The most interesting parts of Microsoft’s Mix conference have come to a close, leaving us with two steaming news lumps: One for Windows Phone 7, and one for Internet Explorer 9. Here’s what’s in them!
If this morning’s news of Internet Explorer 9′s support for HTML5 and video acceleration got you excited, and you happen to run Windows XP, prepare to get unexcited: You won’t be able to install it on your OS. Sorry! [IE9]
Ninth time’s the charm, sometimes! At least that’s Microsoft’s hope with IE9, which they’ve just announced at Mix, brings new HTML5 support (including HTML5 video!), hardware-accelerated graphics for text and images, and a totally new Javascript engine.
What many feared (or briefly thought about without much emotion either way) has turned out to be true: Microsoft PR has confirmed that Windows Marketplace for Mobile will be the only source for Windows Phone 7 apps, meaning that you can’t sideload apps, and that Microsoft will be the sole gatekeeper for all apps on the platform.
You can download the Windows Phone 7 SDK right now from this link. Make us some good stuff, programmers. [Windows Phone Developer]
So this is how apps are going to look on Windows Phone 7: visually captivating, great animations, 3D transformations. It’s a very distinctive look and feel from iPhone apps, and may be just what Microsoft needs to establish themselves.
