I’m a gamer, cyclist, Lego collector, and software engineer. I love bringing to life powerful software that make people’s lives better.
Gchat, the awesome Google Talk client Luis and I built for Windows Phone, is now available in the Marketplace! We’ve been working on it for a long time and we’d love to know what you think.
Click the button below to go to the Marketplace now and download it!
We hope you enjoy using Gchat! If you find a bug or want to suggest a new feature, please report it.
When WP7 came out I wrote a long wishlist of features I wanted on the phone. Now that the Mango developer beta is out, how has this list been fulfilled? Let’s go over it point by point.
Support for multiple calendars from one source, not just sync the primary calendar from each source
Partially fixed. Added in Mango, but not for Google Calendar :( Still a big hole since my main calendaring app while at school is Google Calendar.
Live tile to toggle Cellular data, 3G, WiFi and Bluetooth
Not fixed.
Smarter Marketplace search & sort
Fixed. NoDo improved it, and Mango perfected it. You can now easily filter between apps, music and podcasts and see price and rating right from the search results.
Search music collection, not just Marketplace, in Zune app
Not fixed.
Much faster third-party apps
Fixed. NoDo was a small improvedment, but with Mango it’s MUCH better. Things are so fast you don’t even notice.
Integrate Word, Excel and PowerPoint with SkyDrive
Fixed. Added, and it works pretty good too.
Support OneNote section groups and password-protected sections
Partially fixed. Section groups are now supported. Password-protected sections are not.
Improve IE rendering engine: support embedded video (HTML5, Silverlight, Flash) and support iPhone-compatible mobile sites (touch.facebook.com doesn’t work?? Really?)
Fixed. IE9 has a much-improved rendering engine with HTML5 support. touch.facebook.com now works perfectly!
Twitter integration in People and Pictures hubs: show Twitter stream in People hub and allow built-in uploading of pictures to Yfrog or Twitpic
Fixed. Twitter integration is coming with Mango’s final release.
Facebook and Twitter official apps with push notifications
Fixed. Facebook app now has push since v2 (for all WP7 versions). But best of all, the “My” tile in Mango now shows Facebook notifications. Hopefully when Twitter support is added it will have @reply and DM notifications as well.
Better contact management: merge duplicates (not just link them), allow more than one mobile phone per person
Not fixed.
Better maps: turn-by-turn navigation, address and place search outside US, show compass direction, save locations
Partially fixed. Turn-by-turn is now kinda, sorta present (you have to tap the screen for next instruction) and you can now save favorites!
Store Zune playlists containing Zune Pass content in the cloud and be able to stream them through 3G and share them with friends
Not fixed. Zune social is still not supported in WP7.
Official Windows Live Messenger app, on par with iPhone app
Fixed. No Messenger app, but it is now a native OS feature in the Messaging hub. It work really well and also allows Facebook chat.
Camera should remember previous settings
Fixed. The is now an option for the camera to remember settings.
More API access to third-party apps, including:
- Live audio and video capture
- Sockets
- Compass
- Start page pinning
- Offline live tile updating without push notifications
- Zune collection
- Override Search button
Fixed. 1-5 have been added into the developer tools. 7 is not needed anymore because the definition of the search button has changed in Mango (now it is Bing only and not contextual).
Video uploading to YouTube and other sites
Fixed. You can now send videos by email or upload to Facebook and SkyDrive.
Skype and Google Voice VOIP
Partially fixed. Skype has announced an official app in time for Mango.
More Xbox Live games! Some suggestions of games to port: Plants vs Zombies (iPhone, PC), Audiosurf Tilt (Zune HD), Dr Optics (Zune HD),
Partially fixed. Plants vs Zombies has been released, together with lots of other great games. Zune HD games are still to be seen.
Alphabet jumping in the apps list (right of Start screen), like in the People hub
Fixed. Fixed in Mango!
No WiFi disconnecting when locking phone
Fixed. It still disconnects, but seems to work better than in NoDo for reconnecting fast.
Find My Phone over WiFi
Fixed. I don’t know if it was because I was outside the US or because it wasn’t added until Mango, but it works now. I’ll be sure to test this again in Mexico.
Show red line in Calendar day view to signal current time
Not fixed.
Calendar Week view in landscape mode
Not fixed.
Landscape mode for many more apps, especially Start screen, Zune, Xbox and People
Not fixed.
Better Gmail compatibility: Labels, archiving, etc
Not fixed.
Universal search for data in the phone via Bing app
Not fixed.
Basic built-in picture editing: rotating and cropping
Partially fixed. Not added, but the new auto-fix feature works really good and can make really crappy photos look acceptable.
Fixed: 13
Partially fixed: 6
Not fixed: 9
Still some crucial features missing, but most of them have been fixed in Mango! :D
Una pequeña presentación que di en ITESM CEM para el lanzamiento de las herramientas de desarrollo de Windows Phone 7. El tutorial está basado en el original de ScottGu.
Para hacer tu propio app, descarga las herramientas y empieza a crear algo sorprendente!!
UPDATE: WinMilk as been published in the WP7 marketplace!! Find out more and download it
The product of many hours of hacking during SuperHappyDevHouse Mexico City, I finally have a shareable prototype of the Windows Phone 7 app I started working on back in April: A Remember the Milk client.
The source code is available at Codeplex under the Microsoft Public License, so take a look at it, download it, try it out, and share it! If you have a Windows Phone 7 device, please try it out on the hardware itself and tell me how it works. It’s still a very early prototype and doesn’t have much functionality yet, so use at your own risk.