Auri's Blog

Presented by Charlie Kindel @ckindel

• Two dev approaches: Silverlight and XNA.
• If it’s Silverlight 3, it will work.
• Some elements of Silverlight 4 are in there.
• Charlie says the version of .NET doesn’t matter.
• WCF is there as a key feature.
• Photo functionality provided.
• Supposedly there are 500,000 Microsoft developers worldwide. That’s a lot, but I thought there were a lot more.
• How apps get access to sensors, get paused, and so forth is the same across all platforms.
• Pickers for contacts and photos (like in .NET CF).
  Integrated with Cloud Services.
• To write an Xbox Live enabled game, you do NOT have to use XNA. You can use Silverlight instead.
• Apps run in a managed sandbox.
• All of your code is managed code running in the managed framework (CLR).
• Windows CE underneath. Abstracted away certain levels of it.
• The sandbox is somewhat secured against OS access.
• Apps apparently must say what resources they will use (like Android’s manifest permission feature) otherwise they cannot access it. They aren’t showing this capability as of yet.
• All apps will be XAP – not EXE.
• Common format for all Windows Phone apps and games.
• XAP is basically a renamed ZIP file.
• Declarative, manifest-based installation.
• Note that the tools download is a CTP, not a release.
• They weren’t able to get the Expression Blend 4 installer into the CTP, but it is available separately.
• The next CTP / release will have EB 4 included.
• You register your phone on a developer portal, and that “Developer Unlocks” your phone. Hmm.
• Supposedly the certification process is being fixed so you know what’s going on at all times during the certification process.
• Marketplace will no longer be a separate app. It will be integrated into the phone for acquiring content, including music, videos, podcasts, and applications.
• For example, you can buy games in the Xbox hub, Music in the music hub, and so forth.
• People are wondering what the “contoso” link is for in the app store.
• Try before you buy. There will be a flag in your app for “Is Trial” and that will tell your app it’s in trial mode.
• Payment flexibility: Mobile operator and credit card billing.
• The “Try before you buy” functionality is not in the current CTP.
• Resources:
• http://developer.windowsphone.com
• http://windowsteamblog.com/blog/wpdev
• http://blogs.msdn.com/ckindel

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