Windows Phone 8!

[sc:mobile-category ]So I made some predictions on Monday about what would be unveiled today and so now it’s time to see how close I was.

First off, you can go here to get the highlights of the announcement.

What I got right, which includes anything that had a probability of less than 40%:

  • New home screen details (more types of live tiles, maybe a horizontal view and groups) – 100%
  • Demo of some Skype Integration – 80%
  • Demo of FULL Skype Integration – 30%
  • Dual core support – 100%
  • multiple resolutions – 100%
  • New hardware demo unit – %100
  • Release date of Q4 – 80%
  • Release date of Q3 – 19%
  • Release date of Q1/13 – 1%
  • New maps functionality – 75%
  • New voice functionality – 60%
  • Game demo – 100%
  • NT Kernel in Apollo – 100%
  • New camera functionality – 20%
  • Upgradeability announcement for all WP7 devices – 0%
  • Upgradeability announcement for most WP7 devices – 30%

What I got wrong:

  • Quad core support – 5%
  • Developers tools preview/beta/rc – 90%

What I was not right or wrong about:

  • Upgradeability announcement for some Wp7 devices – 60%
  • No upgradeability announcement – 30%

I’m including the “upgradability for some” in the not right/wrong category as they did announce no upgrades for Windows Phone 7 hardware but did announce Windows Phone 7.8 which will bring a lot of the features of WP8 to WP7 devices.

Overall, I was pretty close 🙂

I was very surprised they didn’t announce some developers tools, but I guess those are coming later in the summer so we’ll have to wait to see them.

They also announcement  a few other items that I didn’t predict, here are some of my first thoughts on them as well as on some of the ones I did predict:

  • SD Card support: About friken time!  The didn’t say, but hopefully it will include cards greater than 32g.
  • NFC Support: Meh, my phone won’t replace my wallet until government agencies accept it as ID and that doesn’t appear likely any time soon.
  • IE10:10 better than 9!
  • Wallet: See NFC above.
  • Map upgrades: Turn by turn will be nice as well as offline support.
  • New Start screen: My first impression was “My that looks busy!”.  I’m sure there were a lot of internal discussions on this as the simplistic design aesthetic of WP7 has given way to a much busier screen.
  • WP 7.8: This should keep most 7.5 users happy and I expect a lot of the user experience improvements in WP8 that haven’t been announced but aren’t hardware/os dependent to be included in the update as well (like whatever changes they make to mail and messaging, etc.).
  • Native Code: ’bout time MS.  Good move.
  • In-app payments: Meh, just making developers lives easier so it’s a good thing.
  • Integrated VOIP: YES! YES! YES! I want my SIP number to ring through to my WP and be able to make calls with it!
  • Multitasking: Makes everything better.
  • WP@Work: These upgrades are nice, bringing these features will make a definite difference to enterprise adoption.
  • Languages: Good to have, no impact to me thought.
  • OTA Updates: I know lots of people see this as important, but no one I know doesn’t have a PC of some kind…

 

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Greg

Greg is the head cat at JumbleCat, with over 20 years of experience in the computer field, he has done everything from programming to hardware solutions. You can contact Greg via the contact form on the main menu above.

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Greg

Greg is the head cat at JumbleCat, with over 20 years of experience in the computer field, he has done everything from programming to hardware solutions. You can contact Greg via the contact form on the main menu above.

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