As soon as Microsoft released the latest emulator for Windows Phone 7, hackers began tearing it apart. While Microsoft insists, “The emulator is based on early code and is not reflective of the final user experience,” others aren’t so sure. A screen which reads “Software: Windows Mobile 7.0 6176.WM7RC1Escrow(buildlab).20100406-1457” has some surmising that the ” RC1Escrow” means that this code is nearly ready to be christened “Release Candidate 1.”
In any event, what’s important to many developers is that the new OS will allow application development in Silverlight or XNA, says writer and systems architect Kevin Hoffman. “What’s great about WP7 development, from a developers point of view, is that the level at which we work is above the ‘bare metal’ — unlike the iPhone where we are required to manually manage our own memory and take care of lots of housecleaning details that generally slow development,” he says.
