A daily digest of IT news, curated from blogs, forums and news sites around the web each morning. We highlight the key commentary and demystify the real story.
Windows Phone 7 Series seeks app developers-developers-developers
Microsoft is wooing app developers for its new Windows Phone 7 Series platform. The company's promising much better commonality between phone and desktop APIs than before, thanks in part to Silverlight. In IT Blogwatch, bloggers dream up an app for that.
Your humble blogwatcher selected these bloggy morsels for your enjoyment. Not to mention an opposite movie anagram...John Paczkowski is less snarky than usual:
Microsoft added ... to its Windows Phone 7 Series story ... [yesterday] morning. ... While its obviously far too early to make any big declarations ... the OS certainly seems competitiveand compelling. ... A robust feature list ... a free suite of application development tools and a solid list of launch partners. ... One of the OSs showcase apps: Netflix with Watch It Now 3G video streaming.
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Could this be the beginning of another application development gold rush? ... With Windows Phone 7, Microsoft could make the jump from mobile OS also-ran to contender fairly quicklyassuming the markets willing.
Brian X. Chen adds:
Windows Phone 7 Series is Microsofts reboot of its mobile platform ... [which] last year suffered significant losses in market share in the mobile OS space. ... As leaked documents hinted in February, the Silverlight and XNA programming environments will play major roles for third-party software developers. ... Silverlight will serve as the coding toolkit for rich internet applications. As Microsofts alternative to Adobe Flash, this ... potentially gives Windows Phone 7 an edge over ... the iPhone.
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[So] most mobile apps will be made with Silverlight, while more graphics-intensive 3D games will most likely be developed with XNA. ... Microsoft today released the Windows Phone Developer Tools, available for a free download.
Here's Microsoft's Charlie Kindel:
Were ... showing people what this phone can do and giving designers and developers the tools and information they need. ... Weve shown the phones smart new design, and the way integrated experiences dynamically bring the information people care about to the forefront. ... Today the rubber meets the road!
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More than half a million Silverlight and tens of thousands of XNA Framework developers are now Windows Phone developers. Developers and designers can now build their code once ... [for] the phone, Web, PC or Xbox 360.
Peter Bright shines a silver light:
Silverlight 4 is of pivotal importance to Windows Phone 7 Series development. Windows Phones ... will run Silverlight 4, exactly the same as desktops do. ... Both Silverlight 4 and XNA will be fully hardware-accelerated on Windows Phone 7 Series phones, so Silverlight applications will have smooth scrolling and transitions.
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This is in significant contrast to Windows Mobile development [which] used a cut-down version of the Windows API, and .NET. ... For Windows Phone 7 Series, there's no cutting down. It's the same software environment. ... Redmond recently announced Silverlight for Symbian, and Microsoft has also signed an agreement with Intel to commit to delivering Silverlight on Intel's Moblin.
Ed Bott speaks of apps and herds sacred cows:
Just making a better Windows phone isnt enough. Apple already defined the standard with its Theres an app for that mantra. ... Theres no way that this platform will be able to catch up with the iPhone ecosystem in the next six months ... but Microsoft has to have a big selection of apps - thousands, not hundreds - on Day 1. ... Developers ... seemed eager to start coding.
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I was thrilled to see an actual price tag, in dollars and cents, attached to the ... app in one of todays demos. No big deal, you say? You must not be familiar with Microsoft Points, the hideously confusing payment system Microsoft currently uses for its Zune and Xbox marketplaces. ... Points are on their way out, and not a moment too soon..
Richi Jennings is an independent analyst/consultant, specializing in blogging, email, and security. A cross-functional IT geek since 1985, he is also an analyst at Ferris Research. You can follow him as @richi on Twitter, or richij on FriendFeed, pretend to be richij's friend on Facebook, or just use good old email: itblogwatch@richij.com.
