Microsoft locks down Windows Phone 7 code Windows Phone 7 is finally finished. On Wednesday, Microsoft said that code for Windows Phone 7 has been released to manufacturing, meaning OEMs who made Microsoft's tight cut as phone suppliers can start installing version 1.0 of Microsoft's smartphone operating system on devices. Vice president of Windows Phone engineering …
"Since the latest Windows Phone 7 code drop, July's technical preview, Microsoft's added the ability for users to filter their contacts so only Facebook friends "they really know" will show up"
Haha, that's a brilliant summary of social networking. 'Here's my friends', and 'Here's my actual friends'. And please ignore that 'Actual friends' = 'Real friends'/100
Love it.
I doubt that they have tested it for 10 million hours as claimed, as 10 million hours are 6944 days, or 578 years according to my calculations done with Google.
How this calculation was done. I did break down 10 million hours my divide them into 60 min, then I did divide again with 24 hours to get the days, and I finally did divide that number with 12 months in the year to get numbers of years. This might all be wrong that I am doing here. So please do check them, as they might be wrong. When I mean wrong, I mean wrong. I disaster like wrong.
I still doubt that Microsoft has tested anything more then up to 10 to 24 months. But no more.
Erm, they probably had more than one tester.
2000 testers would give 208 days if my maths is right. They probably just had a load of MS staff use them as their primary phone for a while and counted that as testing, even though for most of those hours the phone probably wasn't being used.
Of course with a load of automated tests you could simulate months of usage (with varying usage patterns) in quite a short timeframe.
"2000 testers would give 208 days if my maths is right." - It probably is, but that presents another problem:
"tested on nearly 10,000 devices per day" - that would be the thick end of 2,080,000 different devices according to my maths.
HTC must be gearing up for one motherf*cker of a product launch.
So, is this bullshit or just shocking grammar from MS? I suspect that the correct answer here is: "both"....
ha, remember when it was found that Windows 9x and Windows NT had a bug which wouldn't allow it to run continuously for more than 39 days or something like that? These too were also fully tested Microsoft OS's and the real funny part was that it took the industry close to a year to find the bug so it meant millions of Windows users were rebooting their Windows computers so often the bug didn't show up.
I also remember a developer saying he had to explain to his client why he had to set Windows to automatically reboot each night to keep the MS IIS web server running during the day.
I can't wait to see what kinds of reboot vectors show up in this new Microsoft software.
I guess that would be correct if it was just one person doing the testing, albeit a very tired and gnarly old grandad he would be by now if he had been doing this since the middle ages.
I'm thinking that what Microsoft meant was that they had spent 10 million "man" hours on testing. Which, dependent on the size and quality of the team could have reduced the testing cycle to about 1 hour in duration (I guess that includes UAT also) - which is in line with other corporate product test practices such as Apple and Dell.
Regardless (and I haven't used the product) but from the story above I still don't think that Microsoft have grasped that it's not simply about making it easier to use Facebook. What has always let WinMo down is the small and fiddly touch screen icons that you always need to press 3 times to get to work because they are all so close together that you accidentaly pressed the wrong one; its crap battery and power management, and its general instability.
The other thing I have found about Windows mobiles is that the volume from the media players is never loud or bass-y enough.
This has to be the least anticipated OS release ever. It could be bloody brilliant, but frankly is anyone actually interested in anything from MS, in these ios/droid dominating days?
Actually...'apathy' pretty much sums up all MS' recent releases, come to think of it. Apart from some Xbox360 stuff. And if you're generous - Windows 7.
There's no *meh* icon.
I wish MS would stop trying to ape Apple with and their ilk by offering useless fluff.
Windows Phone 7 is not going to make a dent in the the fluff market. Apple and google have sewn it up tight.
It's the corporate market that redmond really need to focus on. Never mind bloody facebook/twatter contacts, how about a user friendly means of filtering and searching exchange/ldap contacts?
WP7 is apparently based on the core of 7, with the ability to bolt on modular extra components from the full-fat version, like Location and Sensors and Bitlocker.
Now that I can see as being useful. Your field engineer wakes up in the morning, switches on his phone, and starts receiving his synchronised calender schedule for the day which was automatically generated from the call centre booking system.
All customer details are secured using bitlocker, the GPS unit tied into location and Sensors, then feeds the times and locations into some autoroute type software, and plots out the optimal journey (I know, I know.), and the customers contact details for that day would automatically generate a quick-access contact list.
Finally, because this is essentially a 'proper' windows platform, all phones can be managed in the same way as we would laptops, with software updates and configurations automatically managed through SCCM and group policy.
This is only touching on the potential offered by the ever aloof 'unified platform'.
Redmond are tantilisingly close this time, just as long as they don't fumble the ball.
You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one...
"WP7 is apparently based on the core of 7, with the ability to bolt on modular extra components from the full-fat version,"
I'm sure that'll fill us all with confidence and we'll all go out and buy a W7 phone secure in the knowledge that it'll be as reliable and safe as a brick in a wall.
Not.
Why would I want to trust possibly my or someone elses life (if I have to make an emergency call) on a company that has proved time and again that it doesn't have a clue about security and is more interested in features than making sure something actually works reliably? With previous Windows phones they were rather limited and probably didn't provide virus/worm writers with either the facilities or interest to work on them. If W7P is just Windows 7 mini-me then god help any owners of one of these devices.
.... there's nothing wrong with that. The WIndows CE kernel is actually a very stable, efficient and reliable kernel. Unless MS locks down hardware spec very tightly, the thing that is likely to make it a bad experience for consumers is badly written drivers or apps, just as is the case on desktops.
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