This afternoon we attended the "Windows Phone developers day" at Mobile World Congress, during which an extensive Q&A was held that involved various heads of the Windows Phone development team, including Larry Liberman, Bryan Agnetta, Joe Marini, Rob Cameron and Brandon Watson.
A question that Microsoft is commonly asked involves the TCP-socket layer support and whether or not Windows Phone will make it accessible for developers. Socket-layers are critically needed for such services as VOIP aka Skype, Viber, etc. We now know that multitasking is coming to Windows Phone 7 with 'Mango' but now we have a very strong hint that socket-support, in some way, may be coming as well. Those two features are necessary for VOIP. [For a complete background, see J2i.net for relevant points]
Watson does the talking here but dare we say, if you read between the lines you get the feeling that (1) MIX11 will be huge for developers in terms of new features (that are coming with 'Mango') and that (2) Socket-support is a strong contender for a new feature, allowing developers to finally expand beyond simple web-based software. One thing is clear is that Microsoft does not want to disappoint consumers or developers and they are working hard to roll out new features for both, as quickly as possible.
Comments
What is MIX and we have to wait that long for socket support? :-/ Im gonna have to wait forever to get AIM on my phone which every phone since the dawn age has already.
MIX: http://www.microsoft.com/events/mix/default.aspx
People still use AIM? No way!
I hate to further disappoint you but the way Microsoft works, more than likely, socket support will only be *announced* at MIX for appearance at a much later date sometime in 2011.
This is exactly how "unfulfilled promises" are born. We all "knew for sure" NoDo, Sprint and Verizon are coming in January.
This is why MS has taken the stance of only showing/talking about things that are done and ready. There's the whole underpromise then overdeliver later. Sure waiting 4 months vs 2 months for NoDO sucks but hey, on the flip side we don't know what else they've snuck in there really.
I'm afraid that's really not enough! The way Windows Phone 7 is going, Microsoft should only talk about things that are done, ready AND that have been approved by the carriers for immediate release. After all, the carriers are clearly still in control of everything.
VoIP on mobile phones is overrated. I can already make calls with my Windows Phone, I don't need VoIP. What I really need is an SSH client. And that's the reason Microsoft needs to open up sockets access.
I couldn't agree more. Skype, Skype, Skype. Meh. The world of potential access is a heck of a lot bigger than Skype and its ilk.
I think this was always a give, socket-access is one of those things that's needed for enterprise level support. MS can't do anything BUT offer it later this year with one of the updates.The other thing is, and they know it as well, 3rd party devs will hit a wall at some point as far as apps go. They'll be limited in what they can do/make so opening up more APIs to them also boosts the dev support and app growth as well.
Personally that's one of the big reasons I won't be getting a WP7 handsets is cause there are no VoIP capabilities.. and I don't mean skye. I'm more interested in SIP solutions, which I currently enjoy on my iPhone.
oooi - this wp7 phone misses, i certainly dont get them... winmobile was just fine except for the sooo boring visuals!! And then MS decided to built a new OS, with their humongous experience, what they did is make the iOs-1 beta release... And now its called wp7... U can argue, dislike or have a diff opinion, but them facts r simple to see...Not a single "smart" thing is implemented in wp7, and except for the visuals, it offers nothing of true essence to the "smartphone" consumer!!!So probably people who'll buy wp7 dony care bout VOiP, FILE MANAGER, BLUETOOTH, BASIC APP SWITCHER(if not for real multitasking)...AND I AINT MENTIONING CUSTOMIZATION OF ANY KIND...+++ LET ME TELL U ALSO +++I'M ONE OF THE BIGGEST WP7 FANBOYS OUT THERE but, cant argue with the fact that this "smartphone" OS has nothing smart inside,unfortunately.But what will happen,time will tell...
I'm going to disagree here. My previous phone was a WinMo. The number one thing wrong with it was Microsoft's lack of control over the OS with respect to manufacturers and carriers. As a result the platform became way too fragmented, and good luck getting desperately needed OS updates. If anything, control over the OS is arguably one of the most important features of WP7.
There's no reason not to have sockets on WP7 since it is implemented in Silverlight 3. I think they will definitely show this at MIX as well as access to the camera video stream and some other stuff. Anyway we'll see..