I had noticed, and it was pointed out to me by majg, that in the latest video of Windows Phone 7 doing the rounds where Microsoft mention an October release of the mobile OS there is a piece of behind the scenes syncing going on on Windows Phone 7. At the end of the presentation Kostas Mallios takes a photo of him and Mich Mathews and says what he loves about the photo experience on the phone is the “zero step sharing because this has already gone on my SkyDrive and is being shared with my friends”.

At first this isn’t surprising considering how well Windows Phone 7 is too online service, being able to pull information from a number of service, but what is interesting is what is syncing the photo to SkyDrive. Now it could be that Windows Live Sync will be integrated to the new mobile OS which could explain the instantaneousness of the uploading and sharing of the photo. However Windows Live Sync only stores files in a special 2GB space in SkyDrive, this space is not for sharing files and is only for backing up files. It, therefore, doesn’t make sense for Windows Live Sync to upload the photo to SkyDrive as the photo would be stored in a section that doesn’t allow sharing with contacts, somewhat different from what Kostas said.

This may mean that Microsoft are planning to have a more functional, larger version of the 2GB space on SkyDrive come the Autumn, unlike the area of SkyDrive we can currently use that is less functional than the rest of SkyDrive. Or it could indicate a unified SkyDrive where SkyDrive isn’t limited by some arbitrary amount but instead works perfectly with the whole 25GB.

Or, in fact, it could prove to be something else entirely.

I’m sure you have all heard of the KIN phones from Microsoft and its shining feature KIN Studio which automatically uploads everything on the device to the cloud and allows users to access everything in the cloud with various ways of browsing the files such as on a map or in a timeline. Since the KIN Studio was demoed people have hoped there would be a similar service for Windows Phone 7, could Kostas have eluded to it?

Assuming for a minute that such a service will be available for Windows Phone 7 it sounds like it would use SkyDrive as the backend, does this mean there will be more features soon for SkyDrive that allow users to have a more KIN Studio-like experience when browsing their files and information. Would this be a UI/set of controls for the whole of SkyDrive or would it be another sectioned off area like Sync uses; Microsoft have shown they can change the features of SkyDrive for different sections already. Indeed could this point to a future where SkyDrive is not so much a single storage service in the cloud but actually a name for several online storages (I hope not).

And yet there is another option this could be. In the same way Windows Live Photos is able to upload photos to SkyDrive it could be that just for photos the phone uploads new photos to SkyDrive and nothing else.

Whatever Microsoft are planning and however its implemented it sounds like the My Phone service will be disappearing or getting a major update. The service uploads the content of a phone, such as photos, once a day to the cloud, however if the OS uploads content to the cloud immediately then there is no need for such a service. Also the way My Phone doesn’t use the storage of SkyDrive or integrate with other areas aspects of Windows Live is very annoying but it sounds like this problem could now be addressed.

I would hope Microsoft are planning to provide a KIN Studio like service for Windows Phone 7 whether that be through Windows Live Sync on the mobile device or some other implementation. What i don’t want to see though is another section of SkyDrive created, it could end up being like using various storage services which defeats the point of SkyDrive somewhat. Microsoft are on the verge of some killer synchronisation between PCs, mobile devices and the cloud but it remains to be seen if they can pull it off or if they let the Apple or Google do it first.

I still can’t wait for Windows Phone 7 and maybe after the rising number of complaints with the new iPhone more people may well be wanting the new devices than ever before.