Windows Phone 7: The AnandTech Guide
by Brian Klug on March 21, 2010 12:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- Windows Phone 7
- Mobile
No Maps, Just Search
I browsed to Bing.com in the browser, and saw its relatively spartan mobile version:
Even Microsoft acknowledged that their mobile version of Bing needs work.
We moved on to the first-party Bing search application. You'll notice there's no maps tile on the home screen; this is because Microsoft really wants you to use search as your portal for finding everything. I'm told the search context includes everything on your phone, maps, and on the web. I'm told that search will include the scope of local SMS/MMS, and email as well. Microsoft wants you to use Bing search on the phone so much that they've mandated a hardware button dedicated for launching it.
Bing does its best to guess what kind of results are most relevant based on the search. The most common example was the difference between searching something like "sushi," (which should return locations of sushi restaurants first), and something destined for the web, like a website. To try that, I first tried searching AnandTech:
Bing Search Page
Search pivoted to the Web results category first, and returned us at the top of the list.
I then searched "Mexican Restaurant" in the hopes that it would return contextual, location-augmented results first. Search successfully pivoted to local first. Note again that in this video there are a places where images and maps should have appeared, but didn't because of the slow network. I'm also confident that I saw Bing maps on the platform, including the blue circle for our present location. Textures just didn't load in time due to the slow network.
Contextual search at launch will work for a wide variety of subjects including movies, celebrities, flights, and everything else that works through Bing search through the web.
Integration here was everything you'd expect it to be. Search results appear under a variety of categories: Web, Local, and News. Tapping on an entry under local then pivots to the relevant results about the location entity, in this case reviews and information about the location.
What I really noticed here is how easy it was to navigate between three separate applications (maps, Internet Explorer, and Bing search) without being constrained. You'll notice that although this isn't multitasking, we're able to use the back button to transition from, say, the browser seamlessly back to search results. Or from a relevant location entry in the search results, to its location on the map, and back. These are discrete "applications" but manifest themselves seamlessly atop each other.
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Hrel - Friday, March 26, 2010 - link
Yeah, pretty sure I'll never buy any portable ANYTHING that doesn't support expandable memory. I don't need more iphones out there, thanks anyway.jconan - Tuesday, March 23, 2010 - link
Will Microsoft support Unicode in its WP7S phones? They never got around to it on the Zune. I hope they do for WP7S and hopefully in Courier. It's easier to read text the way it's meant to be read than in gibberish ascii with diacritics.MonkeyPaw - Monday, March 22, 2010 - link
Wow, all this talk about Web-capable smartphones sure makes me wish for a mobile version of Anandtech.com. :|toyotabedzrock - Monday, March 22, 2010 - link
We have heard this promise of adding features before!RandomUsername3245 - Monday, March 22, 2010 - link
The article says, "There's also of course the stigmata attached to buying a phone preloaded with a bevy of carrier-branded applications."The author should have used "stigma" rather than "stigmata". Stigmata is a Roman Catholic reference: (from dictionary.com) marks resembling the wounds of the crucified body of Christ, said to be supernaturally impressed on the bodies of certain persons, esp. nuns, tertiaries, and monastics.
CSMR - Monday, March 22, 2010 - link
Stigmata is just the plural of stigma. "Stigmas" is normally better but stigmaga is correct. So the problem with the sentence is that "is" is singluar and "stigmata" is plural.jhh - Monday, March 22, 2010 - link
Applications can't currently run in the background, but they can process push notifications. Does this mean that any application that wants to provide background processing needs to wake the phone via push notifications? If so, do those mean that the push notifications need to come through a Microsoft back-end notification server? If so, that would be another case of application lockdown. I can't see Facebook or Twitter wanting to run their traffic through Microsoft just to be able to use the notification service.ncage - Sunday, March 21, 2010 - link
Is it perfect? Nope but i still think its pretty dang good. Can't wait. I will still probably get a nexus one when it comes out tuesday but will get a wp7 near xmas. Have a BB Tour now and i hate it with a passion. If your not an email addict then i don't think you would ever like a BB. I'd get a palm pre instead if it didn't sound like they were just about to die. RIM should buy them.hessenpepper - Sunday, March 21, 2010 - link
Will the tight hardware requirements allow Microsoft to release upgrades directly to the end users or will they release in to the manufacturers/carriers? Will we be at their mercy for timely upgrades?MGSsancho - Monday, March 22, 2010 - link
Part of the reason Microsoft wants tight control over hardware is so they can focus on other stuff and not write 9000 drivers. Windows CE works on ppc, x86, arm with varying amounts of ram and configurations. It is the same strategy Apple has, only have a few select hardware platforms and focus on the user experience.