Windows Phone 7

Mobility: More patents than in pharmaceuticals?

Posted on by Andreas Tsouchlaris

Microsoft, Apple, Sony, Ericsson, RIM and EMC grabbed 6,000 (yes six thousand) patents on wireless technology from Nortel for $4.5 billion! Google was planning to spend just $900 million to get them. The enemy of my enemy… you got it. A blog post has a lot of details on this acquisition:

Some consortium members get patents, some get royalties, and some just get freedom from having to pay royalties.

At the end of the day this deal isn’t about royalties. It is about trying to kill Android.

At the same time Microsoft is getting $5 for each Android device from HTC, Wistron, General Dynamics and is heading for Samsung, Motorola and others. The patent strategy proves to be worthy, too.

A very good reading on smartphone strategy written by one of the best analysts in the industry: One cuckoo, two turkeys and three horses; how the mobile race has changed | VisionMobile :: blog. This article is five months old but I remembered it while reading about the fight over Nortel’s patents.

There will be an increase in the use of patents to fight the cuckoo club and the almighty Apple.

And he continues:

Microsoft + Nokia: running with four legs

In the past few months Nokia realised that in order to halt its slide towards irrelevance, it had to take its head out of the sand and instead take a leap of faith. The brave gamble that Nokia has now chosen is perhaps not the ideal one, but it was the only strategy available for long-term survival and is a bold rejection of the short-termism demanded by short-sighted investors in accepting the call of the cuckoo. In tying Nokia and Microsoft together they have created a rather old-fashioned type of partnership but it will be a partnership of bones not a collection of feathers.

We’ll see…

Elephants love mangoes

Posted on by Andreas Tsouchlaris

I only had two missing apps to be completely satisfied with my Windows Phone 7, Skype and EverNote (there are still a lot of missing features that Mango, the upcoming update, will mostly provide). Skype has already been announced and will be available (probably with the Mango update) in Autumn and now EverNote released their first version for WP7. A simple but very useful EverNote client that can handle my basic needs. Not bad at all.

Detailed functionality here: Evernote for Windows Phone 7 Is Here! « Evernote Blogcast.

Read a detailed technical post about Evernote (and development) on WP7: Elephants love mangoes – a look behind our Windows Phone 7 client | Evernote Tech Blog. Damian Mehers, the developer of the WP7 version of EverNote writes:

Superb Tooling

As WP7 developers, we are spoiled.  Not only do we have a powerful, mature and rich IDE in Visual Studio, with great plugins such as Resharper, but we also get a fast emulator, and also a complete, standalone design tool in Expression Blend.

The emulator actually runs as a proper Virtual Machine, using the hardware virtualization features of your computer.  The upside to this is that you get snappy performance, but the downside is that you cannot develop inside a virtual machine, since the emulator will not run inside a virtual machine.

Blend lets you design, animate and tweak your app’s UI.  Although it was primarily created as a “high-end” tool for designers, there was such an outcry from developers, that Microsoft have made it available for free for WP7 developers.  It is a joy to work with, letting you focus on the look and feel of your UI, building storyboards and animations, without worrying about code.

Great Community

The existence of a strong community around WP7 development is far from unique to WP7, however perhaps because Windows Phone is something of an underdog right now, the community feels particularly tight.

Beyond the usual suspects such as Stack Overflow, and Microsoft’s own forum, there are sites such as Windows Phone Geek that provide a constant stream of high quality tips and tricks and articles.

Μάνγκο αντί για μήλο

Posted on by Andreas Tsouchlaris

wp71Σήμερα ανακοινώθηκαν (μετά από αμέτρητες διαρροές) οι νέες λειτουργίες και οι αλλαγές στο Windows Phone 7. Το περίφημο “Mango” που επίσημα πλέον ονομάζεται Windows Phone 7.1 (και όχι WP 7.5 όπως περίμεναν οι περισσότεροι) θα έχει περισσότερα από 500 νέα χαρακτηριστικά στις επικοινωνίες, τις εφαρμογές και το Internet καθώς και αυτό που περιμέναμε όλοι στην Ελλάδα: πλήρη υποστήριξη της Ελληνικής γλώσσας και Ελληνικό Marketplace. Θα είναι φυσικά διαθέσιμο δωρεάν σε όλους τους κατόχους των πρώτων συσκευών με WP7 (ελπίζω να μην έχουμε κανένα παρατράγουδο από τους κατασκευαστές ή τους mobile operators και ειδικά αν έχουν αποσυρθεί από την χρήση Windows Phone σε νέες συσκευές – θα δείξει).

Οι πρώτες συσκευές με Windows Phone 7.1 θα είναι διαθέσιμες το φθινόπωρο (δεν λέμε Χριστούγεννα να είμαστε σίγουροι;) με νέους κατασκευαστές τους Acer, Fujitsu, ZTE και προφανώς τη μεγάλη έκπληξη της χρονιάς (και ίσως των τελευταίων δεκαετιών), τη Nokia. Προς το παρόν θα υπάρξει διαθέσιμο σε λίγες ώρες το SDK για τους developers από το Windows Phone Developer Blog ελεύθερο και δωρεάν για όλους όπως και πριν.

Υπάρχουν ήδη διαθέσιμες 17,000 εφαρμογές στο Windows Phone Marketplace με ένα αρκετά καλό ρυθμό αύξησης τους τελευταίους μήνες και σχεδόν όλες τις σημαντικές εφαρμογές διαθέσιμες. Προσωπικά μου λείπουν Evernote και Skype και είμαι κομπλέ. Και για τις δύο έχει γίνει ανακοίνωση για διαθεσιμότητα στο άμεσο μέλλον και ειδικά για το Skype είμαι φυσικά ιδιαίτερα αισιόδοξος. Τις επόμενες εβδομάδες θα έχουμε περισσότερα στοιχεία και λεπτομέρειες για όλα τα νέα χαρακτηριστικά και τις συσκευές που περιμένουμε.

Ενδεικτικές αλλαγές/προσθήκες:

Threads: επιλογή μέσα στην ίδια συζήτηση του τρόπου επικοινωνίας – SMS, Facebook chat και Windows Live Messenger).

Groups: οργανώστε τις επαφές σας σε ομάδες και εμφανίστε πληροφορίες σε Live Tiles, αποστολή SMS, email ή IM σε όλο το γκρουπ.

Twitter και LinkedIn feeds ενσωματωμένα όπως το Facebook – Νέο face detection software για το tagging φωτογραφιών.

Linked inbox: ενώστε πολλά email accounts σε ένα linked inbox – Νέο view με Conversations όπως και στο desktop Outlook. Hands-free messaging: Built-in voice-to-text και text-to-voice (φαντάζομαι δεν θα υποστηρίζει τα ελληνικά).

App Connect για καλύτερη συνεργασία των διαφόρων εφαρμογών (στην πράξη θα δούμε τι σημαίνει αυτό).

Τα Live Tiles θα είναι πιο δυναμικά με περισσότερη πληροφορία.

Multitasking: γρήγορη αλλαγή ανάμεσα σε ενεργές εφαρμογές και εκτέλεση στο background (δείτε στο video της παρουσίασης πως θα μετακινούμαστε ανάμεσα στις εφαρμογές με παρατεταμένο πάτημα του πλήκτρου back).

Internet Explorer 9 (!) βασισμένος στον κανονικό IE9 με υποστήριξη του HTML5 και πλήρες hardware acceleration.

Νέο Bing με Bing Vision, Music Search και το Local Scout, ένα μαγικό κουμπάκι στο Bing Search που παρέχει τοπικές πληροφορίες με τη μορφή οδηγού (για την Ελλάδα δεν ξέρω τι πληροφορίες έχει για εστιατόρια, αξιοθέατα κλπ.).

Quick Cards: με την αναζήτηση ενός προϊόντος, ταινίας ή γεγονότος δείτε παράλληλα αρκετές χρήσιμες πληροφορίες.

From Transportation to Pixels

Posted on by Andreas Tsouchlaris

“Finally, we believe in honesty in design. A user interface is created of pixels, so in Metro we try to avoid using the skeumorphic shading and glossiness used in some UI’s that try to mimic real world materials and objects.”

In the Windows Phone Design Team blog, the history and the future of the Metro design language, the way WP7 UI was designed, is briefly explained. Some people find it “simplistic” but as an instructional designer I know how difficult it is to produce something simple and useful. As a very good friend, and one of the best designers I’ve ever met, always says: form follows function.

The Windows Phone 7 Series UI Design and Interaction Guide is available for download as a PDF from here.

You can also watch the video and read the slides of session CL14 at MIX10: Windows Phone UI and Design Language

 

Ανάπτυξη παιχνιδιών για συσκευές με Windows Phone 7

Posted on by Andreas Tsouchlaris

Διαβάστε τι λέει ένας έλληνας developer, o Μάριος Καραγιάννης, για τις εμπειρίες του από την ανάπτυξη 2 παιχνιδιών για WP7. Δοκιμάστε και εσείς, δεν είναι κάτι εξωτικό… 

“Για πρώτη έκδοση πάντως, πιστεύω ότι η Microsoft, αν και αργά, (ξανά)μπαίνει πολύ δυναμικά σε μία αγορά που πολλοί λένε ότι έχει χάσει ήδη. Αν σκεφτούμε ότι το iOS 1 (τότε iPhone OS) δεν είχε καν τη δυνατότητα εγκατάστασης εφαρμογών (το App Store εμφανίστηκε στη δεύτερη γενιά iPhone), ενώ η πρώτη έκδοση του Android (για όποιον την είχε δει ποτέ) δεν είχε τα πιο βασικά πράγματα, πιστεύω ότι υπάρχει και μερίδιο και μέλλον για όσους θα έχουν την υπομονή να μπουν τώρα που είναι νωρίς, χωρίς να περιμένουν πολλά ως αντάλλαγμα.”

 

Διαβάστε όλο το κείμενο στο xblog.gr: Ανάπτυξη games για Windows Phone 7 smartphones.

Nokia and Microsoft – an unholy alliance?

Posted on by Andreas Tsouchlaris

We are living in interesting times… Nokia and Microsoft are “shaking hands” on many different things and not just a smartphone OS platform.

Till now they were considered to be “enemies” even though they had already agreements on Exchange and Office technologies. Starting from today, they are discussing about Ovi Maps and Bing (Nokia owns Navteq, one of the big two mapping companies – the other one is TeleAtlas owned by TomTom), XBox Live on Nokia devices, Bing Search and adCenter on Nokia devices and services.

Time will show if this strategic alliance can bear fruit or just cost money and lost jobs. The only certain thing is that competition is increasing and this is good for all of us. Some people in key positions are losing their sleep…

 

 

Today’s press release:

Nokia and Microsoft announce plans for a broad strategic partnership to build a new global ecosystem
February 11, 2011


Companies plan to combine assets and develop innovative mobile products on an unprecedented scale

Nokia Corporation
Stock exchange release
February 11, 2011 at 9.30 (CET +1)

London, Feb. 11, 2011 – Nokia and Microsoft today announced plans to form a broad strategic partnership that would use their complementary strengths and expertise to create a new global mobile ecosystem.

Nokia and Microsoft intend to jointly create market-leading mobile products and services designed to offer consumers, operators and developers unrivalled choice and opportunity.  As each company would focus on its core competencies, the partnership would create the opportunity for rapid time to market execution.  Additionally, Nokia and Microsoft plan to work together to integrate key assets and create completely new service offerings, while extending established products and services to new markets.

Under the proposed partnership:

– Nokia would adopt Windows Phone as its principal smartphone strategy, innovating on top of the platform in areas such as imaging, where Nokia is a market leader.

– Nokia would help drive the future of Windows Phone.  Nokia would contribute its expertise on hardware design, language support, and help bring Windows Phone to a larger range of price points, market segments and geographies.

– Nokia and Microsoft would closely collaborate on joint marketing initiatives and a shared development roadmap to align on the future evolution of mobile products.

– Bing would power Nokia’s search services across Nokia devices and services, giving customers access to Bing’s next generation search capabilities.  Microsoft adCenter would provide search advertising services on Nokia’s line of devices and services.

– Nokia Maps would be a core part of Microsoft’s mapping services.   For example, Maps would be integrated with Microsoft’s Bing search engine and adCenter advertising platform to form a unique local search and advertising experience

– Nokia’s extensive operator billing agreements would make it easier for consumers to purchase Nokia Windows Phone services in countries where credit-card use is low.

– Microsoft development tools would be used to create applications to run on Nokia Windows Phones, allowing developers to easily leverage the ecosystem’s global reach.

– Nokia’s content and application store would be integrated with Microsoft Marketplace for a more compelling consumer experience.

“Today, developers, operators and consumers want  compelling mobile products, which include not only the device, but the software, services, applications and customer support that make a great  experience,” Stephen Elop, Nokia President and CEO, said at a joint news conference in London. “Nokia and Microsoft will combine our strengths to deliver an ecosystem with unrivalled global reach and scale. It’s now a three-horse race.”

“I am excited about this partnership with Nokia,” said Steven A. Ballmer, Microsoft CEO. “Ecosystems thrive when fueled by speed, innovation and scale. The partnership announced today provides incredible scale, vast expertise in hardware and software innovation and a proven ability to execute.”

Please visit www.nokia.com/press for press materials.

About Nokia

At Nokia, we are committed to connecting people. We combine advanced technology with personalized services that enable people to stay close to what matters to them. Every day, more than 1.3 billion people connect to one another with a Nokia device – from mobile phones to advanced smartphones and high-performance mobile computers. Today, Nokia is integrating its devices with innovative services through Ovi (www.ovi.com), including music, maps, apps, email and more. Nokia’s NAVTEQ is a leader in comprehensive digital mapping and navigation services, while Nokia Siemens Networks provides equipment, services and solutions for communications networks globally.

DISCLAIMER
Nokia and Microsoft have entered into a non-binding term sheet. The planned partnership remains subject to negotiations and execution of the definitive agreements by the parties and there can be no assurances that the definitive agreements would be entered into.

 

Nokia – Press Release.