Windows Phone Thoughts - Daily News, Views, Rants and Raves

"Microsoft just dropped its first press release of MIX 10 on us, and in addition to detailing the Sliverlight and XNA-based Windows Phone 7 Series development situation, we've also got a list of launch software partners and some screenshots of apps in action. There's some heavy hitters here, and everything from games to enterprise apps are represented -- notables include the Associated Press, Citrix, EA Mobile, Foursquare, Namco, Pangeonce, Pandora, Seesmic, Shazam, and Sling."

Engadget has gobs of information, screen shots, and videos about all the good stuff happening at MIX 10 today. The quick takeaway is that Microsoft has done a great job at attracting top-level partners to create software solutions for the forthcoming Windows phone 7 platform. Couple of videos after the break. Read more...

I've never been super impressed with the design of the current Windows Marketplace for Mobile; it loads slowly and feels a bit cumbersome and awkward when compared to the iPhone app store. The Windows phone 7 Marketplace is a radical leap beyond anything we've seen before - it makes the iPhone app store look positively weak in comparison. Damn this looks fine!

"One final note at today's event is that Microsoft has now officially confirmed for the first time that 7 represents a clean break from Windows Mobile as we know it today; existing apps won't be compatible. Though that's likely to be a pain for existing owners with specialized apps who are looking to stay in the Microsoft ecosystem, Windows Phone 7 Series itself is a very different beast than the operating system it replaces -- it feels different, seeks a different demographic, and symbolically represents a very important clean-slate departure for a company that had lost its way in the mobile space. The bright side for the 6.5 faithful, we suppose, is that Kindel closes by saying that they "will continue to work with our partners to deliver new devices based on Windows Mobile 6.5 and will support those products for many years to come" -- a message Microsoft has been echoing recently."

In case you hadn't heard deduced this, our favorite third party apps won't work with Windows Phone 7 out of the box. Will this mean that developers will flock to technologies such as XNA and Silverlight to re-design their apps? Or do you think they may just leave the platform?

"By now, we're well aware that Apple can make apps vanish without a trace (or explanation) from the App Store. But Jonathan Zdziarsi, the author of iPhone Forensics, says that Apple can actually remotely disable apps installed on your iPhone. Apparently, there's a blacklist URL in the iPhone's OS that he says "suggests that the iPhone calls home once in a while to find out what applications it should turn off."

So while Apple hasn't disabled anything they don't like to date (such as NetShare), this suggests that there are ways that Big Fruity can take you down a notch or two application wise (yea yea, I know - it's meant to disable malware... but that doesn't limit it to just malware!).

But then again, cool people respect Apple's authority and should be alright with this, right? As far as the Windows Mobile world goes, Microsoft can't really even get updates out in an organized fashion, so for better or worse, I doubt they'd be up to this type of potential control. (Microsoft: The Less Evil and More Disorganized company compared to Apple... :) )