Dateline: October 11, 2010 – Worldwide
Microsoft today joined partners in revealing 9 new Windows Phone 7 handsets that will be available very soon from leading mobile providers in the US, Europe, Asia and Australia.
I for one, am ready to burst. I will be at the Boston Windows Phone 7 Firestarter both days, and am eager to show and tell about these phones: what a blast!
Q&A
Q: Okay, I’m ready now to get started learning, what do I do?
A: First get all the tools: they’re free. You can find out where and how and what hardware you need here.
Second, there is a great deal of material on learning Windows Phone 7. You may want to start with one of my tutorial series:
Q: What is the difference between the previous generation of Windows Phone and Windows Phone 7?
A: Windows Phone 7 is a clean break from the past – from the UI to the development platform: Silverlight and Xna.
Q: When will the device be available for consumers?
A: Windows Phone 7 will be available for purchase on this holiday season
Q: What are you doing to help developers create apps for Windows Phone 7?
A: We will be providing comprehensive educational materials, community support, arguably the very best developer tools, an open, transparent, reliable marketplace program and an underlying application platform which fosters the accelerated development of tightly integrated applications and games.
Q: Why do I need to write my applications in managed code? Won’t I be at a disadvantage to 1st party native code apps, performance-wise?
A: Windows Phone 7 delivers an all managed code platform in order to provide developers with an easier and faster way to build high quality applications that are highly performant. The performance is excellent in part because Silverlight and XNA Framework support exceptional access to hardware accelerated graphics and video streaming.
Q: Will Windows Phone Marketplace for Windows Phone 7 offer line of business apps?
Yes. If you write a line of business application and it passes the certification process, it can be included in the Windows Phone Marketplace.
Q: Where will the initial MarketPlace offering be available?
The Windows Phone Marketplace will initially support the buying and selling of applications in 17 countries; Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Ireland, Italy, Mexico, New Zealand, Singapore, Spain, Switzerland, UK and United States.
Q: Have you fixed copy and paste?
A: Windows Phone 7 will not initially offer copy and paste. However, we try to solve the most common uses for copy and paste via single-tap action. For example, people often want to take an address and view it on a map, highlight a term in the browser and do a search or copy a phone number to make a call. We recognize those situations automatically and make them happen with just one touch.
Q: Does Windows Phone 7 have an integrated IM or messenger service?
A: WP7 will include Messenger by Miyowa and will include all the functionality you would expect in Windows Live; multi-person chat, pivot, presence, emoticons and update status, etc.
Q: Will there be local search?
A: Windows Phone 7 will initially support local search in the US and UK.
Q: Will you push updates to end users?
A: Yes.
Q: What Enterprise support is provided?
A: Exchange email, calendar and contacts experience, full access to documents on SharePoint sites and rich viewing and editing of Microsoft Office documents such as optimized mobile navigation in Word and editing in PowerPoint.
this is really very good to read 🙂
Continental USA accounts for only a third of the market, and the rest of us don’t share your school or cultural calendar. Some of us don’t even share your seasons on account of living in the southern hemisphere – “summer 2010” could be January 2010 or December 2010. And we don’t share your financial year either.
Month names, on the other hand, are unambiguous.
My apologies for any insensitivity. To clarify, by winter, I mean the period from September to May and by 10/11 I mean October 11 not November 10. I’ll try to be less ambiguous going forward.
Sorry–one more:
Q: Is Marketplace the only way to get an app onto a Windows Phone 7 device? What if you are a developer creating an internal app for your company?
Thank you.
Q: How will Windows Phone 7 sync music to a pc? What about macs? Will we be able to plug the phone in and copy/paste music using Explorer, or do we have to use some kind of syncing software? Will music from other sources (Amazon MP3, etc) be allowed on Windows Phone 7 device?
Windows Phone 7 will be available for purchase on this holiday season.
Is that Thanksgiving?
When will Windows Phone 7 handsets be available from leading mobile providers in Canada?
Thanks Jesse
Q: What is the accessibility story for Windows Phone 7 regarding the blind or visually impaired? When will Phone 7 be compliant with the 21st Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act?