Jon Simpson
Windows Phone 7 Series: awful name, promising mobile OS
Andy Ihnatko’s first thoughts on Windows Phone 7 Series. What caught my eye in his comments on the radical new UI:
This big tile is also a status panel for everything the app wants to communicate to the user. I flick my Windows Phone awake, see a green “On Time” icon in the app’s screen space, and re-pocket my phone just a few seconds after curiosity got the better of me.
The idea of the launcher squares being a vehicle for all of the status an app would like to convey sounds great. The iPhone OS has really been relatively static in UI development since 2007, I’d like to see some new ideas in iPhone OS 4.0 later this year - Windows Phone 7 series isn’t due out until the holidays so there’s time for things to heat up in smartphone UI.