A thread for all those Windows Phone 7 users, to keep track of the so-far-released updates.

EDIT: Since the first post is becoming rather large, click on the link bellow or take look at my latest post in this thread for the latest updates / changes.

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsphone/en-us/howto/wp7/basics/update-history.aspx

So its the fine tradition of a patch to enable a forthcoming patch then?

Yea, something like that.

I see, Microsoft really wants to be Apple now, eh?

For now, yes. They said they will be opening the platform more in future updates. ;)

Bah, I still have to install the Zune software for my LG Optimus 7, and I don't feel the urge to make this happening right now....

Apparently Samsung screwed up with their firmware updates somewhere. As reported by some blogs, the JI9 and JJ4 firmwares both experience issues whereas JK1 appears to be fine.

Those with Samsung WP7 devices might want to wait a few days or so, as there are some issues with those firmware versions right now.

I'll be trying to update my Optimus 7 later tonight, will report here how it goes.

Updating done in 10 minutes or so. Everything went smoothly. :)

Glad to hear your update was smooth.

I've been toying with getting a WP7, given I'm a silverlight developer it would be a pretty nice way to identify apps that I needed, and get writing them. However I've heard that there's no way to side-load an app onto the devices (as in install something that's not published to the app hub). Is that true?

Yea, I think the only way to test your apps (without obviously releasing them to the public on Markerplace) is to use the emulator that comes with the WP developer tools.

Microsoft said that they'll allow developers to transfer apps to their devices without publishing them, but when that will happen, they didn't exactly made it clear.

What do you mean? I have the option to debug/run my app on a Windows Phone 7 Device in VS2010. Don't know how/if it works as I don't have a WP7 device but it should be there.

Granted, this might not be an option in the Express edition of the IDE.

Supposedly more APIs are going to be opened to developers (like the copy/paste one recently was) and things like that.

I just got into developing on WP7 so can't really say anything certain about that aspect though.

From what I've heard, you can get the ability to unlock your phone for debugging as part of your subscription to the appHub, but that doesn't allow you any new way to transfer an application onto the phone, only to debug those that you've installed via the hub.

Please let me know if that's not true.

Yes, it seems that being a registered developer on the AppHub is a prerequisite before being able to deploy the app to an unlocked device.