I think it's fantastic. As someone who has done a decent bit of iPhone development, I can definitely say that I prefer developing in VS with C# than XCode with Objective-C.<p>It's disheartening that so many bloggers are dismissing this awesome platform simply because Microsoft is "late to the game", yet they forget how successful Android has been. At this point, it looks like Google and Microsoft are fresh and new, whereas Apple is trying to prolong the life of an old platform.
I'm currently working on several applications for WP7. The development experience for WP7 is a million-billion times better than it was for past Windows Mobile operating systems.<p>- The emulator is snappy and you don't need to mess around with ActiveSync.<p>- I'm not a huge fan of the XAML (the Silverlight/WPF markup language), but that is not an issue. I put a XAML place holder element in place and add controls in C#<p>- The built in controls look great and are surprisingly functional. I specifically thinking of the Panorama control - which allows application content to basically flow off screen. Some may find that style of having content get cut off by the edge of the display off-putting, but its effective if that truncated content is limited to titles.<p>- putting XNA in there is great, mostly for familiarity's sake. You still have to design for the phone differences (form factor, input, and library). Porting games over from XBox live probably won't require an enormous app-rewrite. Can't wait to see how this particular piece plays out.<p>The one drawback I can see has to do with Windows Phone store. I'm not really sure what the story is there. Is app distribution really limited to the store? How about enterprise apps?<p>I don't have experience developing iPhone or Android apps, so I won't comment on whether or not WP7 is better in that department.
That article seemed incredibly long for something that failed to tell me even a single thing about the phone, aside from it "looking great" or something. Come on.<p>Though in a way, it almost doesn't matter. Microsoft <i>has</i> to offer the features of iPhone and Android to even be taken seriously, so we have to assume that is just there. What they really need can't be seen through promising text and screenshots, anyway: they really need <i>polish</i>.<p>Microsoft has been notoriously bad about leaving all kinds of holes in their products, so that they look OK on stage but end up feeling clunky as hell. If they are to have a chance this time, it is important that their phones feel simple and logical; and, dare I say it, they should even be a <i>joy</i> to use. Microsoft will never earn my respect until they can prove that they get this, and deliver it.
The initial reviews have been great (even from Apple fanatics like Gruber, Mossberg, and Pogue). The WP7 development environment is great and utilizes APIs with a wealth of existing experience out there.<p>Sure they were late to the game, but from what I can see, they'll already become a player. The same dismissals were issued against Microsoft for other late-comers-that-became-hits like the XBOX series, Active Directory, and .NET.
Tons of people prefer the Microsoft environment.<p>Neither Google nor Apple have offered many of these people what they want in a dev environment. Apple's required an odd language up until very recently, and even the C# language you can write to doesn't do many of the things they're used to doing C# in.<p>Android's development resources are capable, but Eclipse is a far cry from Visual Studio...<p>I assume tons of people will flock to the Win7 Phones unless they are just horrible once they get going.<p>Many game companies can target this platform much more easily than the iPhone/Android handsets as it also works off XNA.
Not only is this article poorly written, but all of the subsequent TechCrunch articles suck as well. As Homer Simpson once said, "You take forever to say nothing."
I care. I actually want to try one out and hopefully get rid of my android phone.<p>I must admit though, I'm mostly excited to write mobile apps in C# and use XNA.
I am a big fan of the UI. Snappy and minimalist. I know that Windows Phone has music enabled in the background through the hub api for apps like Pandora and Slacker, etc. All it needs is Copy/Paste (early 2011) and reasonable multitasking capabilities atleast for certain apps. I think the most use of Multi tasking for me on the iPhone right now is to toggle certain settings or to do certain stuff during navigation. I don't really use it beyond that and it's reasonable that most of the multitasking is done this way.<p>I've also played around with the Google Nexus One and the HTC Incredible. While they're great phones in their own right, the touch screen experience leaves a lot to be desired (atleast on those units) in terms of response time and accuracy + the camera on nexus one is nowhere near the iphone 3GS, forget iPhone 4.<p>Disclaimer: I have been using the iPhone since the past 3 years and currently on the iPhone 4. I think it's time that I tried a new platform because I'm simply bored of how the phone looks and how it operates (launch an app, exit an app, etc. for everything). I like the way multitasking is implemented and how well the camera performs. I've always had the craving for a hardware keyboard and it seems like the new Dell phone with WP7 is a good replacement for my phone, probably early next year.
The worst news about this phone is the web browser: IE7 based with IE8 technology. IE7's still-buggy, slow rendering; glacial Javascript performance; no support for forward-thinking web technologies ("HTML5", canvas or webGL, CSS3). I hope this doesn't take off, or this will ruin the currently fun, Webkit-based mobile web development for modern smartphones..<p>Also, from a user's perspective: no Flash (at least initially) OR HTML5 video tag support? It's like Microsoft's totally missed the last few years of mobile phone flamewars.
One aspect of the Windows phone that may be a big hit in corporations and governments is whole device encryption. PGP (now owned by Symantec) can deploy strong encryption to these Windows phones. Apple has always been difficult to develop for in this area (lots of frequent changes ISP can't keep up) and they tend to advertise to home users and I'm not sure about Android's whole device encryption ability.
the article is at <a href="http://www.mobilecrunch.com/2010/10/11/microsoft-launches-windows-phone-7-but-does-anyone-care/" rel="nofollow">http://www.mobilecrunch.com/2010/10/11/microsoft-launches-wi...</a>
I'm with the crew that thinks it's pretty short sighted to just dismiss this out of hand. Last time I checked, Xbox launched into a market place where people change their consoles a lot less frequently, with a single ENORMOUS player, and they've done pretty well for themselves.<p>The question is whether or not they get the amazing partnerships with HW/SW that Apple has driven into the iPhone and let them crush design. Without that, it'll be good, but not great and will not win the hipsters/design freaks.
I've heard WP7 has no compatibility whatsoever (so it's unable to run even WM5/6 apps)? If that's true — am I understanding properly that MS is introducing almost completely empty platform, which requires software to be written yet?<p>I don't know whenever they will succeed or not, but it seems to be a hard task to enter the market when all rivals already have quite strong positions (including lots of software).