User:Ryan Norton/WP7Stuff

Reception
An Engadget preview of the software noted that "Windows Phone 7 is easily the most unique UI in the smartphone race right now, and the real perk here is that it doesn't just seem like an arbitrary decision to make things look different than other OSs -- there is real purpose and utility to a lot of what Microsoft has come up with." Gizmodo called the operating system's virtual keyboard "a wonderful keyboard: fast, smooth, intuitive and totally natural". ZDNet praised the experience and fluidity of the device, saying "The current experience is amazingly stable and fluid and I am quite impressed with what they have done."

The operating system as of its RTM lacks features found in its predecessor and competing mobile operating systems. Microsoft plans to implement an unspecified amount of these missing features in future updates to the operating system. Microsoft program manager Charlie Kindel and senior product manager Greg Sullivan attributed the lack of these features to the design focus of Windows Phone 7:

Slashgear commented on the exclusion of cut, copy, and paste and multi-tasking capabilities, stating that "Addresses, for instance, are automatically linked to the map app, while links always open up the browser and phone numbers are spotted and triggered by a tap. It’s obviously not perfect – and Microsoft admit that Copy & Paste will be added in a future update, though there’s no public timescale for that – but it’s a half solution ... In a similar vein to the Copy & Paste shortcomings, Microsoft has done a dramatic about-face when it comes to multitasking.  Where Windows Mobile was a free-for-all of simultaneously running apps, Windows Phone 7 apes the iPhone in its limitations on what can be running in the background".

Windows Phone 7 does not allow users access to the central file system. Instead, users can store documents within the application they are using. Microsoft hardware specifications mandate that all Windows Phone 7 handsets include an electronic compass, however the compass feature will not be working at release time, as the compass API is not complete. The networking API does not give access to sockets, preventing Voice over IP applications such as Skype from operating on Windows Phone 7. At MIX10, Microsoft's Istvan Cseri spoke about 3rd party access to sockets, stating "We are offering HTTP and multiple flavours of web client frameworks and APIs for that...in this release, we are not going to have direct socket access...it is going to come at a later time." Finally, there is no Native Development Kit (NDK), used by software developers to create native apps. Mozilla cited this as the reason it will not bring Firefox for mobile to Windows Phone 7.

IPsec virtual private network (VPN) security was supported in Windows Mobile, but will not be supported in Windows Phone 7. Microsoft has decided that data access via Removable SD Card and PC Tethering, both of which were supported in Windows Mobile, will not be supported in Windows Phone 7 in the interest of data security which appeals to enterprise users. There is also no universal in-box to view multiple email accounts, though multiple eMail inboxes are supported. Windows Phone 7 will not support Microsoft's Windows Rights Management Services, which controls who can read and edit Office documents.
 * The browser (based on the desktop version of IE 7) in Windows Phone 7 will not support Flash, Silverlight and HTML5 at launch. Though Flash has been confirmed to be coming to the platform, no such confirmation has been made for Silverlight or HTML5.

Although Windows Mobile 6.5 had full multitasking, Microsoft has decided not to allow 3rd party multitasking in Windows Phone 7 until as it stated they can execute it well enough in a fashion which won't affect user experience which in this release they deem essential for its success. Windows Phone 7 will only allow one application to run in the foreground at one time, and no 3rd party apps will be allowed to run in the background, but the state of the application is saved so the application does not restart when the user returns to it unless they open more apps that require heavy system resources in which case the app will be notified of its termination and it can save its own state (if its developer implemented that). The lack of multitasking also prevents inter-application communication between third-party apps. Also, Windows Phone 7 does not have an application switcher (to switch between Microsoft applications).