Windows Phone 7 home-brew hole to be plugged
Home-brew enthusiasts on Microsoft's Windows Phone 7 platform will have the platform's first major exploit patched as part of the phone's next update.
The team behind ChevronWP7, an application that was released last November as a way for users to install applications without going through Microsoft's Marketplace application or signing up for a paid developer account, says that Microsoft has fixed the "error" that had allowed the hack, and will be rolling out that fix as part of the upcoming Windows Phone 7 software update.
ChevronWP7 was available for user download for just a few days before being taken down by its three-man development team. Brandon Watson, director of developer Eexperience for Windows Phone 7, had gotten in touch with the development group about "officially facilitating home-brew development on WP7," in exchange for the tool being pulled. Even so, users who had downloaded the application could continue to use it, even with the phone re-locking itself every two weeks as part of a protective measure.
Microsoft's first Windows Phone 7 update is scheduled for release in the next month or so, though at CES, the phone team would not nail down an exact time frame. Along with the long-awaited copy/paste feature, the first update will bring considerable performance enhancements to the launch of graphics-intensive games and applications, as well as a more organized Marketplace search tool.
(via Winrumors)