Windows Phone 7 Developer Tools January Update Supports Next Phone OS
The Windows Phone Developer Tools January Update is being made available through CDN worldwide.
You will be able to build apps using some updated assemblies which will ship in the next Windows Phone OS update. It supports the addition of copy and paste, improved app performance and other enhancements for Windows Phone.
All apps that are in Windows Phone Marketplace will continue to work on any phone that gets updated to the new version of the operating system.
Any app built using this new version of the tools will also work on phones that have not been updated to the new OS.
That said, you should open your projects with the updated tools and do a sanity check on their projects. Most apps will not need to be recompiled or resubmitted. All apps will benefit from the changes made in the forthcoming OS update, resulting in performance increases, as well as copy/paste functionality for your customers who update to the new OS.
The update is being pushed through Windows Azure Content Delivery Network. So you’ll be able to get the update as CDN caches are updated.
The announcement was made on the Windows Phone Developer Blog, Windows Phone Developer Tools January Update.
What’s in the Update
The Windows Phone Developer Tools January 2011 Update includes:
- Windows Phone Emulator Update – Exposes copy/paste functionality in the Windows Phone 7 emulator. For more information, see How to: Test Copy and Paste in Windows Phone Emulator. End users can use the copy and paste functionality only after receiving the corresponding update to the Windows Phone 7 operating system.
- Windows Phone Developer Resources Update – Fixes a text selection bug in pivot and panorama controls. In applications that have pivot or panorama controls that contain text boxes, users can unintentionally change panes when trying to copy text. To prevent this problem, open your application, recompile it, and then resubmit it to the Windows Phone Marketplace.
- Windows Phone Capability Detection Tool – Detects the phone capabilities used by your application. When you submit your application to Windows Phone Marketplace , Microsoft performs a code analysis to detect the phone capabilities required by your application and then replaces the list of capabilities in the application manifest with the result of this detection process. This tool performs the same detection process and allows you to test your application using the same list of phone capabilities generated during the certification process. For more information, see How to: Use the Capability Detection Tool.
- Windows Phone Connect Tool – Allows you to connect your phone to a PC when Zune® software is not running and debug applications that use media APIs. For more information, see How to: Use the Connect Tool.
- Updated Bing Maps Silverlight Control – Includes improvements to gesture performance when using Bing™ Maps Silverlight® Control.
Get Started with Windows Phone 7
Tools are free. Get started on Windows Phone 7 or XBox at App Hub.
See the free developer training course for Windows Phone 7 on Channel 9
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Bruce D. KyleISV Architect Evangelist | Microsoft Corporation