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Mix 2011: Windows Phone 7 updates

At the MIX 2011 a lot of announcements were made. So it’s my duty to highlight some of the stuff that is coming to us in the near future.

No long explanation, just everything you need to know about ‘Mango’:

General

  • update is schedule for the fall
  • all existing phones and new phones will get the update
  • 16 additional languages will be supported
  • more countries where we can create apps (from 30 to 38)
  • more countries where we can buy apps (from 16 to 35)

Marketplace / Search

  • better apps list: filter by letters (like with the contacts)
  • new search button to search for a particular app
  • better marketplace
    • more information with less confusion (music and apps are no longer mixed)
    • search for podcasts
    • new “related” pivot item when seeing an app for related app
  • we can integrate an app with the search feature of the phone

Web Experience

  • the update include IE9
  • the core engine is the same code base that the one we found desktop : including HW acceleration
  • address bar is moved to the bottom
  • support background audio for HTML5: you can leave IE and keep listening to the music !
  • tabbed UI for navigating between tabs
  • support for H264 video

Platform

  • improved panorama and pivot control
  • improvements for live tiles
  • access to the ring tones settings (set a music files as ring tone programmatically)
  • TCP/IP sockets
  • SQL database
  • more launchers and choosers
  • data access to the contacts and calendars on the phone
  • better integration with the sensors on the phone (like RAW camera access)
  • Skype coming to the platform this fall (leveraging many of those new features)
  • pin live tiles with deep link to our apps (which would launch the app and give the link as parameter)
  • Silverlight 4 features support
  • applications can now contains both Silverlight and XNA content

Multitasking

  • Spotify coming to WP7 using new multitasking capabilities
  • fast-app switching
  • use “live agents” to prevent battery life

Tooling

  • new version of tools will be available next month !
  • new capabilities in the emulator: simulate accelerometer and location sensors right from the emulator
  • new profiling support

Performance

  • scrolling: totally smooth scrolling without any changes in our applications !
  • image decoding
  • garbage collection
  • memory usage
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