Microsoft unveils Windows Phone 7 SDK

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By Stuart Turton

Posted on 15 Mar 2010 at 16:41

Microsoft has launched its Windows Phone 7 Series SDK, allowing developers to create apps and games for the new OS.

Speaking at MIX10, corporate vice president of the .NET Developer Platform, Scott Guthrie, confirmed that Windows Phone 7 apps will be built on Silverlight - Microsoft's answer to Flash - and support capacitive multitouch screens, geolocation, push notification, and hardware-accelerated video with support for DRM.

Games will be built with Microsoft's XNA Game Studio, originally created to build games for the software giant's Xbox Live service.

Games played on Windows Phone 7 handsets can be continued on PCs and Xbox consoles, and at MIX the software giant demonstrated an unnamed title featuring slick 3D graphics, destructible environments and support for Xbox Live's achievements.

Windows Phone 7 apps will be available through a revamped Windows Phone Marketplace, which will offer a try-before-you-buy feature similar to the one on the Android Market.

Microsoft's also pushed the Release Candidate of Silverlight 4 into the wild, with the final build expected to be unveiled next month.