There are always a bunch of leaks after Microsoft successfully demonstrates a new product which was previously kept under covers. We’ve seen this pattern with Windows 7, Office 2010, Project Natal and now with Windows Phone 7 Series. XDA-Developers have gotten their hands on a couple of confidential development documents for Windows Phone 7 Series which answer some of our questions about the development platform as well as multitasking.
Development will be done using either the Silverlight framework or XNA. This means that we’ll see highly rich user interfaces in Windows Phone 7 Series apps and in terms of gaming, it should be second to none. The iPhone should be prepared to be blown away if developers leverage the power of XNA framework, which is also used for Xbox 360 game development. What we don’t know yet is whether the Silverlight apps will be compatible with Nokia phones when the runtime is made available for them. Developers will be limited to managed code only, while some selected OEMs and partners will have access to native APIs under strict conditions and observations. Not too bad. Development will be done using Visual Studio and Expression Blend as expected while the interface is XAML based. No surprises there.
WMPoweruser has also noticed the presence of a ‘push notifications’ like service which means that suspended applications will be able to receive data. While this is not better in any way than the kind of notifications we have on Android, it does save a great deal of battery life by checking for notifications after regular intervals and saving CPU cycles by not having the app running.
MIX10 is where Microsoft will be officially revealing more developer information for Windows Phone 7 Series. The conference couldn’t come sooner!
If these documents are authentic then Windows Phone 7 Series devices would easily be the best portable gaming devices thanks to XNA and XBOX Live Support.
Though I’m still not happy with Push Notifications. The device specs have all the power they need to implement True multitasking like in Maemo, Symbian and WebOS.
If these documents are authentic then Windows Phone 7 Series devices would easily be the best portable gaming devices thanks to XNA and XBOX Live Support.
Though I’m still not happy with Push Notifications. The device specs have all the power they need to implement True multitasking like in Maemo, Symbian and WebOS.