Disappointed about WP7 APIs

Charles said:

ZippyV said:

*snip*

How do you know? We haven't announced what browser will be in the shipping product...... Speculate all you want. I would recommend that you not listen to the blowhard who wrote the InfoWorld article proclaiming WP7 will fail. He's full of sh#!.

 

Again, you don't know what version of IE will ship in WP7. Don't base your judgement on what you don't know.

 

Native code will not be supported in WP7 V1. Can we move on? I've sent plenty of emails regarding this fact. The fact is, this is the fact: no native code. Want me to write that again? I'm tired of typing the same thing.

 

rhm, WP7's architecture and underlying OS is not the same as iOS. Why are you making comparisons bewtween them? What's the point?

 

Let's wait until the thing ships, you play with it, build some apps and then send us feedback based on real world usage, not theory, not speculation, not hypothesis. OK?

 

I'd imagine that if lack of support for native code kills adoption by the developer community, well, you'd think we'd react and deliver accordingly. For now. it's clear the direction is managed-only. Let's see what happens in the real world.

 

C

You're interpreting our criticisms as catastrophist doomsayings for the platform. They aren't. We're just saying that Managed-only restricts our creativity and practical abilities, and only harms itself.

"I'd imagine that if lack of support for native code kills adoption by the developer community, well, you'd think we'd react and deliver accordingly."

It hasn't killed it, just weakened it. There are going to be a lot of developers who think "oh, another platform to target? Sure thing, just write some platform-specific UI frontend on top of my existing C++ codebase and... eh, what?, no C++? screw that then". I feel Microsoft is naive to think developers with applications available for other platforms are going to rewrite everything just for them.

It's chicken and egg: iPhone development is successful because the iPhone was successful, the iPhone was successful because of the iPod and iTMS. WP7 doesn't have that, so WP7 development will be successful based on WP7 development.

Ian2 said:

Jaime Rodriguez said:

*snip*

Ha!  My wife asked 'who is Jamie Rodriguez' this morning (I had your 'migrating apps' doc sticking out under a pile of magazines).  Great to see you posting here!

It's great that he's posting here, but it's too bad he answered a question I didn't ask, and didn't answer the question I actually asked. I guess I won't find out the answer until WP7 is in stores.

Charles said:

ZippyV said:

*snip*

How do you know? We haven't announced what browser will be in the shipping product...... Speculate all you want. I would recommend that you not listen to the blowhard who wrote the InfoWorld article proclaiming WP7 will fail. He's full of sh#!.

 

Again, you don't know what version of IE will ship in WP7. Don't base your judgement on what you don't know.

 

Native code will not be supported in WP7 V1. Can we move on? I've sent plenty of emails regarding this fact. The fact is, this is the fact: no native code. Want me to write that again? I'm tired of typing the same thing.

 

rhm, WP7's architecture and underlying OS is not the same as iOS. Why are you making comparisons bewtween them? What's the point?

 

Let's wait until the thing ships, you play with it, build some apps and then send us feedback based on real world usage, not theory, not speculation, not hypothesis. OK?

 

I'd imagine that if lack of support for native code kills adoption by the developer community, well, you'd think we'd react and deliver accordingly. For now. it's clear the direction is managed-only. Let's see what happens in the real world.

 

C

Charles, it is easy to infer from your post that the browser that ships in Windows Mobile 7 will be Internet Explorer. If you had not said that "you don't know what version of IE will ship in WP7", then Chrome or Firefox could have been possible too, but that comment narrows it to Internet Explorer.

Charles said:

ZippyV said:

*snip*

How do you know? We haven't announced what browser will be in the shipping product...... Speculate all you want. I would recommend that you not listen to the blowhard who wrote the InfoWorld article proclaiming WP7 will fail. He's full of sh#!.

 

Again, you don't know what version of IE will ship in WP7. Don't base your judgement on what you don't know.

 

Native code will not be supported in WP7 V1. Can we move on? I've sent plenty of emails regarding this fact. The fact is, this is the fact: no native code. Want me to write that again? I'm tired of typing the same thing.

 

rhm, WP7's architecture and underlying OS is not the same as iOS. Why are you making comparisons bewtween them? What's the point?

 

Let's wait until the thing ships, you play with it, build some apps and then send us feedback based on real world usage, not theory, not speculation, not hypothesis. OK?

 

I'd imagine that if lack of support for native code kills adoption by the developer community, well, you'd think we'd react and deliver accordingly. For now. it's clear the direction is managed-only. Let's see what happens in the real world.

 

C

This is what we're basing our judgement on:

"The mobile version, yet to be named, is a version between Internet Explorer 7 and 8 according to Microsoft corporate vice president Joe Belfiore. Speaking at MIX 2010 today Belfiore explained that the mobile browser takes HTML rendering code from Internet Explorer 7 which is optimized for low memory situations. Belfiore explained that some features have been back ported from Internet Explorer 8 and joked Microsoft could end up naming it Internet Explorer 7.5.

At present the browser within Windows Phone 7 identifies itself with the following user agent string: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 7.0; Windows Phone OS 7.0; Trident/3.1; IEMobile/7.0). Microsoft's Zune HD device on the other hand runs on IE6: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows CE; IEMobile 6.12; Microsoft ZuneHD 4.3). 

"

-- http://www.neowin.net/news/windows-phone-7-browser-is-based-on-internet-explorer-7

jaimer said:

Sven Groot said:

*snip*

Sven, sorry that I missed your question. I just re-read the post and I still don't see a question. All I see is a description on preference, with a strong "requirement" the language be japanese..  Since Japanese is not in the first batch of languages, I started there.

Can you please expand the question? 

Interim, this information might help:

The phone does have the ability to customize region & language.  You get a

1) Display language  (with option to select right formats of course, and choice here is EFIGS)

2) System locale (  this is standard system locales, including japanese ) ...

 

Cheers,

Jaime

The question is twofold:

1. Can you switch display language on WP7 regardless where you bought it? From your previous post it seems the answer is yes.

2. Will you be able to use an input language that doesn't match the currently selected display language?

As an example: if English is my display language, can I type in French (with special characters and the relevant autocorrect dictionary) without changing the display language? Can I easily switch between typing in English and French while I'm writing?

DCMonkey said:

Charles said:

*snip*

This is what we're basing our judgement on:

 

"The mobile version, yet to be named, is a version between Internet Explorer 7 and 8 according to Microsoft corporate vice president Joe Belfiore. Speaking at MIX 2010 today Belfiore explained that the mobile browser takes HTML rendering code from Internet Explorer 7 which is optimized for low memory situations. Belfiore explained that some features have been back ported from Internet Explorer 8 and joked Microsoft could end up naming it Internet Explorer 7.5.

At present the browser within Windows Phone 7 identifies itself with the following user agent string: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 7.0; Windows Phone OS 7.0; Trident/3.1; IEMobile/7.0). Microsoft's Zune HD device on the other hand runs on IE6: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows CE; IEMobile 6.12; Microsoft ZuneHD 4.3). 

"

-- http://www.neowin.net/news/windows-phone-7-browser-is-based-on-internet-explorer-7

Even if it's gonna be IE8, that's not good enough. And since IE9 is apparently not out until next year it's not gonna be IE9 either.

Frankly though, I kind of care less about the lack of native code or a decent browser and more about the fact that the managed API doesn't allow direct camera access. AFAIK, you can get realtime location and microphone data... so why no imagery?

Shining Arcanine said:

Charles said:

*snip*

Charles, it is easy to infer from your post that the browser that ships in Windows Mobile 7 will be Internet Explorer. If you had not said that "you don't know what version of IE will ship in WP7", then Chrome or Firefox could have been possible too, but that comment narrows it to Internet Explorer.

It's obvious. The point was, of course, to say that one does not know what the feature set will be of the shipping browser because, regardless of label, it's not out yet. It's like saying Internet Explorer doesn't support AJAX - which is true, if you live in 1995, but not anymore; in fact, Internet Explorer was the browser which introduced it.

W3bbo said:

Clint said:

*snip*

Straw-man fallacy:

 

"so the lack of these c/c++ libraries is stopping you from building apps?"

 

I never said the lack of C/C++ code reuse was stopping me from building WP7 applications. I said it was stopping me, and tens of thousands of developers, from building whole classes of applications.

 

Here is a list of applications that you can make for Android and iOS which you cannot do on WP7 because of this:

• Augmented Reality
• Musical instruments (proper ones, not cheap "press piano key, play("noteDFlat.wav");"-style applications)
• Video editing
• Sound-effect programs using DSP
• Developing alternatives to system features, such as Input editors (remember how WM had a load of cool alternatives to the soft keyboard?)
• Robotics applications (lots of robotics projects used to be powered by PocketPC devices using the device's host USB controller. In one project I'm working on we decided to go with using an ASUS Netbook because of the uncertaintly over using Windows CE as a viable robotics controller).
• I could go on...

 

...if you actually can build these with the current API framework with Silverlight or XNA, I'd sincerely like to hear your work-arounds.

It looks to me like Microsoft believes that, at some point in time in the future, managed code execution performance will reach full parity with native code execution performance. The fabled Phoenix compiler infrastructure will compile both C/C++ and IL. Let's see how far it can push the limits of managed code execution performance, be it on current MSIL or some derivative thereof. It's a leap of faith perhaps...

Bas said:

DCMonkey said:

*snip*

Even if it's gonna be IE8, that's not good enough. And since IE9 is apparently not out until next year it's not gonna be IE9 either.

 

Frankly though, I kind of care less about the lack of native code or a decent browser and more about the fact that the managed API doesn't allow direct camera access. AFAIK, you can get realtime location and microphone data... so why no imagery?

Like this?: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/microsoft.phone.tasks.cameracapturetask(v=VS.92).aspx"> http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/microsoft.phone.tasks.cameracapturetask(v=VS.92).aspx

Or were you looking for something more?

DCMonkey said:

Bas said:

*snip*

Like this?: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/microsoft.phone.tasks.cameracapturetask(v=VS.92).aspx"> http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/microsoft.phone.tasks.cameracapturetask(v=VS.92).aspx

 

Or were you looking for something more?

That does this:

"Allows an application to launch the Camera application. Use this to allow users to take a photo from your application."

Bas (and myself) would like to do this:

"Instantiates a Camera instance which allows for the capture of still and moving images, in addition to access to a raw stream of live camera data"

...which is not currently possible.

W3bbo said:

DCMonkey said:

*snip*

That does this:

 

"Allows an application to launch the Camera application. Use this to allow users to take a photo from your application."

 

Bas (and myself) would like to do this:

 

"Instantiates a Camera instance which allows for the capture of still and moving images, in addition to access to a raw stream of live camera data"

 

...which is not currently possible.

Seriously... what do you expect from a v1.0 product?

I think WP7 will take a similar accelerated evolution as Android, but instead of iterating through both hardware & software, WP7 will do more through software. It will come. It might take a year, but they have to deliver to compete.

Minh said:

W3bbo said:

*snip*

Seriously... what do you expect from a v1.0 product?

 

I think WP7 will take a similar accelerated evolution as Android, but instead of iterating through both hardware & software, WP7 will do more through software. It will come. It might take a year, but they have to deliver to compete.

As I've said before, the "it's a v1 product" defense doesn't really wash when you're trying to sell it to consumers as well. Hey, want to buy into an extended public beta test? Sure.

And anyway, how would providing the access W3bbo describes take more effort than what Microsoft have provided with the camera capture 'task'? This is an example of a 'nanny-state' API rather than a 'we didn't have time to implement it' API.

exoteric said:

W3bbo said:

*snip*

It looks to me like Microsoft believes that, at some point in time in the future, managed code execution performance will reach full parity with native code execution performance. The fabled Phoenix compiler infrastructure will compile both C/C++ and IL. Let's see how far it can push the limits of managed code execution performance, be it on current MSIL or some derivative thereof. It's a leap of faith perhaps...

Managed code is pretty fast already. Someone asked earlier if Microsoft couldn't add a managed library that made use of the vector processing unit and of course they could. But they've never added a SIMD math library to the main .NET framework (although the Mono project have Mono.SIMD in theirs), so either they don't see .NET as useful for numerically intensive work, or they expect people to pInvoke C code for that kind of stuff. Of course on the phone you can't pInvoke.

rhm said:

exoteric said:

*snip*

Managed code is pretty fast already. Someone asked earlier if Microsoft couldn't add a managed library that made use of the vector processing unit and of course they could. But they've never added a SIMD math library to the main .NET framework (although the Mono project have Mono.SIMD in theirs), so either they don't see .NET as useful for numerically intensive work, or they expect people to pInvoke C code for that kind of stuff. Of course on the phone you can't pInvoke.

Managed code is fast, in terms of throughput, sure. But I haven't been impressed so far with its real-time and low-latency performance, in-part due to JIT and of course the slow application initialisation times. What's with that anyway?

rhm said:

Minh said:

*snip*

As I've said before, the "it's a v1 product" defense doesn't really wash when you're trying to sell it to consumers as well. Hey, want to buy into an extended public beta test? Sure.

 

And anyway, how would providing the access W3bbo describes take more effort than what Microsoft have provided with the camera capture 'task'? This is an example of a 'nanny-state' API rather than a 'we didn't have time to implement it' API.

Ultimately, MS will only be successful if people buys their V2 phones. I think WP7 is charting the path of the Xbox. Losing big $$$ on the V1 product and kick a$$ in the V2. And I think MS is betting big time on integrating the phones to the cloud. Which none of the big players have (for free) yet.

And I do think MS have a time issue. I remember hearing that they had to reboot the WP7 (was Windows Mobile 7) project. Right now, the Samsung Galaxy S is look really sweet to me... but I'm having trouble pulling the trigger now that WP7 is coming out in late Oct.

Sven Groot said:

jaimer said:

*snip*

The question is twofold:

1. Can you switch display language on WP7 regardless where you bought it? From your previous post it seems the answer is yes.

2. Will you be able to use an input language that doesn't match the currently selected display language?

 

As an example: if English is my display language, can I type in French (with special characters and the relevant autocorrect dictionary) without changing the display language? Can I easily switch between typing in English and French while I'm writing?

So, any chance of getting an answer to my second question?