Wednesday, September 14, 2011

Windows 8 lets you build apps for tablets!

Today at Microsoft's build conference, Microsoft released a Developer Preview of Windows 8 and showcased its potential for competing in the tablet PC industry. If you want to get a leg up on the competition, and the opportunity to make some money building apps, check out the video of the preview at http://www.buildwindows.com/ . In addition to the video of the conference, you can download a pseudo CTP (a.k.a Developer Preview) of the OS on the website (also found at http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/apps/br229516) .

If you've heard rumors that .NET was dead and that new apps would have to be built using HTML5 and javascript, you can put your fears aside. Microsoft lets you build apps in the language of your choosing. This includes C++, C#, VB, HTML5, and I could go on. Windows 8 apps are marketed as using the Metro UI, which includes touch capability, and simplistic app sharing. During the conference, they showcase how easy it is to manipulate the UI design using HTML5 and Expression Blend 5 (new version which works with XAML and HTML5), but they don't discuss how easy it is to design a C# application using Metro's features. I'm curious to try and hope to show the pros/cons in another post.

If you don't want to watch the 3 hour long video in its entirety, you should at the very least skip to the Keynote #1 speach at about 14:27 minutes in. They show off a new feature called picture password, that allows you to login to the system using a system of touches and swipes. No more passwords...how cool!
http://channel9.msdn.com/Events/BUILD/BUILD2011/KEY-0001

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