Got Questions About WP7? MS Will Provide An Answer
About two weeks ago Brandon Watson, Microsoft’s Director of Development Experience, hosted a live web chat on WindowsPhone7.com and was very open throughout the entire Q&A session providing a lot of new information about Windows Phone 7. During the interview he even stated that if anyone had any follow-up questions to just reach out to him. So I did. I asked if he would be kind enough to allow the readers of MobilityDigest, 1800PocketPC, PocketNow, WMExperts and WMPowerUser to ask him questions. The answer was ‘yes’. So here we are. This is your chance to ask MS about WP7. Pretty neat, huh?
A few notes are in order. You can pretty much ask about any aspect of WP7 – software, hardware, dev, etc. Ultimately, we’re going to narrow down the questions to about 20 to present to Brandon (since he can’t be asked to answer every question that’s asked of him) and the general goal is to ask questions that haven’t been asked or answered yet. So between now and Friday at 5pm EST just post your question in the comments of any of the participating sites and you’re done. Expect about a week until the answers come back. There’s no need to post the same question to each site since the sites aren’t separately allotted a number of questions that get submitted – we’re just trying to get the best questions from you guys. And submitting multiple questions is perfectly acceptable so come back often:) And yes, we will submit a few extras since it’s inevitable that a few ‘no comments’ will come into play but based on Brandon’s openness at the webchat I know he’ll do his best to provide all the info he’s permitted to.
Anyway, we’re all pretty stoked that Brandon is actually taking the time to do this. It’s a pretty rare opportunity and we can’t thank him enough for participating in this event. So ladies and gentlemen, ask away…and don’t forget to thank Brandon Watson – he definitely deserves all the thanks in the world for taking the time to deal with all of us:)
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Will outlook support multiple folders for contact, task, calendars, etc. like it does with mail?
Since there is no copy and paste for the moment, have there been measures taken to insure the user’s ability to transmit contact info from a WP7? The method in the current WinMo works occasionally but I usually just end up sending out a blank text to someone because their phone doesn’t get contact info in the same way the phone sends it. This would be difficult to do without copy and paste unless this issue is addressed so that contact info is sent in a manner all phones can use. This is something I do on a regular basis that represents a certain need by the user. We all need a method of sharing contact info on these new phones and I need to know if this will be integrated at launch. I’m not carrying around post-its just so I can send one of my friends another person’s number.
What improvements can we expect to see in the new version of Internet Explorer in WP7? Today the webkit-based browsers are leading the space and I am curious to see what MS is planning to do to keep/catch up. For me, it is critical that the browsing experience is on par or comparable to the prevailing experiences on both the iphone and Android if this device is to be a long-term keeper for me.
Will there ever be wireless sync support in the mobile email client for Notes in desktop Outlook? As far as I can tell there has never been support in Windows Mobile 6.x unless you tether to the computer.
Can you provide more information on how MS will incorporate some of it’s other cloud services – specicially Office Live and Skydrive? There has been a lot of information about Sharepoint but a lot of us non-corporate users would love to be able to use Office Live, etc on WP7. Furthermore, it seems like MS would score a huge win(over Apple and Google) if they could truly integrate pictures/documents/music across an individual’s multiple computing devices. Thank you for your time
Skype? Skyfire? Pandora? Youtube? Will it have any of these?
Can you show what email looks like? Will I have to download the pictures seperately or will they just show up like they do on the iPhone?
I switched to Windows Phone because I like how it integrates with all the software I already own. The ability to search my Exchange server (which I hope will be enhanced), the ease of opening, storing, and sharing documents from my servers and phones, and most importantly the integration with Office Communicator. Communicator is the most complete communication package out there, and by far the most cost effective. The integration with my phone is critical. From what I can tell, it won’t be supported in WP7. I realize this is a ‘consumer’ oriented product, but business users are consumers too. I won’t give up that functionality, so how long am I going to be using 6.5, and will you be adding the ability to use Live Meeting from my phone by adding a from facing camera? That would make a world of difference.
Will there be Tasks functionality at all? What should I do with Exchange/Outlook tasks I’m using now – they can’t be done by third parties.
PDF – are there plans to provide PDF viewing? If not, how are users going to view PDFs sent to me by email? Or, if not by email, how do I view them at all without file transfer functionality?
Will there be multilanguage input SIP support or will WP7 continue the less-than-stellar WM legacy where you need to flash a different ROM just to get language input functionality you need?
Was removal of MPEG4 Part 2 Advanced Simple Profile from the list of supported codecs with release of April Refresh a temporary omission or is the plan to not let users view Divx/Xvid .avi files at all?
Since applications will need a web server on a PC to transfer files, wouldn’t it make sense to bundle one with Zune software? Otherwise each app will run its own server, ooccupying a port etc., while Zune/phone pair could easily handle authentication, determining the IP addresses, etc.
Are there plans to expand the list of countries supported in Marketplace so I can finally get a chance to pay for software instead of, you know, getting it the other way?
How much market share are you going to lose to Apple before it’s released or at least known to exist? The only buzz is on tech blogs. Where is the mainstream media?
Will we still be able to sync Outlook tasks and notes with WP7?
I am a developer located in Jordan, back in Windows mobile 6.x I develop applications and i did one very interesting one for the public called “Mobile Gamertag” but unfortunately i was unable to apply for the Microsoft Developer program since my country is not supported. Question is, will my country be supported on Windows 7 marketplace? Coz i seriously want to pick sides on whether to gt a windows phone 7 and start developing my own apps, OR shall i go for android.
Thanks 🙂
Please, provide a way to delete multiple text messages. Mobile 6.1 even provided this option on my AT&T Fuze. We need to be able to delete txt messages by selecting all, or selecting randomly, or selecting one at a time.
Thank you.
Would like too see some more originality from the upcoming clothing lines…i wanna see something new and creative.