This content is 13 years old. I don't routinely update old blog posts as they are only intended to represent a view at a particular point in time. Please be warned that the information here may be out of date.
I’m not a telecoms expert but, every now and again, new technologies come along that cross over into my world. One of those is the evolution of mobile telecommunications networks and there’s a lot of talk right now about “4G”. So what is it all about? Well, I’m sure there are a lot of detailed technical references available on the ‘net but I recently heard Ben Roome from Nokia-Siemens Networks being interviewed on the Guardian Tech Weekly podcast and he gave a quick overview, which I’ve reproduced here:
First generation mobile networks were analogue – that is to say that the signal could vary, a bit like tuning in to get a (broadcast) radio signal.
Second generation (2G) networks came on stream in the 1990s and used digital signals for communication.
There were various “interim” generations (2.5G for example) to try and squeeze more data over networks but the advent of 3G allowed mobile broadband data access, although many 3G handsets still use 2G for voice communications (modern radio networks can handle 2G, 3G and 4G using the same hardware – all that is required is a software update).
There are different standards for each generation of network, and 4G networks use LTE (Long Term Evolution) or WiMax (since the ITU relaxed standards to allow other technologies than LTE Advanced as LTE was not originally considered a fourth generation network technology but is now regarded as a sufficient improvement over 3G to be called 4G). To achieve duplex transmissions (i.e. send and receive at the same time) channels may be divided by time or spectrum (frequency) – WiMax uses time division (as do some LTE variants) and was effectively an interim 4G technology that was good for fixed wireless access (i.e. wireless connections, to a fixed location, cf. mobile networks). 4G networks have the potential to offer big improvements in latency (round trip speed between asking for something and getting a response delivered) but high speeds also need a high speed backhaul between cell towers (i.e. the core network). Most backhaul is microwave, but the core architecture does makes a difference and LTE networks are “flatter” (all IP from handset to cloud and back again) so they have simpler routes and improved management (hence improved latency).
Commercial 4G networks are in operation in Germany, with trials in UK. Broadband is a huge driver of economies and society so coverage requirements may be greater (i.e. 98% in place of 95%) when the UK governement auctions the radio spectrum next May as 4G is a technology that can genuinely offer universal access. The UK 4G trial in Cornwall is intended to see if 4G offers an alternative to fixed line broadband. Fixed lines currently averages 6.4Mbps, with 3G offering 1.6Mpbs – so the question is “can 4G beat offerings and offer a solution for people in areas with poor copper infrastructure.
Whilst the increased coverage requirements may mean that less money is raised by the spectrum auction, Ben Roome commented that those countries who are leading the world in this area make the most of the infrastructure with “beauty contests” for spectrum rather than charging. The UK has gone down the charging route – hopefully that doesn’t mean that we’ll all have to pay too much in years to come for something that people really value.
This content is 14 years old. I don't routinely update old blog posts as they are only intended to represent a view at a particular point in time. Please be warned that the information here may be out of date.
Mobile devices are changing the way we consume and engage digitally:
66% [of mobile device owners] say they can’t live without their phone.
64% [of mobile device owners] say mobiles and the Internet have made our life better.
71% of smartphone owners have downloaded [at least one] app.
28% [of Internet users] connect to the Internet via a mobile [device].
20% of all Christmas online sales in 2010 were via a mobile [device].
What I found particularly interesting were two usage patterns that were presented to me for reading articles on smartphones and on tablets:
Smartphone users exhibited four spikes at:
6am (early morning/breakfast).
9am (start of work day).
5-6pm (end of work day commute).
8-10pm (couch/prime time, bed time).
Meanwhile, tablet devices are more likely to read at personal prime time – i.e. at the most relaxing time of the day:
I’m not sure that I fit either of these profiles as I tend to use my tablet (my iPad) for my morning/evening commutes, and late at night (in bed) – in between I’m on a laptop, with occasional triaging of email (but not really reading articles) on a smartphone (an iPhone). Nevertheless, it’s interesting to see this marked difference in usage patterns for two classes of mobile device.
This content is 14 years old. I don't routinely update old blog posts as they are only intended to represent a view at a particular point in time. Please be warned that the information here may be out of date.
I wanted to start this post by asking “How can you tell if a mobile phone salesman is lying? Because his lips move!” but I’m slightly concerned that might be slanderous, or libellous, or something – so let me just say that I’m talking about a hypothetical salesman and it was intended as a joke, so don’t sue me. OK?
As for what caused me to say that – well, given the trouble I’m having with not one but three of the UK’s five mobile network operators, I think I’m entitled to a slightly jaundiced view of the “services” that they provide.
O2
When I bought my iPad last year, I signed up for a monthly rolling data contract with O2. One of the reasons for selecting O2 was that the tariff included access to BT Openzone Wi-Fi hotspots. Except it’s not that simple as the BT Openzone SSID is used for three products: BT Openzone; BT Business Hubs and BT Fon. At first, I couldn’t get my iPad to work on any BT Openzone hotspot but, even since that was fixed by a support call to O2, I’ve found that many “BT Openzone” hotspots still require payment. Without the benefit of bundled Wi-Fi, I considered switching networks but had built up around 5GB in unused data that was rolling forward each month.
Until today.
I received an email from O2 advising me that payment for my 30-day rolling contract had been declined. Realising that I had been issued a new debit card recently, I updated the payment details but I still couldn’t make a payment. I phoned my bank and they assured me there was no problem their end, so I called O2. As friendly as the call centre staff were, they were unable to help me because, by then, my account was frozen for 24 hours. In a few hours time it would be cancelled, before the 24 hour window expires and with it goes my 5GB of unused data.
So long O2 – if this is how you repay me, I’m off to another network.
Three
I don’t know what Orange/T-Mobile’s data coverage is like but voice coverage where I live is terrible. Meanwhile, my Twitter followers have been extolling the virtues of Three to me, so I thought I’d save myself £2.50 a month and give them a try. On the way home, I dropped into a Three store and bought a 3G micro-SIM for my iPad. The guy who served me in the London Baker Street store could barely string two words together as he grunted at me (presumably he doesn’t make any commission on SIM-only sales) but he was clear about two things:
The SIM was already activated – and would work within a few minutes.
I only needed to call if I wanted to set up a rolling contract – otherwise I could just start using it.
Wrong. And wrong again.
When it became apparent that the SIM was not active, I called Three, who took me through the credit check process and set up a monthly payment. At the end of the call I was told that it would take between 3 and 24 hours to activate my SIM. Not quite the instant access I was promised when I bought it. No mobile communications for me on the way home tonight…
Vodafone
As an aside, my employer is currently moving their corporate mobile service from Vodafone to O2. We have a block of numbers allocated exclusively for our use and, for the last few years network coverage has been good, right until we started the migration. Nowadays, it’s not uncommon for me to have no signal in the office, where previously there was a good reception. At home my wife often has a full signal, while I have none. And calls frequently go straight to voicemail without the phone ringing. Could it be that Vodafone has prioritised traffic on it’s network so that +44786782/3xxxx numbers are no longer treated as a “valued business customer” and are instead bumped off the network when required? I can’t prove it, and I’m sure Vodafone will deny it, but I’m not the only one experiencing these sort of issues.
As bad as each other?
Time will tell how my new mobile data contract with Three works out, and my O2 signal at home is okay so hopefully it will be fine when my company phone is migrated too. In the meantime, I have to say that I’m underwhelmed with all the UK’s mobile telcos: there’s plenty of room for improvement and whoever can deliver excellent network coverage for a competitive price, backed up with excellent customer service, has the potential to clean up. I suspect that might be a while coming…
[Update 4 May 2011: O2 responded to my whinges on Twitter – but were too late to stop me from leaving as I’d already bought the SIM from Three by then. They have also promised a credit to my mobile phone account to compensate me for the lost data but could not match the deal I’m getting from Three for mobile broadband. It’s unfortunate that they couldn’t help when I first called but they have at least taken steps to retain me as a customer]
This content is 14 years old. I don't routinely update old blog posts as they are only intended to represent a view at a particular point in time. Please be warned that the information here may be out of date.
I’ve been pretty critical of Microsoft’s tablet strategy. As recently as last October they didn’t appear to have one and Steve Ballmer publicly ridiculed customers using a competitor devices. Whenever I mentioned this, the ‘softies would switch into sales mode and say something like “oh but we’re the software company, we don’t make devices” to which I’d point out that they do have a mobile operating system (Windows Phone 7), and an application store, but that they don’t allow OEMs to use it on a tablet form factor.
But it seems that things are changing in Redmond. Or in Reading at least.
Ballmer got a kicking from the board (deservedly so) for his inability to develop Microsoft’s share of the mobile market and it seems that Redmond is open to ideas from elsewhere in the company to develop a compelling Windows-based tablet offering. A few days ago, I got the chance to sit down with one of the Slate vTeam in the UK subsidiary to discuss Microsoft’s tablet (they prefer “slate”) strategy and it seems that there is some progress being made.
[At this point I need to declare a potential conflict of interest – I work for Fujitsu, although this is my personal blog and nothing written here should be interpreted as representing the views of my employer. For what it’s worth, I have been just as critical of Windows slates when talking to Fujitsu Product Managers but, based on a recent demonstration of a pre-production model, I do actually believe that they have done a good job with the Stylistic Q550, especially when considering the current state of Windows Touch]
Need to do “something”
Microsoft has realised that doing nothing about slates does not win market share – in fact it loses mind share – every iPad sold helps Apple to grow because people start using iTunes, then they buy into other parts of the Apple ecosystem (maybe a Mac), etc.
Noting that every enterprise user is also a consumer, Microsoft believes enterprise slates will sneak back into the home, rather than consumer devices becoming commonplace in the enterprise. That sounds like marketing spin to me, but they do have a point that there is a big difference between a CIO who wants to use his iPad at work and that same CIO saying that he wants 50,000 of those devices deployed across the organisation.
Maybe it was because I was talking to the UK subsidiary, rather than “Corp” but Microsoft actually seems to acknowledge that Apple is currently leading on tablet adoption. Given their current position in the market, Microsoft’s strategy is to leverage its strength from the PC marketplace – the partner ecosystem. Jamie Burgess told me how they are working to bring together Independent Software Vendors (ISVs), System Integrators (SIs) and device manufacturers (OEMs) to create “great applications” running on “great devices” and deployed by “great partners”, comparing this with the relatively low enterprise maturity of Apple and their resellers.
Addressing enterprise readiness
I could write a whole post on the issues that Google has (even if they don’t yet know it) with Android: device proliferation is a wonderful thing, until you have to code for the lowest common denominator (just ask Microsoft, with Windows Mobile – and, to some extent with Windows too!) and Google is now under attack for its lack of openness in an open-source product. But the big issue for the enterprise is security – and I have to agree with Microsoft on this: neither Apple nor Google seem to have got that covered. Here are some examples:
Encryption is only as strong as its weakest link – root access to devices (such as jailbroken iPhones) is pretty significant (6 minutes to break into an encrypted device) and Apple has shown time and time again that it is unable to address this, whilst Google sees this level of access to Android devices as part of its success model.
And what if I lose my mobile device? USB attached drives provide a great analogy in that encryption (e.g. Microsoft BitLocker) is a great insurance policy – you don’t think you really need it until a device goes missing and you realise that no-one can get into it anyway – then you breathe a big sigh of relief.
After security we need to think about management and support:
Android 3 and iOS have limited support for device lock down whilst a Windows device has thousands of group policy settings. Sure, group policy is a nightmare in itself, but it is at least proven in the enterprise.
Then there’s remote support – I can take screenshots on my iPad, but I can’t capture video and send it to a support technician to show them an application issue that they are having trouble replicating – Windows 7’s problem steps recorder allows me to do this.
There is no support for multiple users, so I can’t lock a device down for end users, but open up access for administrators to support the device – or indeed allow a device to be shared between users in any way that provides accountability.
Windows 7 has its problems too: it’s a general purpose operating system, that’s not designed to run on mobile hardware; it lacks the ability to instantly resume from standby; and touch support (particularly the soft keyboard) is terrible (unless an application is written specifically to use touch) Even so, when you consider its suitability for enterprise use, it’s clear that Windows does have some advantages.
Ironically, Microsoft also cites a lack of file system access as restricting the options for collaboration using an iOS device. Going back to the point about security only being as strong as the weakest link, I’d say that restricting access to the file system is a good thing (if only there weren’t the jailbreak issues at a lower level!). Admittedly, it does present some challenges for users but applications such as Dropbox help me over that as I can store data within the app, such as presentations for offline playback.
The Windows Optimised Desktop
At this point, Jamie came back to the Windows Optimised Desktop message – he sees Windows’ strength as:
“The ability for any user to connect using any endpoint at any time of day to do their day job successfully but be managed, maintained and secured on the back end.”
[Jamie Burgess: Partner Technology Advisor for Optimised Desktop, Microsoft UK]
OK. That’s fine – but that doesn’t mean I need the same operating system and applications on all devices – just access to my data using common formats and appropriate apps. For example, I don’t need Microsoft Office on a device that is primarily used for content consumption – but I do need an app that can access my Microsoft Office data. Public, private and hybrid clouds should provide the data access – and platform security measures should allow me to protect that data in transit and at rest. Windows works (sort of) but it’s hardly optimal.
At this point, I return to Windows Touch – even Microsoft acknowledges the fact that the Windows UI does not work with fat fingers (try touching the close button in the top-right corner of the screen) and some device manufacturers have had to offer both stylus and touch input (potentially useful) with their own skin on top of Windows. Microsoft won’t tell me what’s coming on Windows 8 but they do have a Windows Product Scout microsite that’s designed to help people find applications for their PC – including Apps for Slate PCs on the “featured this week” list. That’s a step towards matching apps with devices but it doesn’t answer the enterprise application store question – for that I think we will have to wait for Windows “vNext”. For 2011 at least, the message is that App-V can be used to deploy an application to Windows PCs and slates alike and to update it centrally (which is fine, if I have the necessary licensing arrangements to obtain App-V).
Hidden costs? And are we really in the post-PC era?
Looking at costs, I’ll start with the device and the only Windows slate I’ve heard pricing for is around £700-800. That’s slightly more than a comparable iPad but with also some features that help secure the device for use with enterprise data (fingerprint reader, TPM chip, solid state encrypted disk, etc.).
Whilst there is undoubtedly a question to answer about supporting non-Microsoft devices too, the benefits of using a Windows slate hinge on it being a viable PC replacement. I’m not sure that really is the case.
I still need to license the same Windows applications (and security software, and management agents) that I use in the rest of the enterprise. I’ll admit that most enterprises already have Active Directory and systems management tools that are geared up to supporting a Windows device but I’m not convinced that the TCO is lower (most of my support calls are related to apps running on Windows or in a browser).
An iPad needs a PC (or a Mac!) to sync with via iTunes and the enterprise deployment is a little, how can I put it? Primitive! (in that there are a number of constraints and hoops to jump through.) A BlackBerry Playbook still needs a BlackBerry handset and I’m sure there are constraints with other platforms too. I really don’t believe that the post PC era is here (yet) – for that we’ll need a little more innovation in the mobile device space. For now, that means that slates present additional cost and I’m far more likely to allow a consumer owned and supported device, for certain scenarios with appropriate risk mitigation, than I am to increase my own “desktop” problem.
In conclusion
I still believe that Windows Phone 7, with the addition of suitable enterprise controls for management and maintenance, would be a better slate solution. It’s interesting that, rather than playing a game of chicken and egg as Apple has with Jailbreakers, Microsoft worked with the guys who unlocked their platform, presumably to close the holes and secure the operating system. Allowing Windows Phone to run on a wider range of devices (based on a consistent platform specification, as the current smartphones are) would not present the issues of form factor that Windows Mobile and Android suffer from (too many variations of hardware capability) – in fact the best apps for iOS present themselves differently according to whether they are running on an iPhone or an iPad.
So, is Microsoft dead in the tablet space? Probably not! Do they have a strategy? Quite possibly – what I’ve seen will help them through the period until Windows “vNext” availability, but as they’re not talking about what that platform will offer, it’s difficult to say whether their current strategy makes sense as anything more than a stopgap (although it is certainly intended as an on ramp for Windows “vNext”). It seems to me that the need to protect Windows market share is, yet again, preventing the company from moving forward at the pace it needs to, but the first step to recovery is recognising that there is a problem – and they do at least seem to have taken that on board.
This content is 14 years old. I don't routinely update old blog posts as they are only intended to represent a view at a particular point in time. Please be warned that the information here may be out of date.
I have an iPhone that I use for work, but I also have a separate SIM with my personal (private) number – the one I give to friends and family (and the one you’ll catch me on at the weekend). For a while now I’ve been using that in an old Nokia 6730 that used to be my work handset but I hate that phone. It’s got some awful, unintuitive Symbian interface and I spend a lot of time swearing at it.
I’ve been looking for a new handset for my personal SIM – nothing flash, just a simple phone, with Bluetooth (to connect to the car) and I thought I could get something inexpensive on a pay-as-you-go deal until I realised that the PAYG handsets are all locked to their networks. Then I found an old Nokia 6021 in my office (actually, I have two – the kids play with one of them…) – it’s got all the functionality I want, a classic, simple Nokia interface (the sort that works really well) – and the battery life is OK too (even though my handset is now 6 years old). The trouble was, it looked a bit tatty.
No worries, I spent £2.79 on eBay, and a couple of days later a new faceplate arrived. Now I have a smart “new” featurephone that suits my needs perfectly.
This content is 14 years old. I don't routinely update old blog posts as they are only intended to represent a view at a particular point in time. Please be warned that the information here may be out of date.
Since my computer was rebuilt to corporate standards a few weeks ago, I’ve been making a concerted effort to avoid installing any unnecessary components (although somebody has put an in house “display manager” on the build, despite there being a perfectly good one that’s just a Windows+P keypress away, and HP’s printer driver for my company-supplied OfficeJet 6310 at home installed a pile of crapware). My intention was to simply install drivers for my USB modem, then follow a colleague’s advice to create a dial-up connection with the HSPA modem as follows:
Modem initialisation to +cgdcont=1,"IP","mobile.o2.co.uk"
Dial-up number to *99#
Username and password for the dial-up connection set to o2web and password
The problem with this is that my colleague was setting his environment up inside a virtual machine, using virtual network drivers to map to the underlying host’s hardware. I’m running directly on the hardware (non-virtualised) and I couldn’t find the drivers for my device.
Using the USB ID Repository, I was able to check that my device was a Sierra Wireless (1199) device (actually, the label on the device would have helped there too) and I was also able to see from the markings on the device that it is a Compass 889. After checking out the Sierra Wireless website, I found updated software for my modem, even a version for my carrier (O2) but nothing that seemed to offer naked drivers without any additional applications. As it happens, the latest version of the Sierra Wireless Aircard Watcher installed without any issues and it seems much better than the software that O2 originally shipped with the device – although it’s interesting to note that this device is now officially end of life, despite mine only having been shipped in recent weeks.
I guess the main point of this post is to say “hunt around” – you may find that there is updated software for your device, from either the OEM or the carrier, that provides a better experience than the version shipped out-of-the-box.
[Update: I had cause to download the Sierra Wireless Aircard Watcher again tonight and it seems the download location has changed in the last couple of years]
This content is 14 years old. I don't routinely update old blog posts as they are only intended to represent a view at a particular point in time. Please be warned that the information here may be out of date.
A few weeks ago, I lost my mobile phone. Well, not so much “lost” (I was pretty sure I’d left it in the office) but I realised that I had “misplaced” it. I’m on a SIM-only 30-day contract and my handset is an-aging-Nokia-thing-running-some-awful-Symbian-operating-system so I wasn’t that concerned but the 72 hours it would take me to be reunited with it was too long to risk if someone had taken it as their own, so I called the mobile operator (O2) and put a block on the SIM.
In sixteen years of mobile phone ownership, this was my first experience of this process, and I learned a few things along the way – hence this blog post.
O2 sent me a new SIM (to use in a spare handset, or in mine, should I find it again) but there were no details in the envelope that told me where/how to activate the SIM. It turns out that I could do that on the My New SIM section of the O2 website.
As it happens, my phone was handed in at work, and I got it back in a few days. I can’t have two SIMs active at the same time, but I could keep one of them as a “spare” for future use.
I spoke to an O2 representative, who lifted the bar on my original SIM. O2 advised me that this could take up to 24 hours although, in practice, it was a much shorter time (about 30 minutes) but my calls were still on permanent divert to voicemail. What they hadn’t told me was that they had also barred the last handset that my SIM had been used in (based on the IMEI) and that could take up to 72 hours to lift. Again, it didn’t take that long in practice and, after a few hours, and a couple of phone resets (to force the network to recognise it), my full mobile service was restored.
This content is 15 years old. I don't routinely update old blog posts as they are only intended to represent a view at a particular point in time. Please be warned that the information here may be out of date.
One of the best sessions I saw at the recent Microsoft UK TechDays events was when I crossed over to the developer side for a couple of hours and listened to Charlie Kindel (a Group Program Manager for the Windows Phone Developer Experience) giving an overview of Windows Phone 7.
Before he got started, it was interesting to see the audience split in terms of device usage. Remember, this was a geek audience, there to learn about Microsoft products, and in the UK – so, not really indicative of the broader smartphone scene – but, based on a show of hands:
40% were using Windows Mobile.
40% were using the Apple iPhone.
15% were using Android.
AÂ handful of users run Blackberry with a few more for Nokia devices.
Charlie Kindel spoke about how Microsoft is changing their game when it comes to mobile development and how this change manifests itself in a number of ways:
Design – the end user comes first. Previously, Windows Mobile was designed for handset manufacturers – even down to important functionality like the phone dialler!
Platform – aiming to provide, richer, deeper, easier applications. Windows Mobile was never really a first class citizen in the Windows platform – and the corresponding developer headcount at Microsoft has increased from a handful to a few hundred.
Hardware – faster to market, with less heavy lifting. Windows Mobile had many form factors, which could be seen as an advantage but the user experience varied widely. Microsoft is now taking the view that too much flexibility dilutes the brand and fragments development. As a result, Windows Phone is based on a homogeneous hardware ecosystem.
So, why does heterogeneous hardware work for PCs but not for phones? Charlie Kindel explained that Microsoft has previously given developers tools for a la carte phone product development – compared with an extensible Windows general purpose operating system - and this fragmented the implementation as developers could not rely on a given feature being present – in effect, they designed applications for the lowest common denominator.
Audience
With Windows Phone 7, Microsoft is looking to “do a few things really well” based on a target market. For Windows Phone 7 Series, the target market is what Microsoft calls “Life Maximizers” (sic).
So, who are the Life Maximisers? Microsoft characterises them as:
Busy, personally and professionally.
Living a rich, active life.
Settled in a relationship rather than seeking (i.e. have family pressures, etc.).
Juggling priorities.
Valuing technology as a means to achieve goals.
In short, the target market for Windows Phone 7 Series is trying to balance an insanely busy personal life with the stress and pressure of work [Hmm… that sounds familiar!] and the things that are important to these people are:
Not feeling overwhelmed.
Balanced priorities.
Growing, personally and professionally.
Living life to the full.
Smart design and integrated experience
Windows Phone 7 is about building a product that’s different, for good reasons, considering things like smart design and integrated experiences.
To look at integrated experience it’s worth asking why, for example, can’t Zune and Xbox work together? Why is Office over here and Windows over there?
“Microsoft appears to be pretty good a presenting our organisational boundaries to customers”
[Charlie Kindel, Microsoft, 16 April 2010]
With Windows Phone 7, Microsoft has tried to overcome this to present a unified design that draws on technologies from across Microsoft; producing a phone that’s optimised for the mobile experience but remembering that it’s not a PC – and so it won’t be successful if standard desktop metaphors are applied. The phone design uses typography, motion, and a light, clean user interface to make it easy to glance at the device and pull out key information.
The Windows Phone design system (formerly codenamed Metro) is intended to provide users with a consistent, and authentically Windows Phone, experience with great information and flexibility, inspired by metropolitan signposting (street signs, transportation, etc.). There’s a design guide and language for designing applications and their structure, drawing on the concept that many phone usage scenarios are “glanceable” – designed for a quick look, maybe with a few steps to get in, and to get out again and carry on with the things that are important in life.
Indeed, Zune users have enjoyed a similar interface for a while – even here in the UK (where the hardware devices are not available), the Zune software can be used as a media player and Kindel suggests its a way to see where Microsoft got a lot of the experience that led to the Windows Phone design concepts, drawing on a number of principles:
The user interface should be clean, light, open, and fast.
Celebrate typography – font design and how it’s used is key to the user interface.
Motion should be used effectively to “delight” the user (e.g. when something cool happens) without being gratuitous.
Focus on the content – not the chrome (indeed, there is hardly any).
Authentic experience, whether it’s built in to Windows Phone, or provided by a developer.
Looking at Metro another way, the goal is to focuses on the individual and their tasks, helping to organize information and applications. This is not a device centric model – it’s very user-centric but there are a number of hubs that provide an integrated experience (together with the panoramic approach used for the user interface):
People: a social centre for all contacts and status updates; Facebook, Exchange and Windows Live integration; the ability to update status and photos on multiple networks.
Productivity: a hub for handling work and personal e-mail effectively; managing work and personal calendars together; viewing, posting and synchronising documents on SharePoint sites; using pinch/zoom and rich document support to easily view, comment on and edit Office documents (Word, PowerPoint and Excel); taking and synchronise notes with a PC using OneNote ; integrated search including integration with Bing Maps and provision of Deep Zoom capabilities.
Pictures: a simple, powerful photo wallet; synchronised with PC over USB or Wi-Fi; the same photo libraries are available on PC, phone and Xbox; with live updates of albums and comments from social network contacts.
Music and video: a single media player for music, streaming audio, FM radio, podcasts and video; the full Zune Player experience; music and video libraries available on PC, phone and Xbox.
Marketplace: a large selection of applications; merchandised and filtered for simple delivery; a convenient purchasing process; applications connected across PC, phone and Xbox.
Games: a destination hub for casual and Xbox live social games; easy to discover new games though spotlight recommendations; Xbox Live avatar and gaming profile available on the phone; ability to play games with friends across PC, phone and Xbox.
The use of these hubs, and the ability to flick left and right between them on a single panorama (with up and down scrolling for more information) is where Microsoft sees the innovation in the Metro user interface and the integration with other Microsoft products drives home the “three screens and a cloud” message that we’ve heard about for a while now in Microsoft keynotes (PC, Phone and Xbox/TV).
Hardware
For the reasons outlined earlier, Microsoft wants to enforce a consistent set of hardware capabilities for Windows Phone 7. That’s why recent devices such as the HTC HD2 will not be supported, even though they are technically able to run the Windows Phone 7 software.
There are some limited choices such as screen resolution – at launch the will be support for a 480×800 display although a 320×480 option will come later – and the provision (or not) of a hard keyboard but all Windows Phones will share common hardware elements:
The same touch input.
Consistent CPU/GPU.
Same amount of available RAM.
Microsoft’s goal is that the Windows Phone hardware will be made up of common hardware elements, providing a consistent platform so that there can be a focus on quality.
Application platform
Microsoft’s biggest competitor in the market they have selected for Windows Phone is Apple. The iPhone was innovative when it launched but so may consider that it’s become stale [I would be one]. But Apple has a big advantage over Microsoft – their App Store. Sure, they’re annoying some developers and alienating key software vendors (e.g. Adobe) but they have a huge market presence. Coming up behind is Google, with a raft of open source developers looking to build on Android so what has Microsoft got in store for Windows Phone?
As with the rest of Windows Phone, Microsoft has stepped back and taken a look at how to “change their game”. The came up with new philosophy for the application platform. Most of today’s mobile applications are powered by web services and Microsoft wants to make it easy for developers to create applications with both client and server-side components. Applications may start with a web API behind a website, exposed via a browser but then along come the optimisations for different clients, for example: a PC with a nice keyboard and a high definition display; a TV with a remote control; or a pocket-device such as a phone that is intended for glancing at information.
The resulting philosophy is about experience, rather than applications, built from a combination of people, standards, server code and client code. In short, services power experiences.
Microsoft’s platform goals for Windows Phone are about helping end users to personalise their phones, helping developers to be profitable and enabling cloud-powered experiences. The key elements of the application platform for Windows Phone are:
Runtime: code you write on a client.
Tools and support: tools you use to design and develop.
Cloud services: code you write on a server.
Developer portal services: tools you use to ship and sell.
Looking first at cloud services – there are some integration services and frameworks on the device allowing developer to hook into custom web services (e.g. on Windows Azure or another cloud platform), established services using common APIs (e.g. Facebook, Twitter, etc.), or into the services that Microsoft provides as part of the platform (either implicitly, or via an API). These platform services include:
Location -Â using GPS is slow and power hungry so Microsoft has a location service combining Wi-Fi, cell tower and GPS data to balance power, speed and accuracy.
Notifications – exposed as: a live tile (to glance at updated information); “toast” notifications to actively alert a user and allow them to jump into an application;Â or pushing notifications to deliver updates to an application that is running in the foreground.
Xbox Live gaming service
Application deployment and marketplace system.
Moving on to the code running locally on the phone – PC, phone and TV do not follow a “write once, run anywhere” model – they have very different user experiences but a lot of the code (business logic, etc.) is the same, so applications can be built and optimised for a particular device. This leads to two flavours of applications – Silverlight and XNA:
Silverlight applications offer a modern XAML/event-driven application user interface framework for rapid creation of visually stunning apps using the Metro-themed user interface controls (HTML and JavaScript) spanning Windows and the web. Note that, the Windows Phone browser is optimised for mobile use – but that there is no support for Silverlight in the browser in the initial release [does that sound familiar to anyone?]
XNA applications offer: a high performance game framework for rapid creation of multi-screen 2D and 3D games with a rich content pipeline and a mature, robust, widely adopted technology spanning Xbox 360, Windows and Zune.
The Windows Phone application model was designed to provide a user experience that is predictable (consistent), safe high performance and innovative. This is facilitated using: the .NET common language runtime (all Windows Phone applications use .NET managed code, so they run in a sandbox); the Windows Phone process model for safe, secure and performant access; and service-based application deployment (i.e. applications are loaded via a web service, fronted by Microsoft’s application marketplace).
From a toolset perspective, whereas Windows Mobile development involves a plethora of downloads, there is a single (free) download for Windows Phone that is integrated with all of Microsoft’s main development tools: Visual Studio; Expression Blend; and XNA Game Studio. The developer tools package includes an emulator (running a virtualised build of Windows Phone 7 compiled for x86 hardware), including support for 3D acceleration and multitouch but without support for an accelerometer in the current CTP release. Developers will also be able to unlock handsets for development use and there will be packaging and verification tools (e.g. to allow beta testing without applications being verified).
.XAP is the common format for all Windows Phone application (including games), it’s a declarative, manifest-based installation, and it’s integrated into the security model of the phone.
Develop and debug – including beta testing on real devices.
Submit and validate an application – Microsoft can crack the application open and validate it.
Certify and sign – a process to ensure that the application meets all policies.
Windows Phone application deployment service – makes the application available.
Marketplace – consumers can acquire the application.
The application marketplace will offer simple, reliable acquisition – including a “try before you buy” API; payment flexibility (e.g. via mobile operator or credit card); and easy application updates.
Summary
To summarise, I’d like to use a quote from Gizmodo:
“Microsoft’s approach is completely different. Instead of becoming another me-too cellphone, like Android and the rest, the Windows Phone 7 team came up their own vision of what the cellphone should be. In the process, they have created a beautiful user interface in which the data is at the center of user interaction. Not the apps—specific functions—but the information itself.”
On the face of it, Windows Phone looks to have brought Microsoft back into the smartphone market, or, as Gizmodo put it, “Microsoft has out-Appled Apple“.
I still have some questions though:
If the hardware choices are restricted, what will encourage a manufacturer to produce a device with no obvious means to differentiate themselves from their competition? How will what’s effectively a v1.0 phone operating system compete with more established smartphones from other vendors?
How extensible is the operating system – for example, it integrates with Windows Live and Facebook, but what about the integration of Flickr albums and my Twitter status into the Pictures and People hubs? Hopefully the application model allows this without requiring applications to be treated as second class citizens (aside from the obvious issues around the lack of multitasking).
Indeed, will developers write apps for this platform when iPhone and Android are already well established (and when Microsoft has essentially told developers to throw away their previous investment in Windows Mobile and write something new)?
Most importantly, will people buy this phone? I’ve heard some people (including ex-Microsofties) saying they won’t because it’s not sufficiently business-focused. It’s not for kids either (that’s the Kin) but I sit right in the demographic that Microsoft has designed this phone for and I want one! I’ve also been an iPhone user since it launched in the UK – but I’m ready to jump ship because, v1.0 or not, I think Microsoft has come out with something truly innovative with a gorgeous user interface (just as Apple did when they launched the iPhone).
I really hope that Windows Phone is, as it seems to be, a Phoenix rising from the ashes of Windows Mobile – an operating system that still has its roots in personal digital assistants from the 1990s – and I hope that the platform continues to develop (it needs to if Microsoft is to avoid alienating the business users who have, so far, propped up Windows Mobile). Maybe we’ll see several concepts, sharing the same basic framework, so Kin, Windows Phone, and whatever Microsoft has planned for business (a tablet?) can draw on the same underpinnings but each can be uniquely tailored to their audience. For now, I’ll have to wait and see: to wait for Windows Phone 7 to ship; and to see which models are available in the UK, and on which networks, at what price.
Resources
The following resources provide more information about Windows Phone 7:
This content is 15 years old. I don't routinely update old blog posts as they are only intended to represent a view at a particular point in time. Please be warned that the information here may be out of date.
Where I live, the mobile phone reception can be a little… patchy… at times. Vodafone and O2 are okay, as long as I stay upstairs and away from all of the electrical interference in my home office (not too helpful when I’m working!) but for Orange I have to go outside to get decent reception (and I haven’t tried T-Mobile but the coverage map doesn’t fill me with hope). All of that is just for standard GSM coverage – 3G is non-existent… although Vodafone’s coverage map suggests I might be able to get a signal the fields across the road!
As I spend a good chunk of my day on the phone, and VoIP becomes problematic when the local schools kicks out (as my broadband slows to a crawl), I decided to give Vodafone’s Sure Signal a try. Sure Signal (formerly known as Vodafone Access Gateway) is a femtocell (a tiny base station, about the size of a typical broadband router) that provides 3G reception and routes the calls over an existing broadband connection although Pocket Lint were less charitable:
“Of course the sceptics amongst us can see Vodafone’s evil plan from the get go. They get you to pay for the shortcomings of their network while at the same time boosting your phone’s capabilities in your home or office so you’ll use it more. Using it more means they get more money from you at the end of the month because you’ve found a new sense of freedom when it comes to making calls or surfing the Web.”
That’s all well and good, but this is my company mobile phone – I don’t pay the bill – and when it’s the difference between flaky call quality and a clear signal, I’ll happily give up a little bit of bandwidth (after all, this is only voice traffic).
The difference between the Sure Signal solution and a normal VoIP call over my ADSL line is that I’m still using a normal mobile handset to access the network and the portion from the femtocell back to the rest of the mobile network is managed by Vodafone – with whom I have far more trust in managing issues such as latency, jitter, and quality of service than I do in my own ability to configure a VoIP client with a third party SIP provider in a reliable manner.
Only registered mobile phone numbers can access the Sure Signal (up to 4 at a time from a maximum of 32 registered numbers), so it doesn’t provide a service to the rest of the street (at least not unless their numbers are registered too); however it is pretty good to have 5 bar 3G reception in my house for Vodafone-connected 3G handsets (other networks are not supported, neither are 2G handsets).
So that’s the theory. Getting the Sure Signal working was not all plain sailing though… Vodafone’s Quick Start guide directs users to register their sure signal at http://vodafone.co.uk/suresignal but it was only after a couple of days of the registration site telling me that technical difficulties were preventing Vodafone from registering the device at the moment and that I should try again in a few minutes, and an unanswered support request, I Googled and found a forum thread that suggested I try http://vodafone.co.uk/businesssuresignal instead. To be fair, that is also on the quickstart guide – but in a far less prominent position, in black text on a red background. Lo and behold, the second URL uses a different registration form (without the troublesome and confusing interface to accept terms and conditions) and started the activation process.Â
A few minutes later, I received an e-mail from Vodafone to say that the device would be made active and that I’d be notified by text message when it was ready – but that was on Saturday… and nothing happened for a few days so, on Tuesday evening, I e-mailed to find out how much longer I might need to wait. I’d started to wonder if there were problems with my router’s firewall configuration but I decided not to change anything and, the next morning, I woke up to a full 3G signal and a message from Vodafone to tell me that the Sure Signal was active.
So, was it worth it? Certainly, a great mobile phone signal is what I was after – and that’s what I got. The device has no user interface though (it’s managed from the Vodafone website) – which is probably fine for consumers but, if I have to rely on Vodafone’s offshore support (provided by Firstsource) to deal with any problems (potentially with no phone signal!), the delays in getting the device working do not fill me with hope.
This content is 15 years old. I don't routinely update old blog posts as they are only intended to represent a view at a particular point in time. Please be warned that the information here may be out of date.
I’ve elected to reduce my £35 monthly payment to £20 on a rolling 30-day contract, halving my minutes from 600 to 300 but keeping unlimited texts, data, and Wi-Fi. Alternatively I could have had a 12-month contract on the same terms for £15, or 600 minutes a month for £25 (900 for £30, etc.). There are some gotchas though (O2 did let me know about these): the account defaults to online billing (no problem); picture messages are 20p (not 4 texts from normal allowance); SMS from abroad is also chargable; and voicemail is now taken from the inclusive minutes. Even so, I should still be well within my limits. After the initial 30-day period I can switch to another O2 tariff at any time, or give 30-days notice if I decide to terminate the contract.
So, that should allow me to sit tight until either the next iPhone or a tasty Windows Mobile 7 device becomes available. And the £15/month saving will go some way towards the cost of my next partially-subsidised handset…
One of the best sessions I saw at the recent 
Looking at Metro another way, the goal is to focuses on the individual and their tasks, helping to organize information and applications. This is not a device centric model – it’s very user-centric but there are a number of hubs that provide an integrated experience (together with the panoramic approach used for the user interface):
A few minutes later, I received an e-mail from Vodafone to say that the device would be made active and that I’d be notified by text message when it was ready – but that was on Saturday… and nothing happened for a few days so, on Tuesday evening, I e-mailed to find out how much longer I might need to wait. I’d started to wonder if there were