Following the airing of the technical preview units of its Windows Phone 7 OS Microsoft will be releasing an SDK (software development kit) on 16 September.
If Microsoft’s figures on the beta version of the Windows Phone 7 SDK are anything to go by then this final release should generate plenty of interest: “… to date there have been north of 300,000 downloads of the Windows Phone Developer Tools,” says Brandon Watson, director of Windows Phone 7, on the official Windows Phone Developer Blog.
Watson says that the first six months of working with developers has shown that there is a “rich application platform” comprised of technologies including Silverlight, XNA and tools based on Visual Studio 2010 and Expression Blend.
Yet again Microsoft has been emphasising the gaming element of the Windows Phone 7 – something that was a large focus at last week’s Gamescom 2010 event in Cologne, Germany when the company expanded upon the Xbox Live integration and games for the device.
“While our developer community has been busy stretching the capabilities of the application platform and developer tools, we have been working very closely with some amazing application and game developers to ensure that Windows Phone 7 customers have the applications they expect, across a wide swath of the categories they value,” said Watson.
To create some quality apps and games for release Microsoft is working with brands including Screenrush, Artificial Life, Ebay, Flixster, Photobucket, Seesmic, The Associated Press, Touchnote and Trip Mate.
All interested developers can register now to create an app or game using beta tools but the official SDK release should fix any bugs that arise, add new Silverlight controls and also bring the panorama, pivot and Bing maps controls for use within apps.
Also there are video tutorials on developing for Windows Phone 7 over on Microsoft’s Channel 9.
