Microsoft has already demonstrated Windows Phone 7 to mobile developers and journalists. As all admitted, the next generation of Microsoft mobile operating system reverses the usual ideas, changes concepts of smartphones running Windows.

The developers changed their standard GUI in the new version of the operating system: now user content, tools for work and entertainment functions are divided into big five sections (or so called five “hubs”). Everything related to user contacts was placed in the first section “People”.

The next hub “Pictures” provides access to galleries of pictures, photos as well as automatically updated photo albums in Facebook.

The third section “Office” is dedicated to work with documents. Microsoft promises that Mobile Office will be closer to the desktop version.

The fourth section was called “Music and Video”. As it was expected, its interface looks like the GUI of the Zune HD media player that was shown in the past year.

And the last hub “Games” offers all the features for work with the Xbox LIVE gaming network, where users can communicate and customize appearance of their virtual characters (avatars).

In the conclusion we should admit that Win Phone 7 supports multitouch opening new possibilities for Windows mobile applications development.

One more advantage of Symbian OS: programmers and other specialists working at platform development will regularly publish plans of the future upgrades according to Lee Williams’ words.

The initiative to open Symbian appeared in June of the year 2008, when Nokia announced its plans to buy the rest of the Symbian programming codes from other companies and place them under control of Symbian Foundation. Now there are more than 330 million of Symbian-phones in the world. They are produced be such companies as Nokia, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, Fujitsu and Sharp.

Authors of the published report also explained that Apple gadgets in its time significantly stimulated the market of mobile games. Before they were launched the mobile games market was amounted to 13% of the total entertainment market, now it has almost doubled to about 25%.

Why do companies develop mobile games for iPhone? Among the reasons that lead to migration towards this OS, experts named the popularity of Apple devices, their broad functional capabilities and sound pricing and marketing policies of App Store. As it was noted in the report, mobile software developers can lower prices for their programs to even ridiculous rates and yet at the same time earn good money. Besides, Apple has done everything to simplify the process of porting existing games to the iPhone OS.

Google Inc. released its first update pack for the Nexus One smartphone, which was shown to the general public just a month ago. Besides some fixes this fresh mobile software contained a very useful innovation – support of multitouch technology.

It means that now interface and screen-oriented capabilities of Googlephone do not yield to its main rival, Apple iPhone. So users of the first Google smartphone can test multitouch in action. It works in Google Maps Navigation, picture viewer, as well as in web browser.

As can be seen, a mutual agreement between Apple and Google (so called “promise not to add multitouch support in Nexus One”) now is worth nothing. Search Corporation decided to change its word in the light of recent events.

Studying different modern devices from the main manufacturers, starting with Apple and Palm, and ending with HTC and Motorola, Google’s experts has realized that multi-touch support has become a standard, so many users are accustomed to this option. Undoubtedly it opens new possibilities for innovative mobile applications development, now they can create new software for Android taking into account this new potential.

So now we have a smartphone that based on Android 2.1, and we also can use a new way of control and navigation. By the way, the European version of Nexus One has this function by default. However, the sales in Europe start not earlier than in spring this year.

Free space improves visual perception — it’s a well known fact for website designers. They take into consideration importance of space between paragraphs, images, buttons and other elements on the page. They can also group items reducing space between them, it helps to show connections, structure and hierarchy of elements.

Free space also makes content more readable. Numerous studies show that spaces between paragraphs increase perception by 20%.

Effective user testing should not be extensive

Jakob Nielsen has calculate the ideal number of website usability testers. His statistics shows that only 5 testers identify almost 85% of all the problems on your site, while 15 testers identify almost all the problems.

The most serious problems usually can be found by the first or the first two testers, the rest testers will only confirm these problems and will find some more minor bags. So those who working at website and web application development can obtain good results without extensive and expensive user testing.

Symbian OS
Nokia is losing its forces, it was the best developer of mobile phones in the world a couple of years ago, but now it buckles under pressure of other leading companies. But is still has “margin of safety”. Moreover, Nokia popularizes Symbian, now this OS has open code (open source), and this fact will definitely have an influence on company’s further development.

Symbian UIQ
Symbian UIQ was developed by the UIQ Technology Company. UIQ (User Interface Quartz) is a software platform based on Symbian OS. In early 2009 UIQ Technology was liquidated, and this intellectual property was transferred to Symbian Foundation (non-profit organization). So mobile software developers don’t plan further improvements of UIQ (as an independent platform).

Linux Mobile
Programmers working for mobile development companies make facetious remarks that every self-respecting company making smartphones intends to make its own version of Linux based mobile OS. Some of them achieve success in it, others don’t. It’s almost impossible to enumerate all of them, here are only some examples: Access Linux Platform, LiMo, Moblin, MotoMagxj, Nokia Maemo, Openmoko, Openmokon, Palm webOS, Qt Extendedmn, Ubuntu Mobilem, etc. All these OSes have their own look-and-feels (many of them are incompatible), that is why it’s very difficult to develop mobile apps for such platforms, it’s just a non-value-added process.

Palm OS
Once this OS occupied bulk of the market share. At the same time Microsoft decided to start the development of its own mobile OS Windows CE, because IT-giant was inspired by success of Palm OS. But now it is no longer relevant, Ed Colligan said that Palm will no longer produce products based on Palm OS, the company’s efforts will be focused on Palm webOS, but that’s another story.

Windows Mobile

Ah, this “old woman” still holds the largest market share. It has relatively out-of-date interface, nevertheless Microsoft delays the release of Windows Mobile 7 with touch-screen interface (as they promise) and complete compatibility with older apps versions. Though this OS has undoubted plus (a large number of good and stable mobile applications with rich functionality that was accumulated over the years), it’s not a permanent advantage. It can be lost soon as new operating systems are constantly adding new applications, offering new features and up-to-date interface. In general, if the next version of Microsoft Windows Mobile does not have any pleasant surprises for its users, the company will lose its market share under pressure of other mobile operating systems.

iPhone OS

Yes, it’s beautiful, yes, it’s quite functional and it has already accumulated a lot of good features and high-quality applications. Due to the fact that iPhone has taken a considerable market share its application are relatively cheap (it’s an important bonus for those who choose a platform for a mobile device). But it has the main drawback: only Apple can produce hardware and iPhone source code is closed for mobile development companies. Nevertheless it’s not an obstacle for numerous Apple fans, Mac + MacOS + iPod + iPhone can be considered as a modern religion, it’s a way of live, no doubt.

Google always makes its links blue, and there is a reason: this color is familiar to most of users (that is why it’s much easier for them to find all the links).

Any other color is not a problem, but users will need some more time to find your links.

An ideal input field for search queries must be 27 characters long

Jacob Nielsen conducted a research to determine the ideal length for search boxes. So he ascertained that most of modern input fields are very short. Despite the fact that you can write quite a long search query, you can’t see all your text. It’s a problem with usability, because it’s difficult to edit such a search query.

The study showed that an average input field has width of 18 characters. According to the research results 27% of search queries are too long to fit in these input fields. But 27 characters wide fields can contain 90% of search queries. Remember that you can determine width not only in pixels and points, but also in “em” (a relative unit of length for current font).

Input field in Google search is wide enough for long searches

Apple input field is too short, the query “Microsoft Office 2008″ does not fit in it

In general, it is better to do too long field than too short one, so your users would be able to find all the information without any problems. This is a very simple and useful advice for website designers, but, unfortunately, they often ignore it.

A new Google phones with touch screen is based on Android OS. These gadgets have been already given to the company staff for testing. Google plans to use the popularity of its own brand and make direct retail sales via the Internet.

It’s a well known fact that Google management didn’t plan to enter the equipment market, in the previous years the company limited its activity to mobile software development (Android OS) and internet projects.

Google makes a serious bet on the mobile phone market and evaluates it as a promising direction for the future development. So, now the company does not intend to limit itself to Android software development and online services.

But analysts are not sure that Google will be able to transfer the success of its previous activities to mobile phones production and sales. Much will depend on its pricing policy. Kathy Watson, a Google representative, declined to comment on the future plans. She referred to the recent publication in the official corporate blog, where we can read that a new device is just a “mobile laboratory” for testing of some new technologies.

However, some Google employees have agreed to provide more detailed information (anonymous statements). According to them, devices were made by the Taiwanese HTC company, and they are thinner and have a larger touch screen than Apple iPhone. Well, soon we will be able to verify this information, because Google phone sales can begin in January, 2010.