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Microsoft Launches Windows Phone 7 But Does Anyone Care?

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Re: Microsoft Launches Windows Phone 7 But Does Anyone Care?

#4

Post by makecheck »

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.

Though in a way, it almost doesn't matter. Microsoft has 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 polish.

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 joy to use. Microsoft will never earn my respect until they can prove that they get this, and deliver it.

Re: Microsoft Launches Windows Phone 7 But Does Anyone Care?

#5

Post by gte910h »

Tons of people prefer the Microsoft environment.

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.

Android's development resources are capable, but Eclipse is a far cry from Visual Studio...

I assume tons of people will flock to the Win7 Phones unless they are just horrible once they get going.

Many game companies can target this platform much more easily than the iPhone/Android handsets as it also works off XNA.

Re: Microsoft Launches Windows Phone 7 But Does Anyone Care?

#7

Post by glhaynes »

gte910h wrote: post #5

Tons of people prefer the Microsoft environment. 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. Android's development resources are capable, but Eclipse is a far cry from Visual Studio... I assume tons of people w…

Many game companies can target this platform much more easily than the iPhone/Android handsets as it also works off XNA.

Seems like its lack of OpenGL offsets that a good bit... yes, a lot of Xbox/Windows games will be easy to port, but it seems like more ports will likely to be coming from iPhone/Android.

Re: Microsoft Launches Windows Phone 7 But Does Anyone Care?

#8

Post by eogas »

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.

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.

Re: Microsoft Launches Windows Phone 7 But Does Anyone Care?

#9

Post by luffy »

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.

- The emulator is snappy and you don't need to mess around with ActiveSync.

- 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#

- 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.

- 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.

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?

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.

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