Windows Phone 7 Series

So Windows is making a mobile operating system. Yes is the short answer, and it is brilliant but it seems up until now people never associated windows mobile with Microsoft maybe it was due to Microsoft itself never hyping the OS or maybe it’s the manufacturers fault. Who knows, who cares… As the local tech person for everyone I know I have had a lot of questions that start something like “why would Microsoft try to get into the mobile os business now? Is it because both Apple and Google have one? They must be trying to copy them huh?” I just smile and say well windows has been in mobile phones for a very long time… remember the Motorola Q? They all shrug and then say “yeah but it sucked”… and I say yes that is why they put so much effort into windows phone 7 series, because they needed to to stay in the game.

So now that I got their attention I delve into why Windows Phone 7 Series is an OS worth having such a long name. I think they got it right. First they are requiring the device manufacturers to have certain features like touchscreen, accelerometer, and three hardware buttons along the bottom. Then they are basing the phone on an already existing platform, Silverlight and XNA both of which are highly used on the xbox 360 Microsoft’s gaming platform. Finally they are making the tools free. This is a big step for Microsoft and you can still see on the http://developer.windowsphone.com/ they still charge $99 per year for developer access to legacy SDK’s and samples. What freelance developer wants to pay that… especially when Apple and Google both have free tools (Apple is not completely free as you have to buy an Intel mac) and the phone up till now did not have powerful processors or GPU’s. Windows Phone 7 Series even goes one step further to make the software on the phone support full multitasking or as some like to call it multi-APPing. Combine that with a slick UI and sound UI standards we have a real contender on our hands. I wish this phone would be released a lot sooner than the Christmas time-frame that they currently predict.

Now I have downloaded the SDK and even followed the keynote given at http://live.visitmix.com/ to make a picture viewing app. It worked great, was easy to follow given I already knew the tools from silverlight development and fast… on my computer the emulator outperformed any picture app I ever had on my IPhone. I can’t wait to see what comes of the app store and I hope that MS takes a hint from Apple and Google and decide to make it free to publish apps but charge for advertising and take a cut of sales. If so I’m in.

Thanks for reading
David Bates