I’m very excited to share with this blog community, that our Windows Phone engineering team has hit a very meaningful milestone; one that we’re calling technical preview. We are certainly not done yet – but the craftsmen (and women) of our team have signed off that our software is now ready for the hands-on everyday use of a broad set of consumers around the world – and we’re looking forward to their feedback in the coming weeks, so that we can finish the best Windows Phone release ever together.
Before release of this milestone, the software has undergone extensive testing – in daily use by more than 1000 people at Microsoft who have been using WP7 as their only phone for the past several months, and the more than 10,000 devices in our test labs. We’ve been testing usability, battery life, network connectivity, and many other metrics for a long time. As a result of that work, I hope you will find the experience to be of surprisingly high quality.
Starting today, thousands of prototype phones from Asus, LG and Samsung are making their way into the hands of developers over the next few weeks. Combine that with the beta release of the Windows Phone developer tools, and I can’t wait to see how our developer partners take advantage of our new approach to smart design and integrated mobile experiences. I’m personally working on a flash card app for my daughter, and am consistently amazed by the ease with which Silverlight and Visual Studio make WP7 apps possible.
So we’re almost there – but there is much work left to do. Together, with our early adopter customers, developers, OEM, and mobile operator partners we are in the home stretch. We are on the path to do exactly what we set out to do – create a different take on mobile phone software, an experience we think many people will find fun and refreshing, with a quality bar that we’re proud of.
I look forward to celebrating the release of Windows Phone 7 with all of you,
Terry
CVP, Windows Phone Engineering
More...
Before release of this milestone, the software has undergone extensive testing – in daily use by more than 1000 people at Microsoft who have been using WP7 as their only phone for the past several months, and the more than 10,000 devices in our test labs. We’ve been testing usability, battery life, network connectivity, and many other metrics for a long time. As a result of that work, I hope you will find the experience to be of surprisingly high quality.
Starting today, thousands of prototype phones from Asus, LG and Samsung are making their way into the hands of developers over the next few weeks. Combine that with the beta release of the Windows Phone developer tools, and I can’t wait to see how our developer partners take advantage of our new approach to smart design and integrated mobile experiences. I’m personally working on a flash card app for my daughter, and am consistently amazed by the ease with which Silverlight and Visual Studio make WP7 apps possible.
So we’re almost there – but there is much work left to do. Together, with our early adopter customers, developers, OEM, and mobile operator partners we are in the home stretch. We are on the path to do exactly what we set out to do – create a different take on mobile phone software, an experience we think many people will find fun and refreshing, with a quality bar that we’re proud of.
I look forward to celebrating the release of Windows Phone 7 with all of you,
Terry
CVP, Windows Phone Engineering
More...