San Francisco — In what appears to be a huge week for Microsoft, when it announced its Surface tablet platform at a hush-hush event in Los Angeles, and now software giant Microsoft Corp. previewed the next generation of its Windows Phone 8 Apollo at its Windows Phone Summit in San Francisco, as it continued an offensive in the mobile-communications market that began with the introduction of a Windows tablet Monday.
The Redmond, Wash.-based software maker confirmed that the new phone software will be formulated on the same core as its new upcoming PC and tablet operating system, in addition to offering support for mobile wallet and Near Field Communications when WP8 is released in the fall, bringing the company one step closer to unifying its Windows franchise across a full range of screens that are revolutionizing computing.
Joe Belfiore introduces the Windows Phone 8 mobile operating system in San Francisco… REUTERS/Noah Berger
The world’s enormous software maker, which is striving to keep up with Apple Inc.’s iPhone and Google Inc.’s Android devices, said the common core means customers will have a greater choice of phones and applications, and be able to switch between multiple machines more easily.
“The biggest thing today is that Windows Phone 8 has a shared common core with Windows 8,” said Windows Phone Manager Joe Belfiore at the Windows Phone Summit in San Francisco, which was webcast. “For us, this is a huge release and a huge year.”
The Redmond Vole disclosed eight specific platform updates for its upcoming mobile OS. We have already dealt with one of the most consumer-facing updates, the new Start Screen, but other changes include hardware-related features like multi-core processor and memory card support, a revamped Internet Explorer 10, shared native code between Windows Phone 8 and Windows 8, NFC support, a new Wallet hub, Nokia Maps, and Windows Phone 8 for business.
Besides, many of these updates should not come as a surprise, considering all the leaks and reports that was released in February. Nor was today’s announcement a full-fledged reveal like Apple’s iOS 6 presentation at WWDC. Microsoft says it will unveil more end-user features in the summer. But in the meantime, these platform updates are significant, and Microsoft had a lot to say about them.
In fact, for months, analysts have prophesied this common code direction based on previous Microsoft comments. Other improvements were announced for the hardware.
Among the new features in Windows Phone 8 are:
- Support for multi-core processors. Existing support for single core has been a major concern for some high-end users wanting faster processing ability.
- Two new high-definition screen resolutions for the coming OS. They are 1280 x 768 and 1280 x 720.
- Removeable micro-SD support for the first time to allow expansion of base storage.
- A busier start screen with room for more live tiles than in Windows Phone 7.5. Today’s Windows Phones have room for up to eight live tiles and WP8 will have room for up to 32 live tiles, which can be sized differently.
- IT support. Adminstrators will see some gaps in the existing OS filled, including support for encryption and secure boot in WP8, as well as the ability to allow IT to deploy apps without going through Windows Marketplace.
- Built-in Nokia Navteq map technology, with turn-by-turn driving instructions in many countries.
- Full Internet Explorer 10 support with more features of HTML 5 added. Belfiore said that Windows Phone 8 with IE10 will download Web pages slightly faster than three other popular smartphones on the market.
- Native code support, a feature seen as useful to developers eager to move their apps from iOS or Android to Windows Phone.
Belfiore demonstrated several enhancements on a phone that was designed for development, but not for sale to the public.
According to the company, the new phones are manufactured by handset makers Nokia, Samsung Electronics, HTC Corp and Huawei on Qualcomm dual-core chips — will feature voice commands, Skype calling, near-field communication (NFC) for wireless transactions and built-in maps for GPS directions.
Microsoft further stated that apps built for Windows Phone 7 and 7.5 will also run on Windows Phone 8, but said the new OS will not run on existing Windows Phone hardware. Also, all updates to Windows Phone 8 will be delivered to the devices over the air, eliminating the need for tethering.
Belfiore did not revealed more details on when Windows Phone 8 will launch, other than to say in the fall.
However, the Redmond, Washington-based company has immensely invested billions of dollars in phones — including a deal with Nokia to use its software — in an attempt to break into the market.
So far, it has had pretty minuscule impact, embracing only 2 percent of the world’s smartphone market last quarter, according to tech research firm Gartner. Google’s Android leads the market with 56 percent, followed by Apple with 23 percent.