Dev | Windows 7

Windows Phone ‘Mango’ Hits RTM, Code Complete [Updated]

Jul 222011

Update: It seems that the Windows Phone Dev podcast jumped the gun a bit by declaring Windows Phone Mango to be RTM. Sr. Director of Communications for Microsoft, Bill Cox, has responded to the rumors and leaks via his Twitter account today to note that Mango is not yet in RTM. We need not worry because Windows Phone is still believed to be ahead of schedule and recent leaks, including the recent “Sea Ray” video, show a recent build of Mango which is said to be nearly ready for prime time. Stay tuned…

With software there is a cycle that code goes through in order to go from early builds to final. The Mango builds that reviewers and developers have enjoyed is an early beta build (7661) with some missing features. It’s been revealed by the Windows Phone Developer Podcast that Windows Phone Mango has now made it to RTM (Release to Manufacturing) state and has been sent to carriers for testing purposes, which also signifies that the coding stage is complete (build 7710).

This is a huge milestone in the whole software cycle and probably signifies that Microsoft is serious, this time, about getting the carriers on board with testing and approving the update so it is released to end-users in a timely fashion. In my time with the early Mango build, I’ve found that it is so well done that it acts like near-final code already, so this isn’t suprising, but solidifies the belief by many that Mango should be available in September.

via WMPoweruser

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“Nine Lettuce” wins Australian WP7 App Champion

blog, Windows 7 No Responses »

Apr 062011

Today, Microsoft Australia has crowned its first Australian Windows Phone 7 “App Champion” to the developers of the “Nine Lettuce” word game for the “Dev vs Dev” competition that has been accepting submissions over the past four months.

A panel of five mobile experts from Microsoft, Telstra and the industry chose the wittily-named winner from a range of Australian-based applications judged on creativity, marketability, potential popularity and originality. They’ve certainly worked hard since the winning app along with the five runner-ups are all of very high caliber.

Runners up include Art Spot, a puzzle game; AU Newswire, an Australian news reader; Cell, an arcade game; MIX11, a conference guide; and Pocket Files, a DropBox client. Microsoft also makes honorable mentions to Hungry Bub; Pocket Money; Metro Match; AU FMRadio; Hallucinogen; and MyBikeMap.

The winner is offered the opportunity to attend the Microsoft MIX11 conference next week in Las Vegas (which I’ll also be attending). The runner-ups all receive a complementary HTC 7 Mozart device.

Credits to the Australian developer community for coming up with some great-looking and practical apps.

The Dev Unplugged Contest

Windows 7 No Responses »

Mar 012011

With IE9 approaching release time, Microsoft is taking a slightly different approach to the apps it wants developed for it. It is looking at HTML5 as the principal content creator for its apps. Microsoft is looking for native HTML5 built apps, those that aren’t based on plug-ins like Flash or Silverlight.

Dev Unplugged

To that end Microsoft is launching a contest called Dev Unplugged which will look for apps that meet its criteria. Here’s what’s interesting. The contest isn’t limited to just those apps that work best with IE9. Rather, the content must also render Apps correctly that run on the latest Chrome beta and Firefox beta. Submissions must stick to HTML/CSS/JS on the client-side, but there won’t be any restrictions on the server-side.

Games and Music

Microsoft is interested in two categories of development, games and music. Beyond that, there are specializations like what are the most innovative uses of geo-location, and pinned sites, which is an IE 9 feature, Canvas and SVG, and design/UX, which is based on user experience. Developers will build all of these apps under the rubric of HTML5.

Faster Browsers – Better Apps

Microsoft is committed to building apps given the fact that browsers are at a new stage. They are faster and more powerful, so Microsoft wants to take advantage, and get developers to fall in line with HTML5.

The Dev Unplugged Contest

The contest starts on March 1. The public will be able to start voting on the gallery apps on April 5. Microsoft plans to allow the user community to vote for the top 40 finalists. From there the judges will select the winners based on “creativity, quality of implementation and fit with the contest theme.” The final App submission deadline is May 9, and the winners to be announced on May 23. The grand prize? $9,000, plus a trip to the Future of Web Apps Conference in Las Vegas on June 27.

Source: Dev Unplugged

The New MS Answer Site Doesn’t have all of the Answers

Windows 7 No Responses »

Feb 282011

Last week, Microsoft announced an improvement to the Answer Site, located at Microsoft Answer. But apparently there were issues. In fact, here is an explanation of the problem set.

Answers 400x217 The New MS Answer Site Doesnt have all of the Answers

“Microsoft Answers Performance Issues

As of 5:00 AM PST, the Microsoft Answers site issues have been primarily resolved, although you may continue to experience some intermittent periods of slow responsiveness.

Please continue to provide feedback, we appreciate your patience and your feedback as we strive to resolve any remaining issues as quickly as possible.

Welcome to the new and improved Microsoft Answers

We’ve redesigned the site to make it easier to use – easier to find answers, ask questions, and connect with other users in the Answers community.”

So What Happened?

On February 26 Microsoft launched a redesigned version of the Answer site. But in a post on the Answers site, a Microsoft official noted the following:

“Since we launched at 7 am this morning, we have seen extremely poor load time on the site. The entire dev team is still in the office working on this issue. We are narrowing the issue down, but still do not have it resolved.”

It seems the issues were still unresolved on February 28. A spokesperson sent me the following statement:

“The Microsoft Answers site has been experiencing performance issues, specifically concerning intermittent site unresponsiveness. We are actively working to resolve this issue as quickly as possible and we’ll continue to provide updates at Microsoft Answers.”

Microsoft Answers was originally launched in beta form in 2008 mainly as a community site for those with questions about Microsoft technologies. Sounds good right? But the latest update, rolled out this past week, introduced a new “reputation model” that helps users find content written by experts and elevates high-priority questions. Perhaps that was part of the problem. It is hard to say since Microsoft is not answering the question about what caused the problem in the first place. Hopefully it is resolved, and users can actually use it as Microsoft intended.