14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft's upcoming mobile operating system dubbed Windows phone 7 is said to offer a better experience to developers than Google's highly popular Android platform would do. It seems that the forthcoming OS is actually able to offer an easier development process, at least this is what one developer states when comparing the process of building the same application for Android 2.2 Froyo and for Windows Phone 7 (the video below should provide some more details).
According to Mishkin Faustini, the Android OS and Microsoft's Windows Phone 7 are similar to a certain extent. Both platforms separated design from logic, and both involve creating an XML based layout, which, in Windows Phone 7's case, is called XAML. Other similarities involve the Android Widgets, which become Controls in Windows Phone 7 (“UIElements”), or the Android Event Listeners, which are called Click Events when it comes to Microsoft's OS.
However, it seems that the main difference between the two platforms involves the development tools. It seems that the Android mobile platform, although open source and offering a great deal of available code, still comes with some app building difficulties when it comes to C#. This doesn't mean that building applications in Silverlight is easy, nor adding style via Microsoft Expression Blend 4, but it might offer a better experience than the tools available for Android would.
“The Android Platform and Windows Phone 7 share a lot of commonalities. It will take a while to get used to migrating from Android + Eclipse to Windows Phone 7 + Microsoft Visual Studio + Expression Blend but in the end it is a much smoother development experience. The tools which Microsoft provides add a wealth of ease to the lives of us developers. Stay tuned for an upcoming segment on How To Style Windows Phone 7 Apps in Expression Blend,” Mishkin Faustini notes on TheDirtyDeveloper. A quick look at that post (via WMPoweruser) would offer more details on the comparison between the two.