It’s about time! Microsoft has just detailed its next update to Windows Phone 7. This update, codenamed ‘Mango’, will bump the version number from 7.0.7 to 7.1, and will include 500 new features (how Redmond reached that number, god only knows). The developer tools are out in beta form today. There’s a lot of cool stuff in there, such as the already known pseudo-multitasking and the hardware accelerated Internet Explorer 9, but also a lot of stuff we didn’t know anything about. Also, news on new hardware partners, and, of course, Nokia.
Software
Let’s get the formalities out of the way first. As we already knew (and honestly, why is this news?), Windows Phone 7.1 will be free for all WP7 devices. It will arrive at the beginning of autumn this year, in a (hopefully, this time) simultaneous release. The documentation for Mango has been posted at MSDN, and lists a boatload of new APIs for developers to benefit from.
Speaking of the SDK, the beta developer tools for Mango have been released as well, and delivers loads of new features that I, as a Windows Phone 7 user, surely welcome: background processing, the use of Silverlight and XNA together, Silverlight 4, IE9 web browser control, several Live Tile enhancements, deep linking into applications from notifications and Live Tiles, direct camera/compass/gyro access, fast application switching, and more. I have the sneaking suspicion this release is really going to lead to some damn fine applications.
The Windows Phone Marketplace will also expand into a boatload of new countries – including, finally, the glorified swamp I live in. Apart from The Netherlands, the Marketplace will also expand to Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Greece, Hungary, India, Japan, South Korea, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Russia, South Africa, Sweden and Taiwan. I’m hoping this happens before the Mango release, though, since as ti stands, I can’t use my own Windows Live ID (and thus, no Xbox integration), and I can’t buy any content (only free applications). I’m missing out. Also, the Marketplace will get a web frontend (finally!), so you can select applications on your PC and send them straight to your phone.
Now, moving on to user-visible features – there’s a whole lot going on here besides the stuff we already knew from earlier this year (multitasking, IE9). For instance, Messenger is finally coming to Windows Phone, and will be fully integrated into the device – seamlessly merging text messages and IM without the need of ever opening a specific application. You’ll also be able to create a live tile for a contact that gets updated when you receive emails, text messages, or whatever else from that contact. Pretty neat.
Mango will also greatly enhance the text-to-speech and speech-to-text features of your mobile phone. Mango will be able to announce incoming messages, and read them aloud should you so desire. You can then give the ‘reply’ command, dictate your message and preview it, and then proceed to send it. All hands-free.
Windows Phone 7’s search functionality will also be greatly expanded, including audio and visual search. You’ll be able to take a photo of a product, and then check prices and reviews online automatically. For instance, you can take a photo of a book, and the phone will find the title in the Kindle application.
There’s a whole lot more going on here, but we’ll cut the new features talk here. Joe Belfiore, corporate vice president of Windows Phone, demonstrates some of the new features in the following video.
Hardware
As far as hardware goes, Microsoft announced three new partners: Acer, Fujitsu, and ZTE. More importantly, Nokia has stated that Mango will be the release that will be on its first WP7 device. “This is the software that will be used on the first Nokia with Windows Phone device, and so should be of keen interest to Nokia-watchers everywhere,” Nokia stated.
“We are very excited about our strategic partnership with Microsoft, and Mango is a great milestone for the first Nokia with Windows Phone devices,” said Jo Harlow, Nokia’s executive vice president for smart devices, “We believe Mango offers developers opportunities to create new mobile experiences leveraging both companies complementary assets while providing consumers with a new choice in mobile.â€
Microsoft and Qualcomm have also confirmed that just like the current crop of Windows Phone 7 devices, the next series of devices will also make use of the Snapdragon processor. “Qualcomm has a long history of working closely with Microsoft and we continue to support the launches of new Windows Phones based on our Snapdragon processors,” said Steve Mollenkopf, executive vice president at Qualcomm, “We are excited about this next Windows Phone Mango release that will leverage the synergy of our highly integrated second generation Snapdragon solution and Microsoft’s Windows Phone software.â€
That’s about it when it comes to Windows Phone 7.1.
I really hoped Microsoft would bring something more with, but for now i can see that WP7.1 is only a catch-up release:
1. IE gets an upgrade. WP finally gets an HTML5 capable browser which is hardware accelerated.
2. Bing Scout looks like Google Places.
3. Bing Vision looks like Google Goggles.
4. Multi-tasking looks like the same thing in WebOS. That’s probably the most obvious way to do multi-tasking, but it is a bit unclear how it will actually work (applications are paused when switching between them in the demo) especially when you have a lot of apps opened.
5. Notifications look good, but it can be difficult to notice if you have many tiles and some of them want to notify you while others are just showing some other random things.
Which, if the descriptions are accurate, is actually better than what Android and iOS have to offer. Of course, Apple and Google aren’t sitting still until autumn.
…but fully integrated into the operating system.
…but fully integrated into the operating system.
That’s why I called it pseudo-multitasking
.
Edited 2011-05-24 18:16 UTC
Somebody needs to test what kind of support mobile browsers have. Android and iOS mobile browsers don’t implement everything Chrome and Safari has to offer, but they still score better than IE9 in html5test meaning they might have some advantage in new technology support.
I don’t really see how this makes a difference. On the other hand social network integration probably does make a difference.
Edited 2011-05-24 18:48 UTC
As an owner of a Windows Phone, trust me, these are Welcome updates
The tiles are remarkable in practical use. You find yourself glancing at the phone and knowing whats going on. Having a long list is simply the case of one scroll with your thumb.
The thing I hope this part of Mango is better support for landscape views. That is honestly my only complaint that this update doesnt rectify (not explicitly anyway)
The old IE made it a very unattractive device for me. Now its just a matter of preference. Its no longer a stupid smartphone.
No NDK still? Trash it.
Edited 2011-05-24 19:15 UTC
Look how easily you can buy books you already own a second time!
How about books at friends? CDs in a store?
The store is that place where you scroll with mouse wheel, click and buy with paypal?
For those of you that want to know was in new concerning game development, there is some information here,
http://create.msdn.com/en-US/education/catalog/article/whats_new_fo…
Where’s OpenGL?
In the same place as DirectX and XNA are on iOS and Android.
Have more questions?
Not comparable. OpenGL is available virtually anywhere, except such “walled gardens” who don’t allow any competing libraries to be present (for example with restricting access to NDK how MS does in this case).
However some tried to implement XNA to other platforms:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_XNA#Alternative_implementati…
And what do you know? It uses OpenGL!
http://www.monoxna.org/node/4
So again, why do you need it in the first place?
Edited 2011-05-24 20:52 UTC
DirectX > OpenGL.
There’s your reason.
Edited 2011-05-24 20:51 UTC
Someone tried to port DirectX for MacOS or Linux? Or may be it’s available on several mobile OSes too?-) The fact that desktop games mostly run on Windows and use DirectX doesn’t make it better. Feature wise OpenGL is on par with it.
DirectX is proprietary, so the only entity who can port it to Linux or OsX would be it’s owner.
However, its owner doesn’t have any benefit from porting it to said oses.
Edited 2011-05-24 21:05 UTC
Therefore it’s a significant DirectX’s deficiency from developers perspective.
Yes its called Wined3d. Currently does not support android Opengl ES and is X11 dependent.
That’s not a port, rather a wrapper over OpenGL which implements some of the DirectX functionality. And it doesn’t implement the most up to date DirectX api anyhow.
Really in a lot of cases Direct X drivers are wrappers to tech designed for opengl. Major difference is really the shader compiler. Other than that most of Direct X maps to opengl functions very well.
There is also a galuim3d direct x implementation in the works as well. http://cgit.freedesktop.org/mesa/mesa/commit/?id=92617aeac109481258…
Simple fact you don’t have to look far. Its not the answer you want.
I am sorry to say wine gets a request about once every 6 months from some user who wants wine to port its older support to Windows 7 and XP so they can run their older games. Old support is not exactly useless.
Direct X only for windows long term no. Result most likely will be opengl with small direct x parts for the parts that are truly different. HLSL to GLSL to GPU is a little too long. HLSL to GPU path would fix one of the wrappers biggest performance issues.
Wine project for sure has a lot of benefits. But I was talking rather about the fact that the full functionality of the current DirectX is not portable (or you can say ported). At least yet.
Exactly!
On the desktop world, OpenGL 4.0 is still lacking some features from DirectX 11.
Plus not all DirectX 11 cards have an OpenGL 4.x driver, or even OpenGL 3.x (Intel).
Really bad quote. Intel cards with poor opengl support basically don’t have a GPU. Serous-ally. Hello software rendering for most operations. Yep you can be a direct x 11 certified card even if you use CPU todo it.
Also Opengl 4.0 is the old opengl current is 4.1.
Opengl 4.0 what features do you say are missing. Simple system to software render I guess would be one.
Opengl is loved by video card makers for 1 particular reason. Opengl supports video makers doing custom extensions. All the Direct X 11 features exist in them.
Yes Opengl writing of formal spec covering all that is an issue.
Kind of true. Not all card support a specific set of extensions, while with DX the support is there across the board. This eases the way game engines are written.
Difference here. Direct X provides software emulation for all features listed included.
Opengl on the other hand. If there is not real hardware for the feature it can be missing.
Two different beasts. Also something people are not aware is like Intel cards. The opengl version on windows provided is lower than the opengl version on Linux and Apple.
Their is a lack of consistency. WebGL that is Opengl ES chrome wraps to direct x on particular cards on windows because the MS opengl software rendering is poor.
There are wrappers going both directions.
I don’t see MS ever releasing direct X on Linux and Mac. I do see what people don’t want to hear. Is that open source is developing ways to support direct X. Either by wrappers or stack level.
Direct X vs Opengl on Windows is really in a lot of cases a bias test. Because MS default software rendering for opengl is shockingly incomplete.
Even on Linux Mesa software rendering options are shockingly prehistory. Mesa opengl is only fully Opengl 2.1 current is 4.1 That is 5 reversions of features behind. I am sorry to say MS Windows software opengl is even worse.
Now why do you have problems with consistency. Opengl software rendering suxs. Direct X software rendering works.
Feature wise Opengl with maker extensions has the features first. Always has.
Consistent provide due to software rendering backup being complete. Direct X has had. Early opengl had as well.
Does this make Direct X better than opengl. Depends what you are doing.
Simple point of the matter. This is historic facts. Opengl failure on Windows can be placed squarely at MS feet.
Mesa software rendering failures to complete. Lot of people to blame. But the biggest road block has been patents.
Lets ditch opengl. MS proposed that with Vista. The result was ATI and Nvidia made it blunt. Remove Opengl no drivers at all. Because they cannot test any new experimental features due to the way direct x is designed.
So the lets drop Opengl is not even a valid consideration. You have todo what hardware makers say or else.
Uau! You don’t program graphics for living I suppose,
because it is all mixed up.
It is exactly the opposite. A certified OpenGL driver has to support 100% of the official API. If the card cannot make use of a certain feature, then it has to be emulated on software.
DirectX on the other hand, had a software rasterizer up to DirectX 10, when it got dropped. Up to Direct 9.0c there were capabilities which were similar to OpenGL extensions.
Then with DirectX 10, the card makers had to fully implement DirectX 10 in hardware to have certified drivers.
Since this prevented a lot of game studios to move up to DirectX 10, mainly due to the OS requirement of Vista and lack of drivers for older cards, DirectX11 introduced support levels. Three of them, grouping card functionality into capabilities sets.
And with DirectX 11 the reference rasterizer was reintroduced.
Intel cards suck on OpenGL support due to their driver instability. Plus their drivers are known to lie. Sometimes they say a feature is available in hardware and is implemented in software. And they are usually buggy.
Their is a lack of consistency. WebGL that is Opengl ES chrome wraps to direct x on particular cards on windows because the MS opengl software rendering is poor.
Not true. There were many DirectX 10 and 11 features like geometry shaders that were not available from everyone as extensions.
Extensions are a pain, because each vendor provides its own with different semantics. So you need to restrict the set of cards you can support, if you want to make use of a certain set of extensions.
Almost true. The time the OpenGL consortium stood still did also not help.
Nowadays it is kind of easy to get OpenGL tooling from ATI and NVidia, but there used to be a time where 80% of their tooling was DirectX based.
Wrong. The pressure came from the CAD/CAM vendors which had hardly at the time, DirectX support on their complex applications. A call to action has done on those days on the OpenGL.org site and a lot of pressure was done on Microsoft not to drop support for OpenGL.
Meh, you don’t need all features in DirectX 11 at this time. Nice games aren’t going to work with Intel cards anyway and Nvidia and Amd have almost up to date drivers.
I see another bigger issue here: DirectX drivers are much better implemented than OpenGL drivers by both Nvidia and Ati. That can cause performance loss, artifacts and other problems.
If you want to target casual gamers on the PC world, OpenGL is a no go, unfortunately.
You have XNA on Windows, Windows Phone and Xbox, so it’s pretty much portable.
Almost all things software are portable, depends if someone has enough motivation to port them.
OpenGL you have everywhere else, plus on Windows.
Yep, that’s why gamers choose anything else but Windows as a gaming platform.
Right, for example iOS.
Gamers basically use what’s available, and Microsoft tries to monopolize the market. As they always did. There is no other reasons why they don’t release NDK for WPx.
Edited 2011-05-24 21:08 UTC
That’s very nice and all. But which Windows Phone is your favourite and why? Share with us.
None. And until they release an NDK there is no point even to look at them.
Better code verification and architecture independance are two good reasons to not have an NDK. I personally hope they never release one.
When Singularity came out and one of its noted “deficiencies” was the need to use a trusted compiler, I didn’t think this was a big deal, and stated that MS should start their all-managed code platform on mobile (possibly servers) where this restriction would have least negative impact, then, after some evolution, transition to the desktop.
They have the opportunity with Windows Phone to move in this direction. An NDK would needlessly tie code to a particular architecture and make it harder for them to manage and secure. The NDK should be the current SDK.
No you don’t.
If you are referring to mobiles then yes, but it is not OpenGL rather OpenGL ES, which is not exactly the same.
If you are referencing to game consoles, most have OpenGL like APIs but they are not exactly OpenGL.
I only code for OpenGL but in terms of developer support OpenGL is no match for DirectX.
Professional game studios don’t care about APIs, they are about support. Porting is an issue handled by subcontractors.
And in the support league OpenGL cannot match DirectX.
– Hardware features are done in sync with DirectX development;
– There is no proper SDK;
– Graphic analysis tools are a joke compared with what is available for DirectX, except for gDebugger, which is actually quite good.
Have any of you went to a Games Developer Conference? The amount of OpenGL related talks is minimal when compared with DirectX. There is usually a Microsoft booth to handle DirectX related issues, but none for OpenGL.
If it wasn’t for the iPhone and its bet on OpenGL, the API would have died already.
Fortunately due to the mobile games market fostered by the iPhone, OpenGL ES is now becoming a choice for many studios. But again, just because that is the API that is available. If it would be PHIGS, they would use it as well.
I find it hard to believe that Sony and Nintendo would swallow DirectX for any of their consoles…
That’s the most rational point of view. But the guy who was bashing DirectX is in fact a freetard and he would love to see MS releasing an open sourced (and ofc GNU GPL) version of DirectX for Linux and Mac, game companies to release their most successful games as open source (ofc, GNU GPL). I’m afraid that’s never going to happen even in the wettest dreams of freetards as programmers and game designers need to eat and companies want to make profit.
Can this be called a rational point of view fail ?
Edited 2011-05-25 14:37 UTC
And if it wasn’t for Windows, DirectX would have died a long time ago.
Might be, but who would say OpenGL would still exist?
OpenGL was a niche API only used in the big and expensive CAD/CAM stations back in the day.
It was Id with the MiniGL implementation that brought some kind of OpenGL to the PC world, back then MS-DOS.
Apple was busy with Quickdraw3D.
3DFX was offering their GlideAPI.
Lets not forget that Microsoft does not design DirectX alone, but takes lot of input from the game studios. While the OpenGL consortium is mostly driven by the big CAD/CAM vendors. Game studios like Blizzard only joined, after the explosion of games for the iPhone.
One question yes.
Here is where XNA is on iOS and Android:
http://monogame.codeplex.com/
Well, actually I guess it is now here:
https://github.com/mono/MonoGame
So, my question is, “Where is OpenGL on Windows Phone 7?”
Sorry, I just had to. 🙂
it is painful to watch microsoft try to be relevant
this feeling has not dulled for me even after many years of being bombarded with it
To the four Windows Phone fanboys who rated me down, consider this: The market cannot support iOS, Android, Blackberry OS, Windows Phone 7, and WebOS for long. Pick who dies first, second, and third. I’m curious.
I’m not an admirer windows phone by an stretch, but this sounds like a fun game:
Mobile phone Death watch ( In order of closest to death)
1)Web OS (Sad, but HP hasn’t done anything in a while)
2)Symbian ( not even on your list? Its less dead than web os IMHO)
3)Blackberry ( will live on as a stupid smartphone that people use because of enterprise apps, the ie 6 of smartphones)
I’d ad a fourth, but I think Microsoft, which will be in third place by a long margin, will keep pluging away at it. They’ve been known to throw good money after bad for years until they’ve killed the competition, or they get bored with it (which is what happened to windows mobile before the iphone came around).
But you are assuming that long term that locally run applications will remain the dominant way of doing things. There is a reason why Apple, Google, Microsoft and others are so focused on browser performance – because at some stage in the future it will become the dominant way of doing things even if they are installed locally but run in a browser.
You also assume that all vendors want to go after mass market where as HP and BlackBerry might be quite content with focusing primarily on the large corporate market where razzle dazzle plays second fiddle to more pressing requirements.
One thing’s for sure, iOS, Android and Windows Phone are going to stay for a long amount of time. Blackberry OS, WebOS and Symbian might be the first mobile oses to die.
Blackberry OS in its current form and Symbian are actually both scheduled to die. Blackberry will be replaced with a new QNX-based OS, Symbian will be replaced with WP7 and MeeGo. webOS isn’t even comparable to these other two. It is young and has great potential, as opposed to the other two which are old and crufty and can’t keep up anymore.
A lot of stuff here look like they were copied from Symbian. I don’t know the details of the deal with Nokia but it looks like MS got some patents and/or some software expertise from Nokia, on top of a hardware manufacturer. I’m thinking more precisely about Social networks and Threads.
Do you mean copying the half-assed implementation Nokia and the puppet-Foundation put into S^3? Nah, these features were already available and running on other systems way before.
Threads is pretty much the same as what you get in the Messaging app on webOS (actually I find the webOS implementation just a tad bit more elegant, since you can choose the communication method via a drop-down). webOS by default supports Google Talk/Gmail Chat, AIM, Yahoo and SMS, but third-party Facebook chat, Jabber and Windows Live Messenger plug-ins are also available.
Basically WP7.0 was feature less this is why 500 features can be added.
So boy the WP7.0 must be junk. Looking forward to hearing the people scream who cannot upgrade.
Looking forward to more MS bashing from Apple and Google fanboys.
Its inevitable, I own a Droid X, but I gotta tell you, my old ladys focus looks, and performs very nicely. Androids “stutter” always drives me up the wall, but WP7 seems to flow like melted butter all the time. I like both, but from a visual standpoint, it just feels better.
If you’re running the default DroidX rom with MotoSuck, that’s your problem. Root your device and install a stock rom. Granted, that shouldn’t be required, but on Android, you pretty much need to get rid of the shitty vendor bloatware on a non-Google phone for a smooth experience
Well, truth be told I am a big Mac fan but I own a windows phone 7 and I couldn’t be happier. It syncs with my iMac\MacBook Pro perfectly, browsing is snappy, solid reception, and the UI is gorgeous. Wp7 is an example of what Microsoft can produce if the focus on the the task at hand instead of getting distracted on trivial crap no one cares about.
Edited 2011-05-25 06:50 UTC
The current Xbox UI – same thing. So much more coherent and easier to use than the Wii and esp. the PS3 (which is a UI nightmare).
Edited 2011-05-25 07:13 UTC
I actually prefer the ps3 way of doing things. The xbox ui is soo graphically rich I get lost in it. Also there is too much menu shifting in the ui. In the ps3 everything is much more anchored around xmb.
The wii interface I find to be merely serviceable and if it offered what the xbox offered then it really would not scale properly.
Wait until they broke it, they are famous for doing nice things and broking them some time after.
Still the same combination of extra large fonts with extra small ones. Nothing in the comfortable range. You can’t read title, it does not fit the screen, and you can’t read text, it requires glasses.
What?
WP7 UI design.
Please, don’t blame Microsoft because your vision sucks royally.
How nice of you.
Windows Phone is now at its first incarnation, its infancy. Can you really say that you played with both iOS at its first release in 2007 and Windows Phone now and iOS was better?
Wait 4 more years and Windows Phone will be much better. (ofc if MS doesn’t screw it, which is possible).
Windows Phone comes from Windows CE, which technically predates iOS by over a decade.
Yes, its UI is new and has little in terms of software backwards compatibility with other version of Windows Mobile. Software compatibility used to be Microsoft’s main value proposition, but that doesn’t seem to have translated to the mobile market which is why Windows Phone devices aren’t exactly flying off the shelves.
Hahaha, if you want to play that game then iOS still beats WP7. It is based on OS X, which is based on NextStep/the Mach kernel, which dates back to 1985!
Admittedly though, within the last 15 years Windows CE changed a lot less than NextStep/OS X. For instance, I think Windows Forms stayed pretty much the same, even with the introduction of mobile .NET. Says something, doesn’t it.
Edited 2011-05-25 16:20 UTC
Well, technically my point was that Windows Phone predated iOS on their application market: i.e. mobile devices, for well over a decade. 😉
In markets where Microsoft hasn’t been able to leverage their near monopoly in the desktop space, they haven’t performed too stellarly (sic). Even like in the case of mobile and handleds, where Microsoft presence predates almost every other major player (Google, Apple, even Blackberry).
So,
windows “7” is really a “6.1”, as far as real developpement is involved.
windows phone 7 get the name “7” to catch up with the other product, only it has nothing in common with it.
It gets a minor update called “7.1” and is also called Mango.
And we’re supposed to think windows is easy to use and follow.