I’ve never been a fan of the Bing Maps/Virtual Earth color scheme so when I read reports today that it had been updated, I was hopeful Microsoft might have injected some vibrancy and fine detail into their otherwise dull and indistinct maps. That was before I realized Microsoft wanted to make their maps look worse.

I know what you’re thinking, “that’s an outrageous accusation”. Maybe, but I can’t think of any other reason why Microsoft actually removed the white glow on the labels from the previous version of Bing Maps that was there to provide contrast between the text and the background. That is if the semi-transparent text wasn’t distracting enough.

Furthermore, I’m also quite confident a (road) map is suppose to highlight the features of the road network so viewers can make judgements on how to get from point A to point B safely and efficiently.

With the lack of color separation between freeways, highways, roads and streets, identifying routes become quite difficult when all the roads are light shades of pastel purple, barely visible above on the trademark dull gray background.

Although I don’t claim to be an expert cartographer, I can appreciate a well-designed map when I see one. This is an eyesore.

Update: Added an alternate screenshot with a different zoom level on a different part of Sydney.

I’ve wondering why the Visual Profiler in the WPF Performance Profiling Tool has never worked for me whilst others could run it fine. When I found the solution last night, I almost fell out of my chair. Here I was thinking the Zune location-restriction was absurd.

Update (6/14/2010):

We heard that few folks complain that the Visual Profiler cannot correctly attach to the WPF application in the new WPFPerf for WPF 4.

After some research we think this has to do with a bug in our DateTime initialization which cause anyone in a time zone > GMT to not get any data in VisualProfiler (for a few hours at least).

Until we post a fix, a temporary workaround is to set your time zone < [Long: corrected] GMT (e.g.to Eastern or Pacific Standard Time Zones) when you first attach VisualProfiler.

Seriously.

Although Microsoft has a long road ahead of them to catch up to the 59 million iPhones sold to date, the baby is taking its first steps. According to the Facebook application configured exclusively for Windows Phone 7 devices, Microsoft has now seeded 3,076 mobile phones into the hands of developers, Microsofties and a handful of US journalists (jealous).

Bear in mind the cost of this exercise to seed even more devices to developers and its employees entirely for free, Microsoft is already beginning to reap some of the reward as developers have begun demoing a reasonable amount of in-production WP7 applications and games.

As generic and rough honestly crap as some of them may be, there’s definitely momentum and enthusiasm building amongst developers and that’s exactly what Microsoft needs to compliment its otherwise impressive mobile OS. 3,000 down. 59 million to go.

Update 2: The original image has been removed by request. I’ve replaced it with an artist’s sketch, or an attempt at a sketch, for the record.

A set of string-themed logos for Microsoft’s many brands teased at the Microsoft Global Exchange (MGX) event today might actually be one of many concepts the company has considered as part of an exercise to at least think about how they can refresh their image.

Over a week ago I noticed a vifro dubbed the “Microsoft rebrand intro”. The animation which lasts no longer than 12 seconds shows off a set of various Microsoft logos with a consistent glossed square shape.

When I first saw this I didn’t know what to make of it. I had a hunch this wasn’t “it”, but at the same time I didn’t doubt its authenticity. Now that an alternate version has been revealed, I can safely assume these are all submissions made by various creative agencies Microsoft might have contacted for a rebranding proposal.

Even though Engadget reports Microsoft is not actually committed to the design shown at MGX, you only need to look at all the Microsoft logos on one page to realize why a consistent new look might be a worthwhile investment.

Update: the video has since been removed.

It looks like Microsoft is not just making the Windows Phone 7 application development experience easy for developers, but it turns out designers have most of their job cut out for them. If you need to mock up an application UI for Windows Phone 7, it’s now as easy as mashing up some Photoshop files from the “Design Templates for Windows Phone 7” resource.

Since finding useful information on MSDN is practically a treasure hunt, this 88MB archive is a treasure chest full of PSDs with layer-licking goodness. The gems include a full suite of UI controls as well as other practical UI elements such as the on-screen keyboard, notifications and start menu for easy drag and drop manipulation, if you can find the right layer amongst hundreds that is.

Although UI mockups are not impossible from scratch (especially if most elements are solid shaped squares), what I really like about this is that Microsoft is providing an official resource that will make mockups that much more consistent if not pixel-perfect with their real counterparts.

As someone who’s put together their fair share of mockups, trust me when I say this is awesome.

At the Microsoft Worldwide Partners Conference 2010 yesterday, the Windows Phone 7 team took the opportunity to announce the beta release of its developer tools, another significant milestone for the platform as it inches closer to consumer availability.

As expected, this release includes an updated version of the emulator image (build 6414) for developers to debug with. Naturally, it took devoted xdadevelopers members no more than a couple hours to unlock some of its hidden glory. I recorded this thorough screencast video to save you the hassle.

Right off the bat you’ll notice performance and responsiveness has been improved several folds. Although some of that might be attributed to improvements in hardware acceleration for the emulator itself, I’m sure for the most part this is also the result of the optimizations the team has been doing in the recent months.

Diving into the every application and setting reveals the team has applied a very generous layer of polish throughout the OS, removing all traces of previously incomplete or inconsistent UI elements. For everything that do work, which excludes the social integration, email, games, Zune and Marketplace, it looks and works great. (Maps broke in the demo, but works great otherwise)

Finally, perhaps as a testament to just how close this release to manufacturing this code might be, some ringtones and alert sounds are in! Whilst I assume there will be more coming, the sound is quite unique and almost soothingly calm in a nice way. “Two Step” would be my favourite so far.