One of the hardest things about shipping software is shipping software. During the final testing phases for our Windows Phone Developer Tools CTP refresh, we discovered a bug that will impact developers using some existing “transparent Silverlight” assemblies (Microsoft & 3rd party) in their Windows Phone applications. So we had a choice to make: 1) pull back the release to fix the underlying problem (which may have taken up to two weeks given where the actual problem exists and how the engineering & test work required to validate the fix didn’t cause other regressions), or 2) shipping what we had with relatively simple work around.

I like to tell everyone who will listen to me that my job is to be the number one and loudest advocate for our Windows Phone developer experience. Since so many of you have already updated to the recently released Visual Studio 2010 final release, I didn’t want our community to wait any longer for access to the updated Windows Phone tools. We feel confident that this issue impacts only a small subset of Windows Phone developers, but we want to be as transparent as possible about this issue, and get the word out about the work around as quickly as possible.

The Bug – System.IO.FileLoadException

When loading assemblies that make up an application, the Windows Phone OS checks their digital certificates. There are 3 types of assemblies:

1) Those included with the phone – these are signed with a Windows Phone cert

2) Those that are provided by other SDKs – these are transparent Silverlight assemblies, and are generally signed with some other cert

3) Those that are built as part of your app – these are your source code, and in this release they aren’t getting signed

In one of those “d’oh” moments, we found that the loader, in this iteration of the Windows Phone Developer tools, fails to load assemblies that are signed with non – Windows Phone specific certificates. So any signed SDK assembly will fail to load. This issue will surface if you are trying to use transparent assemblies from toolkits such as the Silverlight SDK (e.g. to use the RSS capabilities found in System.ServiceModel.Syndication.dll).

The problem is specific to this release of the Windows Phone Developer Tools. It will be fixed in a future update.

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Does anyone know what this screen cap is from?  If not, you can watch this video clip here.  This one movie scene sums up my experience with the iPad.  Awkwardness.

I want to love the iPad.  I do.  I love the idea of the simplicity of it.  I smile when I think about the potential for the iPad and my young kids.  Educational software takes on a whole new meaning when you can combine the compactness of the device with the touch screen.  The video playback, and the battery life, are wonderful.  Web browsing is snappy.  There’s just that one x-factor which is holding this back for me.

My main problem with the iPad is that I cannot get comfortable with it.  I found it very odd how many times Steve talked about getting comfortable with the iPad in a chair during his keynote when he introduced the device.  It now makes me think he doth protested too much.  We got a few of these on campus – two are sitting in an office across the hall from me.  I haven’t figured out how I am going to sit in a chair with this thing.  If I am laying on a couch with my beloved Kindle, I can hold it up above my face with little effort.  The iPad is just a touch too heavy for that.  The curved back makes for weirdness when you want to lay it on a table and type.  There aren’t four corners touching the table, so it spins around.

Since I don’t own one, I await my friends to tell me their long term experiences with the device.  My gut is telling me that more and more reports are going to be coming out about how people aren’t sure how to hold/handle the iPad and be comfortable at the same time.