Yesterday we revealed to you the current Windows Phone 8 SDK, giving you a brief tour of some of the new features. Nothing exactly new was revealed that had not already been discussed or leaked out previously, but it was still interesting to see it in action.
Today we were planning on a follow up video to catch up on some of the areas we missed and truth be told, there wasn’t anything earth shattering their either (though the new Office does look quite nice).
Unfortunately, black helicopters surrounded our headquarters here in New York and any plans for an immediate follow up have been placed on hold. And since we’re not in the business of ruining surprise parties for people, we’re okay with that...
We want moar?
But that does leave us to another question we can talk about: is there more to Windows Phone 8 than what we have seen so far?
The preview SDK is just that…a preview. That language to our ears and others sounds like the SDK may only partially reveal what the OS can really do. And in fact, we should not confuse the “OS” with the “SDK emulator”. Sure there is significant overlap but they are not one and the same.
Some credence is lent to this notion by this nugget: the “OS” build in the preview SDK is 9900 but WPDang have found that Microsoft has been using another, later iteration, build 10119.
In of itself this doesn’t mean too much. Even with Windows Phone 8 going RTM, it is not like Microsoft would stop cranking out new builds. But even though we know that Windows Phone 8 did RTM, it is not clear which build it contains—9900, 10119 or something else. In addition, no one knows what those Lumia 920s are running either.
Microsoft though is adamant about the fact that they have not shown the public all of what Windows Phone 8 is about. Belfiore and others have stated this numerous times when discussing the OS, especially when “bits” were shown off like with Nokia in New York. Is that because there really are more things to show (that haven’t leaked) or is it because Microsoft wants to have a grand unified presentation
What more is there? Why so secretive?
And then there’s this other question: What exactly could Microsoft show off that has not yet been revealed? Although we like to think there could be more, it’s a legitimate question.
Sure, we can think of a lot of little things: custom alerts, a better color picker, “folders” or “custom hubs”, etc., things that you’ve asked for in the past. But honestly, those minor things seem like they wouldn’t necessarily be hidden either as they’re hardly game-changers that Microsoft would want to keep off the books.
Microsoft has already done a tremendous amount with Windows Phone 8—new kernel, multi-core support, new display resolutions, NFC, Wallet, increased multitasking, family features, native support for gaming, new Tile options…it makes us wonder, what else could they have up their sleeve?
Not so much in that we expect more but rather we just don’t know what would fit the bill.
Windows Phone 8 can do over-the-air (OTA) updates, meaning Microsoft will roll out regular new features and fixes but should we expect even more from Windows Phone Eight Point-0? It does seem like a lot to ask of Microsoft, who famously added 500-new features to the Windows Phone 7.5 Mango update.
So why is Microsoft holding back so much? We’ve heard from some reports that although the Mango-launch went off well, Microsoft revealed too much, too early. In turn, it gave their competition a heads up on what do work on next and cuts down Microsoft’s edge. Is it true? We don’t know but it certainly does make sense and it may be a good reason why Microsoft is holding back a bit.
What about the Windows Phone Summit? We think part of it was to keep Microsoft in the news by keeping the conversation going and also as a way to hush up the naysayers by finally answering that “legacy question” about current Windows Phones. That topic had been hounding the company it was about time they put an end to it by going on record.
In the end, we do think Microsoft will have a few small tricks to reveal next month but no, we the public haven’t seen the full OS and Microsoft wants you to see it when you can go buy it—not after waiting three-months. And that's probably the real motivation here.
