When Microsoft revealed its big re-entrance back into the mobile arena in February, it didn’t resemble any of the existing competitors in the field. Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7 took a radical new approach to almost every element of the smartphone, from the UI to the app marketplace, and created a platform that represented a healthy competitor for the leading Android and iOs platforms. Today, projections show that Microsoft’s partnership with Nokia could make the Windows Phone one of the dominant platforms by 2015.
Microsoft Developer Evangelist Chris Koenig is one of the people tasked with ensuring the mobile community understands how Microsoft used Windows Phone to address many of the problems plaguing the smartphone market, such as fragmentation. On May 25, Chris will visit Mutual Mobile to host a free session introducing developers and designers to the platform and offering hands-on lessons with Silverlight and Blend.
We talked with Chris about some of Windows Phone 7′s most unique features and how Microsoft is growing its developer community:
Microsoft basically had the opportunity to approach smartphone UI/UX with fresh eyes. What are three of the major changes people will see?
The biggest changes I see are with the overall design aesthetic, live tiles and hubs.
The design, referred to as “Metro”, takes a very different approach to UX than other smartphones on the market. Emphasizing typeface and iconography as “first-class” citizens, motion, and clean/clear “glance-able” information throughout the phone experience, we’ve created something new, and fresh that’s easy on the eyes and pleasing to look at.
The start screen shows a set of Live Tiles for each of your most important applications. We call them Live because they are not static icons with no awareness of their environment. Applications can update their Live Tiles to inform users about new information related to the application (for example – weather updates, or new news items). This provides a great experience for making the application appear fresh and interesting to users, and keeps the UX “out of the way” of the content.
We’ve also created a whole new set of application experiences called Hubs. Unlike simple applications, a hub combines local and online content across a set of related features. Examples of hubs on Windows Phone include the Contacts hub, the Games hub and the Music and Video hub. These hubs allow users to access related data into one place without having to jump between a bunch of different, independent applications.
Fragmentation has been a plague for many mobile devices and OSs. How is Windows Phone 7 heading this off?
We’ve standardized on a hardware specification that allows our OEMs to innovate without jeopardizing the quality of the experience. With Windows Phone, people can choose the phone that’s right for them without sacrificing anything!
One of the reasons the iOS app market has thrived is the number of resources they have provided for developers. What are some of the steps Microsoft has taken to encourage development?
First, all of our tools are free – anyone can get started developing applications apps for Windows phone simply by visiting http://create.msdn.com and downloading free versions of Visual Studio and Expression Blend that have all the phone development tools built-in. Additionally, if you’re a student registered in the Dreamspark program, we’re waiving the $99 registration fee and giving you the first 100 application submissions for free. Lastly, Evangelists like myself have been travelling around the country promoting Windows Phone and are offering a combination of free phones, discounted phones and “loaner” phones through various programs, to help encourage developers to build apps for Windows Phone and get them published into the marketplace.
