Mobile Application

Mix08 Major Silverlight 2.0 Announcements

colinizer C#, DLR, IronPython, IronRuby, JavaScript, Microsoft, mix08, Mobile Application, Silverlight, VB.net, Web Application

Silverlight 2.0 Beta 1 (formerly known as 1.1) is now available.

http://silverlight.net/GetStarted/ (bottom of the page).

See the features matrix for overview of new features.

You can also get there:

  • Silverlight Tools Beta 1 for Visual Studio 2008
  • Silverlight 2 Beta 1 SDK
  • Expression Blend 2.5 Preview

There is a Go-Live license for Silverlight 2 Beta 1

Sillvelight will be available on Windows Mobile and Nokia devices (S60/S40/Mobile Internet Tablet) – no availability given.

Silverlight uses a sub-set of WPF/XAML so you can easily create a full WPF desktop app from the same assets/code.

Mix 08 Keynote with Scott Gurthrie – Part 9

colinizer C#, Desktop Application, DLR, IronPython, IronRuby, JavaScript, Microsoft, mix08, Mobile Application, Silverlight, Web Application

Silverlight going mobile

Going to support Windows Mobile and non-Windows Mobile.

Demo of Mixer social app:

  • Mobile 6 device
  • App allowing you to find friends for a party
  • Aggregates twitter, photos and status
  • User ratings for venues over the night

Announcement of partnership with Nokia to put Silverlight on S60/S40 and mobile internet tablet product lines!!!

Finally something cool!

Shame about the boring SVP at Nokia reading his pre-recorded announcement.

Seems like Symbian 60 is the priority. 

Demo of WeatherBug app:

  • Nokia Symbian 60 and Windows Mobile device – same app
  • Weather icons and data
  • App done in 3 weeks
  • Animated snowy weather skin – a bit slow (‘tried to do it with Flash-Lite’ and didn’t work)

Nothing about availability for any mobile platform 😦

Mix 08 Keynote with Scott Guthrie – Part 1

colinizer DLR, Microsoft, mix08, Mobile Application, Silverlight, Software As A Service, Web Application, Web Service

Standards-based web development

Just launched:

.NET 3.5 (includes Linq), Visual Studio 2008, IIS 7 (very componentised), Windows Server 2008

Coming in 2008:

New APS.NET MVC, ASP.NET AJAX update, New ASP.NET Data Dynamic.  Information about this has been on Scott’s blog for a while.

IE8 – first public preview (mostly about standards)

1 CSS 2.1 support

2 CSS Certification – 702 test cases contributed by MS to W3C group because spec can have some ambiguous interpretations

3 Performance – modern sites are script-heavy – ie8 much closer to other browsers

4 Start of HTML 5 support – supporting back button in AJAX, (first demo applause), disconnection notification, local offline storage (applause)

5 Developer Tools – Debug developer tools in IE8 – Break points, watches, object model and applicable style tree syncing from selection (applause)

6 Activities – integrating experiences – select browser text and see popup-menu of activities (maps, purchase, ebay, etc.) declared through xml in minutes – OpenService Specification (through Creative Commons)

7 WebSlices – Subscribe to information related to pieces selected on a page (then carried in browser UI across any site), declared through WebSlice Specification (again Creative Commons).

8 Beta 1 available to developers microsoft.com/ie/ie8

Microsoft’s Mobile World Strategy at WinHEC

colinizer Gadgets, Medicine, Microsoft, Mobile Application, Sheep, WinHEC

In his WinHEC keynote (at 07:00), Craig Mundie (Microsoft’s Cheif Research and Strategy Officer) talked about the fact that in ‘ermerging market’ countries, the main computer that millions do have, is a mobile phone.

He showed a video of a Windows Mobile phone playing audio and allowing illiterate individuals to seek services through icon choices, e.g. getting help dealing with a child’s medical symptoms.

Note that he talked about ’emerging market’ countries, rather than ‘developing’ countries, but I still don’t think it’s realistic to think that hoardes of people can afford a Windows Mobile phone but are still illiterate, so goverment or remote funding would likely be required.  In fact, he illustrated (with a pyramid) a view of the richest 1 billion people (that have computers), the 2 billion that has limited disposable incoming, and the 3 billion that do need government or agency sponsored programs, all under the umbrella of something called “Microsoft Unlimited Potential” (complete with local and slogan).

Craig’s keynote was quite dry and there wasn’t really anything too novel or far future-looking from Microsoft Research; in fact the first half of his speech was mostly about application and strategy.

While there was talk about medical assistance for other markets, this keynote really seemed like Microsoft airing it’s idea for how it can get to the 2 billion (who largely have mobile phones that are not Windows-based, but were having an interoperable Windows-based device could bring new activities) and the 3 billion where perhaps medical needs could justify getting a Windows-based phone in were there is still the opportunity to compete from a fresh start.

Remember, while this may sound like a cynical view, Microsoft is a publically traded company looking to increase stock price which often means growing its market reach, and Craig is the Strategy guy.  While it would have made for a cooler keynote, we aren’t ready for Windows SpaceCraft edition yet, especially when it’s proving so hard for Microsoft to penetrate into the automobile market (but I wish they would).

Silverlight – what IS cool about it?

colinizer Desktop Application, Graphic Design, Internet-based Service, Microsoft, mix07, Mobile Application, Server Application, Silverlight, Software As A Service, Software Development, Tools, Web Application, Web Service

Forget the misleading flashy 3D-portaying video at microsoft.com/silverlight for a second; ignore the fact that this puppy has not yet been released yet; pretend that lack of A/V live capture is not an important feature; overlook the 4MB download… what balances this out – what makes it really cool?

Windows Presentation Foundation is the very designer-friendly set of classes and runtime (developed against using XAML directly or through Expression and Visual Studio Orcas) that enables rich UI experiences. It is available for Windows XP, Windows Server 2003 and is included with Windows Vista, as part of .NET 3.0. At the risk of breaking the benefits of consitent UI investments, it can be used to build extremely compelling applications.

A subset of WPF, first known as WPF/e, makes up the rendering engine of Silverlight. The Silverlight runtime includes not only this subset of the runtime, but also the runtime to play back Windows Media content (on-demand or live). This runtime is ~1MB, so far.

XAML can define animations and behaviours that need no coding. In the 1.0 release, you can write javascript against the runtime-instantiated object model to provide a rich interactive experience.

The Silverlight runtime works in IE & Firebox on Windows, but also in Safari on the Mac! In a later release, it will also work in Windows Mobile and possibly Symbian devices.

At this point you have Flash (more or less) but with the whole weight of the Microsoft development eco-system behind you. Most notably, Microsoft has released a set of Graphic Designer tools under the Expression brand that allow you to design vector/bitmap graphics, design the interactive experience, design the web site and manage and prepare the audio/video media. Expression Web and Blend (web and UI tools) are included in various MSDN subscriptions. It’s not clear if Microsoft Partner will get it for free. The full Expression Studio (with all 4 tools) is priced at US$599 at retail which isn’t bad. The Media Encoder is a tag-along-later free download for preparing audio and video.

The next version of Visual Studio (codenamed “Orcas”) will include native support for Silverlight projects.

Microsoft is providing a free (up to 4GB) hosting service in Silverlight Streaming to people can get their content out there using this new platform. This is a smart move for sure.

That’s a lot of WOW – perhaps more flashy of a UI than Vista presents even.

If that’s not enough, then Microsoft has a 1.1 version of Silverlight (which probably should be 2.0) that will allow .NET programming against the runtime, instead of JavaScript, along with full project support in Visual Studio Orcas. This is a subset of the .NET 3.0 framework – a very small subset focusing on the CLR core, networking, UI. This brings rich smart application right into your browser that can be authored by ALL .NET developers with most of their existing skills along side graphic designers using the complimentary set of tools in the Expression range. That’s a lot of industry weight!

(UPDATE: As Yuvi pointed out, it will be a subset of .NET 3.5 by then, rather than .NET 3.0)

A .NET developer can create rich experience on the Web without writing any HTML! He/she can practically be a Mac developer by running a Windows-like smart/rich-client application inside a browser on a Mac!

Microsoft also has an open-source initiative for a Dynamic Language Runtime to allow other languages like Ruby and Python to be used instead of the mainstay C# and VB.NET.

They are also including LINQ in the .NET subset to allow some cool data query syntax in the coding.

Being able to access Web Services from Silverlight combines the best of rich UI with powerful backend services.

With the addition of the full Silverlight product (1.1) you can now do .NET development on the windows desktop, on the windows server, on windows and other mobile devices (compact framework and Silverlight .net runtime), on the mac (and other platforms that may be supported later).

It’s not revolutionary, the tools are lagging behind the runtime, the runtimes are still in beta… and the “web 2.0” and consumer web space is very busy (flickr, youtube, etc.), so it will be interesting to see if clear killer apps can emerge.

See the details a the regular Silverlight site, the community site and the Expression site.

Does Microsoft have the Silverlight bullet?

colinizer Desktop Application, Graphic Design, Marketing, Microsoft, Mobile Application, Software Development, Tools, Web Application

Its prey is the Flash player (and possibly the design application). Flash is everywhere on the desktop.

Having said that, Macromedia would not (and still Adobe doesn’t) let ISVs distribute the player for mobile devices – end users have to dig on the website for it themselves. Device manufacturers can however, come to a bundle arrangement. Despite this, mobile applications like FlashThemes (a great animated theming application for Pocket PCs which is a today screen plug in), and FlashThemes Pro (it’s bigger brother that takes over the today screen) are thriving.

This is stuff FlashThemes can do today on mobile device with flash!

FlashThemes player (using Flash) showing an animated Today Screen on a Pocket PC device running Windows mobile
FlashThemes player (using Flash) showing an animated Today Screen on a Pocket PC device running Windows mobile
FlashThemesPro player (using Flash) showing a replacement fully animated Today Screen on a Pocket PC device running Windows Mobile
FlashThemesPro player (using Flash) showing a replacement fully animated Today Screen on a Pocket PC device running Windows Mobile

Why am I mentioning mobile devices?

Microsoft says this is a “cross-browser, cross-platform plug-in for delivery the next generation of media experiences and rich interactive applications for the web”, but apparently nolonger cross device?!

In fact, let’s look at the FAQ on the Silverlight website…
Q:”Which devices will be supported?”
A:”Device platforms are being considered based on customer feedback”

Microsoft showed WPF/E (that’s Windows Presentation Foundation Everywhere), now “Silverlight”, over a year ago running on a Pocket PC device with the Windows Mobile OS. I was interested.

At least it’s cross-browser and runs on other platforms… OK just one – it supports Mac with Safari… but wait, not with Opera.

Want more WOW starts now? Go to the Silverlight website. Tell me it looks wicked awesome with that immersive cyberspace 3D stuff. Um… no. It’s based on a subset of WPF which only includes 2D support, so that video you saw is bogus. It’s a little like buying Windows Vista Basic and finding out you don’t get that one Flip 3D trick you saw on the TV commercial.

Well, at least it’s free, so it should be easy to distribute. Probably a Windows Update if Microsoft wants to get it out there quickly. If not, then it may be harder to proliferate. The new (and good) security in Windows Vista means that you need to elevate to an admin user to install it, which may present a barrier for adoption. When Flash came along years ago, lots of consumers were merrily running 95/ME/XP as admin users and it was very easy to install Flash.

The new website sadly presents the same tired-looking demos. Where’s the Microsoft equivalent of Flash (the design application, not the player)? The site mentions tools like those in Expression Studio and Visual Studio (which seems more like marketing for those tools) – there doesn’t seem to be any specific tool add-ons to make the design experience work. This is not surprising given that Visual Studio will not have designer support for the full WPF platform (released last November, alongside Vista) until probably this November.

If Microsoft really wants this to be the Silverlight bullet, it needs to have this running on mobile devices to make it permeate every aspect of the new consumer age. This means having it run on Symbian based devices. Take PhoneThemes.

PhoneThemes player (not using Flash) showing an animated theme on a Symbian Series 60-based phone
PhoneThemes player (not using Flash) showing an animated theme on a SmartPhone form-factor device running Windows Mobile

This is an animated theming application and DRM-protected distribution platform for mobile phones (Windows Mobile-based PDAs and phones or Symbian-based phones). It doesn’t use Flash and it can now run on even the older Symbian 40 Series devices.

Can Microsoft make Silverlight work on these devices and make an Adobe killer? Given the spin about video interaction they are singing, it’s unlikely these devices will hold up performance-wise. That makes it a race with new devices. Microsoft needs to get behind its device manufacturer partners and allow ISVs to distribute (or at least link in the installer from the web) before Adobe does a deal with someone like Nokia that wipes out Silverlight before it’s properly lit.