Windows Phone 7: The AnandTech Guide
by Brian Klug on March 21, 2010 12:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- Windows Phone 7
- Mobile
Three Kinds of Notifications
Fitting in directly after multitasking are notifications, which Microsoft hopes developers heavily leverage even after multitasking becomes viable. There are three primary methods of notifications baked into WP7S thus far.
The first is a nod to WebOS' less intrusive method of sliding notifications in at the bottom. Instead, notifications slide in from the top ala Android. These are called "toast" notifications, since they're animated like toast popping out of a toaster. Funny, right? The next is notification through tiles. Developers can push new images to the tile, as well as new text atop the tile, letting users know something has changed. A frequent demo was illustrating that the smiley atop the SMS application changes as new messages arrive, in addition to the counter. Lastly, in-application notifications where the dialog slides down revealing new information. We've seen this last kind of notification in virtually every implementation; it isn't so much a true notification as it is a page event.
Top left - Tile. Bottom Left - Toast. Right - In-App.
All three of these notification schemes fully leverage a backend push notification service, similar in architecture to iPhone OS' push notifications. This is what Microsoft wants developers to use to mitigate the lack of background processing, very similar to the message Apple has been communicating for some time now. It doesn't cover all the bases or every possible use scenario, but does save battery and allow a way for third party applications to alert users.
Interestingly, the incoming phone call situation is another notification still being finalized. We've seen briefly what the notification looks like, and at present it appears to look like a larger "toast."
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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.).