Windows Phone 8 Summit

 

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Coming to a Windows 8 Phone near you….

Hot on the heels of the Windows Surface announcement, today we had the Windows Phone Summit “sneak peek” at the next generation of Windows Phone. I must admit it looks very nice. Windows 8 phones will be based on the same operating system technology that powers Windows 8. They will be able to sport multiple processors and share driver technology with their bigger brother. They will be able to use Near Field Communication to exchange data with other devices, including Microsoft Surface. Programmers will be able to write games (and other programs) which will be compiled into fast running binary code that executes directly on the processor, with graphics powered by DirectX. There will be support for more screen resolutions. You will be able to upgrade the storage using an SD card. Operating system updates will be sent directly to the phone. And the Start Menu is going to get a bit bigger.

One piece of less good news, for me at any rate. Existing phones will not be upgraded. My lovely Lumia 900 will always be a Windows 7 phone. I can live with that though. When Nissan bring out a new version of the Cube I’m not expecting them to provide a way for me to upgrade my car for free. And actually I love my Cube just the way it is. A new version of Windows Phone 7, version 7.8 (where do they get these numbers from?) will bring some of the UI enhancements to existing devices, which will be nice.

It looks like all my XNA and Silverlight skills will still serve me on the new platform as well as the old one and I can still continue to make a fortune via sales of Cheese Lander on the new device…

All things considered it looks like the phone is on a very good trajectory.