Windows Phone Thoughts: Camera Limitations Hamper Windows Phone Development

"Microsoft's tight design rules require all Windows Phone 7 devices to have a pretty nice camera on them; they must tout at least 5 megapixels and video capture to boot. Unfortunately, Redmond's new phone operating system has limitations that mean developers can't fully take advantage of the lenses."

Although the Windows Phone 7 development environment is often praised, the actual SDK seems to be lacking in some crucial areas. Although developers can use the camera to retrieve photos from the camera, advanced functionality such as streaming video is currently not implemented. This means that messaging apps like Fring would be unable to utilize the camera for video calls (if the current batch of phones had front-facing cameras). In addition, apps such as those that offer augmented reality overlays would be impossible to implement. Let’s hope Microsoft will quickly update the SDK with an API to allow this type of functionality.