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Exciting Windows Phone announcements at MIX11

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MIX11 Keynote

The MIX Day 2 Keynote included a lot of announcements for what is coming in the next big update, codenamed Mango, to Windows Phone later this year. In addition to what was shown at Mobile World Congress in February attendees were given a first hand look at the new API features and tooling that will be available to their apps.

You can check out the full blog post on the Windows Phone blog here. 

We are empowering developers with new capabilities that enable new app scenarios, such as;

  • “Multitasking” meets Integrated Experiences with Live Agents: Superior customer engagement with real time interactions via Live Tiles, Push Notifications, Deep Linking and Background Agents. Multitasking is also enhanced to allow for fast applications switching, as well as background audio and file transfer.
  • Phone Integration has been greatly improved for developers looking to enable their applications to do more with their apps. The Live Tiles, Extras and push notifications functionality has been expanded to give developers more flexibility to engage with their customers.
  • Developers will also have access to the Motion Sensor library and the camera, enabling amazing augmented reality experiences. The integration extends deeper into the operating system via sockets and database access now available to apps and games.

Specific to the refreshed Windows Phone Developer Tools that arrive in May, we’ve also added;

  • A new profiler and emulator for testing
  • Support for Silverlight AND XNA in the same project
  • Structured storage that enables access to SQL database
  • Access to calendar and contacts through apps
  • And much more

 

Catch up on the Windows Phone Breakout Sessions

There were 25 breakout sessions on Windows Phone at this year’s MIX!  Each session is available via Silverlight streaming or downloadable formats so you can watch it on whatever device you feel like.  Most of them include the PowerPoint slides as well.

MIX11 Phone Sessions

Here are just some of the favorites from attendees so far.  My personal favorites are Deep Dive MVVM, Windows Phone Architecture Deep Dive and Application Design for Windows Phone.

 

More X-Box gaming goodness

Xbox on Windows Phone

The X-Box live Windows Phone games continue to roll in!  If you have checked out my Gamerscore lately on Live you will see plenty of achievements from phone games.  You just can’t beat unlocking something while waiting in line at the store.  I am currently working on finishing Fable Coin Golf  but two of my all time favorites were just shown off at MIX. 

Angry Birds come to WP7PvZ

Plants vs. Zombies will be coming very soon and the official date for Angry Birds on WP7 is now May 25th!  You can check out more of the upcoming titles in the Must Have Games video.

 

Windows Phone Community Love

This year’s Day 2 Mix Keynote opened with a new Windows Phone video.  Everyone was blown away when it was announced right after that the video wasn’t made by Microsoft’s advertising agency.  It was made by one of you, a WP7 fan, by the name of Brandon Foy.  Brandon composed the music in the video himself and his video features apps that he personally uses on his own phone.  Brandon is a true artists with a lot of talent.  Please give the video a look!

If it gets more than 200,000 views on YouTube Microsoft will turn it into primetime TV ad (edited for length). Help support Brandon and get his video on TV.