What hackers can teach us about what might be coming in future versions of Windows Phone

Ever wondered why so many of the "hacked" Windows Phone 7 apps show loading additional ringtones or accessing the camera directly?

Well I've had a little look at what some of the hackers have been doing and have found a few managed assemblies that aren't publicly available and it seems to be these that most of the people exploring in this area have been looking at.

So, for your amusement, interest and to satisfy your curiosity, here, in no particular order are some of those methods:

public abstract class Camera : IDisposable
{
  // ...
}

public sealed class PhotoCamera : Camera
{
  // ...
}

public sealed class VideoCamera : Camera
{
  // ...
}

public sealed class RingtoneLibrary
{
  // ...
  public void AddRingtone(Stream ringtoneSource, string ringtoneName)
  {
    // ...

    StreamHelper helper = new StreamHelper(ringtoneSource);
    try
    {
        NativeMethods.MediaApi_AddRingtoneFile(helper.GetTempFile(), ringtoneName);
    }
    finally
    {
        helper.Cleanup();
    }

    // ...
  }

  // ...
}

[DllImport("netcfmail3_7.dll")]
internal static extern byte GetMessageData(IntPtr pMessageNode, byte[] dataBuffer, int cbDataBuffer, byte[] idBuffer, int cbIdBuffer);
 
[DllImport("netcfmail3_7.dll")]
internal static extern int SendAsAttachment(string to, string subject, string messageClass, byte[] data, int cbData, string attachmentFileName);

[DllImport("netcfmail3_7.dll")]
internal static extern int SendInBody(string to, string subject, string messageClass, string body, int cchBody);

public CivicAddress ResolveAddress(GeoCoordinate coordinate)
{
  // ...
}

public static extern int HostGetAvailableFreeSpace(IntPtr pRuntimeHost, out long pAvailableSpace);

The things that jump out at me, apart from the camera access are the methods relating to emails!

My theory is that if there is managed functionality in the framework already (and its use doesn't pose a threat to the security of the users data or device) it's not unreasonable to assume that this could be made public in the future.

Just in case it bears repeating, this is all speculation and I have no special insight into what might be coming in future versions.