Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
Windows Phone OS
Windows Phone is a proprietary mobile operating system developed by Microsoft. It was
launched as a successor to Windows Mobile, but does not provide backward compatibility
with the earlier platform. Windows Phone was first launched in October 2010 with Win-
dows Phone 7. The version history of the Windows Phone operating system then continued
with the release of Windows Phone 7.5, Windows Phone 7.8, and Windows Phone 8. Al-
though the market share of this operating system is limited, there is certainly a case for op-
timism based on the following two reasons:
• The computer operating system market is still heavily dominated by Windows.
This gives Windows Phone OS greater flexibility to provide users with a computer
environment with which they are familiar.
• Microsoft's decision to acquire Nokia could be a significant factor in improving its
market share of mobile operating systems.
The following sections will describe more about Windows Phone 7, its features, and the
underlying security model. We believe the data is stored similarly on Windows Phone 8, so
the methods defined in the following sections should work on both operating systems.
Unlike Android and iOS, Windows Phone comes with a new interface, which uses so-
called
tiles
for apps instead of icons, as shown in the following figure. These tiles can be
designed and updated by the user. Similar to other mobile platforms, Windows Phone al-
lows for the installation of third-party apps. The apps can be downloaded from Windows
Phone Marketplace, which is managed by Microsoft.
