WP8 SDK Points to 3D Nokia Maps, Bluetooth sharing, DataSense, Extended Camera Support and Much more

First off I didn’t know WordPress could support Gifs in the post (this is awesome!), anyways earlier we mentioned that the WP8 SDK was leaked online, after some snooping from the more tech savvy of the internet community some information about WP8 has been acquired:

• New Camera capabilities/apps (PureView support??)
  

  In Windows Phone SDK 8.0 Developer Preview, you can create a lens that appears in the Windows Phone built-in camera app. A lens provides the user a consistent entry point into the viewfinder of your app. It is a type of extensibility available to apps that provide unique camera functionality via the camera APIs. As a lens, your app provides the user with a viewfinder experience and interacts with the camera directly. For example, a bar code reader lens would present a viewfinder to display the bar code that it’s going to scan.

  Lenses shown in the lens picker also are listed in Marketplace in their standard app categories. Although a lens must provide a viewfinder experience when launched from the lens button, the app can provide other experiences, too. For example, you might create a productivity app that displays a panorama control when a user starts it from the App list. But when a user starts the app from the lens picker, it displays a viewfinder.

  When a user taps a lens in the lens picker, the corresponding app is launched via a deep link URI. The deep link URI targets the corresponding app and includes the string ViewfinderLaunch to indicate that the app is to be launched as a lens. Apps can use the deep link URI to recognize a lens launch.

  After opening a lens, the user can tap the hardware Back button to return to the built-in Camera app.

• 3D Nokia maps with Hardware acceleration- hopefully this will be mindbogglingly amazing, one good side of Nokia Maps becoming the default for WP is that you can be sure MSFT wont let it sit un-advertised; I expect them to milk it for all it’s worth, rightfully so.
•  Hot Swappable Micro Sd support; but apps only have read capabilities with no Write rights.
• Improved Camera UI; as you can see there’s a shortcut to “camera related apps” from the camera itself (hopefully Instagram will come soon to ease the hearts of sepia cat lovers)
  
• New DataSense (data counter/tracker)- I believe this is a separate app than what Nokia is bringing to Lumia devices
  
• Microsoft Wallet (with NFC payment support of course):
  
• Of course the SDK tool shows support for the new WP resolutions (720P yay!):
  
• And the new start screen
  
• I’ve also seen a bunch of tweets that Apps can now “auto-upload photos” to services (which should mean looser API  restrictions, Hoorah!)
• Also reported is that Developers have access to the lock screen Apis meaning 3rd party applications such as whatsapp, Nokia Pulse, tango should be able to notify users of new events directly on the home screen (hopefully we can also see some sort of Nokia Sleeping screen/Always on amoled with double to wake support)
  

  “In Windows Phone, the lock screen contained a handful of notifications such as the number of new Outlook emails and text messages. In Windows Phone 8 Developer Preview, end users can choose to customize this area with any third party apps they choose. As a developer, you can enable your app to be used in this feature. “

  An app can provide content for the following four items on the lock screen:

  • The background image. This image is unrelated to lock screen notifications, and is documented at Lock screen background for Windows Phone.
  • An app icon
  • An app count
  • App text
• Enhanced Bluetooth support including sharing files (restrictions may apply to file types) over bluetooth
• Network simulator is also now built in apparently:
  

That seems about it for now, lots of exciting stuff to look forward to, most importantly the looser API restrictions, meaning developers really have a chance to go all out with their projects

Via: the Verge, Winsupersite.com

Tags: featured

Category: Nokia, Windows Phone