Windows Phone Thoughts: Microsoft Windows phone 7 Team Member Leaves Microsoft...to Create Windows phone 7 Apps

"All naysaying aside, people are pretty excited about Windows Phone 7. Our readers are excited for it. I'd be outright lying if I said I wasn't excited about it, too. Know who else is excited? The Windows Phone 7 team - but perhaps not for the reasons you'd expect. With a few years of work finally coming to a head, some of the folks on the Windows Phone 7 team are taking a step back, looking at the fruits of their labor... and leaving. Not because they're ashamed, and not because they're being poached by the competition - but because instead of making Windows Phone 7, they want to make things for Windows Phone 7."

Going back a few years, anyone remember Two Peaks software, headed up by Mel Sampat? I always liked Two Peaks software - in fact, I'm still using FlexWallet to this day, despite it being replaced by eWallet, and always like what Sampat did for users in terms of creating really superb software. He went to work for Microsoft a few years ago, and I kept in touch - in fact, at one point we had a conference call about what a pain that stupid birthday alarm triggering at midnight problem was. I'll have to find out if that lunacy has continued on into Windows phone 7 - I kind of doubt it, but then again, I never thought after 7+ years the same problem would continue to cause problems. But I digress...

Mel Sampt is now on his own again, under the company name Mist Labs, and in partnership with Trinket Software, they've already released/updated their first application: Twikini, updated for Windows phone 7 goodness. It looks good, though I notice it still has the same problem as Twikini does today on Windows Mobile 6.5. It's the Twitter app I use on my HD2 after suffering the baffling dysfunctions of HTC's Twitter app, Peep, for too long. The problem with Twikini is that it forces you to go into the Tweet to read it because it doesn't display the full 140 characters, then back out again to see your feed. I'm a big fan of efficiency in software, and anything that forces me to perform more actions isn't good in my book. Based on the screenshots, it looks like Twikini for Windows phone 7 shows even less of the Tweet...but they have time to change that based on user feedback.

Anyway, welcome back to the world of the indy developer Mel - we missed you!