Clarity Consulting has drawn up some amazing prototypes of Windows Phone experience to show off what’s possible. Not surprisingly, they’re pretty impressive.
So with the CTP tools available, we’ve been building a few apps, just to get a feel for the tools and what’s supported in the framework. What’s been great is that everything is fairly familiar and consistent, largely to do with the .net framework and Microsoft’s focus on providing good tools. We’ve produced mobile applications, mostly in concept form, for Windows Phone Classic, iPhone and Android but never so quickly and not of such high quality and visual impression. I attribute some of this obviously to our familiarity to the Microsoft platform and tools. Though when you look at the designs our team has produced, it becomes clear that this is not just another mobile application container.
The Metro design language as expressed by the phone, exemplifies content prominence with fluid motion and transitions, with a crisp font and easily organized features and services placement. In addition to a purposeful right edge tease, where the intent is for users to discover new premium content and services. The concept that enables this is called hubs, building application with hubs changes your thinking from a single mobile application task, to thinking creatively about a mobile experience. It’s engaging to think of the other brands and industry verticals that will take advantage of this core feature. Combine this with Windows Phone 7 live tiles, more on that later, and you have a recipe for a solid mobile services platform.
This so much more fun and liberating than my icon on a grid…
Thanks to Simon M. for the tip!
Now lets hope Microsoft release Hub and Pivot silverlight controls. I’ve written my own, and played with some created by others, but It would be nice to have a standardized control.
Also here is a great link to a feed of Windows Phone Development Tutorials/Articles/Code Samples.
http://www.reddit.com/r/wp7dev/
Looks amazing.
Those apps look awesome. I hope we content this good on WP7
These look great! I’m really excited to see what developers will be able to do with the Development Tools. Everything is so consistent and user-friendly, I just love it.
The Hulu app looks simply amazing … though that may be because I’m a big Hulu and House fan.
I like the fact that if more apps use the same metro theme then you can use any of them from the start without having to figure out how they work. I know these are concepts for now but WP7 devs should try and stick to the same UI as the rest of the OS if they can, it’d make things way better for users.
Wow! If this is any indication of what apps on Windows Phone are going to be like . . . well . . . we are in a whole new world here.
I’d say this beats the heck out of the icon grids on an iphone or android OS. The iPhone may have revolutionized the smartphone market, but this kinda stuff would revolutionize the OS even further.
I see both companies (Apple and MS) approach to the Mobile OS market similar to their desktop OS market. The iPhone 4.0 looks like the old OS with a few more features, similar to Snow Leopard, while the Windows Phone 7 OS seems to be a completely new way of doing things, kinda like Windows 7.
Whatever happened to Apple being the company with “style” and Microsoft none?
This is pretty easily explained: When you’re on top, you protect what you have and you don’t take risks. When you’re the underdog, you can afford to start over and be innovative. In the mobile phone market, Microsoft and Apple have switched positions. So you’re seeing a change in way both companies makes, markets, and implements their solutions.
This is all very exciting! These phones will look so smart when people get their hands on them in Q4!
These look great. A nice change from the “cram everything onto the screen” mentality mobile apps have to do today. Being able to move left and right for more options and such makes for a cleaner look imo.
This is looking very interesting. I can’t wait until the handsets begin arriving and we get some hands on reviews.
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