Windows Phone 8 Summit

Coming to a Windows 8 Phone near you….

Hot on the heels of the Windows Surface announcement, today we had the Windows Phone Summit “sneak peek” at the next generation of Windows Phone. I must admit it looks very nice. Windows 8 phones will be based on the same operating system technology that powers Windows 8. They will be able to sport multiple processors and share driver technology with their bigger brother. They will be able to use Near Field Communication to exchange data with other devices, including Microsoft Surface. Programmers will be able to write games (and other programs) which will be compiled into fast running binary code that executes directly on the processor, with graphics powered by DirectX. There will be support for more screen resolutions. You will be able to upgrade the storage using an SD card. Operating system updates will be sent directly to the phone. And the Start Menu is going to get a bit bigger.

One piece of less good news, for me at any rate. Existing phones will not be upgraded. My lovely Lumia 900 will always be a Windows 7 phone. I can live with that though. When Nissan bring out a new version of the Cube I’m not expecting them to provide a way for me to upgrade my car for free. And actually I love my Cube just the way it is. A new version of Windows Phone 7, version 7.8 (where do they get these numbers from?) will bring some of the UI enhancements to existing devices, which will be nice.

It looks like all my XNA and Silverlight skills will still serve me on the new platform as well as the old one and I can still continue to make a fortune via sales of Cheese Lander on the new device…

All things considered it looks like the phone is on a very good trajectory.

Update on Thursday, June 21, 2012 at 03:37PM by Rob

Just to clarify, the way I understand it, you can continue to create XNA games for Windows Phone 7 and Windows Phone 8 using the existing toolchain. If you publish the games in the Marketplace they will be available to Windows 7 and Windows 8 phone users. If you want to use any of the new-fangled options, such as directly compiled C++, then you are just targeting the Windows 8 phones and you will have to use the new SDK (as yet unreleased) to do this. 

I'm very sad that XNA does not seem to have a future in the brave new Metro world. It is a perfect platform for quick game creation and is great for teaching. I'm hoping that Microsoft aren't going to leave a great big gap in their developer offerings that could be all to easily plugged by frameworks like Playstation Suite for Vita, amongst other non-Microsoft things.

Microsoft Surface for Windows 8: Something else to want

I love my iPad. But I don’t find it useful as such. It is great for playing games or consuming data, and should I ever feel the need to paint a portrait or compose some music it might prove useful I suppose. But I like to spend my time creating programs and documents and stuff like that, which the iPad just won’t let me do. But the new Microsoft Surface should.

At the moment I’m loving my Samsung Series 7 Slate, which gets pretty close to the larger of the two new Surface devices. I’ve got my slate running Windows 8 Release Preview and it is a properly useful device. In fact at the moment it is my main computer. I’ve got two docking stations, one at home and one at work, and I now carry my desktop around with me. The machine has more than enough power to do what I want, which is use Office, Visual Studio, Photoshop, play a bit of media and browse the interwebs. It is a bit restricted in terms of built in storage, but I’ve got around 20G free at the moment and a 32G SD card plugged in the side which has got a whole bunch of movies and other stuff on there. Battery life is fine too, with at least 5 hours if I work the machine hard, and up to 8 if I take it a bit easier.

The Surface should be rather like this, but better. It has a case that turns into a touch keyboard, and another that turns into a keyboard with moving keys. It also has a kickstand to make it easy to stand on the desk. The two words that come to mind for me are “want” and “one”. The only snag with the Surface is that it isn’t in the shops yet. But when it is, I’ll be there, queuing up for a blue one.

Hi Toby

Every time I log in to Facebook it seems to have a new feature which I have to engage with. The latest is “Close Friends”. Last time used the web site I was invited to pick people to occupy this cherished category. Unfortunately I seem to have pressed one button too many, and selected a chap called Toby Russell, who is one of our first year students and a thoroughly excellent fellow, but not actually a best friend as such. For the last weekend I’ve been getting updates just from Toby on my phone. I’m a bit worried that he might think I’m doing some kind of stalking, so I’ve removed him from that list now. Sorry about that Toby.

Wallace and Gromit’s Fleeced Boardgame

Spent a good chunk of last night playing Wallace and Gromit’s Fleeced the Boardgame. This is based on A Close Shave, one of the brilliant series of animations produced by Nick Park at Aardman. You play as one of six characters in the story (I was Preston, the evil robot dog) and you move your beautifully made playing pieces over the board trying to snare sheep and get them back to your lair. You can do this by fair means, picking them up from their hideouts and leading them home. Or you can play foul, and “rustle” sheep from the other players.

The game is full of lovely touches, from the whistles that each player needs to blow before they herd their sheep to the cheese cards that you can pick up on the way. There is even a “Hard Cheese” card that gets you sent straight to the police station.

Some of the reviews in Amazon are quite funny. One complains that you can’t finish the game because everybody keeps stealing sheep from each other and nobody wins. It is true that you could play the game like this, just like two chess players could play for ever by moving their pieces back and forth and not doing much. However, I reckon it is absolutely great fun. I might even spend some of the “Miles Millions” ™ on a copy.

Rob Goes to London

It looks as if Her Majesty’s stock is dropping a bit….

Having a couple of days in London. I like the place, but wouldn’t want to live there. Had lunch at The Diner. Always have lunch at the Diner. I insist. And nobody seems to mind. If you want some of the best burgers in London, you should pop along.

Then went off in search of camera stuff and bits and bobs. Paid homage in the Apple store (I always go in there wearing a Microsoft jacket to see if it will burst into flames). The new Macbook Pro looks very nice. But at the moment I’m loving my Samsung Slate 7 (on which more later) and so I’ll stick with that for now.

I’m breaking in a new camera at the moment, so I took a whole bunch of pictures.

Bright Shades

Patriotic Bike.