Windows Phone 7 finalized

In a Windows Phone Blog posting today, Terry Myerson, Microsoft's corporate vice president of Windows Phone Engineering, wrote, "Were very excited to say that weve reached the biggest milestone for our internal team the release to manufacturing (RTM) of Windows Phone 7!"

Myerson continues by calling Windows Phone 7 "the most thoroughly tested mobile platform Microsoft has ever released." The company has had "nearly ten thousand devices running automated tests daily, over a half million hours of active self-hosting use, over three and a half million hours of stress test passes, and eight and a half million hours of fully automated test passes," he adds.

Samsung's Symbian-based i8910HD, reportedly adapted to Windows Phone 7 and released for testing earlier this year

Microsoft has also provided prototype Windows Phone 7 devices to developers and selected journalists. And, on July 12, it delivered "the first preview phones given to a non-Microsoft developer" to two students as a result of their having won a first-place award in a Windows Phone 7 "Rock Star" contest.

In response to the initial journalistic reviews and other feedback, Microsoft has made some changes to Windows Phone 7 along the way. For example, many testers complained about how the OS's Facebook integration led to a phone's contact list being swamped by people they barely knew.

Myerson writes, "Folks loved the Facebook integration in the People Hub, but they also wanted ways to filter their contacts so only the Facebook friends they really know will show up in their contact list -- weve added support for that. Weve also made it easy to like a post right from the People Hub, or quickly post a message to someones Facebook wall directly."

The blog posting adds, "We've been able to respond to and improve the smart design throughout the OS." However, there's no sign that Redmond has added copy-and-paste functionality, the lack of which has been criticized by almost every reviewer.

Developer tools and guidelines suggest October availability

While Myerson's posting did not say when Windows Phone 7 devices are likely to reach end users, it could be as early as late next month. At least, that's what Redmond's releases of relevant programming tools and other communications with developers have suggested.

During its MIX10 event in March, Microsoft released initial development tools for Windows Phone 7 (then scheduled to be available on phones "by this year's holiday season"). A single downloadable package included the following:

Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Express for Windows Phone
Microsoft Windows Phone 7 Series add-in for use with Visual Studio 2010 RC
XNA Game Studio 4.0
a Windows Phone 7 Series Emulator for application testing
A Silverlight 4 RC
A CTP of Expression Blend for Windows Phone

In early May, Microsoft posted a revised set of tools known as the "Windows Phone Developer Tools CTP -- April Refresh 1.0." According to the company, the update was primarily intended to be compatible with April's final release of Visual Studio 2010, but changes also included the following:

An updated Windows Phone 7 OS image for the Windows Phone Emulator
A few APIs in the frameworks were added and or changed
The documentation was updated with new and expanded topics
Pause/Resume events were now supported
Non-admin users were now able to deploy to the emulator, and a problem with incremental deployment of projects has been fixed
Design time skin refresh issues were addressed

In July, Microsoft released what it described as a "near final" version of the tools for building applications and games for Windows Phone 7 devices. According to a blog posting at the time by Watson, the Windows Phone Developer Tools Beta brought the smartphone operating system's API (application programming interface) "close to completion."

In the July beta, many namespaces that were previously distributed over several different DLLs were consolidated into one, Watson added at the time. In addition, there were realignments and changes in several other namespaces as well; for example, Push Notifications, Accelerometer and App Bar APIs have all been updated, he wrote.

Finally, Watson blogged last week that the final version of the Windows Phone 7 developer tools will take place on Sept. 16. In addition to bug fixes, the tools will "include several highly requested Silverlight controls which will make it even easier for developers to deliver high quality Windows Phone 7 experiences, ... [and] the panorama, pivot and Bing maps controls will all be available to drop into applications."

Hinting that Windows Phone 7 devices would go on sale some time in October, Watson's post adds that developers should have their applications "ready for ingestion into the Marketplace in early October when it opens."

According to Watson, changes in the final development tools mean that developers "may have to fix some bugs that arise." Nonetheless, he recommended, developers should finish their games or other applications using the currently available beta tools, then simply recompile after the 16th.

Emulators have revealed OS features

The Windows Phone Developer Tools Betas have included Windows Phone Emulator, which is designed to work only within Visual Studio 2010 (below). For example, the emulator in Microsoft's April Refresh version of the tools was designed to permit writing an app and then deploying it to an emulated Windows Phone 7 device, but did not provide access to the operating system's main screen, live tiles, web browser, or other features.

Microsoft's Visual Studio 2010 Express for Windows Phone
(Click to enlarge)

However, it has been possible to hack the emulator so Windows Phone 7's user interface and other features can be tested. That fact has made it possible for those of us who haven't been favored with device prototypes by Microsoft to become at least somewhat familiar with the OS.

For example, a day after the July beta's release, an unlocked version of the emulator (version 6114) included with it was posted on an XDA-Developers by a user calling himself "RustyGrom." This emulator was then employed by I Started Something blogger Long Zheng to record the two videos embedded below. The July release incorporated significant performance improvements and a more polished user interface, according to Zheng.