So, me being me, my idea of ‘a bit of a change’ is to blog about something I actively don’t like…

Thus, I’ve decided to blog about an upcoming football game (and I loathe football… seriously, I can’t stand it) for the iPhone (which I don’t loathe, but which I have little time for). After the frankly disappointing week I’ve had, if I can manage to get myself excited about something I actively don’t like, then I’d call that win. Okay, that might be a completely stupid justification for blogging about something, but then, if you’re surprised by that, I’m forced to ask whether you’ve actually read any of my blog posts before. Never assume I won’t do something completely silly, because it’s very, very likely I will.

Er, yes. Anyway.

As is well known, EA Sports have made a career out of releasing essentially the same games every year, with increasingly bigger numbers at the end. Well, you know, if that’s your cynical view of how they work. Not that that’s a bad thing, of course, because people still buy them, so there’s a big market there, and hell, I’d do the same in their position. However, EA are also a key developer for the iPhone, so this year, what with it being World Cup year, and everything, we get a World Cup on the iPhone: 2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa.

Obviously, everything’s all super secret at the minute, until EA officially take the wraps off it, but I would imagine it’ll be not completely unlike last year’s FIFA 10 for the iPhone. Which, if you like that sort of thing, will be good, because apparently FIFA 10 is a brilliant game (if you like that sort of thing). Features-wise, again, no details have been forthcoming, but given the name, I’d expect it to be structured around trying to get your team to win the World Cup. Which’d be good for us Brits since, y’know, we haven’t won it since 1966 (coincidentally, that decade is also the last time Britain was cool, and it’s when we made The Italian Job, which can be considered as the absolute highest point of British history).

So, if you like football, and you have an iPhone (top tip? Have an iPhone 3GS, it’s faster), then you’ll no doubt love 2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa. It’s due to be released on April 27th, and although there’s no word on pricing, it’ll most likely be around the six quid mark, the same as FIFA 10.

See? I got through that whole post without suggesting all footballers should be rounded up, put in a big sack, and thrown into the sea.

Damn. So close…

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Ooh, now here’s an interesting thing. Not long back, Sony Ericsson were letting people come up with ideas for what they want in their smartphone, as part of the SE-dot initiative. And that’s a pretty cool idea. And now, it seems that Nokia are doing something similar, although this time, is not just about coming up with apps. No, the Design By Community site is aiming to get people to design a whole new concept phone.

It’s dead easy, too: you go onto that site, find the slidy bars (that look like the ones in the pic on this post), fiddle about with ‘em, and when a big green light pops on saying “Great”, you click submit. And then, presumably, the people on the Design By Community site will, when the whole project’s finished, knock together a design concept based on it.

Just, er, don’t expect to see it as a real production phone.

The first week’s poll is for ‘Display and user interface’, to be followed by ‘Size and shape’, then ‘Materials’, then ‘Operating system’ (that’ll be easy, it’ll either be Symbian or MeeGo… MeeGo being, of course, the new name for Maemo, as seen on the Nokia N900), then ‘Connectivity’, then ‘Camera’, and then, finally, ‘Enhancements’, for all the weird stuff that doesn’t fit anywhere else. Or, y’know, GPS. Once all that’s been collated (I love that word), then we can expect to see them bang it all together into a new concept. Which’ll be pretty cool to see, although it’s a bit of a shame the phone’s unlikely to ever make it into production.

So, yes, get yourself involved, and let’s see what new stuff you can come up with!

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And then, their trademark application was declined…

Ah. Was it Philip K. Dick’s daughter, causing problems for Google, since the name’s originally from the book that would become Bladerunner? Surprisingly, no; it was declined because Nexus One is apparently already the trademark of a company called Integra Telecom. Apparently, the trademark covers a suite of, er, stuff, that includes “transmission of data and voice… conference calling, call forwarding, call rejection, call return, call waiting, caller ID, caller ID block… and high-speed access to a global computer network.”

However, there’s a slight caveat on Integra Telecom’s trademark, and you can guarantee Google will be appealing, based on it. Y’see their suite of stuff is explicitly stated to be for people in the ‘physical oil industry’. Which Google aren’t. Yet. Although knowing Google, it can only be a matter of time…

See, the reason it was declined was because it could lead to confusion between the two products, according to the US Patent and Trademark Office. I can see both sides of the argument, though: I can see where there could be confusion between that suite of services and Google’s baby, but by the same token, I can see the fact that they’re in two separate markets. So, we’ll have to wait and see if Google’s appeal is successful, although I’ll be honest, it’d be a shame if not, because Nexus One is a bleedin’ cool name for a phone.

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Well, Microsoft did promise more 7 Series news at the MIX conference, and, just like I said yesterday, they’re coming up with the goods, throwing out loads of new info about the OS, the development ecosystem, and what the new OS’s favourite pet is (okay, I made that last one up). So, without further ado, let’s get into the details.

And we begin with some bad news: the HTC HD2 ain’t getting an upgrade to 7 Series…

That’s a bit of a downer, to start with, so I apologise for that. I was looking forward to the HD2 getting an upgrade, too, but it ain’t happening, so let’s move on (besides, you can bet HTC will make a phone similar in spec, but with Windows Phone 7 Series on it), and see what else Microsoft have announced. And the biggest bit of news has to be the phone that they showed off. That Samsung one in the pic, on the left hand side, up there. The one that’s an absolute dead ringer for the Samsung i8910 HD. No idea on the specs of it, but hey, it looks rather purdy, and you can guarantee it’ll have decent specs (since, y’know, Microsoft insist on it).

So, what of the other stuff we haven’t yet been told?

Well, first, there’s the app situation, and Microsoft have confirmed that all apps for Windows Phone 7 Series need to be downloaded through Windows Marketplace. No more sideloading of apps, as you can currently do in Windows Mobile, which means Microsoft are following the same route as Apple, and maintaining control over what apps can appear on their phones. Er, which isn’t something I entirely approve of, but we’ll have to see how it pans out. Of course, you can bet the modding community will be working on unlocking Windows phones to work with other apps, just like the way you can jailbreak the iPhone. Of course, that means it’s unlikely I’ll see my beloved Swype keyboard on 7 Series, which, if I’m honest, is a massive blow…

However, the really nice bit about the Marketplace is that you can trial apps before buying them, to see if they’re worth buying.

Oh, and then, there’s the other bit we’ve been waiting to hear about: multitasking. And the answer to the question of whether Windows Phone 7 Series will have multitasking is… er, sort of. But it’ll work like it does on the iPhone, where things like the music player can run in the background, but third party apps won’t. Or rather, they sort of will, but the app will pause, rather than drawing resources in the background, and then pick up where it paused when you go back into it. Which, again, is a bit of a bummer, if you run a lot of apps at any given moment. Similarly to the iPhone, 7 Series will also use push notifications for when anything important happens in an app.

So, there we have it. We have our answers to the important questions people were asking, and I’ll admit, they’re not really the answers I wanted to hear. I still love the approach Windows Phone 7 Series is taking in its hub setup, and things like that, but for me, the biggest blow is the fact that it’s unlikely we’ll officially see the Swype keyboard on the new OS. Which is a massive shame, because I love Swype.

Oh, and there’s one other thing. In a Q&A session at MIX, Microsoft have just said that Windows Phone 7 Series won’t support clipboard functions at launch. So, no cut, copy or paste. And don’t expect me to go easy on them just because they’re not Apple; not having copy & paste was bleedin’ stupid on the iPhone, and it’s bleedin’ stupid on Windows Phone 7 Series, especially since 7 Series is supposed to be the newest of the new!

Of course, we can but hope that they do add it before the launch later in the year, as a nice surprise. I’ll be grumpy, if not.

Come on Markus, focus on the positive. Ah well, at least there’s still Xbox Live integration, which is by way of being a very good thing indeed, especially since today’s announcements have put a bit of a tarnish on the Windows Phone 7 Series shine…

(Picture courtesy of Engadget Mobile)

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So, now, I’m going to just focus on the stuff that’s already been unveiled today, because there’s already some good stuff to talk about.

If you’ve been reading this blog, you know that I’m pretty much becoming obsessed with Windows Phone 7 Series, and that obsession has grown even while we didn’t know that much about third party apps, or the real, in-depth workings of the new OS. So, imagine how I feel today, now that some more juicy details have emerged. I could talk, here, about the new developer toolkit, or about the development partners who are already signed up, blah di blah di blah.

But I’m not going to. Because what everyone cares about (at least, us non-developers) is what kind of funky stuff we can expect on Windows Phone 7 Series.

Well, it seems that there’s no specific requirement for an app to follow the ‘Metro’ UI (as seen in the hub structure 7 Series uses), although they can if they want, as shown in the Associated Press app. Or, instead, they can follow their own, completely bespoke design structure, like the Hush Hush diary app that Microsoft are teasing. Oh, and it seems developers can make actual plug-ins for the OS. Hence the image editing app, which could plug into the OS, and let you edit photos directly in the photo viewer.

That is pretty damn cool.

However, we all know which bit of Windows Phone 7 Series is exciting me the most. You know it’s Xbox Live integration, as demonstrated by the fact I’ve not shut up about it since it was unveiled. I mean it, I mither at everyone I meet about how brilliant having XBL integration on phones is. And, of course, when we saw screenshots of that 3D game The Harvest, it’s fair to say I got a bit excited.

Well, we have better, now. We have footage of it in action. And it’s brilliant. And it has destructible environments, and everything. And it looks stunning. And I’ll shut up and show you the video, sorry.

All of this leads me to an interesting thought, which is the point of this blog post. There have been rumours that there would be 3 basic chassis for 7 Series phones: a full touchscreen model, one with a QWERTY keyboard and… another one. No-one really knows what that third chassis is. So here’s my thought: what if it’s a phone with full gaming controls? You could have a massive touchscreen, and then have a slide-out gamepad, like the design of the PSP Go, but modelled after the control scheme of the Xbox 360.

Anyway, that’s my idle speculation for the day. I’ll be back tomorrow with full coverage of the MIX conference (or of the important bits, anyway)…

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And that got me thinking. Maybe the Nexus One will cause problems for the X10, but when you get right down to it, which one is the better phone?

Well, if you look at the hardware, first of all, you may well be inclined to say the Sony Ericsson X10 is the better phone. It’s got the same 1GHz Snapdragon processor, but on top of that, it’s got a bigger screen, and a substantially better camera. Fair enough, the screen on the X10 isn’t an AMOLED screen (which the Nexus One is), but it is nearly half an inch bigger, and anyone who tells you that size doesn’t matter is lying (as confirmed by a lady friend… don’t ask).

And as for the camera, well… it’s 8 megapixels, instead of 5, and it’s following on from the legacy of Sony Ericsson’s Cyber-Shot series. In other words, it’s impossible for it to not be better than the Nexus One’s camera. When it comes to software, though, things aren’t quite as cut and dried. Y’see, the Nexus One has version 2.1 of Android, whereas the X10’s running version 1.6, and there are quite a few differences between the two, most notably that the Nexus One can run Google Earth, and has proper turn by turn navigation in the Maps app. To mitigate against that, the Sony Ericsson X10 uses its own interface on top, and that’s one of the areas is garnered a fair bit of praise.

[UPDATE: Thanks to new info in the comments on this story, we now know the X10 will be getting an upgrade to version 2.1 at some point. Much rock.]

Y’see, they’ve installed a social-networking-friendly interface on top, called Timescape. And although it looks very different, it’s a similar concept to the MOTOBLUR UI you find on the Motorola DEXT, with the emphasis being on aggregating your social networking feeds into one big, centralised lump. So, in all honesty, it’s a bit of a Mexican stand-off in terms of the interface.

And so we come to the usual bit I do at the end of these handset battles, where all pretence of objectivity goes completely out the window. In other words, it’s the “which one would I have” section. Well, that’s an easy one. Bigger screen, better camera, thinner body, and it just looks cooler. It’s the Sony Ericsson X10.

Of course, I’ll never actually have one, because I prefer Windows Mobile/Windows Phone to Android, but the result still stands. Advantage, X10…

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Oh, and mobile phones, now, as well. Y’see, we now have footage of it running on the Palm Pre:

It’s Unreal Engine 3, running on a mobile phone. And I mean natively within the mobile phone, too, there’s no streaming in of video from other servers, or any of that. Essentially, what this means is that the Palm Pre could, realistically, soon be getting full 3D games that look stunning and have proper physics engines. Oh, and it won’t just be the Pre, either, because the iPhone’s getting it, and it’ll run on Tegra 2 devices, as well.

And anyone who bets against it appearing on Windows Phone 7 Series would, I’d humbly suggest, lose their money…

In fact, I’m well excited about it appearing on 7 Series. Think about it. Xbox Live gaming. And a game engine that can actually handle full 3D graphics, of the kind we’ve come to accept from the Unreal Engine. That. Would. ROCK.

But is it really what Microsoft have planned? Well, I can’t answer that for certain, but I will say this: why do you think they’re demanding such high specs on 7 Series phones…?

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The big casualty, as a result of that, seems to be Microsoft, because Windows Mobile’s market share fell by 4 points.

Of course, Android fans will be quick to jump on this as being the sign of Microsoft’s imminent demise, but while that isn’t in the slightest bit true, it might well be the sign of Windows Mobile’s imminent demise. Because, y’know, it’s being replaced by Windows Phone 7 Series, which is a completely different beastie altogether, as Microsoft themselves will be the first to tell you. What it definitely does mean, though, is that in America, Android usage is definitely on the rise.

And why might that be? Well, there’s probably lots of reasons, from its kind of, sort of, quasi-open source nature (open source except for the bits Google don’t want you to fiddle about with), through to the massive hype behind the Nexus One, right up to (possibly) Apple’s draconian (in some people’s views) control over the iPhone platform. However, I reckon there’s a different reason, in terms of actual phones, because sales of the Nexus One are, apparently, levelling out. So, what I reckon is a big factor in the rise of Android is the Droid, or as we know it over here, the Motorola Milestone.

But then, that should come as no surprise to everyone who remembers I said it was phone of the year, in 2009…

Y’see, over in America, the Droid seems to have really captured the public’s imagination, and while on paper the Nexus One is more powerful, that doesn’t necessarily make it better. And even if it did, that wouldn’t necessarily make it more popular. So, yes, I reckon (in America at least), the Droid/Milestone is very probably one of the big reasons why Android’s taken a load more market share.

You just watch Microsoft steal it back (and then some) with Windows Phone 7 Series…

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Imagine the disappointment, then, at IntoMobile’s assertion that Opera Mini on Android isn’t that good…

Apparently, the Android version of Opera Mini falls down on the Nexus One it was tested on, because it doesn’t render fonts very well (I’m assuming they had a bad case of the jaggies), and it’s barely faster than the native web browser that comes built into the Nexus One. Er, which is doubly baffling, because, having used Opera Mini 5, it runs like silky, molten butter on Windows Mobile. It’s so good, in fact, that I set it as my default web browser.

It’s a bit bizarre, then, that it apparently has trouble matching the performance of the Nexus One’s built-in browser, although, of course, that could be down to the native browser being optimised specifically for that phone and its 1GHz Snapdragon processor. A more interesting test might be to try it on the Motorola Milestone, which doesn’t have the luxury of a Snapdragon chip, which might let Opera Mini dominate.

Although the issue of the dodgy text rendering is a bit of a let-down, and that can’t be pinned on the processor. Ah well, thankfully, I use Windows Mobile, which has its own native version of Opera Mini, so at least mine works properly…

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Oh, alright, he didn’t really say that, but it’d be funny if he did, as well as being more indicative of what I suspect his thought processes are actually like.

If you want the honest truth, what Jobs said was this (as widely quoted round the whole internet), when talking about Adobe: “They are lazy. They have all this potential to do interesting things but they just refuse to do it. They don’t do anything with the approaches that Apple is taking, like Carbon. Apple does not support Flash because it is so buggy, he says. Whenever a Mac crashes more often than not it’s because of Flash. No one will be using Flash, he says. The world is moving to HTML5.”

However, we’re not here to talk about Apple. All that was just me setting context. No, we’re here, as the title suggests, to talk about Windows Phone 7 Series, because people gave been worried it won’t support Flash either. Since, y’know, Microsoft said it wouldn’t support Flash at launch, during their unveiling event. But those are the crucial words: at launch. Cue some clarification from Microsoft’s Mike Chambers, who said on his blog that “Adobe and Microsoft are working together to bring Flash Player 10.1 to Internet Explorer Mobile on Windows Phone 7 Series. I dont [sic] have an eta or other specifics right now, but it is something that both Adobe and Microsoft are working closely together on.”

And that, if I’m honest, feels a bit like Microsoft thumbing their nose at Apple, saying, “Look kids, we support Flash, why doesn’t the other Steve, hmmmmmmmmmmmmm?”

Of course, since Windows Phone 7 Series also supports Silverlight and XNA (for Xbox Live game developers), it’s not beyond the realms of possibility that the new OS could, feasibly, potentially, outstrip the app dominance of Apple. Maybe. Of course, there’s an easy way to settle the debate between Microsoft and Apple. Stick the two Steves, Ballmer and Jobs, in a ring, Fight Club-style , and see who walks out. My money’s on Ballmer. After all, he’s the only one who’s been played by John DiMaggio (the voice of Futurama’s Bender and Gear Of War’s Marcus Fenix).

Considering Apple’s rep in those “I’m a Mac” adverts was played by the annoying kid from Jeepers Creepers who got his eyes eaten by the ageless demon (yes, I cheered at the time, too, annoying little goit), I think we can safely say that, as in so many things, Bender wins. In fact, come to think of it, I reckon Marcus Fenix, in Gears Of War, is directly based on Steve Ballmer.

Also, the HTC HD2 is objectively, demonstrable, empirically better than the iPhone. So there.

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