I know I talk about a lot about cell phones on here, but cell phones are a huge part of our culture. 
Microsoft recently announced Windows Phone 7 series at Mobile World Congress in February. As some might know, Microsoft’s last endeavor with a mobile OS was Windows Mobile 6/6.5, which is an utter disaster, so everyone was excited about what Windows Mobile 7 would bring. After screenshots of WM7 leaked, I was pleasantly surprised; it looked fancy, looked to add better functionality, and just a better overall experience than WM6/6.5. Being a former WM user, I was excited to see what MS could do. Well, they decided to completely scrap what we knew as WM7 and make something that you see to the right here…I present you, Microsoft Windows Phone 7 Series. Ugh, even that name is horrible. I know Microsoft is trying to ride on the “success” of Windows 7, but Windows Phone 7 Series? Can’t we just drop the “Series” from it? Well the name isn’t the only thing that Microsoft failed at.
Let’s start with the interface. How in the heck is that a homescreen? Or at least something you’d want to use? A bunch of colored rectangles? How is that nice to look at? I saw where they were going with it, making it more Zune HD like, but seriously, they couldn’t have done something better than this? What if I want my applications on the homescreen? What if I really like “DoodleJump” and want it on my homescreen so I can play it any time I want? Well, based on what I’ve seen so far, there’s none of that. Outside of the homescreen, the interface is just as basic, with only text and some animations. Is this really what I want in a phone? Because I could easily go back to my Nokia 3360 from nine years ago if I just wanted text. I’m not saying this thing has to be the prettiest at the ball, but come on, don’t step up to the plate thinking you’re a 10 when you’re a 3 at best. Microsoft also said that they’re not allowing any sort of “themes”, so that really nice TouchFlo they made to make WM better, is nixed. Based on this, I’m stuck with the same boring homescreen, and same boring everything. It just goes to show that Microsoft really knows absolutely nothing about design and aesthetics. We already have the iPhone, Android and WebOS that are all really nice on the UI end, and then we end up with *this* from Microsoft. I’d rather use Symbian than this crap.
Microsoft did do one thing right, they made the hardware specs pretty damn high. This means that the minimum screen res is 800×480, 8GB of storage and something about CPU speed, which I can’t recall right now. See, that’s what we need, minimum specs so we can get rid of the crap QVGA, 320×480 resolutions we’re still seeing in phones. I’d also be incredibly grateful when we start to make 1Ghz processors the standard in phones, as 500Mhz just isn’t enough anymore. Being a hardware person myself, I welcome better specs, and praise MS for making these “minimum” specs!
Back to the fail. One of the things that was really good about Windows Mobile, was that you could side-load applications. Meaning, you didn’t need to use any special software or program to install software, and could download them from the manufacturer’s website, or elsewhere. Well, with WP7S, the only way you can install applications are through it’s “App Store”. So that means that any developer who wants to make an app, can only do so if it’s part of the App Store. I know that this is how the iPhone is, but there are ways around that 
. Who knows, maybe someone will figure out how to get around this. Lastly, Microsoft has stated that they’re not going to include any form of copy and paste to WP7S. Why not? WM has always had copy and paste, hell even the iPhone has copy and paste. Why omit this feature? It’s incredibly useful, especially if you wanted to copy something someone sent in a text, to someone else. Or copy the entire webpage, and paste that in an email…I mean, who wouldn’t want that? Just stupid of Microsoft to not include this. The other lacking things are no multitasking (man, people REALLY need to this worked on, because multitasking is KEY in a smartphone), no Flash, no upgrades from previous hardware…come one Microsoft.
If you take a step back and look at Windows Phone 7 Series as a whole, you can easily tell it’s lacking. It does have some nice features, like nice menu animations, integrating Xbox Live (though I hate achievement whores); but when you compare it to the iPhone, Android, and even WebOS, it just doesn’t stand up at all. Microsoft needs to hire some better UI designers as they just don’t have a clue. I fully expect WP7S will be an utter failure until they can get something more usable; until then, I do not want these phones, period.
Let’s face it, most of your points are invalid. But that’s ok, because you wrote this 3 months ago, when details were scarce.
First, the home screen. You’re completely wrong. You can rearrange the tiles and add apps as tiles. That’s the whole point. And there are color themes.
The name, Windows Phone 7 Series, of course has been changed to the shorter Windows Phone 7. Much better, and shorter than the original Windows Mobile 7 name.
The UI. Wait until you see a physical device. And you add contacts and connect Facebook, and install some apps. The Zune UI is very nice, and it’s mostly text. Same here, but more so.
Minimum hardware requirements. They are great.
Copy and paste. It’s coming. Wait a couple months after release.
Multitasking. It does multitask, somewhat. You can have multiple apps open at one time, just not multiple RUNNING applications. Background apps are paused, and when you return to them they start running again. To the user, the phone multitasks. Only problem is that it limits some of the apps that you can develop for it.
In the place of multitasking is push notifications, of course. You can receive notifications even when your app isn’t running
Lastly, the developer tools for Windows Phone 7 are amazing, and will encourage many developers to develop for this platform. Huge win.
Microsoft isn’t any stranger to having partners galore within the telephone enterprise, but its lineup of producers for the upcoming, surprisingly promising Windows Phone 7 launch is no less impressive. After plenty of rumoring, Microsoft has confirmed that Dell and HTC will be making Windows Cellphone 7 telephones, along with ASUS, LG, and Samsung who had already been confirmed. All of these corporations ought to have their stamp on hardware by the end of the 12 months, with the launch of the OS still vaguely slated for the “holidays” We’ve got little doubt that all 5 manufacturers can construct some compelling, sexy hardware, but we’re particularly enthused to see Dell really moving into the sport after the spectacular Streak and that drool worthy leak a short time back. read extra at http://www.wp7forum.com followers group.
While this article was written a few months ago, it seems Microsoft has picked up the steam in regards to making WP7 faster and better. I still don’t like the “look” of it, as it just looks too plain for me. Now, I really have only seen a little piece of the OS, but at the time of the article, it just looks really blah. Now if they can snazz it up by the time it releases, I’ll be all over it. But, the iPhone did set the standard of what a mobile OS should be, and Android built upon it. I was a huge WM fan, but the software was just crap. I hope MS succeeds with WP7, I really do, as this breeds competition. I still love Apple products, but if something better comes out, that surpasses Apple in every way, I’d be all over that.