First Windows Phone 7 update February 2011 - Small update but Big start

After tons of rumors and set of predictions on Windows Phone 7 all over Internet, Microsoft came up with first Windows Phone 7 minor update today and it working seamlessly (Not like those “Fear” updates when you don’t know what will happen to your PC when it restarts ! ) along with Zune software from where you get that update.

What’s this update all about ? : (via Windows Phone Blog)

This first update for Windows Phone is designed to improve the software update process itself. So while it might not sound exciting, it’s still important because it’s paving the way for all future goodie-filled updates to your phone, such as copy and paste or improved Marketplace search.

In the future, I encourage you to check out our new update history page on the Windows Phone website for a brief, plain-English summary of what each update does or what features it adds to your phone.

 

We made some improvements to the way we deliver software updates to ensure that the process keeps working smoothly for you.

Why I say Small Update but Big start :

People going crazy over Mobile devices and Tabs especially after recent Dual Core mobile and HTC Tab announcements, War seems to be very big and long time ! There are also sad news about Steve Jobs ( I wish him speedy recovery and wish to see him on stage with brand new version of iPhone, great man ! )

There are so many things getting said about success of Windows Phone 7 (Still white elephant in Asia) but today Microsoft did a brave job by throwing updates to WP7 owners across the globes.

This update is small software update but for those who think Microsoft is just making announcements, Nope ! they are now actually started changing the game and today’s update was first move ! Wait for more updates, WP7 going to shake the world for sure ..after all its Microsoft :) 

Congratulations to Windows Phone 7 Team at Microsoft !

Updates are available.. Really? :

If you are WP7 owner, Check your settings tab and see the phone updates,you should have following on your actual phone

How do I Install ? :

Microsoft given a step-by-step guide that you just need to (blindly) follow here :

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsphone/en-us/howto/wp7/basics/how-do-i-update-my-phone-software.aspx

Once you plug your phone to PC you will see following screen in Zune :

Now just click on Update Now and sit back and relax ! Make sure you do not make any calls during this and also do not remove connectivity of device with PC,It will start throwing updates like this :

On phone it will look like :

On Zune it will look like :

On your device it will look like this with a progress bar :

It will do reboot your Phone (Not PC !, Thanks for that !!) and finally you can have beer if you see screen below (else throw the same beer bottle on phone and PC !) :

Done ! ..so our First update on Windows Phone 7 is success !

I will come back soon with more stuff on Silverlight (Yes ! soon I will be posting few Silverlight things but after some time) and Windows Phone 7, so stay tuned !

Vikram.

Nokia and Microsoft : Connecting People with Windows Phone 7 .. Really ?

Today’s announcement made about Nokia and Microsoft created lot of buzz all over internet. Some people calling it as smart move,Some are saying that Microsoft helped Nokia from sinking down.Really? 

What is the future looks like ?

Picture taken from : http://www.wired.com/images_blogs/gadgetlab/2011/02/3310wp7.jpg

Sweets for Asia ? :

Where ultramodern devices with 3G floating across US and Europe, Countries like India still in waiting mode for 3G (We recently had big 2G scam that’s a different story), Windows Phone 7 is still White Elephant in countries like India where we still have no clue about Marketplace and I am sure with today’s announcement we think situation will be relax now and soon something will work for we Indians (Claim to be biggest Offshore Development Hub in world and 2nd largest Microsoft Development Center is in India). You check or ask any Indian common man,what phone/device he/she got? Answer is Nokia ! So will today’s announcement is to attract more people from here where Phone users by numbers touching billion marks. So will it create big business for Microsoft and Nokia from Asia? Well, this is my guess, Business Analysts will have better views over me.

Symbian, Silverlight on S60 .. R.I.P ?

After Windows Mobile 6.x and Sky size success of iPhone and Android,Microsoft decided to change the equation and kept a vision where XBOX,Zune and Cloud will play with each other on one common mobile platform and hence there was birth of Windows Phone 7 having Silverlight as core platform for development.

I personally never saw any around me doing apps with Silverlight for S60 or running Silverlight Apps on S60,I never saw any technical session in any of the Microsoft events in India or community talks for Silverlight on S60.So what happen to that? Is it dead (unofficially?)

http://www.silverlight.net/getstarted/devices/symbian/ for more information.

What still makes this page to be there that is something personally I don’t understand !

Will Nokia sell its devices with Symbian in future? or they will force customers for Windows Phone 7 is a big question.

Ok ! Application Market ?

Mobile without apps is like Car without wheel ! so what Symbian apps developers will plan for now? Nokia fans only can tell you this.Apple is clear winner here and even Android.Check this blogpost which is loud and clear !

Is Nokia going Samsung way? Samsung is with their Bada and also having WP7 device,So Nokia have something similar in mind? well coming future only can answer that !

Who is Jackpot Winner ?

Application Developers !

Tons of Apps and Millions of Users if it works out on Nokia, So there will be hell lot of development will happen (what they are saying as “burning platform”), More downloads will generate more money. Current Windows Phone 7 Developers will be easily jumping to Nokia devices.So this is very positive sign !

Microsoft’s amazing and growing Windows Phone 7 software platform and Nokia’s infrastructure will in future surely going to change equations of Mobility and business.

Future :

If Windows Phone 7 fills all the gaps as a platform if we compare to Windows Mobile 6.x and if Nokia manage to put this platform on Jazzy and low cost devices, Microsoft is winner at end of the day !

My 0.02 $ :

Learn Silverlight ! Read this announcement again :

http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2011/feb11/02-11partnership.mspx

Check out what and how much you can earn from this ! Worry about your profit and loss and not profit and loss of Nokia and Microsoft. Let them take care of that, You focus on apps ! :)

Well, with this I am soon coming back with much more stuff on Windows Phone 7 and Silverlight.See you soon !

Vikram.

Silverlight On Mobile : Copy and Paste functionality inside Windows Phone 7 Emulator

Already lot of discussions and forum threads heated up with the Copy and Paste support for Windows Phone 7 Actual Device. Few statements made the news all over the world like “Who needs Copy and Paste”,”iPhone took x amount of time and WP7 doing in y amount of time”,”we need it else what we will do on MS Office on WP7” etc and similar others.

You must have seen my last post titled as “White Elephant”,I am still suffering a lot and still my HTC HD7 is just another mobile phone since I still not have Marketplace here in India.My Live ID is also India based so doors are closed for me.Well, I am ready to wait and suffer from pain since this is not first time for me. Every other good things take hell lot of time to come to India.We say here that when Western world tag something as “outdated” we said its “new,hot and happening”.

Coming back to topic.Today after a long I got some free time to spend over my routine and finally I installed the

Windows Phone Developer Tools January 2011 Update (Download)

What it contains?

• Windows Phone Emulator Update – Exposes copy/paste functionality in the Windows Phone 7 emulator
• Windows Phone Developer Resources Update – Fixes a text selection bug in pivot and panorama controls.
• Windows Phone Capability Detection Tool – Detects the phone capabilities used by your application.
• Windows Phone Connect Tool – Allows you to connect your phone to a PC when Zune® software is not running and debug applications that use media APIs.
• Updated Bing Maps Silverlight Control – Includes improvements to gesture performance when using Bing™ Maps Silverlight® Control.

What I am talking about now?

Windows Phone Emulator Update exposed copy/paste function inside our Windows Phone 7 Emulator.

Why I need that?

Currently,we do not have Copy Paste inside Emulator. Life becomes easy in Apps so as not to type same things multiple times. Copy/Paste is useful in such scenarios.Common examples can be while drafting SMS or working with MS Word on Mobile or typing Name,Address etc.

Ohh No! already submitted my App to Marketplace,what should I do now??

Answer from Release Notes :

Most applications already published to the Windows Phone Marketplace do not need to be recompiled to take advantage of copy and paste functionality. Copy and paste will work automatically for end users after they receive the corresponding update to the operating system.

Word of Caution ! (via Release Notes)

In applications that have pivot or panorama controls that contain text boxes, users can unintentionally change panes when trying to copy text. To prevent this problem, open your application, recompile it, and then resubmit it to the Windows Phone Marketplace.

Here are few bytes of Snaps how it will look like :

There is no great code for this ! It’s a built in functionality. To demonstrate more clearly, I have today uploaded on small video (I took video by our own Microsoft product – Expression Screen Capture utility),Check this Video you will get more idea about Copy/Paste functionality inside Emulator.

Copy/Paste functionality on Windows Phone 7 Emulator

So, As per Release Notes,It suppose to work on :

• System.Windows.Controls.TextBox

• System.Windows.Controls.PasswordBox

• Text input fields within the Microsoft.Phone.Controls.WebBrowser control.

You may have question about API or something like,Can we restrict User to use from Copy/Paste?, Well for all these types of questions,I am giving you to take control and explore ahead.

I hope this quick and small post will be helpful for you and turn out to be informative.Stay tuned ! much more on Windows Phone 7 and Silverlight is coming on your way.

Vikram.

Silverlight On Mobile : Using Bing Maps in your Windows Phone 7 Application

Few months back, I wrote one article on Integrating Bing Maps in Silverlight Application. Today on the same base I am putting my thoughts for Bing Maps on Windows Phone 7 in a very short demo. The way you integrate your Bing Maps in Silverlight Application and over here is almost same since platform for both is Silverlight. You need Key for Bing Maps and API in place so as to make things easy for you, You can refer my old article here.

For Windows Phone 7, Make sure you add reference to Microsoft.Phone.Controls.Maps like this :

Then next step is to add Id in App.xaml file (Refer my old post,you will come to know where to get that Big long Id from) like this :

You need to add reference for the same in your MainPage.xaml file like this :

Then just add BingMaps to content panel and you are ready !

It will look like this on your emulator :

If you want to provide more options like Zooming In and out you can put the same in App Bar like this :

You can use ZoomLevel property which is of type double to play with Zooming capabilities.You can also add pushpin to put specific location on map using PushPin class like this :

pushpin.Content = "My Home";
pushpin.FontSize = 30;
BingMaps.Children.Add(pushpin);

Well, for setting exact location you need to take help of Location class.Both Location and PushPin you need Microsoft.Phone.Controls.Maps namespace which we have added as reference to our project.You can put Lat-Lon like this :

local.Latitude = 18.31;
local.Longitude = 73.55;

You can then see output like this :

This is how you can integrate Bing Maps to your Windows Phone 7 application. I know this is very basic but this is first step for advance Map related apps,We will soon further discuss more aspects like Location based Apps and Services,GPS etc. I hope this small tutorial will help you to add Maps in your current ongoing Windows Phone 7 apps if there is a requirement of the same.Stay tuned ! more useful short and long articles coming on Windows Phone 7 and Silverlight together.

Vikram.