Isaiah's Tech

New rumours transpired this weekend over Windows Mobile Phone 7. Apparently, Microsoft is trying to be more iPhone-like with this new version by ripping out multitasking which would be a terrible move on their part to be honest. They need a one-up on the iPhone as much as possible. Flash support looks like it'll be absent in WinPho 7, but there will be Silverlight 3.0 support. The UI is said to be "Zune HD inspired" and there'll be no Sense / TouchFLO customization allowed. Apparently the browser is faster / better than the iPhone's. There'll reportedly be Zune / Xbox 360 integration and September 2010 is the release date. The full list is below.

We'll just have to wait until MWC 2010 so that Microsoft can confirm / unconfirm all of this good / bad news.

• WM7 will have a user interface derived from codename “METRO” and will be similar to the Zune HD
• The traditional Home Screen will get a whole new look and will not support custom interfaces like Sense and TouchFLO
• No Flash support as time constraints prevented its inclusion
• Will include Silverlight 3.0 with some aspects of SL 4.0 and mobile-specific features
• Applications will be installed through the Windows Mobile Marketplace only, manual installation from a storage card will not be allowed
• Say no to multitasking and yes to push notifications which may be provided by a Microsoft hosted push notifications environment
• Windows Mobile Marketplace will include a “Try before you Buy” feature and offer API support
• No .NET Compact Framework backwards compatibility so all those old apps will not work, but a portion of the data and business logic .NET CF may be ported at some point
• Browser is based upon desktop IE7 codebase, but with some IE8 functionality and is currently faster / better than the iPhone 3G
• MS is actually ahead of schedule which will surprise the analysts / journalists (seriously?)
• Full Zune and Xbox 360 Integration (Gamer tag, achievements, friends, avatars, merchandising, etc)
• No more active sync or Windows Mobile Device center. Zune software will handle all syncing
• Full support for social networking
• Devices are expected to ship by September 2010

[Slash Gear, Gizmodo, Engadget, Boy Genius]