Microsoft Kin UI walkthrough
If you've managed to pull your eyes away from our no-holds-barred liveblog of Microsoft's Kin announcement, you might've noticed that there are videos up on the official Kin site depicting the UI in all its hipster-lite, storytelling glory. Still, in case you're not a 20 something living in Brooklyn on your parents' money while pursuing a career in the arts, we've turned those motion video picture things into regular stills for your staid perusal. We even added little descriptors below the galleries, which due to your acute lack of ADD you might even find time to read. We upped the videos after the break as well, just in case you wanted to try your hand at the young-and-hip life.
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Kin Spot is a little hot spot at the bottom of the screen almost akin the virtual "binding" in Courier. You can drag pictures, addresses, web pages, and other media into it, and then drag the faces of friends who you want to send the stack of stuff to. Once you tap the spot you can preview your message, add some text, and choose from MMS or email to send it out.
Haven't had enough? Check out our hands-on and the official announce post! Videos and the rest of the features are after the break.
Kin Loop
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Kin Loop is the home screen, which shares much in common with the Windows Phone 7 home, except for its primary focus on people. You can see updates from news sites, people, and photo sites, and update your own Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter from a little widget up top.
Kin Camera
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It's a camera, but of course it's also social. You can upload to social sites right from the app, and it mixes between video and stills pretty freely. There's also a pinch-to-zoom gesture for cropping photos while you're taking them.
Kin Studio
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Perhaps the biggest surprise or outside-the-box feature is Kin Studio. Basically, it lets you do everything you can do on your phone, like share your photos, update your status, etc. (even using a Kin Spot UI to do it), but it also acts as cloud storage for all your media -- including a scrubbable timeline for checking out your own archives. You can also do contact management from here, another nice perk.
