I’ve posted some shots over on the SuperSite demonstrating some minor but nice changes Microsoft has made to the Windows Phone user interface between MIX’10 (March) and TechEd 2010 (June).
And as part of this public discussion, the company provided live demonstrations using more up-to-date versions of Windows Phone, matching some of what I learned last month. Thus, I’m happy to finally be able to discuss some small but interesting tweaks that the company is making to the Windows Phone UI.
Live Tile changes
Not surprisingly, Microsoft continues to tweak and hone the look of the live tiles that differentiate the dynamic Windows Phone home screen from the more static grids of icons used by the competition. If you look back at the initial UI shown off in February, most of the live tiles are bland and featureless, and not very differentiated. But as these shots provided by Microsoft corporate vice president Terry Myerson, during his TechEd session Windows Phone 7: A New Kind of Phone, show, the Windows Phone UI is progressing nicely.
Hub changes
Myerson also provided a more up-to-date look at the various hubs, or integrated panoramic experiences, that Microsoft plans to include with Windows Phone. Interestingly, some of these haven’t changed at all since February, but the Music + Video view is updated, and the Applications view (from within Marketplace) is new.
Also, my own Windows Phone UI mockup, from May:
Check out the original article for full-sized images and some more info.
Looks like it’s coming along quite nicely!
One thing I’ve always wondered, and I haven’t seen it mentioned anywhere online… The Video Section of the “Zune” hub will that be only purchased video, or will it be video you record with the phone…and has microsoft set a limit on the specs of the video recording qualities?
The camera component wasn’t working in the builds I used while on campus, so that’s still an unknown. But I’ve heard elsewhere that Windows Phones will not ship with video capture capabilities. I will try to confirm that.
But the Zune Videos stuff works as it does on the Zune HD: It can be purchased video (TV and movies, music videos and so on) or videos you’ve encoded yourself (Handbrake, whatever) and synced via the Zune PC software.
It seems they took the original negative from back at MWC about the tiles being too big and made them smaller. Still, it would’ve been nice if you could somehow set the size, some people would want them smaller and others might want them bigger (poor eyesight etc).
Hey look at this… someone on the WP7 team posted a video from his Windows Phone 7 Device:
http://blog.joehuffman.org/2010/06/19/MyFirstWindowsPhoneSevenVideo.aspx
I wonder how easy it was.
Well, there you go. :)