Windows Phone 7 Mango SDK Released

Andrew told us that Microsoft had RTM’d Windows Phone 7 Mango.  Now, Microsoft announced availability of an updated RC SDK for developers to use.  Read on for details!

First off, I agree with Andrew’s comments that Windows Phone 7 is very nice.  If Verizon here in the US issues a world version, I will consider dropping my Android-Never-Keeps-Battery-Charged-Longer-Than-6-Hours phone and adopting a WP7 one.  My sister has a Samsung Focus and loves it.

Microsoft announced on their blog availability of a RC SDK to support new Mango features.  Note that there is still code to be developed by the carriers and handset makers, so a final SDK will be completed closer to shipping date of the phones to the market.  Here is part of what Microsoft had to say:

So why did we refresh the Beta?

Today’s refresh provides you with everything you need to update your app for Mango – the tools and the OS image – now. From this point forward, the tools will continue to be refined and finished (e.g. removing many of the ‘known issues’, improvements to the emulator and profiler, and a few cosmetic changes within VS). In fact, once you install the tools, you’ll notice that it shows up in the ‘Add/Remove Programs’ list with the ‘RC’ moniker. What you have here is a build in the early part of our Release Candidate cycle – the end result of which should be in your hands in the coming month.

For a full list of changes to between Beta 2 and the Refresh, I recommend checking out the release notes on Connect; but here are my top 5 improvements that I think that our devs will find extremely helpful:

• Application platform APIs are now locked; you can feel confident to start getting ready for submitting your apps next month.
• Emulator now has a nifty screenshot capability built in, allowing you quickly snap quality images of your app without the need of separate tools or cropping time. The images are great for use in app submission process or to share on your blog or with folks such as my team (hint hint).
• The profiler has been greatly improved and provides memory profiling.
• As of this drop, you can install NuGet into the free version of the WPSDK tools. I find NuGet to be one of my favorite productivity boosters and I’m happy to see the extension supported in the free tools.
• The drop includes an initial peek at the Marketplace Test Kit; with the RC release, you’ll be able to use the included version of this toolkit to test your XAP file against the same certification testing tools that we use when ingesting apps for the Marketplace. For this refresh, it’s there but not fully functional; but more on this in a future blog post.

For the folks wondering why we’re not providing the ‘RTM’ version, there are two main reasons. First, the phone OS and the tools are two equal parts of the developer toolkit that correspond to one another. When we took this snapshot for the refresh, we took the latest RC drops of the tools and the corresponding OS version. Second, what we are providing is a genuine release candidate build, with enough code checked in and APIs locked down that this OS is close enough to RTM that, as a developer, it’s more than capable to see you through the upcoming RC drop of the tools and app submission. It’s important to remember that until the phone and mobile operator portion of Mango is complete, you’re still using a pre-release on your retail phone – no matter the MS build. Until that time, enjoy developing and cruising around on build 7712 – it’s a sweet ride, to be sure. 🙂

So if you’re developing for Windows Phone 7, go ahead and update the SDK.  And if you can think of reasons why Andrew should dump his iPhone 4, drop a comment here and let us know!