BitFlipper said:
staceyw said:
*snip*

Yea, that is what I was thinking. Something like this does not require any commitment from OEMs because as far as they are concerned, it is just another software component that ships with the default Windows 7 installation. Maybe the only thing they need to do is decide whether it will run as the default "UI" when the user powers it up the first time. And since it isn't an integral part of Windows 7, as you say it doesn't require any changes to Windows 7 either. It's just another "application".

 

But to re-iterate my point again, I think what could make this work is if it is tightly coupled with the SL+XNA framework that ships with WP7, because then it can tie into the same app store and developers can, with only a small amount of effort, make their apps work on both WP7 and this framework. Basing it on WPF or anything else would take that advantage away.

 

Are people really not seeing how well this works with iPhone/iPad? There is a very close relationship between iPhone and iPad. Anything less and we are back to square one. It is sad to say, but I believe MS needs to take (another) page out of Apple's playbook here. They have already copied Apple almost 100% with WP7, so why not go all the way?

 

EDIT: As you mentioned, I was also thinking about how this could even work on the desktop where MS is pushing touch as well. You run this framework, and now you have access to the WP7 (+WT7) app store where you can download these apps. There aren't a lot of advantages that MS has over Apple in this regard, but this could be another (other advantages I see; better dev tools, more developers familiar with the platform, multiple hardware choices, multiple carriers, a better business case, ability to learn from Apple's mistakes (although they choose to make a few of the same - no initial C&P or multitasking), having a proper API out of the gate (where Apple had none initially, unless you count web-apps), etc.  

"But to re-iterate my point again, I think what could make this work is if it is tightly coupled with the SL+XNA framework that ships with WP7, because then it can tie into the same app store and developers can, with only a small amount of effort, make their apps work on both WP7 and this framework. Basing it on WPF or anything else would take that advantage away."

 

@bitflipper.  Guess I am confused.  You have the sl+xna framework avail for W7 and VSExpress to develop W7 apps and the phone emulator.  So this all would work today AFAICT.  Not sure if phone emultor works outside of VS or not.  But that would be the only missing piece - a Wp7 emulator control for SL and wpf.  You could then do all that stuff inside your new application.  They don't need new OS skus and hope they reduce skus and not add more.