Windows Phone 7 blocks multitasking and removable memory cards

Microsoft has revealed some more information about the inner workings of Windows Phone 7, along with some minimum specifications required to run the operating system.

First the bad news — there’s no third-party multi-tasking. Evidently taking a leaf from the iPhone design brief, Windows Phone 7 does support multi-tasking, but applications other than those from Microsoft (phone calls, music playback, and so on) won’t be able to use it.

Better battery life is apparently the reason behind the retrograde step, but an improved user experience — one without the need to worry about what an application close button does and how much memory is available, in other words — is another obvious benefit.

Microsoft will also be exerting far greater control over the hardware used to run Windows Phone 7 and it has stipulated a series of minimum specifications for the first ‘chassis 1’ series of smartphones.

Four-point capacitive screens with a resolution of 480 x 320 are one such requirement, as are a 1GHz processor, an accelerometer, 8Gb of non-removable user storage (swap-out memory cards are now off the menu) and at least a 5-megapixel camera.

The emphasis here appears to be firmly on consumers and there’s so far been no mention of features more suitable for business users. Still, there are rumoured to be another two Windows Phone 7 Series chasses in the pipeline — ‘chassis 2’ and ‘chassis 3’.

The previous free-for-all with Windows Mobile applications is also going to be a thing of the past — Windows Phone 7 apps will only be available from the Windows Phone 7 Marketplace once Microsoft has approved them.

Microsoft has released a video that shows how the new marketplace will work and although it looks pretty slick, it doesn’t seem to offer the same level of highly granular browsing as the iPhone App Store.

The first Windows Phone 7 smartphones are due for launch towards the end of this year and ASUS, LG and Samsung appear to have already tipped their hands with demo devices on show at this week’s MIX10 conference.