14 DAY TRIAL // Redmond-based software giant Microsoft is gearing up for the release of the first mobile phones to run under its new Windows Phone 7 operating system with new announcement regarding the development of applications for the mobile platform.
According to the company, the application development tools it made available for download for software solutions builders were already downloaded more than 300,000 times.
The Windows Phone Developer Tools are available only in a beta flavor for the time being, but Microsoft says that the final flavor is set to become available for download in about three weeks from now, namely on September 16th.
It seems that there would be not too many changes included in the final release of Windows Phone Developer Tools, a recent post on Windows Phone Developer Blog reads: “The final tools will likely have some minor breaking changes from the Beta tools, so developers may have to fix some bugs that arise.”
“The final tools will also include several highly requested Silverlight controls which will make it even easier for developers to deliver high quality Windows Phone 7 experiences,” the said blog post continues.
According to the said blog post, the final release of dev tools should come around with new additions such as the panorama, pivot and Bing maps controls, all of which would be available for developers to include into applications.
Application builder who already came up with software solutions for the upcoming mobile OS should finish their app through the beta tools, but are advised to test it with the final flavor of the development environment, while expecting for the solutions to go live in the Marketplace in October.
In case there are developers interested in learning more on app building for Windows Phone 7, they can check on the Windows Phone 7 Developer Training Kit Microsoft made available a while ago, as well as on the recently published Windows Phone 7 Jump Start sessions.
The beta version of Windows Phone Developer Tools is available for download from Softpedia too, via this link.
More on what Microsoft has is store for Windows Phone 7 developers is available here.