In his post about development of Windows 8 for ARM processors, Windows president, Steven Sinofsky shared images of Windows 8 running on a phone. Sinofsky says that they did not hav ARM powered tablets in those days so ARM powered phones became the best choice.

Sinofsky added a note saying that the images were just testing and did not hint at new product. Rumors about running Windows 8 on phones have been doing rounds and these early-day trials could be the reason. As Long Zheng pointed out on his blog, these images are from 2010. Windows 8 on ARM powered phones:

PS: The first image reads Windows 7 but if looked at closely it is build 7652 which is widely considered to be one of the early Windows 8 builds.

Steven Sinofsky’s post about Windows 8 on ARM has provided us with a lot of information about platform and ecosystem. Sinofsky’s post describes how and why the Windows 8 tablets will be immune to existing viruses, why Windows 8 tablets will have the traditional desktop, they demonstrated Office 15 and Windows Live Metro on Windows 8 ARM. The finer details about some of the OS features included in the post are:

• Windows 8 for ARM will not be available as a software distribution, it will only come pre-installed
• There will be only 1 SKU of Windows 8 for ARM
• Existing x86/x64 apps will not be compatible with Windows 8 on ARM
• Applications can only be installed through the Windows App Marketplace
• WOA will include Office 15 (Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote)
• Windows 8 won’t support virtualization or emulation
• Driver support for Mobile Broadband, Printers, GPS, a variety off sensors, Bluetooth will be provided
• Windows 8 on ARM tablets don’t don’t turn off, hibernate or sleep; they go into Connected Standby
• IE in Windows on ARM will not support browser plugins, like Flash (via All About Microsoft)
• Windows 8 on ARM will be serviced through Windows Update, like desktop Windows
• Windows 8 on ARM tablets will come with DirectX capable GPUs (which version wasn’t specified in the post)

Microsoft has in the past stressed on their partnership and the work done by hardware OEMs to make a lot of this possible. Sinofsky talked about acknowledged this partnership and talked about their priorities for Windows 8 ARM tablets:

Long battery life, thin and light industrial design
Texas Instruments, NVIDIA and Qualcomm are the OEMs that have worked closely with Microsoft thus far on ARM tablets

Rafael Rivera over at WithinWindows uncovered the minimum hardware specs for Windows tablets as defined by Microsoft in their Hardware Requirement Documentation. The important specs are:

• Storage: At least 10GB free for use
• System firmware: UEFI
• Networking: WLAN and Bluetooth 4.0 + LE (low energy)
• Graphics: Direct3D 10
• Resolution: 1366×768
• Multi Touch: At least 5 touch points
• Camera: 720p
• Sensors: Ambient Light, Accelerometer, Magnetometer, Gyroscope
• USB 2.0
• Speakers

A Windows tablet will have five physical buttons:
* Windows
* Power
* Volume (Up & Down)
* Rotation Lock

The form factor and pricing will decide whether Microsoft can beat Android based tablets, unify the ARM OEM army and pose real competition to the iPad.

Windows President, Steve Sinofsky’s article about Windows 8 on ARM, Microsoft shared a video demonstrating how the product looks as of now. During the demo, Microsoft showed what Office 15 will look like on a tablet and the Metro version of Microsoft’s Windows Live suite of applications. Here are the screenshots:

Microsoft Office 15 Word

Microsoft Office 15 Excel

Microsoft Office 15 PowerPoint

Microsoft Office 15 OneNote

Windows Live Calendar

Windows Live Metro Photos

Windows Live Metro Mail

When Microsoft showed Windows 8 on ARM there was a lot of enthusiasm. It was clear that Windows on ARM is Microsoft’s attempt of developing an OS for tablets that will consume less resources, have a long battery life, and provide a nice UI/UX.

One of the biggest concerns raised by critics was the presence of the traditional desktop in the tablet version. Like many, even I’d like to see Windows 8 tablets to not have the desktop UI. Office 15 shows why I don’t want the desktop interface on Windows tablets–it’s schizophrenic. Having to switch between the tablet and desktop interface is confusing and at many times annoying. Behind the intuitive Metro interface and Metro inspired apps lies the dormant ghost of Windows waiting to be unleashed every few hours when you use your tablet, haunting you as you hold that tablet.

Steven Sinofsky in his post about Windows 8 on ARM explains why the design decision was taken to include the desktop interface. Long story short, to give you the best of both worlds. Sinofsky and Microsoft believe that there are features and capabilities in Windows that users have become familiar with over the years and would want to have them going forward as well. Sinofsky explains:

[...] Enabling Windows to run super well on the ARM architecture is a significant engineering task. We undertook this work because when you look to the future you can see that so many of the capabilities that have been added to Windows over the years are things that customers will inevitably desire or require in the types of devices supported by today’s ARM-based products—changes in form factors and the desire for mobility only add to the scenarios and capabilities we all desire in our search for no-compromise PCs. While it is tempting to make bold statements about “starting over,” we believe in the evolution of technology assets when the foundation is strong. The foundation of Windows, the core, is the most solid, scalable, and secure one around. Our desire to deliver a no-compromise experience motivates our efforts. [...]

[...] The availability of the Windows desktop is an important part of WOA. The desktop offers you a familiar place to interact with PCs, particularly files, storage, and networking, as well as a range of peripherals. You can use Windows Explorer, for example, to connect to external storage devices, transfer and manage files from a network share, or use multiple displays, and do all of this with or without an attached keyboard and mouse—your choice. This is all familiar, fast, efficient, and useful. [...]

[...] Some have suggested we might remove the desktop from WOA in an effort to be pure, to break from the past, or to be more simplistic or expeditious in our approach. To us, giving up something useful that has little cost to customers was a compromise that we didn’t want to see in the evolution of PCs. [...]

Sinofsky does make a valid argument. The iPad does not have a file explorer and is tied to iTunes. Microsoft sees the tablet as a mobile computing device somewhere between the phone and a laptop. By keeping the desktop in WOA, Microsoft is letting the end-user have the familiarity of good ol’ Windows while on a tablet.

Sinofsky says that having the traditional Windows desktop on ARM will not result in performance loss. The other way to look at it is, because Microsoft can.

Earlier today, president of the Windows and Windows Live division, Steven Sinofsky wrote a lengthy article detailing Microsoft’s development of Windows 8 for the ARM architecture.

As I still go through the article (it’s so long that I printed a copy), there is a lot of information hidden in the 8,600 word article which I will share in subsequent posts. However, the biggest news is that viruses that affect Windows 7 (and even Windows 8) won’t be compatible with Windows on ARM. According to Sinofsky:

• WOA will not be able to run existing x86/x64 applications. In order to build applications for Windows on ARM, they will have to be developed using the WinRT architecture.
• Apps that have been developed for WOA, using WinRT, will be only available through the Windows App Marketplace. The marketplace will act as a checkpoint for rogue applications.

The two steps ensure that a WOA device (primarily tablets) will not be as easily affected by the plethora of viruses that exist today.  Talking about the issue in the article Sinofsky says,

Our focus on delivering a new level of security for consumers using WOA is paramount. In one public event, we were asked if we would “make it easy for existing viruses and malware to run.” Now you can see the answer is decidedly, “no.”

I spoke with Windows hacker Rafael Rivera (of Within Windows fame) and he believes that unless a user roots his WOA device, his device is theoretically safe from virus infections. For Microsoft, Windows on ARM (WOA) is another version of Windows akin to Windows Server, Windows Phone or Windows Embedded. Microsoft is also expected to bundle their antivirus/antimalware tool–Security Essentials–with Windows 8.

Just as information about Windows Phone 8 leaked and the Windows Phone marketplace crossed 60,000 apps, Windows Phone developer evangelist, Brandon Watson, is leaving Microsoft.

For those who remember, Watson was behind the popular $1000 donation announcement if web-celebs did not find Windows Phone 7 a competent platform. Android users, Dilbert creator–Scott Adams and CNet editor Molly Wood were his participants. While Scott found WP7 to be a nice OS, Molly Wood disagreed (imho, her reasonings were flawed). Whatever the outcome, the spontaneous challenge was the first of the many that followed.

Probably Brandon Watson’s biggest contribution to the Windows Phone developer community was working with enthusiast developers Rafael Rivera, Long Zheng and Chris Walsh to release the homebrew tool–ChevronWP7. According to Ben Lower who works on the WP7 developer ecosystem, Cliff Simpkins and JC Cimetiere will be coordinating with the ChevronWP7 team and the homebrew community. (The future of ChevronWP7, as it stands now, is in the hands of the ChevronWP7 team.)

To attract developers working on competing platforms, he reached out to webOS developers left stranded post HP’s lack of direction for webOS. Brandon Watson used his influence on Twitter to his benefit, his methods would make for a good case study in social media.

According to Mary Jo Foley, Watson will now be working for Amazon and be the director Kindle’s Cross Platform team.

When it came to Windows Phone 7, Microsoft was able to pull off Apple-like product secrecy. Unfortunately for the Windows Phone team, some details about their next major release–Windows Phone 8, aka Apollo–have made their way on to the interwebs.

PocketNow got hold of a video prepared by the Windows Phone team featuring Joe Belfiore (he’s the dude in-charge of product design and definition) for OEM partners, specifically Nokia, in this case. According to PocketNow, Apollo or Windows Phone 8, will have the following features:

PC Sync

Probably the biggest news in my opinion is Microsoft giving up on Zune for syncing to Windows Phone. Microsoft has had ActiveSync (a horrible mobile sync tool) in Windows for a while. With WP7, Microsoft moved to Zune for syncing, no more with Windows Phone 8.

Microsoft has a very simple, no frills, snappy sync utility for OS X and looks like Windows will be getting something similar. This is another nail in Zune’s coffin.

Data Consumption

In Windows 8, Microsoft introduced basic capabilities to track your data consumption. This was done with tablets and expensive US data plans in mind. Microsoft will be adding similar functionality in Windows Phone 8.

Camera

An OEM- customizable camera experience with Microsoft providing the basic interface. The implementation/app is currently known as “Lens.”

Cloud

While Windows Phone 7 has pretty solid SkyDrive integration, there are gaps. According to the leaked information, Microsoft will strengthening their SkyDrive integration by allowing backups on the cloud and having seamless iCloud-like sync between Windows, media marketplace and the phone.

Internet Explorer 10

The PocketNow report says Microsoft will deploy an Opera Mini like implementation where webpages will be served via proxy server to offer quicker load times.

Skype

According to PocketNow, Skype in Apollo will be an optional thrid-party app but applications will be able to customize and provide an experience similar to native phone calling.

In addition to the above, Windows Phone 8 will bring the following hardware changes:

• microSD storage support (the current implementation is not plug & play)
• multi-core processors (joining the ranks of under-utilized, battery hogging phones)
• new screen resolutions, 4 expected (currently, Windows Phone has a 800×480, not-as-clear-as-iPhone resolution)
• NFC support (for Google Wallet like use-cases)

via PocketNow and Paul Thurrott

Over the past few weeks Google has started considering Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7 as an OS to stay. Google Analytics started listing Windows Phone as OS under mobile, followed by Google enabling multiple calendar sync for Windows Phone 7.

The love did not stop there. If one visited Google’s homepage via IE on WP7, there’s a big option to pin Google on your homescreen. Here’s what it looks like:

Once pinned, a tile to google.com’s mobile website is added to the homescreen and I quite like the tile icon:

While Google doesn’t have an official app for WP7, it is an interesting approach of using Microsoft’s new found love for turning web pages into applications; a trend that will continue with Windows 8.

Update: @harsha_g11 pointed out that the guys at WPCentral spotted this two weeks back.

Last week I wrote about how Foursquare is now expanding and setting itself to compete with Yelp. The Foursquare Explore and restaurant menus features introduced to the web (and subsequently to the Android app) is quite promising.

When Foursquare introduced the restaurant menu feature for Android, I cringed. There was a voice deep down within me that said, “Oh well, WP7 won’t be getting any love soon.” But to my surprise, 4th & Mayor released an update yesterday that brings menus to Windows Phone 7. Within a week of opening push notifications to users with v3.1, 4th & Mayor v3.2 adds restaurant menus & checkins using QR codes.

While Foursquare has an official app for Windows Phone 7, the app isn’t as good as the widely popular 4th & Mayor. The developer behind 4th & Mayor is Jeff Wilcox, a senior developer at Microsoft. For a brief period, Foursquare directed users to 4th & Mayor as the official client. In my opinion, 4th and Mayor is one of the best apps on the platform and probably a superior Foursquare client on any mobile platform.

Timely updates to apps with new features and more apps is what Windows Phone needs.

Need bragging rights as a developer? Don’t have enough points and badges from Xbox Live? Well, Microsoft has the answer for you, Visual Studio Achievements!

In what seems to be an effort to rile developers up through ‘gamification’, Microsoft has announced a beta campaign called “Visual Studio Achievements”. By installing the Visual Studio Achievements Extension, you can unlock badges and earn points by simply writing code that you were already going to write! Analysis is done in the background each time you compile your project to test it. When you hit a certain objective, you unlock an achievement.

Next comes the leaderboard. All the points and badges you earn are tallied into a score and you’re stuck up onto an online leaderboard with all other registered developers who are taking part in the campaign. You can view challenging developer points, avatars and maybe eventually see what they are working on. It would be a great way to get developers to collaborate on ideas and projects.

If sharing your achievements with alike developers wasn’t enough, you can share badges through Twitter and Facebook. This can help you raise awareness for your application, and get recognition from your peers.

There are over 32 different badges you can unlock, from as easy as loading more extensions into Visual Studio, to as hard as having 50 different projects tied to a single solution.

There are fun badges, like the “Potty Mouth” achievements which rewards you for using 5 different curse words in a project, or the “Time for an Upgrade” badge that is unlocked if your project takes over 10 minutes to compile. It’s a simple way to add a level of fun to programming and give developers a way to show off their skills.