yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[Windows Phone 7 General] refthemc:
Haha Nice. I hope that someone actually leaks it though. Would be nice to play with WM7, "The little train that couldn't."
[Windows Phone 7 General] Ruudfood:
I think WP7 will be a mistake in exactly the same way that Vista was. MS promised plenty but could not deliver and had to go back to the drawing board thus extending the development time for what was Longhorn. They then had to rush it to market and Vista was the result. If they hadn't effectively restarted the development of Vista they may have released what eventually became Win7.

Looks like, by going back to the drawing board 18 months into the development of Photon they've made exactly the same mistake again and will rush out a half-finished product to ensure they keep some market share. I would expect WP7.5 or 8 to be what people REALLY want from a mobile phone OS.
[Windows Phone 7 General] RustyGrom:
If MS would've continue on track with the original blackcomb, it would've been a complete and utter failure. WinFS among other things just wasn't going to work. They bit off more than they could chew.

Yes, Microsoft "reset" before Vista and MS "reset" WinMo but the similarities end there. They were reset for entirely different reasons. It's not even the same people working on the two projects and there's no doubt in my mind that Microsoft learned from one of the highest profile corporate blunders in recent history.
[Windows Phone 7 General] RustyGrom:
Yes, CE6 has been around since 2006 (although they just released R3 last year). But that's beside the point. CE7 isn't even out yet. It just seems crazy that they would've been developing 2yrs ago on a platform that's still being worked on. I could maybe see WP7 being based on CE7 since CE7 is somewhat nearing completion and I'm guessing is pretty stable by now but it would've been a fools errand to try that 2yrs ago. If it's accurate, that alone could explain why they had to "reset". And how do you know WP7 is based on CE7? Everything I've seen points to it being on CE6, probably R3 (which just so happens to include gesture support and Silverlight support).
[Windows Phone 7 General] Fdo35:
This would have been soooo cool. Too bad we don't have a build of this specific Photon build, if it was real.
[Windows Phone 7 General] hdubli:
awesome..when can we have the rom :p
[Windows Phone 7 General] Fdo35:
Does anyone have a leaked build of this, or are there only screenshots?
[Windows Phone 7 General] sunnymiu:
Hope this is the last candy for our legacy-WinMo users. Everyone not using WinMo is sick and tried of its snuggish interfaces and non-human UI.
[Windows Phone 7 General] MOBGangsta184:
Not some of the people here who would choose for MS to just continue to build on 6.5 smh
[Windows Phone 7 General] sun_dream:
:d 等待后续的更新
[Windows Phone 7 General] Ruudfood:
But hold on, they may have "reset" for different reason but they were "reset" nonetheless. Which means that they restarted the development at a time when the industry wanted and needed a new WM OS. It has therefore put them 18 months behind the game when they could quite conceivably have got photon out the door 12 months ago!

So did they learn? I'm not so sure.
[Windows Phone 7 General] vangrieg:
A lot of people somehow percevie the situation as if MS has like one last chance and it's an "all or nothing" game.

It's not. The smartphone market is tiny, it's growing fast, it's anything but settled. Current winners may go into oblivion in a couple of years. If and when smartphones become mainstream, there's no freaking way Apple will dominate the market. They just don't have the ability to maintain the needed variety of devices. It's just the lack of competitors' ability to make an appealing mainstream smartphone that keeps them soaring. Sure they can have a hefty market share and make tons of money, but no way they'll have 80% of the market. They don't even need it, it's not their kind of business.

Google? They can have all the geek love and all the gadget blog PR but they don't have a sustainable business in the smartphone area. I've never seen a logical explanation anywhere why they even did it; I personally think they only need to be here to be an undisputable household name as far as phones go. They need to set as many hooks for their services as possible to make switching to whatever competitor may emerge in the future as har as possible for consumers. So they need a playground to launch all their Goggles and Schmoggles and whatever other random stuff they come up with. Because then all the blogs and geeks and everyone else will talk about all this cool stuff and there will be a demand for it on other platforms as well, consumers will ask manufacturers, operators and OS makers to have it. If they didn't have a platform under their control, it would be very difficult and costly to be present on the iPhone or WP or whatever. But their products are always betas, they never have the patience to work on things they already have, and they'll keep shooting out versions and versions of their software. And at the end of the day it's only short-sightedness of OEMs that allows them to be here. Google is their worst enemy, as a matter of fact, because in Google's perfect world phones should be free, as well as internet access.

Nokia may come up with any supercool Maemo but they are such control freaks that no Sony Ericsson or HTC or Samsung will ever seriously make their OS their bread and butter. And their dumbphone legacy is too strong, too, so they keep returning to these horrid hierarchical menus every now and then.

Among all these guys, MS is incredibly well positioned, with relations with ISVs and OEMs, XBox, piles of cash, and the ability to easily wait for a decade for things to work if need be. They can screw up of course, but 18 months don't mean anything in this game.
[Windows Phone 7 General] RustyGrom:
Photon would've only been out around the same time as WM6.5. WP7 Would then have been delayed until 2012. Photon would've just been a failure. You guys would've probably loved it but the rest of the world would not. From the sounds of things there wasn't nearly much time wasted on Photon like there was on the original Blackcomb. 6.1 only came out in April 2008.
[Windows Phone 7 General] owenw:
It's people like you that will make MS fail ultimately. Cause you're stuck in your ways, and you can't see past your views. Windows Mobile NEEDED to die. They're losing market share.

The phones ONLY appealed to Power Users and now they're trying to target EVERYONE. They want to be able to let your MUM use one of the WP7 phones, and actually understand how to use it, and enjoy the experience.

I wish people would stop comparing projects to Vista, cause vista really WAS NOT a failure like you keep saying. It was a successful iteration in the Windows line of products that had teething problems.

JUST LIKE WINDOWS XP DID WHEN IT WAS RELEASED. (BTW, if you think Vista was bad, XP did not have Wireless features untill SP1a)

Get your facts straight before posting FUD, and stop believing everything you read on the internet.
[Windows Phone 7 General] owenw:
+1 (Y) I agree, WP7 is a step in the right direction!
[Windows Phone 7 General] hdubli:
Very good insight and pulse of the curent market trend.I fully agree what u say, as i have been experiencing the same, this as consumer behaviour in my experence of telecom.MS has researched, now, finally the cosnsumer orientation and then making goodies for them.
[Windows Phone 7 General] Shasarak:
If anyone has seen any official comfirmation of which version of CE WP7 is based on, I'd like to see it too. :)
[Windows Phone 7 General] OndraSter:
WP7 looks good, since it is based on CE, I'm not afraid on non-"jailbreaking" it;). There are the best developers world have seen about hacking WinCE stuff.

WM7 would be nice to have for our older devices since it runs on CE 5.2... and since it is over 1.5 year since last development, I think it should be compatible with our current devices (TP2, TD2) without changing SPL or radio... so what do you say on it, MS? Can you pls leak to us? (I have some space in PMs:D.)

WP7 is way complex sytem than any other on current devices. Have you seen integration with facebook, xbox live etc? Do you know, how hard must have it been to have it running this on 1GHz Snapdragon with OpenGL ES? All Maemo, Android, ... had these issues done easily since they're using portions of Linux, but WP7 uses WinCE kernel which MS made themselves. No opensource.

PS: Vista is awesome system, I was using it a year and half without any issue, compared to XP and always 3-4 times reinstalls per year :P. If you are comparing WP7 to Vista, go ahead but don't write it was fail. Thanks.
[Windows Phone 7 General] seed_al:
Vista failed. Period.

It was a good system, I've been using it since the beginning. It was MUCH better than XP. But it failed nevertheless, cause people didn't buy it.

And the comparison to WP7 is totally valid. Both are good systems in theory, but both are much delayed, possibly unfinished (Vista was unfinished), and possibly lack developers' support (how long did it take hardware manufacturers to come up with Vista drivers? If a system doesn't have the drivers, or in the case of WP7, the apps, from the beginning, then it will get bad press, just like Vista, which was reason number one for its failure: bad press).

You sound like a dumb fanboy who can't live with the truth.

Nobody said Vista was bad. But Vista failed. That's the truth, no matter how much it hurts.

I've been using Vista from the beginning and I've been defending it against all the FUD all the time. It wasn't bad. But nevertheless, it failed.

And the comparison frey made is totally valid. WP7 is in many ways exactly like Vista:

- Vista was awfully delayed because of a development reset

- WP7 is awfully delayed because of a development reset

- Vista was unfinished when it launched, it lacked optimization and refinements

- WP7 will quite likely be unfinished when it launches, they're rushing it out of the doors

- Vista broke compatibility and relied on developers to fix it, which didn't happen and was one reason for bad press and thus its failure

- WP7 breaks compatibility and relies on developers to fix it. If developers don't fix it, WP7 will definitely fail against the iPhone and its 200.000 applications. There's no way Microsoft can win anything without developers' support.

What frey posted is not FUD. Not a bit. At no point did he say Vista was bad. He said it failed, and that's the truth, given Vista's small market share compared to XP even after three years.

At no point did he say anything that was meant to hurt WP7. All he posted was an analysis about the risks Microsoft is taking with this release and that's definitely true.

It's a very good analysis and I really can't see anything there that is in any way meant to hurt WP7, all the points and comparisons are totally valid. And it's very true that Microsoft has to overcome a lot of challenges to make WP7 a success, most importantly gaining support from developers.
[Windows Phone 7 General] vangrieg:
Well, jailbreaking could cater to the needs of developers who make stuff like that posted here on xda. However, the need to jailbreak a phone will essentially kill applications such as Opera Mobile or Core Player. These would need native APIs, nobody in their sane mind will make a browser engine in C#; the apps are also made by fairly small companies that won't pay MS any extra fees and don't have the power to force MS into relaxing any rules in their cases; they also make apps that "compete" with the built-in ones made by MS.

I don't care too much if I get Bing Maps instead of Google Maps (providing BM will finally start working properly, right now it's unusable for my local needs). I'm getting tired of Google's omnipresence anyway, so an array of services from MS would be a welcome change here. In addition to that, I don't worry about Google here, they'll sneak into the platform one way or the other (heck, they even put Google Voice through to the iPhone); smaller companies would have an uphill battle ahead of them.
[Windows Phone 7 General] RustyGrom:
And just like with Vista, if MS had released what they were going to originally it would've been a massive failure and would be even further behind. But the difference is that Photon was a minimal effort and longhorn was shooting far too high.

I've seen no evidence to suggest that they're rushing WP7 out. In fact, I'd say they're taking too long with it. It's not getting released for another 8 months!

Vista hardly broke compatibility. Most of the stuff that broke was either tightly woven apps like Virus Scanners or was poorly written. Assuming WP7 does fully break compatibility, I see it as being more of a good thing. What are the key apps for a phone these days? Pandora, check. Twitter/facebook/etc, check. Maps/search, check. Games, check. Most of the popular apps for WM are apps for tweaking your phone or replacing the GUI... those just won't be needed anymore (or would have to be rewritten anyways just since it's a new OS).

And you mentioned the press... yes, they slaughtered Vista. While it's still early, everyone seems to be in love with WP7. All the MS fanboys seemed to like Vista and the opposite can be said about WP7 (just look at all the hate on this forum).
[Windows Phone 7 General] vangrieg:
Email, calendar, office, music, check. Browser, video, satnav, bookreader - big question marks so far.

Indeed, and it wasn't deserved if you ask me. Granted, it wasn't a breakthrough, wasn't a performance marvel, but it's an OK OS. I haven't had any problems with it.
[Windows Phone 7 General] RustyGrom:
Browser is included. Video is included. Satnav might be included (not sure if their Bing implementation will do this or not). Ebook reader not. But both of those last two are pretty easy to do and would not be limited by a "managed code only" rule. The only concern for both would be multitasking.
[Windows Phone 7 General] vangrieg:
Well, I should have probably said "very good browser" and "very good satnav", to distinguish from "some browser" or "some sort of navigation". IE isn't there and won't be by year end, Bing won't ever be there just as Google Maps won't. I'm not sure about video because a mobile device that understands real life codecs without conversion is a miracle previously unseen.
[Windows Phone 7 General] vangrieg:
I'm not sure whether it's easy to make a C# version of iGo or AlReader. Or, which is more important, whether the developers will be willing to undertake such an endeavor at all. Since no platform including the almighty iPhone has the WM C++ equivalents of the two (it took the iPhone about two years to get a very crippled iGo, which would qualify as a "lite/demo" version of the real thing), I'm not overly optimistic.
[Windows Phone 7 General] gogol:
Dont worry about drivers, I read somewhere that this time Microsoft will make the drivers, period.

Microsoft dictates the hardware requirements as well.

Oh here it is:

Microsoft will also provide Runtime services on devices that can be used to access services in the Cloud, such as Windows Live, Windows Azure, and third-party services. And best of all, to ensure maximum compatibility across all WP7 handsets, Microsoft will be providing the hardware drivers to the OEMs. All the “missing drivers” headaches on previous generations of Windows Mobile devices are definitely a thing of the past.

http://www.mobiletechworld.com/2010/02/22/windows-phone-7-series-has-everything-to-succeed/

“Microsoft and our partners have the desire for better quality and the obvious success of vertical players have proven that better quality can be achieved through deep testing of HW and SW together. We have made three major changes that we think dramatically improve and will allow us to compete with these vertical players. First we have defined the hardware with much more specific requirements to ensure a consistent environment for developers and also to reduce the number of part manufactures we need to support. Second we are working with our OEM partners to have Microsoft write much more of the HW / SW drivers. Third, we have agreed not just to a compatibility test but a Series of quality tests that will ensure that Windows Phone 7 Series phones will meet the high expectations that customers should have from a Windows Phone,”

the Microsoft spokesperson said

.

http://news.softpedia.com/news/Windows-Phone-OS-7-0-and-the-Promise-of-Change-135060.shtml

And? Does delayed mean it will be failed?

And what do you suggest? To delay it MORE?

Or what you are saying, Windows Mobile will never be a success because of the delay?

How do you know they will be rushing it out of the doors?

Are you working for Microsoft or something?

iPhone was started as a new mobile phone OS.

So does Windows Phone 7 series.

That might be true about compatibility, you might not be able to run your old WM6 app.

But then what?

Are you saying that no developers will JUMP into the new platform and start making application to make money?

I will not bet on that.
[Windows Phone 7 General] seed_al:
Haha, do I see someone ridiculously backpedaling there?

Seems like you've run out of arguments...
[Windows Phone 7 General] gogol:
and you sir, what was your arguments again?
[Windows Phone 7 General] owenw:
A:Yep. Fair enough. Important to note alot of developers (of decent applications) are already getting onboard.
[Windows Phone 7 General] mazzarin:
It's not stated clearly enough in the above posts:

Vista failed because of partners dragging their feet releasing workable drivers (namely ATI and nVidia), and because MS agreed to lower the hardware requirements below what was realistic.

End of story. Anything else is just ancillary.

#1 could be an issue - but I highly doubt it the way they are being selective on their hardware platform, and #2 seems to be taken care of as well.
[Windows Phone 7 General] LJKelley:
It is impossible to backwards compatible forever. While XP was better (in backwards compatibility) than Vista, Vista was a necessary evil. Windows 7 is hardly any different than Vista, but because the backwards compatibility was already broken and new technologies already embraced it was easier to stomach.

The other main problem with Vista was lack of drivers. Its odd, but XP did have a quicker driver creation, possibly due to NT/2000 drivers working and most hardware creators creating both 9x and NT drivers during the creation of their products.

Fortunately, must Windows Mobile apps currently suck. They are ugly, they are not touch friendly, etc... I think this is a great moment to start over. And sure, it will be behind the iPhone, but so is WinMo with what less than 5000 apps in the Microsoft Marketplace.

But Windows Phone 7 will appeal to consumers, as it will have more out of the box than the iPhone. It is too early to say if consumers will overall choose it over the iPhone, but I know I've had general positive response with the few people I have discussed with.

And Vista was never actually reset. I have about 6 copies of Longhorn Beta's still laying around (as I was a beta tester) and while they may have left out stuff they had wanted to include, they never did actually reset the development and you can see a complete progression.

As for Windows 7 Phone, it is obvious they reset it and i'm glad they did. The Zune HD was a great wake up call for them and photon would have been a complete failure.
[Windows Phone 7 General] iridium21:
Thank Christ Windows Phone 7 isn't Photon! It (Photon) is just more of the same old crap with slightly enhanced plastic tits.
[Windows Phone 7 General] freyberry:
@owenw

You don't have to agree with my analysis, but rest assured that in no way I've been trying to hurt WP7.

My concerns are, in my opinion, totally valid. If you actually read my analysis, you will notice, that I also attribute WP7 a lot of potential.

WP7 has, in my opinion, more potential than 'Photon', but Microsoft have undeniably taken huge risks by delaying their OS by more than a year (Photon would have been RTM in mid 2009) and breaking compatibility, while relying on developers to help them catch up with Apple's huge lead in third party applications.

You do indeed sound like a fanboy who's desperately trying to talk away the possibility that WP7 might fail. But you can't.

And while Vista was a necessary step for Windows 7, there was no risk at all for Microsoft. They have a huge lead in desktop OSs. So the failure of Vista didn't hurt them much, since they now have Windows 7, built on the foundation they created with Vista, and it's a success. But if WP7 fails, then Apple's and Google's (and even Nokia's, because Symbian^3 looks to be very good) leads will only grow bigger, to a point where they'll not be able to catch up anymore with WP8 or WP9.

Here's another article by pocketnow.com, which also agrees with my analysis: http://pocketnow.com/thought/how-windows-phone-7-series-may-fail

Developers will ultimately decide whether WP7 becomes a success. Microsoft better not screw them. Right now, it doesn't look at all like developers will jump onto the new platform. Lots of them have concerns, some of them already said they would not develop for WP7, because it's so late.

Here's another article: http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2010/02/windows-phone-7/

Getting developers excited about WP7 will be a challenge for Microsoft. And it's not clear at all that they will succeed.

And even Microsoft themselves acknowledge that challenge, proving me right with my analysis:

By Andre Vrignaud, who works for Microsoft on the XBox.

By Charlie Kindel, who is in charge of the developer ecosystem for WP7.
[Windows Phone 7 General] gogol:
http://pocketnow.com/thought/how-windows-phone-7-series-may-fail

Interesting article though, but I have some comments about it:

The Developers

I still believe that .NET and Silverlight are quite well-known among Windows developer. And I still believe that Microsoft will try the best they can to bring in developers. Anyway, we dont know much about this, so lets the conclusion wait for the next MIX.

The OEMs

I think OEM will be OK with WP7. Even if there is only 1 device created per OEM. Let say HTC will create only 2 devices for WP7, 1 with hardware keyboard and the other one does not have hardware keyboard.

That's fine, look iPhone ... only 1 device :)

So, 1 device per OEM still much plenty compared to iPhone.

Or do you think that NONE of the OEM will make WP7 device? That's too bold to say.

The Competition & Timing

Yes, thats correct. But, Microsoft also does not show all WP7 features. We still dont know how Xbox hub in detail (games, interactivity, gui, etc.).

And other competitors just does not have that Xbox kind of platform. So, same situation for both sides, blind.

The Confused Consumer

Nah, this is too much :) I think people will still recognize or use name like "HTC A" or "HTC B" or "HTC C" :)

:D
[Windows Phone 7 General] paul_71:
well, that you need to explain further... Nobody really needs the platform APIs, and the fact that they still exist is the source of many problems.
[Windows Phone 7 General] l3v5y:
What problems are created by the platform APIs being out there?

One thing I don't think some of those arguing about developers have realised is that the vast majority of iPhone "developers" release software that could have been written by a three year old. All it does is have a button that when pressed plays a sound. That's not developing really, and I'd prefer a few hundred good pieces of software to 100,000 "apps".
[Windows Phone 7 General] owenw:
Oh no, I don't disagree with you at all. I think the developers will come though. Even though they're upset and some of them are pretty pissed, they'll come. Why? Cause there's money in it for them. Sales of apps.

Android came into the game after iPhone OS and look where they are now! I think yes, it will depend on developers, but developers will indeed come.