News · 4 Sep 2010 · MTW Editorial Team
It has been a relatively slow news week (besides the flood of Samsung Galaxy Tab news and previews) so I going to share with you some thoughts about Windows Phone 7 now and what we can expect in the near future. I obviously can’t talk about everything but I won’t be too cryptic so you’ll hopefully get what I’m talking about.
First off you all already know that Microsoft has been handing out development handsets to third-party developers (the LG GW910 and Samsung Taylor) and that those handsets are all under NDA (you are not allowed to film them and post videos on the net) this is principally why you didn’t see me link to some videos lately. You also probably didn’t miss the fact that I’ve started developing Windows Phone 7 applications. Microsoft is kind enough to help me out with this by letting me work with real handsets once a week and sometimes get a glimpse at things that are yet unannounced. I greatly value this developer relationship and that’s why I’ll stick by the rules when it comes to this stuff and won’t link to NDA breaking material that has been deliberately done to generate traffic (Microsoft basically doesn’t want to show the OS’s functionalities running on prototypes unless it’s them doing the demonstration).
Anyway, time for the goodies: The final Windows Phone 7 SDK is going to be released on Septbember 16th with a whole bunch of new stuff in there. I had some brief hands-on with it yesterday and can happily tell you that all the controls that you have been waiting for are in there. Microsoft also provides Panorama and Pivot template applications to easily start developing without much hassle. The MobileTechWorld application worked/compiled perfectly without the need to change any code (this may not apply to your application but it was nice to see).
Here’s a short video of the MobileTechWorld WP7 application that MS is allowing me to share with you:
As you can see it’s smooth and responsive (was on Wifi). There’s still some bugs (notice the finger scrolling error in the news section) but this is mainly because I’m not using the official controls right now. The media player (I tried to mimic the build in player and designed identical play/pause/stop buttons) is also perfectly working. Sorry for the lack of focus but the video was shot with the Samsung Galaxy S and it has a hard time with close ups (it keeps trying to re-focus every time my hands move). BTW, I finally have a HD cam in house so I will start posting more about the Galaxy S and finally review it. It’s a fairly awesome phone!
Windows Phone 7 went RTM earlier this weekand is now being deployed on OEM’s handsets before the fall launch but don’t think for a second that Microsoft has suddenly stopped working on it. The OS is being constenly updated with speed improvements, bug fixes AND new features. Don’t be surprised if there’s already an update available around launch time. Things are looking real nice and the company is just scratching the surface of what is going to be done in the future. You must also keep in mind that Microsoft has a vast portfolio of well known applications and services that are a used by millions of users around the world. Redmond isn’t forgetting anything and you can expect them to announce some cool stuff around that this fall. The battle against Android, iPhone isn’t going to be easy but don’t count MS out yet.
Oh and some devices look a lot better in real life than they do in blurry pictures and videos…….. :p
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