Microsoft releases first iPhone application, Seadragon
By Ross Miller 
posted Dec 14th 2008 3:04PM
posted Dec 14th 2008 3:04PM
[Thanks, Mikkel]
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Hmm, this sounds interesting. It's good to see software developers making cool apps on their competitor's platforms, it really opens up a lot of possibilities.
Haha who cares?! (I just wanna get low ranked)
When you release software for your competitor's platform, and you can't on your own, you know there's something wrong
WinMo 7, it had better be lucky
@Hung
One thousand, two-hundred thirty-four point five six . . . ?
@yopladas
how did you do it? Highest ranked? Whoa.
It's actually fairly common - Apple have iTunes, QuickTime and Safari for OSX. WebKit is the base for Chrome and Chrome Mobile (although Google can do that without asking, since it's open source).
Microsoft used to release IE and WMP, and still release Office on the Mac. In fact, the Mac version of IE had a newer and more standards-compliant engine than the Windows version. Microsoft's also working with the Mono project to bring Silverlight to Linux (despite it being communist and all that).
An Office editor? With the clipboard?!
Haha I so loved that clip! xD
I wish I would be able to use it :(
3D Realms is developing Copy + Paste for the iPhone. It'll be released with the Duke Nukem Forever beta seeing as how the iPhone is an alleged console now.
Umm, I think you confused paperclip with clipboard. As much as I'd love both of them, I'd have to choose the clipboard over the little paperclip with eyes.
But of course, we all know that the Einstein Office Assistant is the best.
The iPod Touch is currently the best selling MP3 player right now on Amazon's MP3 player page. The Sanza is like 20 and the Zune 120 is number 23. iPods occupy just about all of the other spots on the list. I guess Microsoft is smart enough to know where to get the proper exposure for their apps.
this is about an iPhone app by title, why bring in MP3 players?
@Paul Chapel
Since the iTouch (I know it is not iTouch, but I like putting that "i" there to watch you i fans have a hissy fit) and iPhone are video game consoles, lets look at their placement on the Amazon list for video games....
Wii #1
DS #14, 25, 48, 69, 99
PS3 #42
360 Pro #65
Hmmmmm, Nope, no iTouch/iPhone within the top 100, so by those standards, iTouch/iPhone is a very crappy video game console and Apple should start developing their "games" for Wii, DS, PS3, and 360.
Well, I'm off to use Seadragon on my Zune. Oh, wait. Okay, I guess I'll play some Super Monkey Ball. Oh, wait. I guess I'll listen to some Pandora Radio. Oh, wait. I guess I'll look at full html pages from the internet. Oh, wait. But the Zune does have some awesome engravings on the BACK. The palm of my hand is so excited.
(That's what she said. Zing!)
@ Paul Chapel
Keep it clean.We don't want to know what you do with your palms and your iLube stuff.
The Dude (If that's a Leboski reference, right on man!) mentioned the iPhone's use as a console, which is isn't. It's got some fun games, but it's a phone. And Paul Chapel is referring to the iPod Touch, which will also run this Seadragon app.
Wether you like it or not (which I guess you don't) a peak into your local place of anywhere in the "developed" world should show you the iPod has actually gained some popularity. Give the guy a break, he makes a point. I think it's great that msoft is getting into the iPhone business.
Bringing up it's popularity as a "console" is off-topic. It's a kick-butt game platform, but not a console, not even a portable one. It's a phone/media device.
Paul, I'd like to see you do those things with an iPod classic also.
I'd love to have an iPod touch, but I can't justify the price for such a pitiful capacity.
@dandaman
And Paul bringing up Zune's ranking on Amazon had what relevance to this post? Zune and iTouch/iPhone are not the same type of player. The iTouch/iPod are PDAs, while the Zune is a media player just as a iPod classic/Nano is a media player. But, the self-described "Windows Fanboy" (which everybody knows is an all-out-lie) decided to take another swipe at the Zune. So if he wants to make a comment that is off topic, and is only tangentally related to Zune, then making fun of the absurdity of his post is well deserved.
Besides, it is not me saying the iTouch/iPhone is a gaming console, it is Apple themselves claiming it is one - something a vast majority of people who comment here on Engadget got a good laugh about.
It's ok. Paul just needed to repost from another article about the iphone. Since nobody replied to it there, he felt that he had to repost it in order to verify that he existed. It's a self-esteem thing.
Anywhoo, Paul, I think I'll take some video on my iPhone. Oh wait. That's ok, I'd rather type an extremely long email with my physical keyboard. Oh wait. I could send some MMS picture mail. Oh wait. Or use my spoken direction turn-by-turn navigation. Oh wait. Or use my user-replaceable battery. Oh wait. Or add some more memory with an SD card. Oh wait.
Just go away.
Well, think I'll take some video on my Zune. Oh, wait. That's ok, I'd rather type an extremely long email with my physical keyboard. Oh wait. I could send some MMS picture mail. Oh wait. Or use my spoken direction turn-by-turn navigation. Oh wait. Or use my user-replaceable battery. Oh wait. Or add some more memory with an SD card. Oh wait.
(Uh, what the heck was the point again?)
@Paul
Ugh:
Well, I'm off to use Seadragon on my iPod Classic. Oh, wait. Okay, I guess I'll play some Super Monkey Ball. Oh, wait. I guess I'll listen to some Pandora Radio. Oh, wait. I guess I'll look at full html pages from the internet on my iPod Classic. Oh, wait.
Well, think I'll "record" some video on my iPod Classic. Oh, wait. That's ok, I'd rather type an extremely long email with my physical keyboard. Oh wait, I only have a touch wheel. I could send some MMS picture mail. Oh wait. Or use my spoken direction turn-by-turn navigation. Oh wait. Or use my user-replaceable battery. Oh wait. Or add some more memory with an SD card. Oh wait.
What the hell was your point anyways?
Sorry, folks, but saying that the Zune competes "only" with the iPod Classic doesn't cut it. That's like saying that John McCain was only competing against Ralph Nader, and therefore won because he got more votes.
The iPod Classic is a secondary model which remains only to satisfy those who still wish to have a large-capacity HDD. You cannot rationalize the failure of a commercial product by claiming it does not compete against devices it clearly competes with. If someone gets an iPhone or an iPod Touch, they obviously will not be getting a Zune; thus, they compete. Using certain features (like a touch screen) to differentiate doesn't cut it; one could just as easily say that the iPod Classic does not compete with the Zune because it does not feature WiFi.
Zune sales have been flat. They sold one million units during the first nine months, and one million units during its second nine months. During the same period, Apple sold 76 million iPods, which does not count iPhone sales; additionally, iPod sales are increasing over time, unlike the Zune.
The Zune will appeal to some, of course. Every product, no matter how small its share, will have its own fan base, and those fans will insist the product is better. And for them, it "is" better, in a subjective sense. If you love your Zune, I will not try to argue that "you" should like the iPod or iPhone better. But that does not obviate some fairly clear and decisive feature comparisons and open-market results.
I was counter-pointing your "Oh, wait." session. You brought up things that aren't available on anything but the iPod Touch, which isn't even in the same class as the Zune.
Just stop copying and pasting your earlier posts and shut up.
Sorry for the double post, but as I was writing my reply, Paul posted his.
Ok. Let's follow your logic. The iPod Touch is simply an iPhone without the cellular chip (and more memory, but that doesn't really matter). Therefore, since the iPod Touch and the iPhone use the same software and most of the same hardware, they could essentially be called the same device.
I can also buy a touchscreen device similar to the iPod Touch that runs off of windows mobile. Windows Mobile also runs on cell phones. Therefore, the iPod touch and the iPhone are more comparable to similar touchscreen devices, not the Zune 120.
I'll keep this simple, because you sound like Sarah Palin. The iPod Touch is an MP3 player. The Zune is an MP3 player, hence they are in the same "class."
Cry about it all you want, but these facts don't change just because you really, really like the Zune.
"I'll keep this simple, because you sound like Sarah Palin. The iPod Touch is an MP3 player. The Zune is an MP3 player, hence they are in the same "class." "
Ah sweet you totally cleared that up. Except the whole who cares part.
Buy your ipod/zune/sansa/nomad/iriver/etc and enjoy it, that's the point of the device, to perform a function in your price branch and offer you the best options that you can afford at that range.
It's not about "If you pay $250 more you have a real mp3 player" it never was it never will be.
I'll take my junk freebie MP3 players from company reps, my sansa and my zune and use them as I need them when I'm out and about. I don't need an electronic swiss army knife to play some bad 80's music.
i just love how u guys compared the itouch with the zune, there is no comparison, itouch is in a different category
besides, i would say itouch sucks, why stop there and not get an iPhone?
I own a zune that i USE FOR MUSIC! and my iPhone, that i USE FOR MOBILE COMPUTING!
why put apples and oranges on the same basket?
Cool tech but stupid name.
your one to talk Kris one hundred and twenty thousand eight hundred and ninety.
Not supposed to be a whole number.
you both have stupid names, and i know how to properly contract "you" and "are."
I WIN!
Probably his birthdate. Which is a totally original name. And probably means he just turned 18. Happy belated birthday by the way.
This name is no stupider than Seamonkey.
Yes it is my birth date and no I haven't just turned 18.
lowest ranking some douche on his birthday.
engadget readers are officially The Best Thing Ever™
My birthday was 4 months ago so it isn't my birthday and no I don't care about pointless low and high ranking. You're pathetic if it does bother you.
@BrandonL: I think, if the number is his birthday, he uses non-US ordered dates, i.e. 12th of the 8th month 1990, not 12th month 8th day 1990.
I like how you all ignored it when he said that he didn't just turn 18.
He's from one of those countries that writes dates in the wrong order. :D I'd be willing to bet that they also use that funky system of measurement that makes sense, too!
It actually makes sense - day - month - year, from 'smallest' to 'largest', it's like the way people talk - the ninth of June, .
It still amazes me that someone born in 1990 (lookin at you, Kris) is legally an adult this year. Oh, and get off my lawn.
@ac14
The proper way to say that number is one hundred twenty thousand eight hundred ninety. With out the words "and". Sorry for being a smart ass.
Also, I think it's Kris' birth date 12-08-90
@Kris,
Let this be a lesson; overexplaining yourself to try to get out of an imminent FAIL *never* works, it only ensures even more fail. Plus, he had a point, your name is stupid.
I could not care less what you think in all honesty.
@Gavin
Not all countries where English is the mother tongue omit the "and" in numbers, so don't apologise for being a smart ass when you're just an ordinary ass.
You care enough to keep checking your email and reply...
There is two of us who are writing these comments. In fact I only wrote the first one. My friend enjoys annoying you people. And my friend was right I am 18 and my birthday was around 4-5months ago.
This has to be the longest off topic conversation I've ever seen on engadget.
@XIYL, Back before we made Mr. Professional kill himself and jump off some bridge near his location, I think he easily held the crown for longest off-topic conversation. I remember a few that literally went for days after the article was off the front page.
Well its either 18 years or 118 years and given then level of posting and content I'm sure you can guess which one I'm siding with. Also going with 18 as I can't quite remember what the 90th month of the year is or which one has 90 days.
@ Chris
No, that's not what he's saying. "And" is used in place of a decimal point.
1,234.56
One thousand, two-hundred thirty-four AND 56 hundredths. It's the proper way, but most people don't follow such pedantic rules in colloquial writing. Modern grammar rules dictate this format so that scientific papers and records can be easily read.
Regardless, this thread just goes to show how many Engadget users troll—often unsuccessfully, if I may add.
Kris120890 claims not to care what about his low-ranking nor how people feel about his chosen username, and yet he is criticizing the title of "Seadragon." Not only is he a hypocrite, he is effectively saying that his self-image doesn't matter to him and that people should learn to deal with his poor decisions BUT HE shouldn't have to deal with those of others. He is a (douche-y) troll.
Rollins is an idiot, and the reason why most countries view our great nation so poorly and look past our many altruistic accomplishments and contributions to society. He is not a troll, just dumb.
Gavin is simply spreading some knowledge. Chris, YOU are being the troll. Nothing in his reply was malicious. In fact, he preemptively apologized to anyone who might find him negative. Yes, regional differences cause variations in grammar and mechanics (apologize vs apologise). Yes, if you expect him to respect your country's unique take on numerical nomeclature, then you better as hell respect his as well.
I'm a troll for always having to correct someone who is wrong. It doesn't matter who is wrong or about what matter they are wrong. If someone is wrong, I must correct it. 'Tis the life of a troll.
@kris
what friends?
@Chris
I intended no disrespect to you or your country, as i am only familiar with how it is done in the USA. Not to say that thats the only way or the right way to wright. I sometimes fail to realize that this site us world wide and commentor's are from other countries. Once again u can correct me if I'm wrong but I was under the influence that numbers and the way they are written was very universal, so that it can be understood across language barriers. As, Hung pointed out 'and' is used to denote a decimal point.
@ Hung
thank u for seeing that i was not trying to be malicious, but as a teacher of math that it's instincts that kicked in for me to make that comment.
Kris ! stupid icon... delete it please...
Seadragon has been around for over 2 years now. It was very impressive to see it demoed on a laptop, but on a wimpy 400 mhz cell phone it is a very slick app. Great job microsoft.
It's not really that impressive, companies have made this kind of software for years, all the processing is done on the server side and a jpg or png is pushed to the client. You can do this on any device that can connect to the internet and display an image.
it looks like a regular scene graph engine to me. Google Earth is similar, though it overlays the images on a spherical surface, instead of a plane. So is Google Maps for that reason.
no its just really impressive to see a prick like Ballmer eating this much crow, along with his words, and humble pie for dessert.
Oh... Interesting move by MS... Maybe a hint of something for winMo7?
However as ngamer007 said: Good to see developers coming up with apps for competior platforms, it indeed opens up possibilites
Probably but MS has learned a thing or two. The experience in browsing a map or picture is MUCH more smooth than Googles and Apples application and just awesome. Instead of a boring and laggy grey background, MS uses a smooth white transation.
BRAVO!
Embrace, extend, extinguish.
Microsoft are developing for the iPhone to get what Microsoft want out of the iPhone.
Which is to attempt to grok what's good and what's bad.
Embrace happened, but you fail to explain how in the world Microsoft is going to extend app store while Apple has a 100% lock on every aspect of it.
This EEE meme has been overused by OSS zealots and 99% of the time is completely irrelevant and non-applicable to the case in hand.
Seadragon is a technology, it is implemented in Silverlight as DeepZoom, but it also works without Silverlight in regular AJAX. If you go to Microsoft's Live Labs site, they have it up there.
Apple will never allow Silverlight in the App Store, especially if it doesn't allow Flash.
Apple are right to keep Silverlight out. Let's say they let it in - the number of silverlight pages would grow massively. It might contribute towards Silverlight killing Flash. If that happened the web would become dependent on Microsoft. Microsoft could then kill the iPhone by pulling Silverlight out, and kill OSX by doing the same.
And if you think they wouldn't do that, just ask Netscape or Spyglass.
Honestly, I would be all over a Minesweeper application.
I'm a big fan of Mines, but it isn't free.
yeah, same
to hold up my "fanboy cred" i'm a pages user (and I feel it is also a legitimately better app) so office editor is not so much
Try TouchMines, it's Free.
Photosynth anyone????
what's your fastest time?
Microsoft minesweeper is absolutely pathetic.
I've tried crazymines and minesweeper pro, but they're both typical windows trialware.
If you want a solid, awesome, and simple mines implementation, you're looking at gnomines; if you're looking for a challenging and potentially complex yet still usable mines implementation, kde4 kmines is for you.
I don't know what kind of minesweeper OSX ships with, (iMines?), but it's probably better than the Microsoft version too.
@ethana2
I don't believe Macs come with a Minesweeper type application. No doubt trying to play up the 'we don't preinstall trial software' bit.
Would be interesting to see them emulate win mobile on the iPhone. Give users more options on programs. There are some useful programs out there (ie for bluetooth OBD II readers) that I had not seen equivalents of for the iPhone.
"Would be interesting to see them emulate win mobile on the iPhone"
Why would they have to emulate it? There are many WinMo phones that use ARM11 processors.
I was thinking that as an app users would still be able to use the iPhone's os. Just figured it would be the simplest way to "dual boot".
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R4tk0KYGnYo
Just downloaded it Awesome. and yes i hope they bring office along too
If you search for 'engadget' you get about a hundred pictures of (an) Engadget HQ. They have a big Engadget poster up on the wall and a dozen MacBooks (various models) floating around the office. It's an Asia-based one, but it's still cool to see.
FYI Engadget: This app is also compatible with the iPod Touch.
mindsweeper? give me solitaire!
Yeah solitaires good, but Pinball...
Solitaire... but with network play enabled.
Hang on... oh.
Just tried it out. Cool little app though not much you can do with it.
It looks to me about as useful as a chocolate display picture.
This app is pretty damn win.
dows?
AJAX has nothing remotely to do with anything that's going on here :/
Well, Dataviz promises a Docs2Go for the iPhone sometime 'soon', but wouldn't it be swell if MS produced an Office editor - including, dare I say it, cut and paste? While an image viewer as above is lovely, MS, it is clearly not the most useful product one major software developer might produce for the iPhone.
And, as long as Jobs insists that, a) Apple doesn't need to build a netbook because it has the iPhone / Touch already and, b) it has no practical means of creating and manipulating documents and info between its native programs, both gizmos remain simply CDD (Content Delivery Devices) for the iTunes and App Store. And they're just too expensive to be that limited.
Yeah because i love the way that MS office crashes on my Mac so much i want it to do the same on my phone too...
If by "too expensive" you mean people won't buy the product, it's not a very good indicator.
That looks about as useful as a chocolate display picture.
Mmm, chocolate...
Interesting, now if only I had a iPhone / iTouch.
Wow, really bad writeup on this article.
First, this isn't just some "AJAX magic". Do you know what AJAX is, Ross? It's asynchronous Javascript and XML. I can guarantee there is no Javascript being used here. It would be *far* too slow to use.
Secondly, Seadragon on the desktop is more than just a Silverlight app. The real Seadragon is actually a browser plugin available only on Windows. The Silverlight version is stripped down by comparison.
Lastly, there's no reason to expect anything more mainstream out of Microsoft on the iPhone. This is done by their Live Labs group, which is basically an experimental group that is given more free reign than usual MS developers. They use things like GetSatisfaction for their support management, rather than Microsoft's in-house system. This group isn't related to Office or any of the technologies you probably want to see come out of Microsoft onto the iPhone.
It's a slippery slope. What will happen when bootcamp comes out for iPhone?
And nowww, how about a free hotmail software Microsoft, huh?
How 'bout MMS. Can you come out with that app Microsoft?. An MMS app? How 'bout that one?
Every time I get a MMS my provider charges me $1. If the iPhone users I know get MMS, I'll be doomed :0.
Not having a true Office on the iPhone with the ability to transfer docs other than to e-mail them to yourself is one of the biggest things keeping me from the iPhone.
Get Air Sharing. It does the job. (albeit a little haphazardly)
So I'll finally be able to do this!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LxEcewBI3SY
Can't wait!
Brilliant. "Whoa" :-)