Google, Video chat, which is better, best, google +, Facebook, Hangouts, Social networking, Internet.
Finally the rival for the social networking giant Facebook was born from Google family. Google named this project as Google Plus (Google+). Google includes many advanced features in this project. You can access the Google + home page from www.google.com/+ . But presently it was in invitation based & was testing with limited number of users. Soon it will be available to all users.
Let us see the features in Google+ project:
Circles
Circles are an interesting way of grouping together the people in your network to form number of meaningful clusters which enables you to share only that much information which you want to share with them. Like you can have separate circles for your work place, family, friends etc and the good thing is that others can see only that you have added them to some circle but in which one, they can’t know.
Sparks
Sparks is a very good introduction which displays random content from across the web (over which google has a strong hold). The content is categorized based upon different interest areas. You can create a new spark based upon your interest area or you can see the regular sparks shown by Google. Sharing of content (blog posts, articles & videos) from sparks with your circles is very easy & happens in a flash. I personally feel they should add Google reader feature or some customization option in the sparks tab to make it more useful.
Huddle
So Google+ includes Huddle, a group messaging experience that lets everyone inside the circle know what’s going on, right this second. Group messaging was first made popular by blackberry messenger service (BBM) from RIM but bringing that to the web is a good feature although i don’t rate it as an innovation. Already this kind of chat can be done on facebook closed groups.
Hangout
Hangout is a great feature which lets you to have a video chat with up to 10 people at the same time & it has a very nice “narrative detection” element which automatically detects the active user who is speaking to the other members & thus his video is relayed to all other members in the real time.
This comes into action for the video chat with more than 2 people. The experience is smooth & there’s hardly any lag. I rate this feature as the most powerful yet on Google Plus and it certainly adds a very element to social media.
Upto now this feature was providing by Skype in its premium version.
Mobile
I haven’t tried out the Google+ mobile feature yet but it seems to be an interesting feature after looking at the post by RWW it seems that experience of using Google on android phones is really good. Like while you’re snapping pictures, and with your permission, Google+ adds your photos to a private album in the cloud. This way they’re always available across your devices—ready to share as you see fit.
Let us see how the Google+ impact will be on the Facebook & Social networking. What do you think: Will it be a success or failure?
Share some more things and your experience on Google Plus in the below comment box.
Get Free Alerts:
Tags: Google plus, Google+, Google plus features, Overview of google plus, +Circles, +Hangouts, +Huddle, +Mobile, +Sparks, Google plus invitations, All about Google plus, Google+, Google plus details, Google, About Google+, What is Google plus?, Google new project, Google Plus Login, Google Plus invite.
Data taken from Google Blog and Digital Vidya. Thanks for the info.
We get a lot of great feedback about how Gmail helps you be more efficient, keep in touch with family and friends, and get work done. We’ve saved you from forgetting attachments and made sure that you got the right Bob. Over the years, adding countless features to Gmail has made it an increasingly powerful communication hub, but along the way the interface has also become more cluttered and complex.
That’s one of the reasons we’re embarking on a series of interface updates to help strip out unnecessary clutter and make Gmail as beautiful as it is powerful. This is part of a Google-wide effort to bring you an experience that’s more focused, elastic, and effortless across all of our products. The changes are not going to happen all at once. We know that you love and care about Gmail as much as we do, and we’ll be working on these upgrades gradually over the next few months to allow plenty of time to understand and incorporate your feedback into the evolving design.
We’re kicking things off with two new themes for you to try out as a sort of sneak peek at what we’re up to. Starting today, you’ll see the “Preview” and “Preview (Dense)” themes in the Themes tab in Gmail Settings. Why two themes? Our new interface will eventually expand dynamically to accommodate different screen sizes and user preferences, but until then you can pick the information density that you prefer.
Here’s what one of the new themes currently looks like:
And in conversation view:
Click the images above to see larger versions.
If you poke around you’ll hopefully find a lot to like and a much cleaner, modern look but also few rough edges. In particular, some Labs features may look a little strange in the new themes. We plan to fix these issues as we roll out changes in the coming months. You can also expect some updated themes that embody the same design principles but are better suited to working in a dark environment, use a different color palette, or include the illustrations that we know many of you love to see around your inbox.
Look out for these and other new features over the next few months. In the meantime, try out the new themes as a preview of the future of Gmail and let us know what you think.
P.S. Like Gmail, Google Calendar is also getting a new look. You’ll see it automatically within the next few days so there’s no need to turn it on, and we’ll also continue to make improvements there in the coming months. Details about the current changes to Calendar can be found in the Calendar help center.
The BlackBerry PlayBook is a tablet computer announced by Research In Motion (RIM), the Canadian telecommunications company best known for the BlackBerry smartphone, on September 27, 2010. At only 9.7 mm thick, the Playbook is the first tablet with a width below 10 mm. The company expects to deliver the machine to enterprise customers and developers in October, and release it to consumers in early 2011, putting it in direct competition with Apple's iPad, a possible iPad successor and a slew of Android powered tablets.
Also announced was a new operating system, the BlackBerry Tablet OS, based on QNX Neutrino, to run on the tablet. The tablet has been surrounded with much hype since it was announced and received positive reviews from technology critics including at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.
PlayBook Vs IPad in Action.
I know many of you are eager to see more of the BlackBerry® PlayBook™ in action. I’m excited to share the above video with you that filmed with Matthew from the web browser group at RIM, which demonstrates how the web browsing experience is coming together on the PlayBook.
On the video, Matthew quickly runs through a series of comparison tests with a PlayBook and iPad (running iOS 3.2.2), which demonstrate three things: the speed of the PlayBook Browser, its support for rich Adobe® Flash® content, and the performance of open web standards like HTML 5 on the PlayBook. Post a comment and let us know what you think!
US:April 3,2010 (WiFi),April 30, 2010 (WiFi+3G) Other Countries: May 28, 2010
Units Sold
--
14.79 Millions (upto 25, Dec 2010)
WebSite
http://blackberry.com/playbook
http://www.apple.com/ipad/
Update: PlayBook Prices: 16GB ($499), 32GB($599), 64GB($699). Will be available from April-19-2011.
So, which one you prefer Apple Ipad or BlackBerry PlayBook? Write your comment below, so it will be useful to others.
Get Free Alerts:
--Data From WikiPedia & BlackBerry Blog. Thanks for sharing.
Tags: BlackBerry PlayBook, Apple IPad, Play Book Review, Play book Specifications, IPad Specifications, Review, which one to buy, Playbook vs Ipad, RIM, Apple Inc, Technical specifications,Wiki, Wikipedia, Youtube, Video, Images, Pictures, Home Screen, India, HTML5, Flash, US, Black Berry Play Book, Apple IPad, Reviews, tech specs, release dates, shippings, sellings, Wiki, Wikipedia, Images., Blackberry Playbook prices, cost, rate in US.
Everyone has an eager to know how Google, the Worlds leading search engine is working. If you also have such enthusiasm see the below image (Graphical flow chart) and understand it, then you can have a brief idea on this.
So, have you understand now How Google search engine works????
Get Free Alerts:
Tags: Google, Google search engine, How google search engine works?, Google search page rank, algorithm, how google resolves queries at speed, in small time.
It's astounding that until this moment, three years after the iPhone, the biggest software company in the world basically didn't compete in mobile. Windows Phone 7 Series is more than the Microsoft smartphone we've been waiting for. Everything's different now.
Today, at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Microsoft is publicly previewing Windows Phone 7 for the first time. The brand new, totally fresh operating system will appear in phones this year, but not until the holidays. All of the major wireless carriers and every likely hardware maker are backing it, and they'd be stupid not to. It's awesome. We've got a serious hands on for you to check out, but here is everything that you need to know:
The name—Windows Phone 7 Series—is a mouthful, and unfortunately, the epitome of Microsoft's worst naming instincts, belying the simple fact that it's the most groundbreaking phone since the iPhone. It's the phone Microsoft should've made three years ago. In the same way that the Windows 7 desktop OS was nearly everything people hoped it would be, Windows Phone 7 is almost everything anyone could've dreamed of in a phone, let alone a Microsoft phone. It changes everything. Why? Now that Microsoft has filled in its gaping chasm of suck with a meaningful phone effort, the three most significant companies in desktop computing—Apple, Google and Microsoft—now stand to occupy the same positions in mobile. Phones are officially computers that happen to fit in your pocket.
Windows Phone 7 is also something completely new for Microsoft: A total break from the past. Windows Mobile isn't just dead, the body's been dumped, buried and paved over by a rainbow brick road.
The Interface
It's different. The face of Windows Phone 7 is not a rectangular grid of thumbnail-sized glossy-looking icons, arranged in a pattern of 4x4 or so, like basically every other phone. No, instead, an oversized set of bright, superflat squares fill the screen. The pop of the primary colors and exaggerated flatness produces a kind of cutting-edge crispness that feels both incredibly modern and playful. Text is big, and beautiful. The result is a feat no phone has performed before: Making the iPhone's interface feel staid.
If you want to know what it feels like, the Zune HD provides a taste: Interface elements that run off the screen; beautiful, oversized text and graphics; flipping, panning, scrolling, zooming from screen to screen; broken hearts. Some people might think it's gratuitous, but I think it feels natural and just…fun. There's an incredible sense of joie de vivre that's just not in any other phone. It makes you wish that this was aesthetic direction all of Microsoft was going in. Another, sorta similar interface, in terms of data presentation, is this Android Slidescreen app, which gives you a bunch of info up top.
Windows Phone 7 is connected in the same sense as Palm's webOS and Android, with live, real-time data seamlessly integrated, though it's even smoother and more natural. Live tiles on the Start screen, which you can totally customize, are updated dynamically with fresh content, like weather, or if you've pinned a person to your Start screen, their latest status updates and photos.
The meat of the phone is organized around a set of hubs: People, Pictures, Games, Music + Video, Marketplace, and Office. They're kind of like uber-applications, in a sense. Massive panoramas with multiple screens that are each kind of like individual apps. People, for instance, isn't just your contacts, but it's also where social networking happens, with a real-time stream of updates pulled in from like Facebook and Windows Live. (No Twitter support announced yet, it appears—a kind of serious deficiency, but one we're sure will be remedied by ship date.)
As another example, Music + Video is essentially the entirety of Zune HD's software, tucked inside of Windows Phone 7.
A piece of interface that's shockingly not there: A desktop syncing app. If anyone would be expected to tie their phone to a desktop, you'd think it'd be Microsoft, but they're actually moving forward here. All of your contacts and info sync over the air. The only thing you'll be syncing through your computer is music and videos, which is mercifully done via the Zune desktop client.
Hello, Connected World
The People hub might be the best social networking implementation yet on a phone: It's a single place to see all of your friends' status updates from multiple services in a single stream, and to update your own Facebook and Windows Live status. Needs. Twitter support. Badly. But you have neat things going on, like the aforementioned Live tiles—if you really like someone or want to stalk them hardcore, you can make them a tile on your Start screen, which will update in realtime with whatever they're posting, and pull down their photos from whatever service. There's also your very own profile page, where you can scan your current social state and post updates to multiple services simultaneously.
All of your contacts are synced and backed up over-the-air, Android and webOS style, and can be pulled from multiple sources, like Windows Live, Exchange, etc. Makes certain other phones seem a little antiquated with their out-of-the-box Contacts situation.
Holy Crap! The Zune Phone!
Microsoft's vision of Zune is finally clear with Windows Phone 7. It's an app, just like iPod is on the iPhone, though the Zune Marketplace is integrated with it into the music + video hub, not separated into its own little application. It's just like the Zune HD, so you can check out our review of that to see what it's like. But you get third-party stuff like Pandora, too, built-in here. Oh, and worth mentioning, there will be an FM radio in every phone (more on that in a bit).
Pictures is a little different though, and gets its very own hub. That's because it's intensely connected—you can share photos and video with social networks straight from the hub, and via the cloud, they're kept in sync with your PC and web galleries. The latest photos your friends post also show up here. Of course, you get around with multitouch zoom and zip-zip scrolling stuff.
Xbox, on a Phone
I'll admit, I very nearly needed to change my pants when I saw the Xbox tile on the phone for the first time. Obviously, you're not going to be playing Halo 3 on your smartphone (at least not this year), but yes, Xbox Live on a phone! It's tied to your Live profile, and there are achievements and gamer points for the games you can play on your phone, which will be tied to games back on your Xbox 360.
If Microsoft's got an ace-in-hole with Windows Phone 7, it's Xbox Live. Gamers have talked about a portable Xbox for years—this is the most logical way to do it. The N-Gage was ahead of its time. (Okay, and it sucked.) The DS and PSP are the past. The iPhone showed us that the future of mobile gaming was going to be on your phone, and now that just got a lot more interesting. The potential's there, and hopefully the games will be plentiful and awesome enough to meet it.
Browser and Email
Yes, the browser is Internet Exploder. And yes, the rumor's true: It won't be as fast as Mobile Safari. Not to start. But it's not bad! Hey, least it's got multitouch powers right out of the box. Naturally, you've got multiple browser windows, and you can pin web pages to the Start screen, like any other decent mobile browser.
The Outlook email app makes me question how people read email on a BlackBerry. It is stunning. I never thought I'd call a mail app "stunning," but, well, it kind of is. It's the best looking mobile mail app around. Text is huge. Gorgeous. Ultrareadable. Of course, it's got Exchange support too.
Apps, Office and Marketplace
Remember what I said earlier about Windows Mobile being dead? So are all the apps. They won't work on WP7. Sorry Windows Mobile developers, it's for the best. Deep down, we all knew a clean break was the only way Windows Phone wasn't going to suck total balls.
Apps will have some standardized interface elements, like the app bar on the bottom for common commands. But here's a question: Will they multitask? Um, that depends on your definition of multitasking! When we asked Joe Belfiore, the guy running Windows Phone, he alluded to live tiles and feeds as some ofthe ways that third-parties will be able to "bring value to the user, even when their apps aren't running." Which sounds to us like a big ol' "shnope," but we'll see more next month at Microsoft's developer event MIX.
The Marketplace is where you'll buy apps. Since we've got like 6 months 'til Windows Phone 7 launches and people should be excited to develop for it, hopefully there'll be plenty of stuff to buy there on day one.
Naturally, Bing and Bing Maps are built into the phone as the default search and maps services. They're nice, smartly contextual, and very location-oriented. Bing's also used for universal search on the phone, via a dedicated Bing button. (There is no search but Bing search, BTW.) Bing Maps is multitouchable, with pinch-to-zoom. It's rich, with built-in listings with reviews and clever ways of searching for stuff. And yeah, Office! It's connected to that cloud thing, for OTA syncing and such. Business people should be happy.
Hardware and Partnahs
Another way the old Windows Mobile is dead is how Microsoft's handling partners and hardware situation. With Windows Mobile, a phonemaker handed Microsoft their monies, and Microsoft tossed them a software kit, and that was that. Which is why a lot of Windows Mobile phones felt and ran like crap. And why it took HTC like two years to produce the HD2, the most genuinely usable rendition of Windows Mobile ever.
Microsoft's not building their own phones, but they're going to be picky, to say the least, with Windows Phone 7. Ballmer phrases it as "taking more accountability" for people's experiences. There's a strict set of minimum hardware requirements: a capacitive, multitouchable screen with at least four points of touch; accelerometer; 5-megapixel camera; FM radio; and the like. There are serious benchmarks that have to be met. And only chosen OEMs get to build the phones now, not like before, when anybody with $20 could get a license. The OEMs that Microsoft's announcing they're working with at launch are: Qualcomm, LG, Samsung, Garmin Asus, HTC, HP, Dell, Sony Ericsson, and Toshiba. AT&T's their "premiere partner" in the US (dammit). (Take note people! Premiere does not mean exclusive!)
Every phone will have a Bing (search) button and a Start button. Custom skins, like the minor miracles HTC worked, are now banned. The message to hardware makers is clear: It's a Windows Phone, you're just putting it together. Basically, phonemakers get to decide the shape of the phone, and whether or not there's a keyboard.
One other word on hardware, in a manner of speaking. Hardware it won't work with? Macs. Which is kind of stupid to us—a lot of the people Microsoft wants to use Windows Phone 7, like college students, have been going Mac in droves. You wanna lure them back Microsoft? Let them use your phone with any OS.
The Big Picture
Windows Phone 7 Series is, from what we've seen, exactly what Microsoft's phone should be. It's actually good. It brings together a bunch of different Microsoft services—Zune, Xbox, Bing—in a way that actually makes sense and just works. But there's a real, lingering question: Are they too late? The first Windows Phone 7 Series…phone—goddamn that is a stupid name—won't hit until the end of this year. That's more than three years after the iPhone, two years after Android, hell, even a year after Palm, the industry's sickly but persistent dwarf.
History is on Microsoft's side here—we know what happened the last time Apple had a massive head start. (Update: To be clear, in computing.) Microsoft is, if nothing else, incredibly patient. Remember the first Xbox? Back when it was crazy that Microsoft was getting into videogames? It's cost them about a billion dollars and taken nearly 10 years, but now, with Xbox Live, Project Natal and their massive software ecosystem, they arguably have the most impressive gaming console you can buy. That was a pet project. Now, mobile is the future of computing. What do you think Microsoft will sink into that?
The mobile picture is now officially a three-way dance: Apple, Google, and Microsoft. The same people who dominate desktop computing. Everybody else is screwed. Former Palm CEO Ed Colligan famously said a few years ago: "PC guys are not going to just figure this out. They're not going to just walk in." That's precisely what's just happened. Phones are the new PCs. PC guys are the new phone guys.
12/11/2012 02:05:00 AM
Unknown
