[coden4fun]

Ok, so tonight I went to my usual .Net coding meeting and it was all about XNA for WP7. To my surprise all members were allowed to get a hands on experience of the Samsung and LG WP7. Bad Ass!


It kicks ass! I would prefer the Samsung over the LG, because the LG has a built-in hardware qwerty keyboard and with the keyboard touch, and smart phone features that Microsoft has put in to WP7 I see no reason in having a hardware keyboard.

Also, the Samsung when doing a touch gesture is smoother than the LG. The LG is smaller, but dammit I want a phone that is rock solid and all things being equal with the WP7 OS; I'd prefer the Samsung.


The Marketplace has a rigorous process to have your applications deployed. Certain functionality specs must be met. For instance,

1.) When a call comes through you must suspend the phone
2.) when the back button is hit from your app you must exit.

I'm sure there are many others; however, the speaker didn't go into too many details.

Standardizations that I believe MS is trying to deploy for all apps, which will give all apps on the WP7 a specific Look and Feel.

I also heard that MS has stopped development on the Zune. Now when I asked if they had stopped production on making the hardware for Zunes the speaker couldn't comment for sure stating that "Yes, indeed MS has stopped producing Zunes for good", but that he did state "Microsoft has announced that the Zune will no longer be supported through XNA and no more applications are to be built for Zune unless they're updates."

Now, I think what he was trying to say is that Microsoft will no longer produce Zunes and if you want a Microsoft piece of hardware that supports music for and from your Zune music collection you must pick up a WP7. This sounds like a very risky but strategic way to increase sales of WP7. I'm not sure if it'll work, but they already have me purchasing a WP7 and making software for their Marketplace.

Let me know what your thoughts are you D.I.C. coders. Especially you Core.

Another Dislike
You can make Silverlight apps for the phone and IE is the default browser, but IE can't load Silverlight websites at all. Something that I'm sure MS is trying to fix real soon. I just thought that was a little F'd up that you can make Silverlight apps for the phone, bit its own browser doesn't have a Silverlight plug-in to support Silverlight websites.

This post has been edited by coden4fun: 21 October 2010 - 06:35 PM

[Sergio Tapia]

Thanks posting. What group do you belong to?

I think it's great that Microsoft is forcing very standard things like hitting back should your application. I'm having trouble using their official XNA forum though. Every time I try to post or anything they redirect me to a pay page where I have to choose my payment method among other things. Randomly I'm taken to the subforum I wanted to go to.

They really have to polish their website.

[Core]

Silverlight is not supported in the WP7 for the same reason (the main one) that Flash is not supported on the iPhone - the risk of running unauthorized apps. If there is a Silverlight plugin, this means that someone can run a SL app in IE without having to go through the Marketplace approval process.

[coden4fun]

Thanks for clearing that up Core. That makes sense now. I'm surprised a simple answer wasn't given at the meeting by our speaker.

Sergio Tapia I belong to the .Net Guild user group which is based in Asheville, NC.

This post has been edited by coden4fun: 21 October 2010 - 07:06 PM

[eclipsed4utoo]

coden4fun, on 21 October 2010 - 09:28 PM, said:

The Marketplace has a rigorous process to have your applications deployed. Certain functionality specs must be met. For instance,

1.) When a call comes through you must suspend the phone
2.) when the back button is hit from your app you must exit.

Let me know what your thoughts are you D.I.C. coders. Especially you Core.

Another Dislike
You can make Silverlight apps for the phone and IE is the default browser, but IE can't load Silverlight websites at all. Something that I'm sure MS is trying to fix real soon. I just thought that was a little F'd up that you can make Silverlight apps for the phone, bit its own browser doesn't have a Silverlight plug-in to support Silverlight websites.

#1 is wrong. You don't have to do anything to the phone when a call comes in. You just have to make sure that you don't imped the call, and you need to make sure that your application doesn't crash if a call comes in.

From the Application Certification Requirements:

Quote

5.3 Phone Functionality

The application must not delay or prevent the ability of the user to initiate a call, answer an incoming call, or end a call. The application must not delay or prevent the ability of the user to send or receive SMS or MMS messages.
The application must not hang or terminate unexpectedly when there is an incoming phone call, SMS, or MMS message.

#2 is wrong. The Back button should go to the previous screen or exit the application. This is actually done by default. You don't actually have to handle the Back button explicitly. If you go from Screen 1 to Screen 2 in your app, then hit the Back button, it will go back to Screen 1. If you hit it again, then it will close the application. But again, this is handled by the OS.

You can handle it to do other things, but it's frowned upon.

http://www.codebadge...ack-Button.aspx

This is straight from the Application Certification Requirements:

Quote

5.2.4 Use of Back Button

To maintain a consistent user experience, the Back button must only be used for backwards navigation in the application.

a. Pressing the Back button from the first screen of an application must exit the application.
b. Pressing the Back button must return the application to the previous page.
c. If the current page displays a context menu or a dialog, the pressing of the Back button must close the menu or dialog and cancel the backward navigation to the previous page.
d. For games, when the Back button is pressed during gameplay, the game can choose to present a pause context menu or dialog or navigate the user to the prior menu screen. Pressing the Back button again while in a paused context menu or dialog closes the menu or dialog.

I have attached the PDF of the Application Certification Requirements.
 Windows Phone 7 Application Certification Requirements.pdf (521.53K)
Number of downloads: 71

coden4fun, on 21 October 2010 - 10:02 PM, said:

Thanks for clearing that up Core. That makes sense now. I'm surprised a simple answer wasn't given at the meeting by our speaker.

Sergio Tapia I belong to the .Net Guild user group which is based in Asheville, NC.

Truthfully, if all of the information you posted was what you were told by the speaker, then he/she didn't know what they were talking about. That's probably why they didn't know.

[coden4fun]

Nah, the information I was given was given to me correctly, I just poorly reported the information onto the forum.

For instance, the back button. Yes, it must be used to go back to previous screen and if you are at the beginning stage of the screen it must exit the app. I meant to state and word it exactly the way you had in quoting 5.2.4 a - d but I'm a lazy ass.

Also, for the first reason when I say the phone must be suspended; I meant to state that it shouldn't prevent or delay a user from making the call. I guess I assumed that meant the application had to go into suspension. The speaker quoted these from memory. I guess I just quoted the speaker wrong.

[tlhIn`toq]

Quote

I want a phone that is rock solid

Doesn't that eliminate anything running on any flavor of Windows?
Don't get me wrong, I make my living coding on windows. But 'solid' is not a term I would use for it.
Will the phone require daily security updates?
I remember that big wave of Java based phones getting attacked through bluetooth. Windows doesn't have a great track record for security. So I would worry about how vulnerable my data on a Windows smartphone would be.

[SpeedisaVirus]

Yeah, the button you can't do anything with 100% is the start button. Thought I heard something about the camera wake up button too but I'm not going to read the docs again to find out.

I'd be curious to hear more about this canceling of the zune line. I hadn't heard that and at the wp7 dev release our speaker said every wp7 phone will effectively be a zune as well...like the zune HD though the hardware specification does not mandate an HD tuner. Supposed to have FM tuners though.

I wouldn't worry about security on this phone anymore than any other phone...

This post has been edited by SpeedisaVirus: 25 October 2010 - 09:41 PM