Microsoft’s insistence that Windows Phone 7 developers write apps in Silverlight or XNA, but not the same native code that Microsoft’s default apps will use. While that’s probably fine for most third party apps, some developers have already said they won’t write apps for Windows Phone 7 since they won’t have deep enough access to the operating system to run properly. Mozilla, for instance, has already stated that it won’t be developing a version of the Firefox web browser for Windows Phone 7.
But it turns out things might not be quite as cut and dry as we thought. In an interview with TechRadar, Microsoft senior director Paul Ryan says that if there’s enough demand for alternate web browsers, then Microsoft will “enable our partners to do that.”
So it looks like we could see some third party apps using native code, including web browsers such as Opera or Fennec. But I wouldn’t hold my breath waiting. At the very least, it doesn’t look like we’ll see any third party browsers when Windows Phone 7 first launches later this year.
