For beginners about Windows Phone 7
According to the results of two events ( BizSparkCamp and Nokia Developers Day ) I gathered some useful information about Windows Phone 7. I was not familiar with this platform for obvious reasons (there are no such devices in Russia yet), so the impressions are absolutely clean. not muddied.
In short: the platform is very interesting and promising, but some ideological moments look pretty controversial. See below for details.
Just in case: I do not feel hatred for Microsoft (its products have been feeding me for 16 years), as well as special respect (see 16 years old, yes - everything has happened). I have been using communicators for about 5 years now, about the same I have been writing programs for Windows Mobile. I hope the information will be useful to the newcomers in Windows Phone 7, just like me, but who did not get to these wonderful events (thanks to their organizers - everything was exclusively at a high level). I consider the platform mainly from the point of view of the developer. How convenient is it to use - I have no idea, because did not use and is unlikely to get a try soon.
And yet, some of the things described below will be characteristic only for the new version of Windows Phone - codename “Mango”. But, since the Russian version, as I understand it, will already be Mango, and all existing devices will be updated automatically, I will not recall the “obsolete” features of the current version.
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It was announced in the spring of 2010, the release and the first devices on sale - autumn 2010. We have not yet sold, but promise SOON (tm). At the same time, Russian developers have not (well, almost) problems with the publication of applications and the receipt of money for it from the very beginning of the platform, which is nice.
The number of devices sold in six months is a secret. Excuse - “we sell the platform to the manufacturers of hardware, and how much they sold there - that's their business” - looks pretty rotten. At the same time, Microsoft is showing itself in other numbers: 17,000+ applications in their store, 36,000 registered developers, etc. In general, the real volume of the application market is difficult to estimate, to put it mildly. But they call everyone on him and promise happiness to everyone (“our custom lovers love and know how to pay for applications” (c)).
The devices are already produced by many well-known companies (Samsung, LG, HTC), and a strategic partnership has been created with Nokia, as everyone probably heard (they promise Nokia’s first communicators on Windows Phone 7 in early 2012, and maybe even a little earlier) ). At the same time, Microsoft has set the most stringent requirements for the hardware platform, so device fragmentation is minimal in terms of characteristics (in fact, devices may differ only in appearance, and even within relatively small limits).
The GUI is very original and not like other platforms. From my personal point of view, it can be very, very convenient, but not everyone (especially the lovers of dozens of icons on each of the five or more screens will have a hard time). With all the originality of the interface, the platform is positioned as “consumer” - i.e. for "ordinary non-advanced users." In my opinion - a rather controversial thesis.
In my opinion, Android does not just overtake just nothing. In general, there are no prerequisites for this. But with iOS for the second place, the platform can easily compete, as it seems to me. At least due to the fact that the iPhone is made by one company, and WinPhone7 is alot of several, including the rather big Nokia. Even the best company with the largest capitalization is hard to fight alone against the rest of the world, yes. And third place is almost certain, considering how much money Microsoft is ready to spend on promotion ...
Well, let's be objective - not the worst platform turned out, which is really ... Maybe even buy sometime a communicator on it for personal use. And for the developer, it looks very promising in general, especially if you do something relatively simple and from scratch (and even games under XNA are a pretty good thing!).
PS I do not exclude that I understood something wrong. However, most of what I wrote are direct answers from Microsoft and Nokia employees to my questions.
In short: the platform is very interesting and promising, but some ideological moments look pretty controversial. See below for details.
Just in case: I do not feel hatred for Microsoft (its products have been feeding me for 16 years), as well as special respect (see 16 years old, yes - everything has happened). I have been using communicators for about 5 years now, about the same I have been writing programs for Windows Mobile. I hope the information will be useful to the newcomers in Windows Phone 7, just like me, but who did not get to these wonderful events (thanks to their organizers - everything was exclusively at a high level). I consider the platform mainly from the point of view of the developer. How convenient is it to use - I have no idea, because did not use and is unlikely to get a try soon.
And yet, some of the things described below will be characteristic only for the new version of Windows Phone - codename “Mango”. But, since the Russian version, as I understand it, will already be Mango, and all existing devices will be updated automatically, I will not recall the “obsolete” features of the current version.
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About the platform
It was announced in the spring of 2010, the release and the first devices on sale - autumn 2010. We have not yet sold, but promise SOON (tm). At the same time, Russian developers have not (well, almost) problems with the publication of applications and the receipt of money for it from the very beginning of the platform, which is nice.
The number of devices sold in six months is a secret. Excuse - “we sell the platform to the manufacturers of hardware, and how much they sold there - that's their business” - looks pretty rotten. At the same time, Microsoft is showing itself in other numbers: 17,000+ applications in their store, 36,000 registered developers, etc. In general, the real volume of the application market is difficult to estimate, to put it mildly. But they call everyone on him and promise happiness to everyone (“our custom lovers love and know how to pay for applications” (c)).
The devices are already produced by many well-known companies (Samsung, LG, HTC), and a strategic partnership has been created with Nokia, as everyone probably heard (they promise Nokia’s first communicators on Windows Phone 7 in early 2012, and maybe even a little earlier) ). At the same time, Microsoft has set the most stringent requirements for the hardware platform, so device fragmentation is minimal in terms of characteristics (in fact, devices may differ only in appearance, and even within relatively small limits).
The GUI is very original and not like other platforms. From my personal point of view, it can be very, very convenient, but not everyone (especially the lovers of dozens of icons on each of the five or more screens will have a hard time). With all the originality of the interface, the platform is positioned as “consumer” - i.e. for "ordinary non-advanced users." In my opinion - a rather controversial thesis.
Advantages (subjectively)
- Very good developer tools . Well, really - impressive, yes. And the speed of work (the emulator flies simply), and the possibilities, and the level of support.
- The almost complete absence of hardware fragmentation (one 800x480 screen resolution, one set of hardware buttons, a fast processor, a graphics accelerator, a set of sensors, etc.).
- A number of very interesting solutions in terms of user interface. For example, without any noticeable effort, you can make an image from a camera or a three-dimensional scene as a background of the window, and display almost anything on top — text, images, controls, etc. In general, there are no problems with integration into the web browser application and tight interaction with it (both ways).
- Push notifications, even in an unstart app.
- Integration with XBox Live and Zune.
- The store is not bad. The try & buy model is possible (and even welcomed in every way), for which everything is ready - just use standard interfaces. In cooperation with Nokia, all sorts of bonuses like SMS payment are possible soon (and Nokia does very well with this, for a 40% commission including a cellular operator’s remuneration) and in-app-purchaising (with in-app-purchaising with your own billing allowed now - bye). By the way, Nokia in the case of Windows Phone refuses its own application store - there will be a section in the Microsoft store.
Disadvantages (even more subjectively)
- C # only (in fact, there is also VisualBasic and F #, but who counts?). Native code declared absolute evil forevermore, amen. Questions about him are considered indecent, “C ++” is a curse word. What is code reuse ?! Forget it!
- Enclosing everything. Each application has its own sandbox. And the literalness of this term is impressive: two applications can exchange some data only through the “cloud”, i.e. external server. Even a simple text file to share between the two applications will not work, alas. Thanks to Microsoft’s peculiar view of multitasking (see below), two “simultaneously” running applications cannot fully communicate with each other even through sockets, not to mention other common IPC methods. No, well, there really is “isolated storage”, literally ! To go nuts. Folders like “Shared files” are not and will not be. Does one application run another? Yes, and with the argument in the form of a file (the path to it)? Agaschaz.
- Multitasking. "The soldier is sleeping - the service is on!" (C) The application went into the background - "sleep, my joy, sleep." Pure hibernate. You can run special services from the application that will live for some time in the background - well, there you can download a large file, for example. The limitations are impressive. For example, the background service of one (of several standard) types can live continuously for no more than 2 weeks (!), Then they will be killed anyway. Funny, yes?
- Conciseness (or even asceticism) GUI. In general, this is a must see. What are these, what, wallpaper ? !!! There are screen themes, yes. Two . "Black" and "white." Women and children, I think, will especially appreciate.
Prospects (subjectivity rolls over)
In my opinion, Android does not just overtake just nothing. In general, there are no prerequisites for this. But with iOS for the second place, the platform can easily compete, as it seems to me. At least due to the fact that the iPhone is made by one company, and WinPhone7 is a
Well, let's be objective - not the worst platform turned out, which is really ... Maybe even buy sometime a communicator on it for personal use. And for the developer, it looks very promising in general, especially if you do something relatively simple and from scratch (and even games under XNA are a pretty good thing!).
PS I do not exclude that I understood something wrong. However, most of what I wrote are direct answers from Microsoft and Nokia employees to my questions.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/119794/
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