Smartphones

Ballmer banks on Windows Phone 7 for the future

BARCELONA, Spain--Steve Ballmer hopes "7" will be Microsoft's lucky number as the company restarts its mobile business with the release of Windows Phone 7.

On Monday, the CEO of Microsoft and his team of Microsoft executives took the wraps off the latest version of the Windows Mobile operating system at a press conference here at the Mobile World Congress. The new Windows Phone 7 is a fresh start for the company in mobile.

"There's no question that a year and a half ago we had to rethink everything," Ballmer said.

Instead of revamping Windows … Read more

Music in the next Windows Phone

At long last, the Zune Phone is here. Microsoft isn't calling it that--apparently it thought the name Windows Phone 7 Series rolled off the tongue a bit more easily--but the next generation of Microsoft's smartphone software not only features the entire Zune HD software and services experience (just like the iPod became a component of the iPhone), but the entire user interface itself bears a close resemblance to the Zune HD.

To be clear, Microsoft isn't building the hardware like it did with Zune--rather, partners like HTC, LG, and Samsung will do that work. But a lot of what the company learned from several iterations of Zune design has been rolled into its mobile platform.

Microsoft introduced Windows Phone 7 Series Monday morning at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, and there's a lot to wrap your head around. I'll leave the full rundown to others at CNET, but one of the most interesting aspects is the way Microsoft seems to be trying to get rid of the notion of "apps," which have become the iPhone's calling card and are widely imitated by every other smart phone OS out there.

I don't mean that Windows Phone 7 Series phones won't support third-party applications--of course they will. But you won't interact with those applications by selecting a specific icon, opening an app, doing whatever you want to do, then closing it and moving on to something else. … Read more

Adobe bringing AIR to smartphones--Android first

Adobe Systems, hard at work bringing its Flash technology to mobile phones, announced Monday that it's also working on making the same move for a related programming foundation called AIR.

AIR, short for Adobe Integrated Runtime, is a foundation for standalone applications that use Flash or Web technology. Examples of AIR applications include the New York Times Reader and the TweetDeck for advanced Twitter usage.

Adobe plans to release AIR for Google's Android operating system for mobile devices in 2010, the company said at the Mobile World Congress show in Barcelona. Also at the show, Adobe announced that it's joined the LiMo Foundation to bring Flash to Linux-based mobile phones. … Read more

Windows Phone 7 at a glance

BARCELONA, Spain--As expected, Microsoft announced Windows Phone 7 during its news conference at Mobile World Congress 2010 on Monday. The event is actually happening right now as this story posts, but we received a prebriefing of today's news and wanted to share a quick list of major points with you.

Microsoft will have four major announcements at MWC: The introduction of the Windows Phone 7 series. The series refers to a set of phones that will run on the new operating system, and not various editions of the OS. From here on out, the Windows Mobile name is considered … Read more

Microsoft hits redial in phone effort (Q&A)

While CEO Steve Ballmer is the one who will get top billing at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, it is Microsoft veteran Andy Lees who is largely responsible for shepherding the long-delayed software project to completion.

Ballmer and Lees, who came from Microsoft's server unit in March 2008, will be showing the fruits of that work--a ground-up redesign of the phone operating system into something that looks a lot more like the Zune HD than it does any prior version of Windows Mobile.

While Microsoft won't be building the phones itself, it is being pretty strict about both the components that must be included (think FM radio and capacitive touch screen) as well as also prohibiting phone makers from putting their own skin over the user interface, something that many had taken to doing to hide Windows Mobile in recent generations.

In an interview just before he headed to Barcelona, Lees talked about Microsoft's different approach with the new software, the role of Zune and Xbox in the product, as well as why Microsoft still believes it can catch up to leaders like Apple, Google and Research In Motion.

There is also a separate Microsoft-designed phone effort, code-named Pink, that is due out this year, ahead of the first crop of third-party Windows Phone 7 Series devices, although Lees wouldn't talk about those.

Here's an edited transcript of our conversation:

Q: So essentially what is Windows Mobile 7, or whatever it's being called? Andy Lees: Windows Phone 7 Series. As you may remember, we about 18 months ago decided that we're going to re-evaluate our mobile strategy, and what we're doing in the mobile space. That was based on the inflection point that was happening in a number of ways, both in terms of convergence of different industries colliding together, and also the technologies of what is becoming possible, of course, driven by Moore's Law in the hardware, connectivity, and new-user paradigms, people using their phones in concert with the Web, and their PCs, and TVs, and things. And so that really created the impetus to go through it. … Read more

Hidden iPhone keyboard symbols and more

The iPhone and iPod Touch keyboard is very versatile, and many of its keys offer access to lists of special symbols or more, while tapping and holding one of the following keys for at least one second:

.com when entering Web addresses in Mobile Safari to bring up options for .net, .edu and .org. . (period) when entering e-mail addresses in Mobile Mail to bring up the options for .net, .edu, .org and .com. " (double) or ' (single) quotes in the number and symbol keyboard to access alternative quotation characters. $ in the number and symbol keyboard to display alternative currency symbols. … Read more

Reminder: Microsoft news conference at MWC

BARCELONA, Spain--Just a friendly little reminder that Microsoft will be hosting a news conference at 6 a.m., PT/9 a.m. ET from Mobile World Congress 2010 where the company is expected to finally unveil Windows Phone 7. You can watch a live Webcast of the event here, and of course, we'll follow up with analysis, slide shows, and video so be sure to check back soon.

Adobe joins Linux-phone group to spread Flash

In an effort to spread its Flash technology as widely as possible, Adobe Systems has joined the LiMo Foundation, a group devoted to putting Linux on mobile phones.

Adobe's Flash Player is ubiquitous on computers, but the company's Flash Lite effort hadn't met with much success extending the programming foundation to mobile phones. With a new generation of relatively powerful smartphones on the market, Adobe is trying again with a full-featured but lightweight version of the computer software, Flash Player 10.1, due in the first half of 2010.

Flash is missing from the highest-profile smartphone, Apple'… Read more

Motorola Cliq XT/Quench announced for T-Mobile

BARCELONA, Spain--On Monday, Motorola introduced its eighth Google Android device, the Motorola Cliq XT/Quench, at Mobile World Congress 2010. In other parts of the world, the device will go by the name of Quench but in the States, it will be called the Cliq XT and will launch with T-Mobile in March.

As with the original Motorola Cliq, the Cliq XT will use Motoblur software and has a 3.1-inch, 320x480 touch screen with pinch-and-zoom capabilities. It also supports Swype technology, which allows you to enter text my dragging your fingers across the keyboard, rather than pecking at individual … Read more