Windows Phone SDK 7.1 Beta 2 Refresh Announced

Redmond-based software giant Microsoft has just made available for download a new version of the developer tools it offers to those interested in building applications for its Windows Phone operating system.

The new Windows Phone SDK 7.1 Beta 2 Refresh comes with a series of improvements that would bring developers one step closer to releasing applications for the next version of Microsoft's mobile operating system, Windows Phone Mango.

At the same time, the company announced an update aimed at all developer handsets that received the Mango update a few weeks ago. The new software build following the update will be Build 7712, in line with the new WP SDK 7.1 release.

Apparently, this update will not provide devs with the RTM build that was announced yesterday, but only with a pre-release software. The final OS flavor will arrive at a later date, when all users receive it.

The new version of the developer tools includes enhancements like improvements to the emulator and profiler, various bug fixes that should result in a better experience being offered to developers, and more.

Some of the improvements the new release comes with include:

- Application platform APIs are now locked; you can feel confident to start getting ready for submitting your apps next month.

- Emulator now has a nifty screenshot capability built in, allowing you quickly snap quality images of your app without the need of separate tools or cropping time. The images are great for use in app submission process or to share on your blog or with folks such as my team (hint hint).

- The profiler has been greatly improved and provides memory profiling.

- As of this drop, you can install NuGet into the free version of the WPSDK tools. I find NuGet to be one of my favorite productivity boosters and I’m happy to see the extension supported in the free tools.

- The drop includes an initial peek at the Marketplace Test Kit; with the RC release, you’ll be able to use the included version of this toolkit to test your XAP file against the same certification testing tools that we use when ingesting apps for the Marketplace. For this refresh, it’s there but not fully functional; but more on this in a future blog post.

Previously, Microsoft announced that they would be accepting Mango applications in the Windows Phone Marketplace as of August, and developers interested in getting started with this should download the new WP SDK 7.1, available on Softpedia as well, via this link.