I had a chance to review the HTC Arrive earlier this month, which ran on the latest Windows 7 Phone'NoDo'update.
New research shows that developers lose interest in writing applications for Windows 7 Phone.
It was the first time I had to dig deep into Microsoft's new operating system, and I was quite impressed.
Combined with a separate report showing that consumer interest is waning, too, it seems that Microsoft's phone platform is losing steam.
For those who have not tried it, Windows 7 Phone deviate heavily from the organisation behind Android and Ios.
A joint investigation between the IDC and appcelerator about developer interest smartphone platforms have bad news for Windows 7 Phone.
Unfortunately, it is far behind the competition, and Microsoft is struggling to catch up with Apple and Google.
Only 29% of developers say they are very interested in writing applications for the platform --- a decrease of 7% from a fourth ago.
Although I felt WP7 was pretty polished, it still felt like a first-generation operating system, since many features are missing.
That 29% is barely above the percentage of developers who said it would be very interested back in September, before the Windows Phone 7 was released.
To address some problems, the next major update title'Mango'aims to bring tons of accessories and a couple of notable features: The bad news? The current browser is not up to par with competitors.
This research comes as a Nielsen survey found that between January and March 2011, only 6% of consumers planning to buy a smart phone said they would buy a Windows 7 Phone unit, down from 7% in July to September 2010 time period.
It lacks support for plugins like Adobe Flash and not even follow all of the new HTML5 standards.
In other words, consumers and developers, after seeing Windows 7 Phone launched, saying, No thanks.
The good news? The forthcoming upgrade will bring Mango IE9 engine to the mobile operating system.
If Windows 7 Phone not generate developer interest, it will remain an app-starved platform --- and consumers will not buy.
This means that a page designed for a desktop browser would do the same on the small screens on mobile devices.
There was one small bright spot in the developer survey --- the developers said that the Microsoft co-operation with Nokia was the announcement that could make the greatest impact for companies to compete against Google and Apple.
Although it is not automatically an optimised experience, developers can use standard markup to make further improvements.
Yet, despite the announcement, the developers lose interest.
Since IE9 also takes advantage of hardware acceleration on mobile devices, rendering heavy sites faster than competitors.
So the Nokia agreement alone will not save Windows 7 Phone --- Microsoft is going to have to get developers on board too, or consumers will probably continue to stay away.
In one example demoed on stage, a prototype Windows phone device renders graphics at over 20 frames per second while Android ran at 11 FPS and IOS struggled in only 2 FPS.
The new browser will also let users prong Web apps to the home screen as a live tiles.
Another notable enhancement is an enhanced address bar that is now available in landscape mode.
When Windows 7 Phone first made a debut, it completely lacked the support to run two or more programs simultaneously.
Although a welcome addition, it was far from practical and the lack of an interface for the app switch forced users to go through each opened one in a chronological order by repeatedly pressing the return key. Microsoft makes things more straight forward with Mango update offering an app switcher. The interface shows screenshots of each open application and allows users to go sideways to the reader through them. In addition, this upgrade offers features such as background sound for the third-party applications. A demo shown on stage at MIX 11 was Spotify. Mango also makes it possible to play audio from a website and having it continue in the background, even if they leave the browser or open another application. Other new features include support for background alarms and other demo featured a flight tracking app that notified users when it was time to take a plane.
Playing catch up, Microsoft is putting in effort to give developers better tools to build powerful apps.
For example, apps now take advantage of the core panorama and pivot animations to feel as smooth as native ones.
Windows 7 Phone will soon allow more live tiles / app and allow developers to feed information to them in the background.
Another nice little addition opens the doors to ringtone apps for custom songs.
The Mango The update also gives developers deep access calendar and contact data for more creative applications.
To press on augmented reality (AR) apps, Microsoft offers now have access to the RAW camera data, compass, and gyroscope.
I was also excited to hear that Skype would now Windows 7 Phone device this autumn, means that we can see some hardware with front-facing cameras very soon.
Deep linking will make it possible to launch third-party programs from others is that the search results.
In addition, music + cinema Hub view a history of media played in the third-party applications such as Slacker, in addition to the native player.
Users can also attach a specific part of an application to the home as well.
For example, it will be possible to add a live tile shortcut directly to the bar code scanner function of the Amazon app for instant access.
Coming from ancient and catastrophic Windows Mobile 6.5 operating system, Microsoft has made some great strides.
These updates are a great start to offer an edge over competitors that dominate, but there is not enough yet.
According to some rumors, Nokia will release its first Windows 7 Phone device when this major update is available.
This can give them a much required boost with top notch hardware, but Microsoft still has much work to do when it comes to other issues such as drawing in developers to build more apps.
Links: Windows Phone.
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