The first Windows Phone devices released in the fall of 2010 had hardware limitations imposed by Microsoft. Thus, the entire first generation of devices lacked components that were common even back then. Among the hardware missing from the reference design and the devices based on it is a gyroscope. This component has become increasingly important in games and motion based activities. Microsoft’s design shortsightedness has come back to bite it less than two years after the first Windows Phone devices were released. Its own recently released PhotoSynth panoramic camera app for Windows Phone (first released for the iPhone) won’t work correctly with the entire first generation of Windows Phone devices.
Gee… Thanks, Microsoft, for not future proofing your smartphones! 🙁
Here’s another one in the review queue.
GigaOm reported on the first music app from iPhone music creation app pioneer Smule.
I have a SIM-less HTC Surround that is used to try out Windows Phone apps. It works like you would expect for a WiFi-only device for the most part. The one exception is that the Windows Market app does not update software for it as expected. In fact, until last week, no app had been updated in a couple of months. Even going to the product page in the Market app does not force updates to appear. So, imagine my surprise when I saw not just one but 23 apps ready for update recently. I haven’t seen any other updates since then even though several apps for my HD7 (which has a SIM) have been updated in the past few days. Even the HD7 does not get updates when expected, however. It sometimes gets updates a week or more after an app was reported as updated by others.