Microsoft confirms that UI overlays such as HTC’s Sense will be banned from Windows Phone 7 platform, with carrier rebranding also being slapped down.
Extensive UI customisations from smartphone makers and carriers alike will be prohibited on Microsoft’s forthcoming Windows Phone 7 platform, so that users are always presented with the same Microsoft-designed ‘Metro’ UI.
Natasha Kwan, General Manager for Microsoft’s regional mobile communications business, confirmed to APC that interfacelifts such as HTC’s Sense and Samsung’s TouchWiz “will not be permitted” on Windows Phone 7 devices.
“When you have a Windows Phone 7 Series handset from HTC or Samsung or anyone else, the user interface is going to look exactly alike, even down to the level of the soft (QWERTY) keypad – the experience will be exactly the same” Kwan says.
“We used to believe that Microsoft was a platform provider, so we’d provide the OS and then the OEM would innovate around that. But our learning is that the end-users want to have an experience that is consistent. So we are taking a greater ownership (of the platform) and there will be less surface area for other UI designs because the more you have of these, the more you have fragmentation.”
The forecast is not so sunny for HTC's slick Sense UI,
which Microsoft is banning from its next-gen Windows Phone 7 OS
Kwan admitted that the initial reaction from Microsoft’s OEM partners was less than positive. “It wasn’t easy. To be very candid, in the early days when we had that conversation it was tough because were were changing the way we worked with them.”
“But at the end of the day their competition is Apple and their business model is to make money from the hardware. And the more costs you can take away from them, the less they need to spend bringing their phones to market” Kwan explains.
“So our proposition is that if we’re able to take away a lot of the development work and OEMs have less costs to write code, from their standpoint the faster they can bring their phone to market the better. And they can still innovate and give customers a good experience, and that’s all that matters.”
The only tweaks permitted to Windows Phone 7 devices will be adding 'live tiles' like those above,
and hubs which aggregate several online services
But with Microsoft mandating that OEMs can’t skin the Windows Phone 7 UI – codenamed ‘Metro’, after the intuitive maps and navigation devices employed by subway lines and metro systems around the world – then where does this ‘innovation’ come into play?
Tony Wilkinson, business operations director with Microsoft Australia, told APC that software-based customisations would occur around the ‘live tiles’ on Windows Phone 7’s home screen as well as hubs based around aggregating online services.
“Instead of replacing our UI, OEMs will use aspects of the UI to create their own differentiation. They can create their own live tiles, they can have their own hubs, they can have content.”
From a hardware perspective Wilkinson says that “instead of the innovation being that your screen is higher resolution, you might bring to market a particularly thin or stylish device, or one with a good keyboard, so it’s a higher level of innovation.”
Telco rebranding and skins like the TelstraOne shell will also be banned under Microsoft's new rules
Mobile carriers will face the same strict rules on what they can and can’t change on the UI, although many customers will count this as a blessing in light of the rampant branding adopted by some carriers – which can extend from a skinned start screen to a totally new UI such as Telstra’s TelstraOne shell.
“Typically in the past, just like OEMs, the operators liked to have their own skin, to have their own look and logo” says Kwan. “With Windows Phone 7 they can’t have this.”
Wilkinson says that carriers will “be able to create their own tiles and even their own hubs, if they’ve got a service like Telstra’s Foxtel Mobile for example. Operators will primarily build in a lot of services.”
Carriers will also be permitted to change the default search engine of a Windows Phone 7 device from Microsoft’s Bing to the likes of Telstra’s Sensis. “They would be open to to to do if they wanted to” Wilkinson confirmed.