Windows Phone 7 - Impressions and Transparent Lockscreen
So last week I impulsively bought a Windows 7 Phone, a Samsung Focus, partially to mess around with development on the new platform, but mainly because I like toys and wanted to play with it - and also to be able to compare between the major mobile OS players right now - iPhone, Android and now WP7.
I really like the interface. A lot. And the screen is very pretty-not quite the resolution of the iPhone 4, but it's still quite nice. It's quite responsive, and the way tiles move and slide around almost imparts an organic feeling, alost playfulness. I do miss Android's awesome notification system and the wealth of great apps that are available on iOS4, but I think Microsoft can gain ground on both fronts with the right moves.
Anyway, so far there are two features that I really love so far:
1. You can use the phone as an FM radio through the Music + Videos player - it uses your headphones as the antenna. How cool is that???
2. Via @brianfeucht, it came to my attention that the lock screen wallpaper supports transparent PNGs, and you can see your live tiles through the transparency (see shot above - that's a png graphic I came up with, with the help of my lovely lady and her mad Photoshop skills). Very, very neat - but there are some caveats:
- The graphic is only see through when you touch the screen. So in the shot above, you'll see a white bulb outline, but everything else is black (or white, if you've chosen the light theme)
- This only works if you're not locking your phone with a passcode (which you probably should do).
- You have to set the png file as your wallpaper from attachment from email (AFAIK - the only way I was able to do this was by sending the png to my phone via email from my computer)
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