Al Pascual ASP.NET Blog

This year has been an incredible year for mobile devices, from the release of the iPad to the reveal of the Windows Phone 7 from Microsoft to compete with the well establish Apple iPhone.

Microsoft has been hard at work developing the OS for the Windows Phone 7 that will be release late this year, yet Apple will be releasing this summer the new iPhone 4.0 with new hardware to go with it. If we remember well, the first version of the iPhone was a good device, yet was missing many features that now makes the iPhone this great device, Apple keeps bringing new versions of the iPhone faster than we can purchase, yet looks like Microsoft developing speeds are not even as fast as Apple. They should give that development task to the Silverlight team at Microsoft, the last 30 months, they provided us with 4 versions of that framework.

When the Windows Phone 7 comes out for the first time, is going to have much less features than the iPhone 3G, when already the iPhone 4.0 will be out there with Multitasking, HD camera, Orientation Lock, new iPod UI controls, File Sharing. Full list of features here.

With Windows Phone 7 (WP7) version 1, what are you getting?

• No multitasking yet notifications like the iPhone 3.0
• A great Silverlight development experience  that will possibly bring more developers to the Windows Phone 78 market place.
• A $99 payment to develop for the Windows Phone 7 ( Hey same prices than Apple?)
• Managed code for developers.
• No many applications to start with.
• Video? I didn’t seen any yet?
• More of one hardware to select, that’s great news when you have the choice of keyboard or no keyboard.
• Voice control like the iPhone 3GS

The important for Windows Phone 7 is to be better out of the gates than the iPhone 4.0, that means, better resolution, better battery life, sexier hardware, better music device and user experience. Maybe I’m asking too much for the first version, yet how hard will be to catch up to Apple if the first version does not even get close to the 4.0 version.

Cheers

Al