Microsoft Offers Free Dev Kit for Win Phone 7
Microsoft now provides trial versions of various tools for Windows Phone 7 app development.
Monday Microsoft made a big splash when it announced that it's now offering free tools for Windows Phone 7 developers. The "kit" includes preview (test) versions of Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Express for Windows Phone, an add-on to use with Visual Studio 2010 RC, XNA Game Studio 4.0, and an emulator for application testing. The company also provides a separate, "Community Technology Preview" version of Expression Blend for Windows Phone. The toolset can be downloaded here.
ZDNet reports that Microsoft is also offering a "near-final" Release Candidate of Silverlight 4, Microsoft's alternative to Adobe Flash. Although the final version is scheduled to go gold in April, Windows Phone 7 supposedly won't make use of Silverlight 4 when the device ships later this year. Instead, Microsoft is releasing a "superset" of Silverlight 3 with support for Windows Phone 7 specific features.
"It was clear that Microsoft is doing its best to distance itself from being known as an enterprise phone developer," ZDNet reports. "Company officials didn’t demonstrate a single enterprise app-- other than Outlook-- during the kick-off Mix keynote." The site also said that Microsoft is targeting Windows Phone 7 devices at "life maximizers."
In related news, the Visual Studio Developer Center updated the "supported media codecs" listing in regards to Windows Phone OS 7.0. In addition to WMV, MPEG-4, and H.263, the new mobile OS will also support DivX versions 4.x, 5.x, and 6.x. This will be great news for consumers who purchase digital movies outside the restrictive iTunes and Amazon offerings.
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And this is why I prefer Windows and Linux over Apple products =)
I suppose this is very good news for developers. Let's hope they cook up some good stuff.
Cool.
Allowing more video codecs is also pretty awesome. I wish that Windows by default came with all the most common codecs (such as .mkv).
Well MS always had good development tools.
The main problem is that their OS were never reliable or performing. I was very pleased when I found a sucker to sell my last Window based mobile that and slow as hell (when not crashing).
So I am quite sceptical if Windows Phone 7 will be stable and fast as it seems Microsoft rushed them out to its stop market erossion from iPhone and Adroid. I will wait for a SP1 I mean Windows Mobile 7.1 before considering a Windows mobile again.
One of the most important features that people love about Windows is freedom.