Today, Microsoft revealed Windows Phone 8, which has long been rumored under its "Apollo" code name. As expected -- and long hoped by both developers and IT -- Windows Phone 8 will share the same core OS as Windows 8, as well as graphics drivers and Direct3D. Developers will also be able to write apps using native C and C++ code, instead of being restricted to the HTML, Silverlight, and Xbox frameworks, though Microsoft continues to recommend use of XAML and its support of C# and Visual Basic via its Visual Studio 2012 IDE.
And -- finally! -- Windows Phone will support key enterprise security needs, including on-device encryption, corporate app distribution, IPv6, MDM (mobile device management) tools, and secure boot. Microsoft also promises a real version of Office for Windows Phone, based on the Windows RT Office version being developed for ARM-based Windows tablets.
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Joe Belfiore, a Microsoft vice president, said the use of a common core should make the user experience across Windows 8 smartphones, tablets, and desktops (in the Metro interface for the latter two; Windows Phone 8 is all-Metro) more of a crossover, not a jarring switch. He also says it should ease developers' ability to create apps for all Metro-based devices. Microsoft's approach to unifying Windows 8's core across devices matches what Apple had done with the iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad, all of which are based on the same core as OS X, and over the years Apple has converged more of the application functionality and user interfaces across iOS and OS X.
Windows Phone 8 devices will run existing Windows Phone 7.5 "Mango" apps, and Microsoft will recompile them for Windows Phone 8 itself, so developers don't have to.
The revised Windows Phone 8 platform will allow for more variety in hardware implementations, easing some of the constraints that Microsoft put on device makers in previous versions. For example, there will be three supported aspect ratios of displays: 4:3, 15:9, and 16:9. Removable MicroSD cards will be supported; the previous version used a proprietary format for such cards that dissuaded device makers from adding removable storage.
