Episode 072 – "Barely Scratching the Surface"

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Microsoft Announces Surface
Microsoft Announces Windows Phone 8 (and 7.8)

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Channel 9 Video: Billy Hollis – “Creating User Experiences: Unlocking the Invisible Cage”

  • RWalrond

    WinRT has the concept of views. We have to code for things like Landscape, Portrait, and Snapped view, I think Microsoft could have added something like Phone view. Developers could code for that view and then check off an option to also deploy to Windows Phone 8. Think about for a moment, they could also add Xbox as a view that developers could code for. Since Apps are certified for each platform, if a developer didn’t implement the views properly the App would be rejected on that platform. I think Microsoft could have gone 1 step further and really combine these development environment. I think that would have put Windows Phone over the top in the same light and Windows 8 in terms of developer support.

    • keith

      Nah .. I don’t agree. Phone apps are phone apps not tablet apps. they should be designed separately. Allowing code to be shared is great .. but the UI is quite different on a really good phone app as opposed to a tablet or PC.

      • RWalrond

        Not sure you understood what I was saying. I’m not suggesting sharing the same UI. When developing for Windows 8, you have the ability to code for different views. Isn’t the phone just a different view? When developing for Windows 8 snapped view, I have to design a screen that would work in a phone like width (320px) so why not provide a phone view where I have use phone friendly controls? I’m also not suggesting that this technique would work for all Applications, but for apps that display content, to me this concept should be easy to implement.

        • keith

          The 320px snapped view is very similar to the dimensions of the phone .. now and in the future .. but I think something like panorama or pivot would not work well in snapped nor do most phone apps really have just one screen of content to display.

          I guess my point is that phone apps should be designed as phone apps not as a ‘view’ of an app that really desigend for as tablet.

          • RWalrond

            I agree, I wouldn’t use a panorama in a snapped view. I think the snapped view should continue being only available for the tablet. The phone view would only be available when being run on phones, so I would only be permitted to use phone controls like the panorama on phone views. There would be nothing stopping me from creating and designing a phone only app using the views. Since apps are approved, Microsoft could easily enforce certain usability and design rules.

            In either case, no other platform comes this close to bring these 2 form factors together, I’m sure there will be a lot of examples of how to minimize the code between phone and tablet apps.

  • Christopher Steven

    I totaly believe Trav is right lol… LOB is the way to go. MOST of microsofts developer base are LOB devs. It is microsoft bread and butter in the dev space. Many devs I know won’t even try mobile development. I have heard COUNTLESS times, I am a developer not a designer… which to them means you have to be a designer to develope mobile because business apps dont care what it looks like only that it function lol. This will totaly help us increase efficiency of our employees by integrating our apps into there lives… I can see each dev coming out with a min of 10 apps for LOB use. I would like to see our app count after a year of this on the market lol.

  • Nicholas Coulter

    Hey guys, Microsoft has worked with carriers so they will allow Microsoft to bypass the carriers and release the updates directly to the phones.

  • jnystrom

    I hope that ms and or Nokia subsidize people who bought the “beta phone” lumia 900, or there are going to be some very upset consumers that there 6 month old phone will not be upgradeable. They produced the beta phone commercial….and dropped this info…really?

  • http://www.maxpaulousky.com Max Paulousky

    Guys, are Free Nokia Phone and App Hub Subscription available for US only devs?