Not too long ago I wrote a corporate blog post (Dutch) about Windows 8 and why I love the idea. In that same post, I mentioned the great interactivity all Windows devices will get because of the shared core. Today, Microsoft officially anounced that shared core at their Windows Phone 8 conference. Yay!
Not going into depth, the shared core comes down to developers being able to use Windows bits and pieces for Windows Phone development as well. That’s cool because you’ll won’t have to worry about writing the same code twice for different devices. And with Microsoft Surface (not the table but the slate) being launched in the end of this year as well, it means we developers will be using one codebase for phone, tablet and desktop apps. And that’s great. Kind of sounds like the way it was always meant to be if you ask me!
But that’s not all. Here’s a quick recap of all the nice features Windows Phone 8 will have:
- Multi core support
- Support for other resolutions (not there at this time)
- Wallet. Not only for credit card payment, but also loyalty programs, paying via NFC, deals on your device, Airmiles. Cool! Finally we can get rid of all those stupid cards!
- And with that comes in-app purchases
- Navigation & directions (NAVTEQ / Nokia)
- Deploying corporate software without using the marketplace
- More HTML5 support (touch!)
- Native C / C++ and Direct3D hardware acceleration
- SQLite support
- Incoming VoIP and Skype calls are just like normal calls
So yes. Some of you may argue that some of these features aren’t that new when compared to Android and iPhone devices. No they’re not. But integrating them all into one OS definitely is. And compared to the ‘new’ features Apple introduced for iOS6, I think this list is pretty awesome, especially from a developers point of view. With this toolkit, we get lots of goodies to implement in our apps. And I’m pretty sure the launch of Windows 8 together with Windows Phone 8 will stir things up a lot. Thinking differently that is 😉
The sucky part for current Windows Phone users: they won’t be upgrading all legacy devices. But there will be a WP7.8 version which features some of the functions of 8. But not all. So you might be forced to buy a different phone, although I’m guessing that the later models will have an upgrade option.
Disclaimer: I don’t own a Windows Phone device (yet), and I won’t be getting one for this blogpos also I’m afraid. But hey, wouldn’t want one at this time, I’m going to wait for the new Lumia’s to come out (which probably will be somewhere around the end of the year I assume). And disclaimer part two: most of the above info came from Engadget.
