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The Windows Phone Developer Team last week announced the next version of Windows Phone, code named 'Mango', for retail delivery before the end of 2011. At the same time, we announced the immediate availability of our first beta release of the Windows Phone Developer Tools for Windows Phone Mango.

WPDT Beta Installation Guidance

Since the announcement, developers have asked for better guidance on where and when to install the beta. A source of the confusion may be the wording (since revised) of the Getting Started page on App Hub:

Developers interested in evaluating the beta should install it on a secondary machine. It is recommended that you continue to use the existing WPDT 7.0 tools to develop and test Windows Phone apps that target Marketplace customers running Windows Phone OS 7.0.

To add some clarity on this topic: You can build and submit applications for the current version of Windows Phone by using WPDT 7.1 Beta. The beta developer tools will do an in-place upgrade of your existing WPDT installation, enabling you to continue developing existing and new Windows Phone apps that target existing Windows Phone 7.0 customers. The WPDT beta provides everything you need to build those solutions, along with a license to distribute and sell your apps.

The new beta tools enable you to target 7.0 or 7.1 (called multi-targeting) with your Windows Phone projects. When you create a new Windows Phone project in the developer tools, you'll be presented with a dialog for specifying which version you're targeting. This capability will also enable you to upgrade your 7.0 project to 7.1 in the future, when you’re ready to migrate.

You're not required to install the WPDT 7.1 Beta on a separate machine, but it's strongly recommended that you do so. Apps built for 7.0 by using the 7.1 beta tools should certify and behave similarly to those produced by your current WPDT environment, but these are beta tools and your apps may behave inconsistently. If you encounter an issue between the beta tools/emulator and production phones, please report the issue on the App Hub 'tools for wp7' forum.

Mango Phones for Developers

You may have seen this tweet from Joe Belfiore:

To update Joe's tweet: We're working on a plan. Just like last year, when we made developer phones available with the Windows Phone 7 OS, we plan to have developer phones this summer supporting new Mango features like the gyroscope. We don't have any dates to share just yet, so stay tuned.

Additional Mango Development Resources

Just in the past week we've released a lot of new Mango resources for developers. These are the most critical resources for you:

• What's New In Windows Phone Developer Tools (Mango)
• Code Samples for Windows Phone (includes 22 new Mango-specific samples, and many others that have been updated for Mango)
• Windows Phone How-To Index (33 new for Mango, more than 90 altogether)
• Windows Phone OS Application Compatibility
• Windows Phone Mango Training Course (10 new hands-on labs)
• Game Development for Windows Phone Mango

Here are other key Windows Phone developer resources that are applicable to developing for both Windows Phone 7 and Windows Phone Mango: 

• Windows Phone Development Quickstarts
• User Experience Design Guidelines for Windows Phone
• Windows Phone Marketplace FAQ
• Application Certification Requirements for Windows Phone

We're incredibly excited about the new features we're bringing to the Windows Phone application platform in Mango, and hope you are too. Keep those applications and games coming! We can't wait to see what you come up with next.

– The Windows Phone Developer Team