Developing for Windows Phone 7

Friday, November 5th, 2010 Karen Ambrose Hickey, Editor

The Windows Phone 7 Marketplace hit over 1000 apps after it’s first three weeks. And as of now, it’s open to all developers (not invite-only).

One of our smartphone developers attended Sprint Dev conference last week. I captured a few of his comments from the conference:

• I asked a Microsoft evangelist about availability of Wi-Fi API on Windows Phone 7. He said there is none. So our client offering on this platform will be similar to iPhone. I attended another session, so I that I could continue to “evangelize” to him the importance of Wi-Fi API on any mobile device.
• Like Apple, Microsoft will have an app store that goes through a review process. It’ll be interesting to see how strict they are with reviews.
• No CDMA phones this year, so Sprint and Verizon customers will have to wait for 2011. Maybe that’s why the session I attended wasn’t that well attended. In contrast, an Android session in a much larger conference room was standing room only.
• These phones will definitely be much more locked down than Android phones, though probably not as tightly controlled as iPhones

If you want more info on developing for Windows Phone 7, he sent me right to the source: http://create.msdn.com

Finally, O’Reilly reported that Microsoft apps cost more than iPhone apps. This is good news for developers early in the game, but may even out as the competition gets greater. also, Business Insider reports that developers are targeting as many apps for Windows Phone 7 as for the iPad in 2011.