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Now that Windows 8 has been declared by Microsoft and will release it soon, it is sure that most of the software developers will have to start making softwares and applications for it. Being a software developer myself, I didn’t get chance to try out the consumer preview of Windows 8. I am thinking of starting to learn the Windows 8 SDK. Can someone tell me what the base features of Windows 8 SDK are?
The first thing you will notice in a Windows Phone 8 Software Development Kit is that it has development features for desktop PC as well as Windows phone. While using these development kits, you will many similarities among them. For example, the syntax, the keywords and other such details. Even the names of the APIs for Windows Phone 8 Software Development Kit for desktop PC and mobile phones are same. But don’t get confused about it as though the names look same, the functioning and the processes created by them are totally different. I think that this issue is going to create many problems on a long run. Microsoft must plan some new names which will help one to distinguish between APIs of PC and that for mobile.
Windows 8 is known to have support for three different screen resolutions, which are WVGA (800 x 480), WXVGA (1280 x 768) and 720p (1280 x 720). Since Windows 8 can be ported from PC to smartphones, I think that this is the reason for these various screen resolutions. I think that this feature will make application development for Windows 8 difficult. The software developers will need to integrate a module in their softwares which will detect the screen resolution and scale the display accordingly. Developers will need to develop much better icons and text that will adjust itself according to the screen resolution available.
I think the size of the softwares will increase just because of high resolution text and icons that will be of high resolution which will increase the total size. I think this will be needed to maintain the sharpness of the text and icons. Also Windows 8 will support wallpapers and icons from third party applications. I think that this will be an added advantage for the developers as they will now have options to add their applications on lock screen so that the users can directly unlock the computer to come directly to your software.
Windows 8 will have its own wallet like feature which will help user to connect to the online payment services like PayPal. Users will be able to buy things from online market and other sources. I think that this will bring a new innovation in software development. A developer can integrate the feature of wallet in their software. So if a new feature, add-on or extension is developed for software, they can just place it in the in-built market of the software. This additional content can be then purchased by the user directly using the software.
Recently we saw the launch of Nokia Pureview 808 which has a camera of 41 megapixels. So this shows that there is a lot of development going on in the cameras for the smartphones. So that is why Windows 8 will now have advanced features that will involve camera and provide options like adjusting the exposure, lighting effects, photographic effects and so on. In the Windows Phone 8 Software Development Kit, you will find APIs for putting features of camera in your software. I think this will help in development of softwares that will do facial recognition more accurately. Also it will be helpful for features like facial recognition password in desktop PCs using web cam or other such peripheral.
As we know that Windows 8 is targeted at the smartphones, it is a known fact that one can change and swap the memory card in a smartphone multiple times. In a PC, if anybody wants to do it, one will have to go through numerous tasks like rebooting PC, changing the plugs and so on. But this has to be quick and the operating system should be able to keep the phone running while the memory card is being swapped. So in Windows Phone 8 Software Development Kit APIs for changing the memory card without having to switch off the phone is given. Also there will be enhanced APIs for Bluetooth to provide better connectivity.