From Engadget: Microsoft has made it clear that we haven't seen everything from Windows Phone 7 yet -- particularly in the application department -- but here's a look at what we have been given access to, and brief descriptions of the software's functionality:
People hub: Pulls in contacts from Gmail, Exchange, Facebook, Twitter, Windows Live and others, aggregating contact information, status updates, and contact images into a single view (or views, really). The main view of this hub keeps your most recently or heavily contacted people in first view dynamically (though this can be customized as well), and allows you to quickly jump to feeds of your recent updates from social networks aggregated by Windows Live. There's also a section here called "me" where you can view and edit your own statuses within your networks.
Pictures hub: An aggregate of your locally stored photos, cloud-based Facebook, Windows Live, or other connected picture galleries, and feeds of your contacts' recently updated images. The pictures hub will also allow you to upload and comment on photos on services like Facebook natively inside of the hub experience.
Office hub: Microsoft's bread and butter, but so far we've just seen the hub itself -- none of its deeper functionality like document editing. There's an emphasis on OneNote and SharePoint Workspace that should be pretty interesting, however. Ultimately, based on the new UI paradigms and user experience directives of Windows Phone 7 Series, Microsoft is going to have to rebuild these applications from the ground up. As long as they're able to make them super functional while keeping the Metro look intact, this should be a real win -- we're still curious as to how the company plans to cram all that information into a UI which is focused on doing away with visual noise. Hopefully MIX10 will shed some light on this as well.
Music + Video hub: It's a Zune HD in your phone. Seriously. It's exactly like the Zune HD experience. You're able to utilize Zune Pass here too, including the ability to browse and download new music over WiFi and 3G. Video is a go too, and we assume that means rentals as well as purchases, but it's still unclear how this will interact with your desktop, Xbox, or Media Center setup. Furthermore, Microsoft is working with partners like Pandora to integrate with the hub, utilizing the Zune player to tap into Pandora's streaming service.
Games hub: Integrates with Xbox LIVE, including the housing of a miniature version of your avatar (in 3D and everything), Xbox LIVE games and achievements, Spotlight feeds, and the ability to browse gamer profiles. Microsoft hasn't shown any games yet, but has made mention of Facebook-style turn-based casual games being part of the equation. It's our impression that these devices have the horsepower to push pretty decent gaming experiences, and the integration with Xbox and its ecosystem is being taken very seriously by the folks in Redmond. We hope the fruit of this union will focus on more than just users hoping to play Sudoku on their phone. This should be an easy one to not screw up.
Marketplace hub: We've heard the least about this one so far, Microsoft is promising big things at MIX10, but we get the impression that when it comes to getting apps for these devices, the company is going to bring a much more Zune or Xbox like experience to the process. Based on the photos we've seen (which haven't been officially issued by Microsoft), the Marketplace looks nothing like the app-purchasing scheme on current Windows Mobile devices -- and that's an incredibly good thing.
And all the rest...
Email: Relies on the pivot to switch between message views (unread / flagged / etc.), and has a color-coded system for differentiating between work and personal messages. Hopefully there's an option to un-mix multiple inboxes as well, but it's unclear so far. Multiple message management is onboard here, thankfully, though there's also a lot of negative space in the app, which is a bit of a concerning (if beautiful) trend throughout the UI. We don't expect any deep integration with services like Gmail beyond the contact syncing... though if Microsoft could pull labeling, archiving, and threaded messages off here, we can think of at least one editor who would be seriously inclined to switch to this platform.
Calendar: One of the odder apps visually, it almost looks like a DOS UI, with a white-on-black / primary color presentation. There are differentiations for specific types of data, such as red and blue notation for personal items and work. As we said earlier, this is weirdly one of the most striking applications on the phone, with lots of interesting functionality tied to its visual elements, like little lines in the day boxes which represent appointments when you're zoomed out to a month view.
SMS: It's barebones so far, but supports SMS and MMS, and it appears that the keyboard can be rotated to landscape for text entry. Let's hope that's an option in most places where input is required.
Phone: Even barer bones. Chromeless is in full effect here.
Internet Explorer: This is a big one, and Microsoft claims to have something newer and more based on the desktop IE than the current Windows Mobile / Zune browser. Features include multitouch pinch-to-zoom, "tabbed" browsing, and a new text rendering engine that brings supports sub pixel positioning for text. It's not as fast as we'd like just yet, but Microsoft has more than half a year to work out the kinks, and at least the page rendering is accurate.
Bing search: Search has contextual use in most apps, but from the Start menu it pulls up a separate, dedicated Bing app. When you search, Bing will try to decide what sort of search you're doing and present an appropriate set of results -- local results instead of web pages if you're looking for sushi, for instance. You can pivot between views, naturally, and the results are presented in the standard Windows Phone UI instead of just a mobile browser version of Bing.
Bing Maps: Addresses throughout the phone are turned into hyperlinks that can pull up Bing maps (phone numbers and email addresses are also intelligently discovered by the OS and made linkable), which includes pinch to zoom navigation and an auto-switch from map to satellite view at a certain zoom level. Microsoft is really pushing geolocation here, though we assume users will be given an option on whether or not they want to be found.
Sources: Windows Phone 7, Youtube, Engadget, Gizmodo
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