I started my Monday with a call from a friend asking me, “Have you read Sinofsky’s latest blog post? Is that really what the life of a UI designer is like?” The post in question is an extended view of the design process behind a single Windows 8 feature --- the file name collision experience --- and brilliantly demonstrates the work that his team is putting into rethinking how users work with the OS. If they are really “reimagining” the OS as he’s stated in his blog, then I’m really looking forward to what we’re going to see in September at BUILD.
Anyone with interest in UX design should read this post for a good understanding of what the process is like. I’ve never had the opportunity to work on a project that required this degree of usability study, but it makes me proud that we take the product and key features seriously enough to warrant this degree of attention.
Of course, my friend pointed out this post hoping to get me worked up. I suspect he finds the whole design experience a bunch of psychobabble. “How does the file copy dialog make you feel….” We had the obligatory “I can’t believe this is the best they can show why can’t they show more features why aren’t they talking more about this I can’t wait until build do you know how many iPads Apple sold over the weekend I want Windows 8 now!” conversation. It’s a Monday, after all.
And Mary Jo is trying to stir the pot again regarding Silverlight/HTML 5 at BUILD. She’s posted some intel about possible speakers.
I’m not immune to the frustration a lot of Microsoft developers feel right now. A couple of Sinofsky’s comments have fueled speculation on the future of Silverlight, HTML 5’s role in development for Windows 8, etc., and I’ve spent many long nights embroiled in debates with my buddies Gregg and Sam about what we’re going to hear come September.
However, I’m still really positive about what’s coming. Think about what Microsoft has delivered in the past few years with Silverlight, Azure, and all the supporting technologies. The speed of innovation as Silverlight and WPF converge. The DevDiv’s ability to release updates to these things every few months…. It’s pretty astounding for a company the size of Microsoft. And I think it represents changes that are coming across the organization.
WinRumors is speculating that BUILD attendees will receive Windows 8 slates. We may not be able to buy a Windows 8 slate before Christmas, but it’s good to hear that the hardware vendors are far enough along to be able to provision developer preview devices on that large of a scale.
Like you, I’m waiting with a mixture of hope and a little bit of fear. The pressure’s on. BUILD better be awesome and better draw some clarity to the future of Silverlight. At this point, I don’t think we’re going to be disappointed.
Microsoft announced this week that the Windows Phone Marketplace has surpassed the 30,000 app mark in about the same amount of time it took the Apple AppStore to meet the same milestone. This sparked a heated debate with Gregg about how Microsoft missed another opportunity, since the application development tools really make developing apps for Windows Phone 7 relatively easy (especially when compared to similar tools for iOS). He’s still ticked off because of the ongoing screw-up with the Marketplace that prevents him from buying apps for his phone.
This is quote from a former co-worker (I use the root “work” in that term very loosely). It’s not the way I like to work. Being a software architect for so long, I’m used to having a plan. Like requirements documents. Architectural diagrams. Some picture of what I’m supposed to build. In my current role, it’s a stretch for me --- I operate without a net more often that is really comfortable, but I think it’s good for me.
I was onsite with one of my customers today to lead a really interesting conversation around developing applications for mobile devices. I don’t often get to talk about what I really love (I spend a lot more time talking about core infrastructure than development), so I was really looking forward to the opportunity. But this was one of those “change the plan at the eleventh hour” situations; I had to throw out the deck I wanted to present based on the customer’s feedback at 4:00 pm yesterday. Reworked the plan, created a new deck, and I think I delivered what they wanted to see.
This presentation was for a multinational manufacturing firm I cover in Memphis. Their development team creates lots of process-automation applications for Windows and a multitude of mobile devices. They are struggling with what are unfortunately very common challenges --- they have many years of .NET development expertise on the team, but are trying to find ways to leverage that to reach the Blackberry, iOS and Android devices they know are exploding among their user base. We talked a little about some interesting angles like MonoTouch (using C# to develop for iOS, for example), an option they have investigated, but they are running into the same struggles I’m having as I try to expand my skills.
XCode and UIBuilder with Objective C really don’t come anywhere close to being as mature as Visual Studio and C#. And for someone like me who’s really never developed without a modern IDE, it’s frustrating. Yet there are thousands of developers who swear by the developer experience on the Mac. I’m trying to be patient.
We talked a little about SharePoint on mobile devices, too. My coworker Phil earned some kudos recently for an awesome demo he’s developed to showcase just a few of the strengths of SharePoint on Windows Phone 7. It’s a great demo I encourage all my SharePoint customers to see.
Our best story for how we support mobile development across platforms right now really focuses on the Windows Azure platform. And the community is contributing some really interesting, time-saving templates and tools to make it easier for you to support multi-tenant scenarios, etc.