We knew it was coming, and today at MIX 11, Microsoft showed off its developer platform for the next version of Windows Phone, which developers will be able to get their hands on for free in May. The new application platform adds:
- Multitasking for background processing, audio and file transfer, and fast app switching, including background audio playback for HTML5 webpages
- Deep phone integration, allowing apps to leverage Live Tiles, including push notifications via Live Agents running in the background
- Raw access to the camera and sensors (gyro and compass) via the Motion Sensor library, letting apps to control device hardware
Microsoft hopes this will allow developers to make even more creative and engaging apps. To get our juices flowing, it showed off demos of new app concepts from Skype, Spotify, Layar, Qantas, Amazon Shopping, and Kik Messenger. After briefly touching on the recent Windows Phone update issues, Joe Belfiore welcomed Nokia's Symbian developers (!) and demoed accelerated HTML5 webpage rendering vs. iOS and Android. The Amazon app showed off barcode scanning via raw camera access, while the Qantas app used Live Tiles and Live Agents to update flight status in real time.
The developer tools also received some updates including GPS emulation to help when coding on the simulator, as well as a profiler which allows developers to pinpoint and fix performance bottlenecks. Scrolling and touch input, image decoding, garbage collection, and memory usage all received bumps in performance allowing apps to run smoother without any code changes.
Check out the press release in the source link below. Developing...
Windows Phone adds multitasking, deep phone integration, and sensor access to dev platform originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 13 Apr 2011 12:21:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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