Windows Phone 7: The AnandTech Guide
by Brian Klug on March 21, 2010 12:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- Windows Phone 7
- Mobile
Emulator Findings
I alluded briefly to the emulator included in the developer tools released on the first day of MIX10. Originally, this emulator only included an Internet Explorer tile, foregoing any of the other bundled applications due to the fact that they're nowhere close to being finalized. Recently though, an enterprising developer has managed to unlock the applications that are already bundled within the ROM dump, lending some insightful new perspective to everything we didn't see at MIX10.
Obviously, there are parts of the emulator that are very polished, and other parts that are still very alpha. It's important to not get the wrong idea about this being representative of the polish of any of WP7S, and Microsoft has already made the following statement to Cnet's Ina Fried:
"When we decided to provide a Windows Phone 7 Series Emulator as part of the tools, we anticipated that people would attempt to unlock and explore the code. We have been very clear that the emulator is based on early code and is not reflective of the final user experience. Windows Phone 7 Series is still under development. The UI has been disabled to avoid confusion and allow developers to focus on testing applications on the underlying platform. We continue to recommend that developers use the emulator as provided to avoid any issues and unpredictability that may be introduced by an unlocked version."
We dug through everything that was inside quite comprehensively and have put together a short walkthrough as well as screenshots of much of the platform that likely won't make it to release. Obviously, things like the task manager are important to Microsoft engineers, but won't be present in the final build. The same can be said for Speed Type, which appears to be a tool for the WP7S team to get feedback about the most common soft keyboard typing issues for building out an autocorrect database.
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pcfxer - Sunday, March 21, 2010 - link
Android is far easier to develop for than WM and iPhone. For my engineering project my team is developing a device for non-verbal users.pro5 - Monday, March 22, 2010 - link
Is android Java only? (I don't know) but if so that would reason enough for me not to develop for it. C# and objective C are 'bad enough' but java has always left me cold (I'm a C++ coder mainly).If it can use native C++ then great, still doesn't make up for it's other short comings. The only real advantage I see to Android is how 'open' it is, but really that's more of killer than a helper in the dev community (if money is your goal). How does the GPU compare to Winphone for example? Where is the 'standard' development target (screen size, hardware features). Stuff like iPhone and WP7 are 'easier' to develop for because you never need to 2nd guess the user's hardware config or screen size (ok 2 sizes in the case of WP7 in future)
Penti - Monday, March 22, 2010 - link
Android has the NDK so you can run native code, you don't need to run your code in dalvik. That means C and C++. Just as any other Linux based Phone OS. Such as WebOS. Of course Maemo too. Bada too of course, and of course none Linux based Symbian.The shit runs at the same hardware so what's your problem? Nobody is forcing you to develop for free. That you can release your apps without review is not a bad thing. Apps such as Firefox (Fennec) are ported to Maemo and being ported to Android. There's an Alpha for WinMo too. Something that can't be done on iPhone OS or Blackberry. Or WP7. If you only want to develop for a specific phone thats fine, but then you miss millions of other users. Even if you do android apps you don't need to support every single phone there is. Old phones won't be upgraded to newer versions of Android OS any way. And it's really the software platform that should have the focus any way.
jms102285 - Saturday, April 3, 2010 - link
Hey Anand, I sent you an E-mail regarding what the implications of Microsoft Communications Server just before the release of the WP7 is.... I haven't heard anything back yet in over a week from anyone I mailed about it.Are you guys tight-lipped about it because of NDAs or something???
CSMR - Sunday, March 21, 2010 - link
Not really (http://jkontherun.com/2009/11/23/windows-mobile-vs...">http://jkontherun.com/2009/11/23/window...droid-wi... but hopefully it will be within a year.I'm hoping that it will get full, reliable exchange support (e-mail+calendar+tasks+scheduling meetings+search server etc.).