Progress and regression of Windows Phone 7 in the eyes of developers

Wu Xuyu, founder of DevDiv Mobile Development community, wrote a perception article when Windows Phone 7 was released. From Windows Phone 7 with contrasting Windows Mobile6.5 to Windows Phone 7 and contrasting mainstream operating systems, describe in detail the pros and cons of Windows Phone 7, progress and regress.

From the March CTP (Community Technical Preview, Community Technology Preview version), to April CTP Refresh, then the July beta version, the official version of Windows Phone 7 SDK finally met. Now I'll talk about Windows Phone 7 from a developer's perspective:

First, start by comparing Windows Mobile6.5.

One of the upgrades: changes in programming languages

Unlike Windows Mobile6.5, managed code is the only programming language for Windows Phone 7, and there are two ways to write managed code, one is to write Silverlight programs for general mobile phone applications, and another way to write XNA programs, More suitable for game development.

The Silverlight program here differs from the traditional Silverlight, although it originates from Silverlight 3, but removes some of the features that do not apply to mobile devices, while adding some Silverlight 4 feature or code for mobile devices. In addition, traditional Silverlight programs are executed in the browser, but Silverlight on Windows Phone 7 is run separately from the browser.

For XNA procedures, most domestic developers may be unfamiliar. XNA was a development tool used by Microsoft to develop Xbox games and Zune apps. But because the Xbox and Zune have not officially entered the country, domestic developers are concerned about the small content. The XNA development environment is a set of things that are based on Visual Studio, known as XNA Game Studio.

Upgrade Change II: Increased restrictions on Third-party applications

Another notable change in Windows Phone 7 is the increased restrictions on third-party application development, mainly including:

Because Windows Phone 7 's Third-party software cannot be performed in the background, it can only be a single task. Background monitoring of SMS, telephone and other traditional applications are basically unworkable;

Developers cannot use C + + as the programming language, and current C # is the only development language supported on the Windows Phone 7 series platform;

VB development is not supported at present, there is no mechanism to invoke the system API.

Compare mainstream operating systems

In addition to the App Store, the iphone is now a learning target: multi-touch, gestures, capacitive screens, gorgeous interfaces ... Wait a minute. Compared to Symbian, Android, and the iphone, we can't simply say it's better than that platform, worse than that platform, and compare Windows Phone 7 's Progress and regression:

Progress one: development is simpler

Development is more difficult than Android, iphone, or even simpler, Microsoft has excellent Visual Studio IDE, mobile platform Simulator, phone, SMS simulation tools are also excellent.

Visual Studio can be said to be the best integrated development tool, compared to the eclipse of Android, the advantages are obvious. Eclipse often appears to be unable to compile, needs to be repeatedly updated, unresponsive, and so on, while the Android simulator takes up a lot of resources, the Android development package and Eclipse work together to do complex configuration work, and Windows Phone directly install the SDK, Almost no configuration required.

In addition, the development of Windows Mobile/windows phone applications can only be on the Windows operating system, developing Android applications, Windows, Linux, and MAC OS operating systems.

The iphone development tool is simple and practical, but lacks the necessary tools such as analog phone, SMS and other tool support.

Relatively speaking, Symbian development is much more complicated, Symbian is currently only one by one non-arm instruction simulator, due to the differences with the mobile phone environment, resulting in many problems can not be reproduced in the simulator, especially for the bottom of the developers, Symbian Simulator is not very useful; Symbian has not been able to solve the problem of Linux development, telephone, SMS simulation tool configuration is complex, the number of successful configuration few.

Progress II: Radical Change menu Enhanced touch experience

The Android/iphone is designed for touch screens, and later has an innate advantage.

Windows Phone 7 in order to better support the touch screen, the menu has been thoroughly reformed, basically abandoned the traditional Windows menu form, the screen assigned to a specific area as a menu, the menu occupies a larger space, more suitable for hand touch; this has reached Android/. The iphone's level, combined with capacitive screens and multi-touch, is a huge improvement over Windows Mobile 6.5, and it's the biggest bright spot.

Symbian 3 's menu is still in the traditional Windows menu level, due to the small spacing between the menu items, it is easy to see the wrong menu, this is Symbian 3 is considered to be behind the other generation of platform one of the important reasons.

Backward: Do not support multitasking

At present, Symbian/android is supporting multitasking, Android for multitasking to do some special processing, system resources when the priority to close the background of the implementation of procedures to ensure that key tasks (such as telephone) can be stable implementation.

Windows Phone 7 no longer supports multitasking and does not support background tasks, as it did with the iphone 3GS and previous mechanisms, which is a step backwards in some ways.

IPhone 4 only supports a subset of multitasking; programs can be placed in the background, but in the background in a suspended state, the program is unable to perform any operation, but the program is removed from the saving state of the pain.

Developer: Most people are on the sidelines

Developers reacted differently to Windows Phone 7, praised the great progress made by Windows Phone, some grumbling about Microsoft's progress, the disapproval of Windows Phone 7 's iphone, and most of them on the sidelines.

It is not clear how much support Windows Phone 7 can get from vendors, the attitude of developers depends largely on the strategy of Third-party software companies, and the software company strategy depends on how well the terminal vendors are Phone7 to Windows, so it's time to test Microsoft's PR moment.

In short, Windows phone progress is obvious from a developer's point of view, with capacitive screens, multi-touch, gesture support, a more gorgeous interface, and lower programming thresholds. But Windows Phone has regressed a lot of places, single task, does not support the background program, does not support C + + programming interface, so that developers can do things become much less. However, on a single task issue, Microsoft's point of view, it seems that they think the stability of the phone, fast-sounding