Free Development Tools for Windows Phone 7 Now Available
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Windows Phone Developer Tools Preview [^] is available now as a free single download at Windows Phone Developer Tools. It includes:
- Visual Studio 2010 Express for Windows Phone
- Windows Phone Emulator
- XNA Game Studio 4.0
The preview available for free. The final version will be free too. If you already have another version of Visual Studio 2010 RC installed this will act as an add-on to that. Developers can take advantage of the following features on Windows phone 7:
- Accelerometer, an intuitive control that responds to motion
- A Microsoft Location Service to provide developers with a single point of reference to acquire location information
- Microsoft Notification Service for pushing information to the phone, regardless of whether or not an application is running
- Hardware-accelerated video with digital rights management (DRM)
- Internet Information Services Smooth Streaming for the industry’s highest quality content viewing experience
- Multitouch
- Camera and microphone support
Also, The Marketplace features a panoramic design and active merchandising to increase the discoverability of games and applications, and supports one-time credit card purchases, mobile operator billing and advertising-funded applications. The Marketplace will also enable customers to try applications before buying them and allow developers to cross-promote their applications through deep linking.
Learn more about Microsoft emerging techologies[^] on the Microsoft blog for independent software vendors (ISVs) in the United States.