Exactly what is WM7, anyway?

[dab_baken]

This morning I was reading a column online describing Nokia's troubles and possible cures that have been discussed and it mentioned again the rumors of a possibility of Nokia using WM7.

One commentator stated that using WM7 would be a bad idea because trying to translate the desktop experience to mobile never works. I believe that but I thought WM7, however we might feel about it, was nothing like Windows Mobile previously.

I had gotten the impression that MS had trash-canned the old stuff and had embarked on a copy-Apple's-success campaign.

Is it from a clean sheet or does it indeed contain old code? And if it does, is that really a problem?

Apologies if I'm re-hashing something previously discussed. I did comb through the old threads a bit.

 

[Joe Cooker]

There is no WM7. There is Windows Phone 7 and whether it is all new code or not (I don't know), it is not backwards compatible.

 

[peace :]]

Sorry. Shows how confused I am about this, I guess.

 

[Kunmui]

LS, whoever wrote the comment you read was the confused one.

The now essentially defunct Windows Mobile tried to translate the desktop experience to a smartphone, with limited success. Windows Phone 7, on the other hand, dumped that whole idea and has been created specifically to run on a smartphone.

You can read Jen Edwards review of this new platform to see what I'm talking about:

Microsoft Windows Phone 7 Review​

You have to take what you read on most websites with a grain of salt, but you did the right thing: you came to rabroad to get straightened out. :-D

 

[shhweetP]

Thank you. Very helpful.

From the user's side, it looks nothing like old WM. And I've used everything from 2.3 to 6.5.

It has some definite attractions as regard ease of use but the lack of Outlook integration and the difficulty of getting Office documents over (I don't use Exchange) seems an oversight. If it's slanted toward the average consumer and away from the corporate user, that seems odd. They fixed cut & paste. Maybe they'll fix this as well.

My earlier impression that it aped iOS was wrong.

It might still be Nokia's choice but I can't say at this point that it would be the best one, for Nokia or me.

I'm still undecided. I like it and I don't.

 

[annab1158]

And here is the Nokia thing again:

Nokia teaming up with Microsoft? | RCR Unplugged

At least now we have a date for a decision.

BTW Ed, sorry I posted this in the wrong place originally.

 

[h p]

I think it's pronounced 'toast'.

If you thought Windows CE, PocketPC, and Windows Mobile were flops, just wait till you see how this latest, incompatible version fares.

Marc