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Alix Stocking
Windows Phone 7 is the first release of the Windows Phone mobile client operating system, released worldwide on October 21, 2010, and in the United States on November 8, 2010. It runs on the Windows CE 6.0 kernel.[2]
It received multiple large updates, the last being Windows Phone 7.8, which was released in January 2013 and added a few features backported from Windows Phone 8, such as a more customizable start screen.
Microsoft officially unveiled the new operating system, Windows Phone 7 Series, at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona on February 15, 2010,[3] and revealed additional details at MIX 2010 on March 15, 2010. The final SDK was made available on September 16, 2010.[4] HP later decided not to build devices for Windows Phone, citing that it wanted to focus on devices for its newly purchased webOS.[5] As its original name was criticized for being too complex and "wordy", the name of the operating system was officially shortened to just Windows Phone 7 on April 2, 2010.[6]
On October 11, 2010, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer announced the 10 launch devices for Windows Phone 7 with HTC, Dell, Samsung, and LG Support, with sales beginning on October 21, 2010 in Europe and Australia and November 8, 2010 in the United States. The devices were made available on 60 carriers in 30 countries, with additional devices to be launched in 2011.[7] Upon the release of Windows Phone 7's "Mango" revision, additional manufacturers became partners, including Acer, Fujitsu, and ZTE.[8]
Windows Phone initially supported twenty-five languages, with applications being available through Windows Phone Store in 35 countries and regions. Support for additional languages and regions were subsequently brought through both the Mango and Tango updates to the OS respectively.[9][10]
Several key features of Windows Phone 7 are organized into "hubs", which combine local and online content via Windows Phone's integration with popular social networks such as Facebook, Windows Live, and Twitter.[13] For example, the Pictures hub shows photos captured with the device's camera and the user's Facebook photo albums, and the People hub shows contacts aggregated from multiple sources including Windows Live, Facebook, and Gmail. From the Hub, users can directly comment and 'like' on social network updates. The other built-in hubs are Xbox Music and Video, Xbox Live Games, Windows Phone Store, and Microsoft Office.[13] Due to Facebook Connect service changes, Facebook support is disabled in all bundled apps effective June 8, 2015.[14]
Windows Phone uses multi-touch technology.[13] The default Windows Phone user interface has a dark theme that prolongs battery life on OLED screens as fully black pixels do not emit light.[15] The user may choose a light theme instead, and can also choose from several accent colors.[16] User interface elements such as tiles are shown in the user's chosen accent color. Third-party applications can be automatically themed with these colors.[17]
Users input text by using an on-screen virtual keyboard, which has a dedicated key for inserting emoticons,[18] and features spell checking[18] and word prediction.[19] App developers (both inhouse and ISV) may specify different versions of the virtual keyboard in order to limit users to certain character sets, such as numeric characters alone. Users may change a word after it has been typed by tapping the word,[20] which will invoke a list of similar words. Pressing and holding certain keys will reveal similar characters. The keys are somewhat larger and spaced farther apart when in landscape mode. Phones may also be made with a hardware keyboard for text input.[21]
Windows Phone 7's messaging system is organized into "threads". This allows a conversation with a person to be held through multiple platforms (such as Windows Live Messenger, Facebook messaging, or SMS) within a single thread, dynamically switching between services depending on availability.
The built-in web browser allows the user to maintain a list of favorite web pages and tiles linking to web pages on the Start screen. The browser supports up to 6 tabs, which can all load in parallel.[23] Other features include multi-touch gestures, a streamlined UI, smooth zoom in/out animations, the ability to save pictures that are on web pages, share web pages via email, and support for inline search which allows the user to search for a word or phrase in a web page by typing it.[24] Microsoft has announced plans to regularly update the Windows Phone web browser and its layout engine independently from the Windows Phone Update system.[25]
Contacts are organized via the "People hub", and can be manually entered into contacts or imported from Facebook, Windows Live Contacts, Twitter, LinkedIn and Gmail. Contacts may be manually imported from Outlook using Windows Live Contacts or Gmail. A "What's New" section show news feed and a "Pictures" section show pictures from those social networks made by the contacts. A "Me" section show the phone user's own social networks status and wall, allow the user to update his status, and check into Bing and Facebook Places. Contacts can be added to the home screen by pinning them to the start. The contact's "Live Tile" displays his social network status and profile picture on the homescreen and the contact's hub displays his Facebook wall as well as all of the rest of his contact information and information from his other social networks.
If a contact has information stored on multiple networks, users can link the two separate contact accounts, allowing the information to be viewed and accessed from a single card.[26] As of Windows Phone 7.5, contacts can also be sorted into "Groups". Here, information from each of the contacts is combined into a single page which can be accessed directly from the Hub or pinned to the Start screen.
Windows Phone supports Outlook.com, Exchange, Yahoo! Mail, and Gmail natively and supports many other services via the POP and IMAP protocols. For the native account types, contacts and calendars may be synced as well. Users can also search through their email by searching in the subject, body, senders, and receivers. Emails are shown in threading view and multiple email inboxes can be combined or kept separate.
The "Pictures hub" displays the user's Facebook and SkyDrive (Now OneDrive) photo albums, as well as photos taken with the phone's built-in camera. Users can also upload photos to social networks, comment on others photos, and tag photos on social networks.[18] Multi-touch gestures permit zooming in and out of photos.
Windows Phone 7 supports WAV, MP3, WMA, AMR, AAC/MP4/M4A/M4B, and 3GP/3G2 standards. The video file formats supported include WMV, AVI, MP4/M4V, 3GP/3G2, and MOV (QuickTime) standards. These supported audio and video formats would be dependent on the codecs contained inside them. It has also been previously reported that the DivX and Xvid codecs within AVI are also playable on the system.[27][28] Unlike the previous Windows Mobile operating system, there are currently no third-party applications for handling other video formats. The image file formats that are supported include JPG/JPEG, PNG, GIF, TIF and Bitmap (BMP).[29][30]
After the "Mango" update, Windows Phone 7 added the ability for users to have custom ringtones. Ringtone audio files must be under 1MB and less than 40 seconds long. Custom ringtones still cannot be used for text messages, IMs or emails.
The "Games hub" provides access to games on a phone along with Xbox Live functionality, including the ability for a user to interact with their avatar, view and edit their profile, see their achievements and view leaderboards, and send messages to friends on Xbox Live. The Games hub also features an area for managing invitations and turn notifications in turn-based multiplayer games.[31]
Windows Phone also has a voice recognition function, powered by TellMe, which allows the user to perform a Bing search, call contacts or launch applications simply by speaking. This can be activated by pressing and holding the phone's Start button.
Bing is the default search engine on Windows Phone handsets due to its deep integration of functions into the OS (which also include the utilization of its map service for location-based searches and queries). However, Microsoft has stated that other search engine applications can be used.[33][34]
Aside from location-based searches, Bing Maps on Windows Phone 7 also provide turn-by-turn navigation service to Windows Phone users, and Local Scout shows interest points such as attractions and restaurants in the nearby area. Bing Audio also allows the user to match a song with its name, while Bing Vision allows the user to read barcodes, QR codes, and tags.
The "Office hub" organizes all Microsoft Office apps and documents. Microsoft Office Mobile provides interoperability between Windows Phone and the desktop version of Microsoft Office. Word Mobile, Excel Mobile, PowerPoint Mobile, OneNote Mobile, and SharePoint Workspace Mobile allow most Microsoft Office file formats to be viewed and edited directly on a Windows Phone device.
Microsoft Office can also open files from SkyDrive and Office 365, as well as files stored locally on the phone. Office files on Windows Phone 7 are sorted by tiles: Word documents (blue tile), Excel spreadsheets (green tile), PowerPoint presentations (red tile), and OneNote documents (purple tile).
Windows Phone 7 features a card-based task switcher which can be accessed by pressing and holding the back button. The screenshots of last five open apps are shown as cards. Apps can be kept running even when out of view through "Live Agents".[35]
Zune software is used to manage and sync content on Windows Phone 7 devices with PCs. Windows Phone 7 can wirelessly sync with the software. In addition to accessing Windows Phone devices, Zune software can also access the Zune Marketplace to purchase music, videos, and apps for Windows Phone and Zune products. While music and videos are both stored locally on the PC and on the phone, apps are only stored on the phone even if purchased from the Zune software. Zune software is also used to deliver software updates to all Windows Phone 7 devices.
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