Reed and Steve Stuff

World’s Largest Pac-Man

Hegey — Thu, 14 Apr 2011 12:16:00 GMT

By now, most of you have seen this extremely cool demo of some of the capabilities of HTML5 and IE9. But if you haven’t, and you’re old enough to remember crushing quarters into that devil of a game, then you owe it to yourself to check this out!

Hegenderfer

Speaking of the Robot Apocalypse…

Hegey — Fri, 10 Sep 2010 13:31:00 GMT

Okay, I saw this today and laughed my *** off…this is some funny stuff!

And yes, I do think more people would prefer the Hover Tank…ah, who am I kidding? Give me a giant robot as well.

Monkeys vs Robots

Hegey — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 16:41:36 GMT

Okay, so I have been telling you guys for awhile that with all of this technological innovation going on, we are on the precipice of the robot revolution. But we cannot forget about the monkeys. No, not for a second.

If the robots don’t get us, the monkeys will surely rise up and enslave us all.

And with that, I give you this :)

Have fun out there…

The new kid…Windows Phone 7

Reed Robison — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 20:04:00 GMT

The buzz around Windows Phone is getting pretty crazy. This past weekend, reviews and walk-throughs emerged on almost all of the major tech blogs. It’s about time. iPhone and Android have had their 15 minutes. Microsoft has been cooking something in the back room under lock and key and release is imminent. You have to wonder, will it sink or swim? Is it too little, too late?

The new kid is Windows Phone 7. He’s smart, he’s different, and brings much needed change to our mobile platform strategy. With change comes excitement and some trepidation for our legacy mobile developers. After all, this is a completely new platform-- not an upgrade from Windows Mobile in any way. What does it all mean?

Windows Mobile and Beyond

Windows Mobile is still alive and well. It’s been the best mobile LOB platform around and continues to move forward under the ownership of our Embedded Team as Windows Embedded Handheld. It’s flexible, adaptable and comes in every variety of hardware you can imagine. When my A/C unit blew up last month, the service guy shows up with a high tech gadget. It was indestructible (e.g. – ruggedized). It was a two way walkie-talkie. It managed the work order for my house and captured my signature. It ran technical diagnostics on the data collected. It pumped the whole work order up into the cloud and then magically printed my receipt to a wireless Bluetooth printer on the tech’s belt. WM has a great device management story, meets most security requirements, and gets the work done.

Windows Mobile is a great LOB platform for many uses but it has struggled with non-geeks who buys smartphones (e.g. – average consumer). The same flexibility that makes it powerful and adaptable is also responsible for the lackluster reputation with this crowd. There are a LOT of devices, form factors, and operator/hardware customizations that end up in Windows Mobile phones. OEMs have great flexibility that allows them to build a $100 device or a $3000 device depending on what they put into it. There are minimum bar requirements, but they are vague. Simply put, a Blackjack II… is not an HD2… is not a Tilt… is not a, you get the idea. These phones can run many of the same applications. They are all Windows Mobile. They all provide very different experiences and sometimes bare very little resemblance to each other. In the Enterprise LOB space, this isn’t a big deal since many companies standardize on a ruggedized device or pick a handful of “approved” devices to support for corporate workers. There is also big part of the world that doesn’t fit this profile. To them, it is a big deal.

The consumers space is … different. While people will debate endlessly about the superiority of Android, iPhone, Palm, Blackberry, or Windows Mobile … the answer is bigger than the platform itself. I would argue that all these guys have made big contributions to get us where we are. The mobile ecosystem is a complex, collaborative and adversarial bakery going after a very big pie. We’ve all attacked it from different angles and it’s evolving at rapid pace. The mobile phone market is so much bigger than the PC market and carries so much potential, it’s staggering. Okay, maybe I’m, a little crazy but there are a lot of numbers to back up my madness. The networks keep getting better. The cloud is emerging. There is a generation that cares more about their phone than their PC (if they even have one). Things are falling in to place to truly let this market take flight. While I’m very optimistic about Windows Phone 7, I’m even more optimistic about the mobility as a market opportunity. I don’t think anyone has scraped the surface yet. Not even Apple.

Why Windows Phone 7 is different…

The blogosphere is full of reviews and details about the Windows Phone 7 platform. I won’t try to reiterate all those things here. I will point out a few that make this a compelling platform to me as a developer… a few of my favorite things

A simple, compelling device than anyone can use. It’s something the average consumer can truly love. There is nothing super-techie or complex about using Windows Phone 7. It’s a joy. Keep it simple. Thank you. This device will appeal to anyone and that makes it a very good platform for developers to easily reach the masses.

A single install that is accessible to everyone. Windows Phone 7 is one download. It magically pulls down everything you need to get started. If you have a paid SKU of Visual Studio, it plugs in all the parts to enable Windows Phone 7 development. If not, it installs an Express (a.k.a. – free) version of Visual Studio...with everything you need. Code away.

Silverlight and XNA. Silverlight and XNA finally give you everything needed to build astonishing user interfaces. Hello XAML. Goodbye simple, but ugly WinForms. There is no excuse for ugly apps now. Windows Phone 7 is based on SL3 so most Silverlight devs can jump right in. Better yet, the tools, books, and resources for SL3 have been out for a while so there is a lot of good content to leverage. XNA is interesting because it’s also the framework that has powered community games on XBOX and apps on Zune. While XNA dev across these platforms is not identical, it’s pretty close and sets developers up for multiple opportunities to leverage their gaming investment.

A Zune Phone? It’s no secret… the only thing that broke the hearts of Zune HD buyers was that it wasn’t a phone. Windows Phone 7 does Zune…. and more. If you buy one CD a month, then Zune Pass is for you. For a price less than one CD, you have access to a staggering library of music anytime you want it. Considering 10 DRM-free credits each month to keep whatever you want (it’s yours), it’s the best way to try and buy music.

Consistency in hardware and user experience. The bar for Windows Phone 7 hardware is high and rigidly set. This means every device will be a great device… for gaming, for apps, for everything this platform is designed to do. With WM, OEMs had a lot of leeway with hardware requirements to pick and choose. No more. These devices will rock.

The Cloud. People will debate what “the cloud” really represents to them, but it’s undeniable that the industry is shifting. I still think of myself as an old-school C++ guy, but I write most of my code in .NET. It makes me more productive. I remember being very skeptical when .NET emerged and then warming up… it was like someone sat down and thought through the problems developers were writing code to solve and built the APIs around it. C++ suddenly felt like stacking grains of sand instead of stacking blocks. Cloud computing will change the way we build apps, store, and access data. Windows Phone 7 is positioned to help you get there. As a developer, there are many changes that may initially make you scratch your head, and then realize… oh yeah, something bigger going on here.

Push Notifications. You have a to love a super simple technique to integrate devices, applications, and services with a dandy little URI.

Marketplace is a first class citizen. If you are a developer, it’s a great way to get your apps to people who want to buy them. If you are a shopper… impulse buying has never been better.

XBOX Live. This is an enormous, fiercely active community, and something we’ve been waiting on in the mobile world for some time.

Location APIs. I think it’s the most important aspect of mobile opportunity and now it just works… no wrestling the GPS on each device or triangulating cell towers. It just works. Connecting people with needs to services and apps based on their location.

No more 32MB virtual memory limit. The virtual memory monster is dead.

Windows Mobile to Windows Phone 7. How do I get there from here?

I’m doing a lot of calls Windows Mobile developers who are trying to get their heads around Windows Phone 7. How do we get there from here? The answer is too broad for this post, but I’ll try to summarize some key points below:

If you are developing native code, you need to get to .NET (Silverlight or XNA). Native applications are no longer supported so if you are doing deep integration work, there may not be a 1:1 port. Windows Phone 7 protects the user experience and this means tighter control over what 3rd party apps can touch and interact with. NETCF Windows Forms will need to be replaced by a UI developed in Silverlight or XNA.

Application deployment is through Windows Marketplace. In the Windows Mobile world, it’s an option. With Windows Phone 7, it’s the requirement. While this is a hurdle for some enterprise and LOB apps want to control the install and distribution channel, it’s a great story for developers who just want a single way to sell their app to end users.

Widgets are gone. Widgets were basically little web pages wrapped in a control to make them look and feel like a stand-alone app. Moving your Widget to either a web page in the cloud or an application that leverages a browser control is pretty straight forward.

Windows Phone 7 uses Isolated Storage, not the file system you are used to. The file system you are used to is gone…even to the point that SD cards become part of overall “storage” and are not independently accessible. Silverlight developers will feel right at home with Isolate Storage but it’s a different paradigm for legacy devs. Apps are sandboxed and protected from each other all the way down to the data underneath them. If you use multiple processes and share data between them, you may need to re-think the architecture.

SQLCE is not part of this release for developers. SQLCE was such a huge part of our WM story, it’s hard to imagine a Microsoft Phone without it. For many simple storage requirements, Isolated Storage works just fine. If you have deep dependencies on SQLCE or are doing replication with SQL, this can be a hurdle. There are replication and database implementations already showing up for use on Windows Phone 7 using Isolated Storage to take the place of SQLCE short term. More to come on this one…

No more RAPI. If you have an application today that interacts with the desktop via cradled connection and RAPI, consider using the cloud or push notifications as a conduit.

Raw Sockets and custom connectivity over Bluetooth are not available. While the .NET libraries provide support for various connectivity scenarios, there is no low level support for raw sockets. Bluetooth support is limited to what the platform and UI provides out of the box.

No more background apps and services. This topic really stirs people up but it’s not a technical limitation…it’s a business one. If you want a great device experience, you have to lay down some ground rules to prevent the abuse of resources and ensure that devices stays “snappy”. The simple way to do this is giving the foreground app all the love. Background apps can still get notifications and interact with the user if something important needs to happen, but they don’t have free reign of the system like they used to.

You might be able to re-use more than you think. Remember when you learned how to go from desktop .NET to NETCF and things were very similar, but not everything was 1:1? Moving to WP7 is kind of like that. Expect to be able to re-use much of the private code and application logic you have written, but not all of the NETCF libraries are going to be 1:1. For example

If your company has rigid requirements for device control and management, you will need to re-evaluate what is supported with Window Phone out of the gate. While WP7 will support many Exchange policies (e.g. – PIN enforcement, remote wipe, etc.) it’s a new platform that is inherently different from Windows Mobile. Some of the deep device management tools you use today may not be compatible with WP7.

The legacy WM developers who are most impacted by changes to WP7 are going to be enterprise LOB developers and integrators who did a lot of low level work on Windows Mobile. If you can think outside the box a bit, WP7 may create new opportunities to do things you never could before. If you are struggling with what LOB might look like on WP7 or how to overcome some of the data synchronization you were previously doing for disconnected clients, I would encourage you to start with Rob Tiffany’s session on WP7 LOB.

Sum it up already…

Windows Phone 7 is a brand new foray into phones that enable every day people. If you are new to mobile development, it’s a good time to get in. If you are already a mobile developer (on any platform), it’s a refreshing new way to expand your reach and broaden your market. Never has the learning curve been so small for an opportunity this big.

-Reed

The Robotics Development Studio – watch it on Channel 9 :)

Hegey — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 23:52:21 GMT

For those of you who are interested in robotics, Trevor Taylor (PM on the Robotics team) has filmed a little ditty around the Robotics Development Studio (RDS)…check it out here on Channel 9!

Good job Trevor!

BTW, still waiting for the Monkey/Robot war…come on folks, it’s inevitable…

Hello World (again)

Reed Robison — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 18:13:45 GMT

You may have noticed things have been quiet around here for a spell. I have been absorbed in a world of customer commitments, an incredible array of new technologies, and mostly.... just resisting the temptation to talk about things that were still in incubation periods.

There are some beautiful 6.5 devices out now. I absolutely LOVE my HD2. What an amazing device.

When we started this blog, I said that a blog was only as good at its content. With this in mind, I didn’t want to simply repost WM6 content that had already been done. I just feel like everything you could possibly want to do with WM6 is out there in the form of community content, samples, etc. Most of the posts I have pushed on WM6 were topics that had either not been done or were difficult to find in one place. Anything still MIA? Let me know.. I’ll try to post on it. Media Streaming is one tricky animal that I never got around to on WM6. I may go there…but, most of the excitement is around this new kid in town called WP7.

I'm pumped to talk more about Windows Phone 7. I’ve been playing the bits for awhile now and I like it… a lot. Granted, I have my wish list of things that didn’t make it in (yet), but I love the fact that we’re making some hard decisions about what it *will* do very well and what it will not do. That’s a big change from the WM world where we try to be everything to everyone.

Where to start? The developer portal and/or the man himself, Charles Petzold!

It’s time to start blogging again…I'm thinking I should start with a discussion of Enterprise LOB in relation to WP7. If you are LOB developer, you have probably been excited about WP7 to end up scratching your head about some obvious omissions. In the same respect, you may have noticed a major announcement yesterday about the Future of Enterprise Handheld Devices. What to make of this?

Stay Tuned…

Reed

Robots are harmful to humans

Hegey — Fri, 07 May 2010 20:27:40 GMT

Uh…duh? Have any of you seen Terminator? Isn’t this something that everyone knows?

But this article is a laugher…

Sorry to be away for so long, folks…I’ll try to do better, even if it’s snarky stuff.

Welcome back from the Holidays :)

Hegey — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 17:30:24 GMT

You know, it’s always this time of year I either feel refreshed from having a nice little vaca and enjoying the Christmas Season, or I feel like it’s a race to the end of the fiscal. This year, it’s kinda both.

Things here at Microsoft are busy as ever. In many respects, with SO MANY products shipping between the end of 2009 and the end of 2010 (calendar years), it really IS a race. A race to get that feature implemented, a race to kick off a campaign in a region, a race to simply find time in your calendar to think.

But when I do get a chance to think, I often come across some very interesting things (both internally and externally). This morning, I was perusing the wires at about 7am my time (don’t get me started; the days start earlier and earlier for me), I came across this piece in the NY Times. It’s actually an interesting piece that made me think that maybe, maybe, all of the virtues that we espouse as great things that embody the internet age are actually sapping some of the creativity out of the system.

Well, that’s my deep thought. Hope everyone is glad to be back at it…even though for many of us, it seems like we never left :)

Hegenderfer

Microsoft OneApp – what is that thing?

Hegey — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 15:15:56 GMT

Okay, so this is officially my second week in the OneApp team, and I must say I am really impressed with the group…sharp cookies one and all. I am definitely bringing down the bell curve here :)

But I am equally as jazzed around the opportunities that OneApp will bring to mobile developers world wide. The ability to reach MILLIONS of users with the EXACT SAME code base ACROSS DEVICES…that is cool!

Of course, the reason we can do this is because we have a CLR that runs above a VM on the device (and boy, it’s a tiny shim…very efficient). So, you won’t be ‘going native’ with OneApp to the metal (so to speak), but you can create some extremely cool apps.

Best of all, for you folks out there that like to tinker, the platform supports free apps and a free tool chain…when I say free, I mean free. As in really free. As in, no cost (aside from your valuable time, of course). I’ll have more info to share in the coming weeks and months, but it is very nice.

And the distribution model should be killer as well (remember the MILLIONS of users ACROSS DEVICES thing above…was that a gratuitous use of caps?).

We are still finalizing some pieces of the business models and such, so I can’t talk about those right now, but I will say that this is a different model…flat out. I think you’ll like it :)

At any rate, as I dig in more, expect me to post more (like I used to); and as tools become available, I’ll try to let you all know about ‘em ASAP!

In the words of my friend John Smith (Xbox team)…peace.

Hegenderfer

Microsoft OneApp…here I come :)

Hegey — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 20:53:46 GMT

For those of you who know me, you know I’ve been in the mobile space for awhile and have spent much of my time in Windows Mobile. I will be branching out a bit into another mobile endeavor at MS…OneApp.

Over the next few weeks, I hope to get acclimated with this technology, and then start posting some of my findings. I’m really looking forward to it, as the business model seems pretty unique and the technology is interesting; plus, it spans across phones (primarily feature phones right now, though), giving devs one platform to use across devices.

So, sorry I have been quiet for a while, but expect more postings from me around OneApp moving forward!