coming from webOS, a few questions

[aapold]

Crazy... now I'm missing things about the focus, and of course the things that were annoying me aren't since i'm not using it.

The grass is always greener...

 

[jeffa00]

I use both a Pre Plus from Verizon (my personal phone) and an LQ Quantum from AT&T (my work phone). I will say this about the Quantum: it feels rock solid in your hand. I tried the Focus (and several android phones too) and they all felt like they would break in my pocket.

I totally understand your feelings on this. There are things I love about both platforms. Pre definitely wins on multi-tasking for now. I love being able to stream or download podcasts with Dr. Podder and Stitcher. That capability is locked away from developers on WP7... for now. What I've read about the multi-tasking in Mango sounds good. Regular apps "tombstone" when you switch to another app. That means they shouldn't be gobbling up CPU (and therefore battery - you know what I mean, my WebOS brother...). Mango will include a new class of app that can run in the background. My understanding is that the OS will wake up that app at preset intervals and let it run. In theory this could be a really good compromise between multi-tasking and battery usage. Won't know how it works in practice until this fall..

I'll be eligible to upgrade my personal phone in October. I am sorely vexed as to which OS to choose at that point. Pre3 looks very nice and Mango phones should be hitting shelves around about that time. I have tried to cultivate an interest in Android, but thus far have not. I like iPhone, but I don't want a phone I can't code for without buying a new computer...

As for your questions regarding development, I can say that coding for the WP7 is a fantastic experience. I love C# and Silverlight. Visual Studio is my favorite IDE. Debugging on anything else is painful.

I plan to keep developing for WP7 and WebOS, and hope to add Android eventually. iPhone too, if I can talk myself into buying a Mac. For the record, I don't object to anything about the Mac except the price when I already have a good notebook.