Can you believe it’s been only six months since Microsoft first unveiled its brand-new and most likely last-ditch effort to regain some significance in the smartphone market? Well, today the company announced that the Windows Phone 7 Developer Tools will go gold September 16, and applications submissions will be accepted from early October onwards.
Over the past six months, we’ve come to know Windows Phone 7 pretty well. It’s a complete break from Windows Mobile, and pretty much a break from everything else on the market today. Whereas things like iOS and Android are essentially still desktop operating systems (i.e., application-centric) crammed onto a mobile device, Windows Phone 7 tries to move away from this in-and-out approach through the use of its hubs. But that’s something for another article.
Developers have come to know Windows Phone 7 well as, uh, well. The beta developer tools have been downloaded more than 300000 times, and while that obviously doesn’t equate to 300000 developers, it’s still an impressive number and a good base of interested folks to work from.
“These first six months have affirmed that a rich application platform based on the well understood Silverlight and XNA technologies, combined with great free tools based on Visual Studio 2010 and Expression Blend is the right approach for enabling developers and designers of all skill levels who are looking to capitalize on the opportunities presented by Windows Phone 7,” writes Microsoft’s Brandon Watson.
Now that the final version of the developer tools has been announced, it’s time to prepare your applications for entry into the Marketplace. You should probably get your stuff ready in the coming weeks with the beta tools, but that does mean you’ll have to recompile with the final version since minor changes will be made.
“The final tools will likely have some minor breaking changes from the Beta tools, so developers may have to fix some bugs that arise,” Watson details, “The final tools will also include several highly requested Silverlight controls which will make it even easier for developers to deliver high quality Windows Phone 7 experiences. Also in the September 16th final release, the panorama, pivot and Bing maps controls will all be available to drop into applications.”
Microsoft also released a whole boatload of training materials for developers as well as an updated set of Marketplace guidelines. I’m actually quite anxious to see how Windows Phone 7 will work in practice, and if it’ll be a success or not. It’s got a lot going for it (top-notch developer tools, a truly unique operating system, a large pool of potential developers), but at the same time, it’s entering a market with players that have been here for a few years now.
Good times.
Microsoft’s version of Gold is pyrite. Balmer is in such denial and so without a clue that this company is unable to create ANY strategy that would would give its cellular phone products credibility. I don’t dislike Microsoft and have a really treasured Sony Vaio laptop with windows 7 which has been absolutely problem free. I have a very nice iMac, but prefer my Sony Laptop.
Phones on the other hand are a different matter. Even if Balmer were to go (we can only hope), I think they would still be coming to the game too late. The Zune is an example of this. Once again, not a bad product, but without any of the qualities that make the iPod so compelling. Qualities which seem to be invisible to Microsoft designers. Hey, if you don’t get it, you don’t get that you don’t get it. Sad really.
Can you please give some specific examples of these qualities that according to you the iPod has and the Zune hasn’t ?
Well, it’s hard to explain because what is missing is elegance and cleverness of design, among other things. This is a quite nebulous concept, but, nevertheless, quite real. Perhaps some background is necessary. I spent of number of years, before I retired, as an Apple Trainer. This helped me to see on a one-to-one basis who the average Apple customer is and what it is about the product that attracts them. A very large sector of apple users are intelligent, affluent, and not interested in technology other than how it can serve their non-technical interests. For example, pushing a song to another iPod user is much less valuable than having a fully integrated calendar, to do list, and notes that integrates seamlessly and automatically with all other owned electronic devices. How accurately that sync automatically resolves conflicts would be an example of the cleverness of design. Say what you will of Apple, they have always understood their primary customer and have been brilliant in meeting their needs.I find that very technical people and Microsoft users have a difficult time seeing this perfect match of customer and needs because Microsoft has never accomplished this for primary user. I hear things like, Apple dummies down the software so stupid people can use it. However, it has been my experience that the average Apple customer is quite capable of “understanding;” They”re just not interested. They want elegant, simple, and automatic. Such is the eye of the Apple beholder.
However, a probably critical question is how DO you explain the runaway success of Apple and the lackluster performance of Microsoft products. If the Zune, for example, is just as good as an iPod, why are it’s sales so low? After seeing Apple customers act like children with candy when they see all the things their new iPod can do, I don’t doubt that Apple fans love their products because of what they personally experience using them. In a training session customer often said their experience was almost “transedental”. They are not BS’n: it really feels that way for them. I find it weird, but I have never seen a PC product evoke this level of awe in these same types of customers, who, btw, make up a large part of technology users.
All that said, I am not an Apple Fan. Apple gave most employees an iPhone when it was first released. I gave mine to my son. I hope in the near future to buy an Android phone and/or a chrome OS tablet. These will meet my needs, but, for true Apple Fans, they’ll fall short of expectations. And so, life goes on.
1) Zune is unavailable outside a few niche countries where as Apple were shippnig iPod globally for years in some countries before the iTunes store even appeared. There is absolutely no excuse what so ever that I am unable to purchase a Zune in New Zealand – I don’t care about the ‘service’ because I already own CD’s and I already have ripped my music. The lack of Zune availability (coupled with point 2) has made such a device lacking in the qualities that I demand out of a media player.
2) iPod support exists on Windows and Mac yet Microsoft refuses to provide software for end users to use their Zune with Mac OS X or even use an open protocol such as MTP which was originally designed to stop fragmentation in the media player market (instead of having many competing proprietary protocols for synchronising there would be one). If they want their base of users to be as wide and deep as possible then they should at the very least support the two major platforms out there – the fact is they have chosen not too.
3) The Zune media synchronisation tool is crap in that it treats the end user as though he or she was intellectually retarded – stick to the MTP protocol and stick to the standard Media Player that is bundled with Windows – I don’t care about ‘branding’, I just want a media player with a good interface, great battery life, decent storage and a media player that allows me to synchronise, rip and so forth but giving me to the power to tweak the settings as I see fit rather than accepting the ‘one size fits all’ assumption Microsoft makes with the current Zune software.
Edited 2010-08-24 05:06 UTC
not without ANY strategy. Think xbox live on your phone
. I personally am really excited about windows phone 7 (mostly windows CE 7). It’s an exciting time to be in the embedded and small form factor device world.
So you’re excited about the “ad server”, well I won’t be buying any phone that is an “ad server”.
Can you give some examples of the qualities? After using both iPods and Zunes, I feel that the Zune devices and software offer a better experience. If given the choice, I’d choose a Zune over an iPod. In fact, I use my Zune exclusively and my iPod now belongs to my son.
Windows Phone 7 will have a Zune Interface and I know several people, myself included who are interested in seeing that in person. XBox Live on their phone is something else many are anticipating.
I guess development will be “cross platform” for winxp, vista and win7.
That’s a big part of the problem…they will follow Apple on this one and try to use their mobile phone platform to lock in more developers. I guess many are locked in now anyways so the effect isn’t as big a deal. It just makes me loath yet another platform.
From this standpoint I’d say nokia’s QT strategy is most appealing, allowing the most work to be done with the developer’s platform of choice before having to switch over to device specifics.