If you were wondering what some of the applications will look like for Microsoft’s upcoming Windows Phone 7, you can rest assured that these programs can be spectacular looking.
Developer Matt Hidinger is showing off his bus-tracking app for Windows Phone 7 and it looks like a great way to keep up with public transportation in Chicago.
“It takes full advantage of the Bing Maps Silverlight control to plot out exact GPS locations of buses and stops, making sure you always know the optimal time to leave,” Hidinger wrote. “BusTrack can even group your most frequent stops together by a ‘location’ so you don’t have to bounce in and out of different routes that you might want take to your destination.”
The app space is going to be a key driver for the success or failure of Windows Phone 7 and Microsoft will be facing a stiff challenge. Apple has brought apps to the mainstream with its iPhone devices and the App Store now has more than 200,000 programs in it. What’s more, the company has paid over $1 billion to developers and the multitasking and background processing in iOS 4 should make the platform even more compelling for devs.
Google’s Android Market isn’t doing too shabby either, as it now has more than 60,000 apps. The fragmentation issue is slowly becoming a non-factor, as Android 2.1 is now on the majority of handsets. The next firmware will also had new tools and features, including a cloud-to-device API that should make it easier to send information from a computer to a handset.
Microsoft is making moves to make Windows Phone 7 for developers, as the stricter hardware standards means it should be easier for a content maker to build an app that runs well across multiple devices. We’re also seeing reports that the company is offering iPhone developers cash to port apps over to its mobile platform. We’ll see how that works out.
[Via WM Poweruser]