Bing Maps on Windows Phone 7

Some of you may already know that Microsoft unveiled its next-generation mobile platform and experience in mid-February at the Mobile World Congress 2010 in Barcelona, Spain. Joe Belfiore, vice president, Windows Phone, did an extensive on-stage presentation of a Windows Phone 7 device at the conference, demonstrating a range of features, functionality and capabilities that were heading to Windows Phones everywhere. MWC 2010 was also the place where Chris Pendleton, the Bing Maps technical evangelist for Microsoft, shot the video embedded at the bottom of this article illustrating how Bing Maps would function on Windows Phone 7 devices.

What users will be able to see in the video is the actual Windows Phone 7 prototype demoed by Microsoft on February 15th, and throughout the duration of the congress. One aspect that needs to be highlighted is the intimate integration between Windows Phone 7 and the Cloud, from Xbox to Zune services, to Twitter, Facebook, Windows Live and to Bing Maps.

Belfiore demonstrated Bing Maps on Windows Phone 7, but the video at the bottom focuses exclusively on how next-gen Windows Phones will deliver Microsoft’s mapping, search and location platform to users. As you will be able to see, Windows Phone 7 devices support multitouch, and, as such, a variety of gestures, including pinch to zoom, are now possible. Furthermore, Bing Maps on Windows Mobile 7 is intelligent enough to know that, when the user zooms extremely close, he or she is actually looking for landmarks, and not just mapping info, and displays the Bird’s Eye imagery.

“As any good evangelist would do, I afterwards went in and interviewed one of the Program Managers on the Windows Phone team. Ian Todd was demoing at the Windows Phone booth all day, but took some time ‘back stage’ to give me the full one on one context where Windows Phone and Bing Maps come together. Check out my video for the full details of Bing Maps on Windows Phone. I have one of these fancy Kodak Zi8 cameras which apparently won’t focus on the device screen very well, but you’ll get the gist,” Pendleton stated.