Microsoft MIX 2010 Review: Windows Mobile 7
Posted by admin | Filed under Flash Mobile, Mobile Advertising, Mobile Industry, Silverlight
As part of an experiment by Microsoft I was invited to their annual MIX conference this past week in Las Vegas. Giovanni Gallucci extended the invitation to me via Twitter – Social media at work. They contacted select industry outsiders that currently do not work with Microsoft products and even those who are vocally not happy with Microsoft. (Maybe they saw an early post I made regarding Vista.)
I’ve had interest in the state of Silverlight mobile and new Windows 7 mobile. I usually do not have time to investigate new platforms, so this was a rare chance to take an in depth look.
Let me start by saying thank you to Giovanni Gallucci and Chris Bernard for extending the invitation and putting this together. Six others and myself were all expenses paid guests and they did give us the VIP treatment. In fact, a few of the spots we visited I plan to check out again next week at CTIA.
Here are my fellow outsiders:
- Giovanni Gallucci | giovanni
- Chris Bernard | chrisbernard
- Nathan Smith | nathansmith – The talented designer/developer I snagged this list from.
- Jonathan Hull | hulljon
- Cali Lewis | calilewis
- Emily Lewis | emilylewis
- Stephen Anderson | stephenanderson
Windows 7 Phone:
- Silverlight is built on C# – There are no worries of “Can I extend it to do this or do that?” It is built with the same code used to build enterprise applications so you have a robust set of APIs at the ready.
- There are several built-in components into the IDE such as kinetic scrolling and list controls. Similar to iPhone.
- Device mobile search is simplified with Bing built-in. This is something I think is lacking in the native iPhone search although Android has the right idea.
- Zune functionality built-in.
- Video built-in.
Although it seems to be limited to your Zune library. They need a “Youtube” competitor preloaded to the device. In my opinion, get Hulu or Vimeo on the phone and work out a deal. The video experience is a huge part of a compelling mobile device and most people simply are not going to buy videos constantly. Personally I may buy 3 videos for a long flight and that is it for the year.
Sessions I attended:
Building Windows Phone Applications with Silverlight, Part 1 – Mike Harsh
Building Windows Phone Applications with Silverlight, Part 2 – Peter Torr
Flash skills applied to Microsoft Silverlight Design and Development – Adam Kinney
Prototyping Rich Microsoft Silverlight 4 Applications with Microsoft Expression Sketchflow – Chris Bernard
Designers:
Microsoft Expression Blend is the Flash Catalyst of the Microsoft world. It writes the code for you and is excellent for Rapid Mobile UI prototyping. Sketchflow and Blend look cool enough I plan to dust off the old Dell XPS whenever things slow down enough.
Developers:
If you want to make something cool for Windows 7 you will need to dive in to C# which does not look bad at all from the demos I saw.
Go to the install checklist put together by Adam Kinney if you want to get your feet wet: Link here
Silverlight mobile – Alternate universe:
It’s new and there are gaps but it is off to a strong start. I’ve been involved in Windows Mobile 5 and 6 projects using GPS, Mapping and Flash Lite as the front end. We had access then to launch Camera, Mail and through extensions load device content into Flash Lite. So it is really odd to see an audience of around 500+ eager and applauding geeked out MS developers this past week as Silverlight mobile demos show: Camera access, Location, and loading contacts.
iPhone and Flash Lite on Symbian, Brew, Linux and Win. Mobile have been able to do this for quite a while.
I realized the audience was mostly MS developers new to mobile and things like writing code that vibrates the device had their heads spinning. It is cool to see so many people passionate about doing something on mobile though. Although it felt like I stepped back in time. Am I saying the entire SDK is out dated? No, the performance is there and most of the features: Multi-touch, Video, etc are there.
I was expecting game changing features:
- Let’s see some Open API plugins.
- Let’s see Home screen updates of rich content: News, Media, and Application push notifications that prompt the user.
- Video playback on the home screen with the option to go full screen if it is interesting.
- Mobile analytics and advertising partners that provide drag and drop integration for developers.
Marketplace (App Store):
I did not find a session on this. This is the place where Microsoft can really trump Apple.
- Make the submission process easy. Don’t give us “signing” headaches.
- Do not let it get flooded with sub par apps. If the first couple applications a user downloads are duds they will declare the store itself a failure.
- Make Mobile Analytics integration and Mobile Advertisements simple. Several companies are catering mobile analytics and mobile ads to iPhone application developers. Why is this important? Well known brands want two things: Know as much as they can about their target audience and make money.
Conclusion:
The big question I was asked several times this past week: Will we develop for it?
Yes, with a disclaimer. We dig it. Great platform but we are client driven so the projects must be there for us to dive in and dedicate time. Now that said as I stated earlier when things slow down enough I do plan to dust off the old Dell XPS and try out Silverlight mobile. It would be great to develop on my Mac. I know — that is just too much to ask.
There are a tremendous amount of Nokia and iPhone projects so it was well worth the plunge into these platforms. I am reminded of the dot com days working at Akili and every brand big and small was in a rush to have a website. It was the web gold rush. This is currently going on in the mobile space for Nokia and Apple. Having a good iPhone app is like having a good website. It sets your brand apart.
No matter what Microsoft put out it will have a market share. The question is are they going to be the next must have mobile platform. The capabilities are there. The device is cool enough. I’d love to see it really take off because that means another platform to extend the reach of our mobile applications. Android had a series of developer challenges which brought apps like Shop Savvy to them. Nokia involvement in Open Screen Fund has brought several branded and independent applications to their platform. So what is Microsoft doing to encourage the next cool independent apps to show up on their platform?
This commercial gives you a good idea of social interaction with Windows 7 Mobile:
Flash Widgets, L.L.C. is a full service Rich Mobile Development Studio. Founded in 2005 by Kirk Ballou. Based in Dallas, TX.
March 19, 2010 at 11:18 pm
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March 21, 2010 at 7:06 pm
Hey,
As far as a session on the Marketplace goes, there was a talk on it – here’s a link to the session itself:
http://live.visitmix.com/MIX10/Sessions/CL20
If you have any other questions, feel free to ping me.
@ai
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