Windows Phone superstar Rafael Rivera has been taking a look at some recently-released apps and noticed what looks like a new trend: the arrival of apps compiled into native ARM code.

Most all Windows Phone apps are created with Silverlight or XNA, causing frustration for developers who might prefer to go with something like C++ out of familiarity and the desire to deliver faster code. While Microsoft’s development restrictions remain in place for the majority of developers, it’s now letting a few deliver apps with components consisting of native code.

Rivera spotted such code in both Tango’s video calling app, as well as the new Spotify release. The presumption is that Microsoft will continue to deliver this privilege to “high profile” apps. While it might be nice to see all developers get such luxuries, this is still great news for the platform, as it raises the bar for what kind of performance should be possible out of Windows Phone hardware. Specifically, we might hope to see processor-intensive games start to arrive with libraries compiled into native ARM code.

Source: Rafael Rivera

Via: WMPoweruser