Microsoft released the first Windows Phone 7 emulator a few weeks ago, and that was enough to give people a good idea of how the operating system will look. But the emulator was designed to run on a PC with an x86 processor, so there was no way to install it on an ARM-based phone or really dissect the way it will work with mobile hardware.

And that’s why it’s kind of exciting that the first ROM from an actual mobile phone has leaked onto the web. XDA-Developers forum member 911sniper has posted a ROM taken from an upcoming device called the HTC Mondrian.

At this point, the ROM isn’t all that useful for end users. If you tried flashing it to an existing Windows Mobile smartphone, odds are you’d end up with a dead hunk of metal, plastic, and glass. Odds are that if it’s possible to port it to an existing phone, the hackers who have already begun examining the ROM will probably start with the HTC HD2, which has hardware that’s pretty similar to what we expect to see from the first Windows Phone 7 devices planned for later this year.

via xda-developers

I have to admit, while I never got used to writing “Windows Phone 7 Series, I’ve grown kind of fond of the acronym “WP7S.” But I’m still glad to see that Microsoft realized that the name was too long, confusing, and difficult to say.

According to a message on Twitter from the Windows Phone team, Microsoft is dropping the “Series” from the name of the company’s upcoming mobile operating system. In other words, we can just start calling it Windows Phone 7 (or WP7).

Considering how much positive reaction Microsoft has been garnering for the refreshed operating system, the cumbersome name was kind of the black sheep in the WP7s ecosystem. I don’t think I’m the only one who’ll be glad to see the “Series” retired.

via Gizmodo

Microsoft has already stated that no phone currently on the market will be upgradeable to Windows Phone 7 Series because they don’t met the hardware requirements. But in the case of the HTC HD2, the only thing that’s missing is a dedicated hardware button or Bing searches. The processor, screen resolution, and pretty much everything else are more than good enough — and now a group of hackers have figured out how to install a pre-release build of Windows Phone 7 Series on the HD2.

Almost everything works at this point, including WiFi, GPS, and Bluetooth, but the graphics driver is reportedly sluggish and can cause lag.

There’s no video of the device in action yet, but there are several screenshots, and since the news comes from a trusted source (HTCPedia’s Tom Codon), it seems rather unlikely that this is a hoax. Tom says there should be a beta version available for download soon — assuming he doesn’t hear from a Microsoft lawyer first.

Update: Now with video! You can check out two demo videos after the break.

via Gizmodo and Redmond Pie

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We’ve already looked at how to install a theme on your Windows Mobile phone to give it a Windows Phone 7 Series look in advance of the launch of Microsoft’s next-gen mobile operating system. But here’s a way to get just part of that look. You can install a set of icons inspired by the Windows Phone 7 Series “Metro” user interface.

The icon set includes 29 circular icons in stark black and white. You can then use a utility such as JWMD Icon Changer or Change Start Menu Icons to load the new Icon Set on a Windows Mobile 6.5 phone.

You can find more detailed instructions at the xda-developers forum.

via the:unwired

Microsoft released developer tools for Windows Phone 7 Series a few days ago, complete with an emulator that you could use to test out new apps designed for the platform. But if you downloaded the emulator (which was built into Visual Studio Express for Windows Phone), you may have noticed that it didn’t really provide the full WP7S experience. In fact, out of the box, all you could do was play with the web browser.

That all changed last night when Dan Ardean figured out how to “unlock” the emulator image so that you can access all of the built in applications. He posted the image online briefly, but decided to pull the file lest Microsoft get upset. Fortunately, there are several mirrors, which means you can download the image yourself.

OK, so here’s how it works. You download and install the developer tools from Microsoft. Then you download and install Microsoft Windows SDK for Windows 7 and .NET Framework 3.5 SP1. Finally, you download the WP7S image, rename the file to WM70C1.bin, and replace theold WM70C1.bin file, which should be in your C:\Program Files\Microsoft SDKs\WindowsPhone\v7.0\Emulation\Images directory.

To launch the emulator, fire up Visual Studio 10 Express and create a new project. You’ll see a picture of a Windows Phone 7 Series device on the left side of the screen. Hit F5 to launch a standalone emulator. You can also follow these instructions to launch the emulator without first running Visual Studio.

Now you should be able to play with all the apps that come preloaded with Windows Phone 7 Series — or at least this early pre-release build. There’s plenty of time for things to change before WP7S phones actually hit the streets.

But here are just a few of the things you can play with in the emulator:

• Mobile office apps including Excel, Word, and OneNote
• See live tiles on the home screen
• Zune music, movie, and photo application
• Calendar and contacts
• File Explorer and task manager
• Windows Live Maps
• Internet Explorer web browser

While you can’t actually download anything from the Windows Marketplace you can also get a good feel for how it works. You can also get a sense of how the overall user interface works including the zooming and scrolling action, window animations, and the on-screen keyboard. The mobile office apps look fairly powerful — even if there is no copy and paste. For example, you can even insert charts in Excel, although I had a hard time figuring out how to do simple things, like generate a sum for several numbers.

You can check out some more images of the Windows Phone 7 Series interface after the break. I also shot a 10 minute first look video, which is embedded below.

via PocketNow and istartedsomething

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Wow. So Microsoft really has decided to just copy a half dozen pages out of Apple’s playbook for Windows Phone 7 Series. The latest development? Windows Phone 7 Series won’t support copy and paste functionality at launch — even though it’s something that Windows CE-based PDAs and phones have been doing for the last 10 years. And even though Apple launched the iPhone without copy/paste support but eventually added this much requested feature.

But it’s not just the copy and paste functionality that’s making Windows Phone 7 Series look like a first generation iPhone. Let’s take a look at the list:

• You can only purchase apps from the official app store/marketplace
• The only apps that will be able to run in the background will be the ones developer by the OS maker
• There’s no support for external storage cards
• The OS won’t have a traditional file manager (although I suspect we’ll see third party utilities eventually)

Don’t get me wrong. Windows Phone 7 Series looks beautiful, and has some excellent features built in, such as live tiles, integration with Xbox Live, and a much-improved mobile web browser. And Windows Mobile was definitely starting to look stagnant after 10 years with few truly major updates. But it would be nice if the next generation operating system added new features without taking away some that we’ve come to rely on, such as multitasking and copy/paste.

Maybe you’d be better off just installing a Windows Phone 7 Series theme on a Windows Mobile 6.5 phone.

via Engadget

Yesterday Microsoft released a series of developer tools for Windows Phone 7 Series… including an emulator. And one of the intrepid hackers at xda-developers figured out how to extract the emulator image, which is now available for download as a standalone file. But while this file will give you a peek at the source code for Windows Phone 7 Series, it’s worth noting that this is not necessarily a first step in unofficially porting Windows Phone 7 Series to run on existing phones.

That’s because the emulator was designed to run on machines with x86 processors. You know, like desktops and notebooks running Windows — not smartphones.

While it’s possible that we will see Windows Phone 7 Series ROMS for older hardware, there are a few technical hurdles to leap. First, you need a build that’s designed for ARM-based chips. Second, you need to get around the fact that Microsoft doesn’t expect Windows Phone 7 Series devices to use external storage — which means new phones will have large amounts of internal flash storage and the operating system ROM will likely eat up more storage space than you have on most current phones.

In related news, PocketNow has put together a short video showing the web browser from Windows Phone 7 Series, made using the emulator from the developer tools. You can check out the video after the break.

via SlashGear

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Wow. After spending all afternoon geeking out over the cool new features that will be available in Windows Phone 7 Series, I think I’m starting to come down a bit. And that’s largely due to a report that explains that Microsoft is taking an Apple-like approach to its next-gen mobile operating system… possibly in some of the worst possible ways.

Not only will the Windows Phone Marketplace be the only official place to download and purchase third party apps. But Windows Phone 7 won’t support memory cards for additional storage. And only Microsoft’s applications will be able to run in the background. Fortunately, it’s not quite as bad as the situation on the iPhone. For instance, there will be tools that let streaming music applications such as Pandora stream audio in the background while you’re surfing the web or playing a game. But other apps, such as a VoIP application like Skype, won’t be able to do much in the background.

Microsoft says the problem is that background apps can run down battery life and tie up resources, making a phone less responsive. After spending a few weeks installing apps on my Google Nexus One with Android 2.1, I have to say, this is true. The more apps you have running in the background, the slower your phone gets.

But is the answer prohibiting apps from running in the background, or developing smarter memory management tools that will shut down unnecessary applications more aggressively?

On the other hand, Gizmodo discovered the fact that Windows Phone 7 Series will support DivX videos out of the box. And that’s pretty cool.

via Kevin Tofel