Some of the Things Windows Phone 7 is Going to Lack

[Jason Dunn]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://dotnetref.blogspot.com/2010/06/windows-phone-7-haves-and-have-nots.html?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter' target='_blank'>http://dotnetref.blogspot.com/2010/..._medium=twitter</a><br /><br /></div><p><em>"While Windows Phone 7 (WP7) sounds intriguing as a platform for iPhone-type applications, TechEd 2010 was very illuminating on the many things that this new platform does not include and why you will unlikely be able to migrate your existing Windows Mobile applications forward. Let me go through the laundry list of the have-nots..."</em></p><p><img src="http://images.thoughtsmedia.com/resizer/thumbs/size/600/wpt/auto/1276637753.usr1.jpg" style="border: 1px solid #d2d2bb;" /></p><p><em>Image courtesy of WMexperts</em></p><p>Moving to a completely new platform - and that's really what Windows Phone 7 is, despite it still be based on Windows CE - means having to start over. And having to start over means, at the start, things will be missing. From a developer's point of view, this is where things can get painful. The <a href="http://dotnetref.blogspot.com/2010/06/windows-phone-7-haves-and-have-nots.html" target="_blank">list of what's missing is pretty long</a>, but some of them we already know, namely the lack of native code. If you're making games XNA Game Studio is a great tool - but if you're not making games, you're going to code in Silverlight, and that has a laundry list of limitations that go along with it. All told this is a pretty negative article - time will tell if creative developers can work around the limitations and deliver great apps. And, hopefully, Microsoft is keenly aware of what developers want next, and will add it.</p>

[Cattle-Dog]

They must really be feeling the pressure in the mobile market. Sounds like Phone 7 is being released about a year before they should. Many things missing. Much of it is by design I guess, like no file system access (even for developers). But no video capture support in Q4 of 2010? That'll be a tough sell, I think.

Certainly not a lot to love for those of us that liked older versions of Windows Mobile.

Good luck MS. I'm still hoping there's a "professional" version coming out that is more akin to 6.5 with a revamped UI.

[Russ Smith]

Well, it looks like WP7 will perform some nice phone functions and support cloud computing better than WM6, but so much is on the cutting-room floor. I haven't exactly been on the fence, I'll confess, but no database support would have done it for me if I was. HanDBase is one of my current favorite apps. Yes, I could kludge together some sort of substitute with a spreadsheet, but lose a lot of functionality in the process.

I'm really sad to see MS going this route.

[Fritzly]

There is an intersting article about WP7 here:

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13860_3-20007973-56.html?tag=newsLeadStoriesArea.1

I found particularly interesting these two parts:

"Yesterday was the first time in my entire Microsoft career I had worn a suit," Myerson explained. "It was for a humor video." Myerson quickly got down to business, clarifying why his company is insisting that each phone needs to have its own unique identifier.

It's not, he insisted, part of some big plan by the Windows Phone group to control its hardware partners. Rather, it's a demand that comes from Microsoft's Xbox developers. It seems they want to make sure that if someone is cheating on the Xbox Live program that they can shut down the cheater."

and

"Catching up with the market leaders, Myerson figures, is a multi-year project, something he warned both executives and colleagues when he took over the project. "We're going to reset, but it is going to take us five years to build a product we all want to have," he said."

Godd luck......
.

[Mountain343]

Call me Mr Negative... or Ishamel (sorry, Moby Dick flashbacks)... but I just don't see anything positive about the new WP7. I don't own an xbox, I don't play any games on my phone, pocketplayer does a great job playing the music I have on my phone, and it seems that most of the applications I use cannot/will not work on WP7. At least not right out of the box, which they do fine on WM6.5. While waiting for the TP2 to come out, I picked up a palm pre for a few weeks and I hated the fact that i couldn't do all of the things I *needed* to do. It was a fun phone to play around with, I loved the card system and pandora, and the keyboard was fine for me too. BUT, I returned it, grabbed the TP2, and have been happy since.

I know a lot of people seem really excited about WP7, and the big things for them are the Zune and xbox stuff. Like a previous poster mentioned, I'm hoping there will still be an adult, ahem, professional version of windows mobile released until the game and music playing WP7 catches up.