Highlights

  • IE9 stuff is all tomorrow. Today is Windows Phone.
  • Windows phone developer tools are available NOW
  • SL4 final next month. SL4 RC is out now
  • WP 7 dev features - accelerometer, Microsoft Location Service, MS Notification Service, hw-accelerated video with DRM, IIS streaming, multitouch, camera and mic support
  • WP7 dev environment - XNA for games, Silverlight for apps...
  • Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Express for Windows Phone
  • Windows Phone 7 Series add-in for Visual Studio 2010 RC
  • XNA Games Studio 4.0.
  • Expression Blend 4 Beta
  • plus WP7 emulator for app testing
  • There are now only 2 screen sizes you target on Windows Phone!

 

Key Links

http://developer.windowsphone.com/ - Developer centre for Windows Phone
http://www.microsoft.com/express/phone/ - Express version of the tools
http://channel9.msdn.com/learn/courses/WP7TrainingKit/ - Training kit to get you started

*Conference starts with a video playing*

Starts off with a video about the new bing maps (Street view, silverlight, flickr photos overlayed in a photosynth )
http://Bing.com/maps

*Scott Gu comes on stage*

The Gu reckons this will be the most important MIX yet
Tomorrow is IE9, services based web development
Today is Silverlight. In RIA, and mobile phone
Silverlight is being used in a lot of places already (winter Olympics, Victoria secrets fashion show, McDonalds, bing maps)
At PDC Silverlight was on 45% of the words devices connected to the internet, today it is almost 60%

*video plays*

Lots of stats on the Olympics streaming. Lots of impressive technology.
All of the code is being open sourced, you can download it right now!
Silverlight 4 has new media support

  • Webcam and microphone
  • Muliticast streaming
  • Output protection
  • Offline DRM………..
  • Silverlight4 will support mutli monitors!

Other features

  • RIA services
  • MEF
  • Fluid UI
  • Better OOB
  • Printing

Pivot capabilities

  • Will be shipped as a control so you can embed it in your applications
  • As well as tools to help you crunch the images
  • Allows you to visualise LARGE datasets
  • Shows you 1000s of images at once, each image equals a data point, so graphs are made up of lots of tiny images
  • As you filter, the images that aren't part of the new set fade out, and the remaining images rearrange themselves

VS2010 has full Silverlight support
WCF RIA integration
Expression Blend 4 preview being released
SL4 + VS2010 + blend 4 = Win

*Raji Arasu and David Wolf from Ebay come on stage*

The created a SL application for ebay
Used OOB to integrate ebay app with desktop
The did the installation experience in an interesting way, when they load up the HTML page with the app, the app just looks like a splash screen that has a button that says "install now" which just installs it as an OOB application and launches from desktop.
She does a search in the SL application for a book
Brings up a listing, can look at the photos, zoom in and out.
She creates a new listing
Drag and drops a photo from her desktop into the application
The app has image editing capabilities so you can crop to the bit that you need.
Very slick app which shows you progress as you go through the wizard

Open ebay is an online marketplace for software
You can build an application with Silverlight, and sell it through there (they didn't mention if you can sell other types of applications)
USA only right now.

David wolf from Cynergy explains how they built it

He pushes that the speed and simplicity of developing with Silverlight was great
Shows how they used to prototype by using a series of images
Now he does it with sketchflow which makes the prototyping a lot better
In sketchflow he just imports the photoshop file and keeps the layers
Iterating is important, So they would release new prototypes early and often
Started off by just having a screen per photoshop skecthy image
Then added the transitions between the pages they expected
They took all of the feedback from Ebay
Made the polished images of each page and updated the sketchflow prototype
Was able to easily add animations to the prototype to show it off

*Scott gu back on stage*

Silverlight 4 RC is available now!
SL4 tools for VS2010 RC available now

*joel Belfiore comes on stage to join scott*

Going to show how to build an application for WP7
They are running a daily build on the phone live, so if things break we know why :-)
The look and feel / theme that we see across all of it is known as "Metro"

Starts by explaining the Start experience
There are a number of "life tiles"
They are unique to each user
Shows contacts, what they are up to
News tiles
Calendar tile shows what you should be doing next
Game tile shows you our Xbox live status
Press and hold on a tile to customise it, can drag it somewhere else
Can "unfavourite" someone to remove them off the front screen
From the home screen you should be able to see what your friends are up to, what you should be doing next
Now onto email
It looks like the Zune interface. You are in the email 'section' then the pivot categories are across the top for "all", "unread", etc.
Pan through each of the pivot categories quickly to see different emails.

They now have an "application bar" across the bottom, this is to create a consistent experience across all applications.

"Windows Phone Hubs"
The idea of a hub is to create a central place that is orientated around an idea. Like photos, people
Applications can plug directly into the hubs
Hubs feature a "panoramic experience"
You keep panning across the UI
The people hub brings in your people from facebook, email, gmail, windows live, etc.
Pan through your people, find one you want and click them
Brings up all of that persons details, posts of social networking sites
Can click on the heart to favourite that contact to the home screen.
The contact is now on the home screen with their photo from facebook.

Calendar hub
Can see all of your appointments
can click on an appointment, there is an "I will be late" button which will email everyone in that meeting.

Music hub
To start with the tile on the home screen shows a photo of the last song played
Going into the hub, you have music, videos
Brings in media from your online store subscription, from what you synced from your PC

Silverlight on the phone
Starts by showing an applications that follows the WP7 themeing
He clicks on the "AP mobile news reader" tile on the home screen
The application opens up, it looks like a 'hub' as it has the panoramic view so you can pan across to see different categories.
A little advertisement popped up from the bottom, showed a car ad, then disappeared.
He clicks a news piece and it loads
The transitions between the screens was amazing! The screen is treated like multiple 3D layers which tilt away from the screen and bring in the new screen
Single screen applications are dead, panorams are the future.

Shows an app that doesn't follow the Metro theme
"hush hush" application created by Jackson fish market
Private diary on your phone
Shows the diary from his son
Clicks on timeline to see how many posts were created each month.
Can see different entries, it has a photo the child took and some notes.

Shows applications that integrate with the phone
Shows the pictures hub
On the left is the pictures gallery
Middle is albums
On the right are photos that your friends are uploading
3rd party applications can "add value" to this hub
He is now looking at his albums (synced from his online albums or synced from PC)
Opens up a photo
Clicks on "extras"
Shows the list of applications that have registered as being able to edit photos
Then begins to edit the photo

3D xbox live game "The harvest"
They are fixing a lot of the hardware requirements to try and make it easier for the end user to not have to worry about specs so much
One app processor, one graphic processor
There are now only 2 screen sizes you target!!

*Scott comes back on stage*

Is now going to show how to create apps for WP7

Creating with Silverlight
Fully hardware accelerated.
Can make smooth flowing Uis
The programming model is the same on phone that you are used to
It isn't "silverlight light" or "silverlight mobile". This is full silverlight.

Brings up VS2010
File new project -> Windows Phone application
The project is created, brings up the first screen for the app, it is already sized to the Windows phone UI
The WP7 'look and feel' is already there by default. Has the headings and a textbox so that it already looks like a WP7 application.
He puts on a button, puts a bit of code in the code behind to just change textbox
Can press debug to deploy to a phone, or have the emulator load it up
It is a full emulator of the entire phone OS as a virtual machine
The emulator is VERY simple to use. It finally 'just works' there is also a bar along the side of it things like being able to quickly change screen orientation.
Windows Phone 7 Series emulator supports mutli touch via windows 7

Scott decides to build a twitter application
Puts in a button
Puts in a listbox
Changes the button code, Creates a WebClient object, does a REST call to the twitter api
Wires up an event handler
Uses LinqToXML to parse the tweets
Edits the XAML to add a design template to the listbox
Hits F5, the app loads up in the emulator very quickly and it hits the network and pulls down tweets.

*Jon Harris comes on stage*

That was a programmer focused example, lets go for the design focused example using blend.
Shows the end application, displays your photos, but sorted by when they were taken.

Opens up Expression blend, file new project, windows phone application
Can drag on controls and it picks up the look and feel of the application
Adds an image to the project and adds it to the screen.
The image is incorrect, so he right clicks it in blend and clicks edit
Photoshop comes up, he edits it, clicks save and blend updates itself
Shows his data sources in blend
Drags the images data source onto the design surface and it creates a databound list box.
He changes the styling of the listbox from being a stack panel to a wrap panel so that photos flow.
We now have the logo, the photos, now he needs the menu
Edits the menu items to be "today", "week", "month", "all photos"
Links the menu items to a bit of data binding
Click drags a behaviour onto the design surface so that the photos change when you click on the menu
Adds a 2nd behaviour so that when you click on a photo it navigates to "Details Page.xaml"
Creates "Details Page.xaml'
Imports in a photoshop file that defines the UI
Drag and drops the datasource onto the description textbox, onto the image control
Uses visual state manager to change opacity of the description text box. In this way it either shows the photo full screen, or fades in the description over the top when you click
The awesome transitions that were in the other applications comes for free when you transition between screens!

*Scott Gu back on stage*

The phone development tools are free!
They gave the tools out to partners 3 weeks ago, begins showing off what they have made so far.

*Netflix*

Shows a media app
Silverlight on phone enables Smooth streaming and DRM.
Notification showing that there is a new arrival for him
Flicks to "movies you'll love"
Shows a bunch of movies he will like.
He then begins streaming the movie
The application hooked into the music + video hub
He goes back to the home screen, goes into there, and he can see that his movie is in there as previously played

*Graphic.Ly demo.*

Allows you to view comic books and discuss with other people
Can purchase comics and view on Windows 7 or WP7
Goes into catalogue to see all of the comics he can buy
Clicks on collection so he can see what he has
Clicks on a comic, opens it up
He flicks through the panels
With deep zoom he zooms RIGHT down deep into the comic and shows off the high quality art.
Entire thing was built in 2-3 weeks

*back to scott*

Silverlight on phones has all SL features but also has access to the phone's

  • Location & map control
  • Microphone & camera
  • Push notifications
  • Accelerometer
  • Hub integration

*Laura foy comes on stage*

Talks about 4 square on WP7
Shows the app, can see friends, check-in
Clicks check-in
Location aware so shows where she is
Has a bing map control, and shows places of interest around her
She can pan about the map.
Checks in to the Mix 2010 event
Goes to the friends section
She can see all of her friends, displayed on the map
Clicks on one of her friends on the map
Asks for directions
Bing maps shows a route on how to get to the friend

*Shazam application*

Windows phone applications can get raw access to the microphone input
You hear a song, and want to get details on it.
You just record a sample of the song, and it identifies it for you
Brings up the song, shows the album, can see other songs on album
Can tweet the song
Can view it in the phone in the Zune marketplace

*Seesmic*

Is a service to aggregate all of your social networks into one place
Shows Seesmic desktop on Windows 7, it is a silverlight application
Is powered by plugins, shows facebook, twitter, twitpic, linked.in
The plugins are integrated into lots of places
When he posts an update, the plugin automatically url shortens for him
In the timeline, he can see location. The plugin allows you to click on the location, and an embedded bing maps display shows it.
Shows the phone version
Has the metro styling again so has the categories of "friends", "nearby", etc.

*Coding4fun cannon*

It is a windows mobile application which allows you to control a cannon
The phone is sending network commands to a little cannon that is on wheels
The cannon drives around the stage.
The accelerometer in the phone is used to aim the cannon
They then begin firing tshirts into the crowd

*Scott gets back into serious mode*

Introduces XNA on windows phone
Can write your code once and have it target multiple platforms

*Major nelson comes on stage*

They took a Zune HD game, ported it to XNA 4.0 so that it worked on windows phone
Shows battlepunks, a game that is currently on facebook.
The game is all hosted in the cloud, so he can access it from many different platforms.
He unlocks an achievement
Xbox live is available from the phone
Talks about how XNA games can run on multiple platforms
Shows a visual studio project. Shows the game running on Windows phone, then he presses F5 to run it on his Windows 7 PC, then he shows it running on an xbox 360.

*back to Scott*

Windows phone has an online marketplace
It is a "marketplace hub"
It has the metro theme, so it looks like a good marketplace unlike the current Winmo 6.5 one…
You can TRY / BUY the applications/games
Developers can release a single binary and just enable/disable features based on if the customer clicked try or buy.

When is this all coming out?
Windows Phone developers can get started right NOW go download it!

By David Burela