yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[Windows Phone 7 Development and Hacking] RustyGrom:
There's lots of issues here and we just don't know how MS is going to handle this. I'm sure they've learned from Apple's mistakes (as they've pointed them out in the past).

The Zune software allows you to copy music to "guest" Zunes without issue really.

Microsoft confirmed that there will be storage cards. How could they not allow you to access the file system on a storage card? If nothing else, you could pop it out and stick it in a card reader and use the files. This is one area I'm not really concerned about.

So basically my thought is that apps won't have access to the device's file system but will have access to storage cards.

Damnit, why can't MIX just be here already.
[Windows Phone 7 Development and Hacking] vangrieg:
What matters is the opposite - accessing devices from PCs that don't have Zune software (that is, 99.99999999% of all existing PCs).

Cool, but can the thing pick up and play music/videos I copy to this card?

Indeed.
[Windows Phone 7 Development and Hacking] RustyGrom:
I'm guessing that you'll be able to read/write data to your flash card just like you normally would. The Zune software will just help you manage media. Yes, they'll support playing music/videos off the flash card. That will be the primary (only?) storage location.

Also, everything will be "cloud" integrated. For example, office docs will be accessible directly from a Sharepoint server or your exchange server. There *should* be support for live drive, etc but who knows if they'll actually implement that.
[Windows Phone 7 Development and Hacking] jhanford:
The same could have been said for iTunes when the iPod came out. It's now ubiquitous in the Apple device realm. Microsoft likely sees this as the same for Zune. If anything, Zune is superior to iTunes in a number of ways and makes for a consistent user experience when paired with the Win Phone.

It's not at all shabby in the music player department either.
[Windows Phone 7 Development and Hacking] vangrieg:
Well, iPod doesn't have Office, so you aren't expected to copy, say, Excel files there.
[Windows Phone 7 Development and Hacking] j2inet:
It works both ways. XAML based development can allow one to be more productive. Yes, that means some one can make a fart application with less effort but it also means there's a number of other tasks that can be done with less effort.

Can't the same be said of ActiveSync/Windows Mobile Device Center
[Windows Phone 7 Development and Hacking] joozzt:
Some food for thought.

MSDN is full of warnings of deprecated stuff, or advice on not using some stuff as it might not be supported in future versions. Thank you for the warning ! You sound like a responsible company to work with.

So, where is the warning that we should not code native anymore ?

They will likely find the excuse that 6.5 etc is still there and supported and WP7 is a completely different OS. But is it ?

It's still called Windows.... Oops.

If they use a new whole kernel etc, will be be stuck with old buggy stuff in 6.5 ?

Will 6.5 be second hand destined for nowhere ? It all depends on phone manufacturers.
[Windows Phone 7 Development and Hacking] thx1200:
Common storage

I didn't see it mentioned, but I believe I read somewhere (hope it wasn't a rumor-mill, but I swear it was one of the leaked docs, but anyway...) that applications will have sandboxed storage but also access to a 'common storage' where all apps can save common files. This solves the syncing problem because whatever you put there, all apps will have access to.

For example, you may want more than one ebook reader. It makes no sense to have to somehow sync the same ebooks more than once. A common file system storage area fixes that.

That isn't to say you will ever have access to the system files, just a common "My Documents."

This is consistent with the desktop silverlight development model. There, apps can access any file system file, but it must be done through the common file open API, so there is no way for the app to get files without user permission via a prompt, but it can get to them.

--

As for CorePlayer and apps that 'compete' with Microsoft apps, I sure hope that falls into the native API "special permission" bucket.

I absolutely love managed code -- I do. I write 95% of my apps in Managed VB.Net. But it is a legitimate complaint to not be able to code closer to the lower level for certain types of systems.

Let's take Zune competition out of the picture for a second (ie, not a competing 'mp3 player'). There are some things that Zune doesn't do at all. One of those is live internet radio streaming. It just doesn't do it! No Shoutcast/icecast support. Not even WMA streaming support.

In that case, there is a very legitimate need to get lower-level access to the system if you are writing your own shoutcast decoder. Even if the lower level access is just the ability to fill up the Zune decoder in the form of some type of buffer API.

So, there are very, very legimate complaints, but on the other hand, there's some overreacting here.

Microsoft wants to win this mobile platform battle and they are behind. Apple can be closed platform bastards because they always have and due to massive customer loyalty, they have no worries. Microsoft isn't that lucky.

In addition, Microsoft really tries to do right by their developers. Visual Studio is lightyears ahead of their competition to the point where they really don't have competition! Eclipse??? It's a joke next to Visual Studio!

Finally I point to Marketplace. They have some strict rules, but there you can always ask for an exception. And they apparently grant them pretty regularly as long as the request is legitimate.

So even though I'm pretty sure we won't be writing any apps that hook deep into the OS on WP7S, I do see a steadily growing list of native APIs that will become available, maybe even native DLLs, if not native EXEs. It's all about the developers getting together and letting MS know what they need, balancing the needs with the WP7S decision to make a more secure/locked down platform.
[Windows Phone 7 Development and Hacking] vangrieg:
Yes but you don't really have to use it to copy files to the device, and the ones you copy will be picked up and used by relevant apps anyway.
[Windows Phone 7 Development and Hacking] RustyGrom:
Acting as a storage card is pretty new, not that long ago Activesync/WMDC was the only real option (except taking the card out of your phone and copying it directly).
[Windows Phone 7 Development and Hacking] j2inet:
Almost sounds like you are describing the Microsoft Live Framework API. It's a web oriented technology but it allows data to be shared among any applications that recognize the data. That technology is some how related to Microsoft Mesh (which can be used to keep storage synchronized across devices and Silverlight applications). Not sure if that is applicable here though.

Point taken, but to avoid confusion I want to make known that the Zunes are capable of streaming. I had my ZuneHD at a social event a few months ago and had it streaming music to a stereo system. I just pulled it ou a few moments ago and had it streaming the top downloaded songs fom the Zune Marketplace.
[Windows Phone 7 Development and Hacking] owenw:
Oh hai, do you read the internets? That was a fake screenshot, and very obviously so. I hope for everyones sake that EVERY SINGLE 6.x application is not compatible, cause boy, are they crappy!
[Windows Phone 7 Development and Hacking] Ryanmo5:
That is enough, this is your first and last warning. There is no need to speak to other members that way. You are a senior member and you should know better that that.

Everyone else cool it, enough with the bickering there is no place for it on xda stay on topic.
[Windows Phone 7 Development and Hacking] geek111:
More thoughts plus a Shout out for Joel!

I agree. Based on Microsoft's past certification models, we're probably looking at a separate certificate being required for native code. This will involve additional testing before being accepted at the Marketplace. Whether the M2M program will continue as such is up for grabs. But M will likely have a saparate channel for companies which develop for in house use can distribute their apps internally (likely by providing the ability to install private certs on device...)

The real hit for native code will be time to market due to lengthened certification process.

I for one do hope that they do provide a 'service' API managed or not. (Hint Hint- This is your #1 developer feature request 4 sure If anyone from Microsoft is reading...)

It would also be nice to see Outlook integration and SMS intercept and XML provisioning APIs carried forward but perhaps I'm being greedy...)

To be balanced, there are some things I'm really excited about too in WP7 like-

CE 6.0 kernel

A user interface not from the 20th century

Multi-touch support

built in sensor APIs instead of a mishmash of OEM crap...

Also I'm actually for sandboxing. It forces us developers to code for the least privileges required to do the job. That makes for better code and more secure systems.

A service API would solve the multitasking question while allowing apps like LBS or network apps like RSS to do things in the background. Other than that, the only other thing oon my wishlist isn't OS specific-

Microsoft should quit charging for applications to be submitted to the Marketplace if they want to succeed!

We've already payed hundreds of dollars for Visual Studio, $99 a year to be in the club, 30% of the gross application sales and a lot of us have payed more than that...

Apple is charging $99 per year. But App submissions are free. I'll gladly concede that this is due to the fact that the software runs on a limited proprietary Apple hardware set and thus can be tested and certified faster. What I'm saying is that hopefully Microsoft's stricter hardware and software requirements from OEMs for WP7 will allow them to streamline the certification process for us and give developers a more consistent platform for which to develop 'killer apps'.

All in all, while no backward compatibility means we start over, it also means we start over! A completely new market with a ton of hype and press and deep pockets behind, with 0 applications in the market.

I'll be there. Bet on it.

Cheers,

Charles

BTW- @j2inet - I'm not against XAML (or jiggling boobs for that matter). I'm just hoping that we get decent API support for networking, sensors, LBS, messaging and telephony so that we may write apps that aren't 'trivial'.

Must say here to you also Joel-

THANKS for writing the skyhook C# managed wrapper and putting it up on the Skyhook Developer's Google group! xpsproxy.dll totally sped up integration of Skyhook into my app...

Sincerely, thanks for putting your code out there.
[Windows Phone 7 Development and Hacking] thx1200:
That's a different definition of 'streaming' than I was using. The Zune can stream to other Zunes. It can stream to devices that support it. It can stream from Zune Marketplace. Yes.

But it can't play arbitrary internet radio streams, which is what I was talking about.

It's just a matter of time, though, before it does. It might even begin on WP7S.

I was just trying to illustrate a point that there are things that perform significantly better as native code, video/audio decoders being one of them. :-)
[Windows Phone 7 Development and Hacking] joozzt:
Exactly. On WM6 there are already numerous app's that stream audio/video either or both ways in low or high-end quality. I listen a lot to the very popular shoutcast streams at somafm.com on my phone.

With not adding native support MS will be destined for playing catch-up. With the fast paced action these days, it's not good enough anymore.

And i DO believe MS CAN make a stable OS for phone with full native possibilities.

It might need some more time than the market has given them though.

Btw, if they are clever they also build in full USB-on-the-go with all necessary drivers (USB audio !) because that could generate an extremely healthy -electrical- accessory market.
[Windows Phone 7 Development and Hacking] mocad_tom:
I'm programming native apps since Pocket PC 2002.

I'm since then maintaining an app and updating it to the new requirements.

This news are quite shocking for me because at the moment I earn money from the software-support-contracts with our customers while investing not that much work into it.

In the meantime I was developing other apps in .net and I'm quite happy with this apps. And I'm thinking about how to port the native app to .net. But it is quite data-intensive and I would love to use sqlite. But with this Pinvoke-policy SQLite, 32Feet.net or a lot of opennetcf, or if you want to grab carrier-phone-cell-identifier you always have to go out to Pinvoke. All this things are simply killed.

A lot of voluntary open-source work will be killed with this.

Regards,

Tom
[Windows Phone 7 Development and Hacking] weesals:
I'm not sure if this has already been said, but I believe the reason they are forcing .Net applications as opposed to Native C++ apps, is because .Net apps can be serialized much easier than C++.

The way the UI works, it looks like WP7S suspends apps when they lose focus, and when RAM becomes critical, those apps are serialized to some persistent storage (probably where the random pauses came from in the WP7S demos). When the app is re-launched, that app is resumed or deserialized and continues from where it left off. For most applications, that would be all the multitasking they need.

While multitasking / native code are awesome to have, they will always lead to performance or stability issues. Thus Microsoft lets only trusted developers release apps using those.

I am sure people here at XDA will crack the OS and allow native execution, which in turn will enable multithreading, although its pretty useless when your app doesnt run on most of the phones. :(
[Windows Phone 7 Development and Hacking] joozzt:
Hmm, kindly speaking that's a bold and general statement.

It all depends on who is doing the programming.

I use software written by others in .NET for Windows PC. But this software only works correctly if i set the region on my entire computer to US....

It all depends on who is doing the programming.

Oh well, nobody is perfect. In case of .NET you have to have 3 perfect things, or even 4:

BIOS,native OS, .NET, application. Actually 5, the compiler has to be perfect also. Oh wait 6, the hardware. Maybe 7 , the user ?
[Windows Phone 7 Development and Hacking] j2inet:
I was thinking about that and how the changes impact the definition of a Windows Mobile developer. I've been wondering if we'll start to see Silverlight developers and XNA developers start to target WP7S after these changes take place.

I had actually hoped that Windows Phone 7 would get the new APIs that the Windows 7 desktop has (such as the "Sensor and Location" API) in addition to what Windows Phones already had. Looks that my hopes have been dashed.

Glad it is working out for you. Beyond making the code for an example I have never actually used the wrapper myself. I made it because I got tired of people saying "Managed programs on Windows Mobile can to it." The same can also be said of those instruction I put out there for managed Windows Mobile development without Visual Studio (I would absolutly hate to develop without VS myself).
[Windows Phone 7 Development and Hacking] landslide:
All show, no go...

This all sounds very disheartening. Most devs and hackers on here sound pretty cut by Microsoft's play on WP7.

Does anyone else think that MS ran 2 or 3 parallel development efforts (Pink / WinMo / Zune). The Zune team won and got the Windows Phone 7 brand, Pink went poof with Danger, and WinMo 6.5.3 was the loser? Why would such a major UI change in 6.5.3 get a dot... dot version designation.

Why couldn't Microsoft just finish fixing WindowsCE (process limit, memory per process limit) and roll it into WM along with streamlining the antiquated native APIs?

So much of the WindowsCE platform was broken 10 years ago through limitations/reductions introduced back when Casseopia's were in-vogue. Devices with calculator CPU specs, minuscule RAM and jack-all flash... Microsoft never went back and had the kahonas to clean it all up. Think, getting more closely aligned to the desktop API's, stability where it counts, better/safer driver model, etc etc. Absolute major fail IMHO.

WinMo images of 64Mb or so pale in comparison to something like the iPhone which has an 300Mb compressed footprint (800Mb on flash by memory). This is part of the problem, everything is so space sensitive under CE and .NET on devices is not immune. The .NET compact framework (which I sure as hell hope they fix) is a product of this same thinking. Look at how restricted and seriously screwed up things like WCF are in 3.5.

So I wonder, why didn't Microsoft fix Windows CE sooner? Why didn't they move Windows Mobile to CE6 - it has been nearly 3.5 years since release! They wouldn't be anywhere near as desperate as they are now if they had.

All that eye candy and trend/hip social networking integration is nothing without a solid foundation. I almost fell off my chair when Apple announced the iPhone would run MacOSX, my initial thought was snake-oil BS... ha was I wrong.

Apple has played an amazing hand, and completely pwn the consumer smartphone market. It will take a miracle to claw back. In all honesty, it sounds like Microsoft's current approach will simply isolate their existing loyal developers, oems and customers.

From a developers perspective, I suspect that the future for mobile device runtime's is somewhere in between native and managed code. I seriously doubt Microsoft can get out of this by forcing manufacturers to make power hungry Ghz devices, and locking the device and programming environment down. That is, just so that sluggy .NET is snappy. I wonder if this is one of the reasons why Apple started making their own silicon, fatter margins/lower cost and tuned performance...

Android is where it will be my friends, an emerging middle ground based fundamentally on an open premise. Just take a look at some of the cool tech the big G is working on in nacl (native code sandbox), protocol buffers (efficient serialisation), dalvik (register based vm) and new languages like Go (nice balance between managed and native code).
[Windows Phone 7 Development and Hacking] mocad_tom:
I watched the video at channel9.

I have to say that I'm quite disappointed.

Symbian is going into the right direction, they released P.I.P.S. (PIPS is POSIX on Symbian) then they ported SQLite, then there was Qt.

Good work!!

Please every blogger or journalist or decision maker who is reading this ->

Don't underestimate a healthy 3rd-Party-Ecosystem and Open-Source-Ecosystem.

Microsoft is doing exactly the opposite. Killing all open-source-projects who where easy to port to the platform.

SQLite was possible because WinMo supports big parts of POSIX, a lot of compression and encryption things where possible because of this.

I want to have the possibility to be close to the metal. During the last three years I was doing more and more things inside of .net, but you have to go outside this VM with PInvoke to get the "non-standard-things" done.
[Windows Phone 7 Development and Hacking] thx1200:
I don't know. The same could be said for Android and iPhone when it came out. The monetary aspect of being an early developer (and believe me, I'm already planning that out) and getting the essential apps in the appstore on a new platform should solve the 'missing functionality' problem for most users rather quickly.

The hobbiests like us that tweak the hell out of our devices see this as a negative (of course!), but the end user probably doesn't care as long as the app store has some choices for them when the first device comes to market.

That doesn't make any sense. To 'suspend' an app, the kernel just needs to stop executing code. If it needs to swap out memory to make room for new apps, that was solved last century with pagefiles. lol.

That said, I ask again: where does anything shown so far show an Apple iPhone model of 'one-app-at-a-time?' I have seen nothing to imply WP7S will not be preemptive multitasking for apps! Perhaps there's some 'suspension' model for the new start menu widget system, but for apps?

The more likely reason (to me!) for requiring managed code is because security was built into .Net from the start. Sandboxing .Net is a no-brainer (as is seen in Silverlight on the desktop). Transferring that to the mobile realm requires a lot less effort, especially since MS is under a time crunch.

I'm skeptical. But hey, I was skeptical on locking out unmanaged code or throwing out backward compatibility, so what do I know? lol.
[Windows Phone 7 Development and Hacking] freyberry:
It's still not clear whether WP7 does. Everystatement from MS plus the rumors currently hint to a "no".

(btw., iPhone OS can multitask, and do so perfectly, just like Windows Mobile, but Apple forbids third party developers to use this capability - the same might apply to WP7)

Exactly.

But right now, it really looks like they're trying to copy Apple, rather than listening to their developers. I hope they come up with some magic at MIX (or maybe, at least a good multitasking concept and a policy that allows native development, when needed).
[Windows Phone 7 Development and Hacking] joozzt:
Ahum, i hope you mean to say that many many developers here and everywhere that need native development are at just the same or higher professional level as employees at MS and that their profession is sometimes also a hobby ?

Hear hear!

Shouldn't "needed" (any approval of MS) be limited to marketplace and what a user installs on the side be up to the user ?
[Windows Phone 7 Development and Hacking] freyberry:
There will very likely be no side-loading (except through Visual Studio). Another failure.

Android has an NDK. I hope WP7 will get one as well, but I don't hold my breath.
[Windows Phone 7 Development and Hacking] joozzt:
I've seen their NDK, it's next to nothing sadly.
[Windows Phone 7 Development and Hacking] j2inet:
For a glimpse of the limitations of WCF on the CF see this: http://j2i.net/BlogEngine/post/2009/12/07/WCF-Guidance-for-Windows-Mobile-on-Codeplex.aspx

The desktop framework redistributables are around 30 megs, not 100

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...49-3c6b-42f1-9fd9-0041345b3385&displaylang=en
[Windows Phone 7 Development and Hacking] ramdroid77:
yes, as I understand it the the NDK is only a "helper" to enable porting your existing native code to Android easily. This is not a direct layer above the OS kernel like we've got it with WM. it doesn't even contain the full functionality of the Dalvik VM.... These restrictions are making it completely uninteresting for me personally.
[Windows Phone 7 Development and Hacking] landslide:
Great reference, thanks! :)