Developers

For those developers with App Hub accounts can now register (unlocked) a Windows Phone to their App Hub account even if it was unlocked by another account. For those not familiar, a registered Windows Phone basically allows developers to side load apps that are in the works to their Windows Phone for testing.  This gives developers a lot more flexibility such as borrowing/sharing various Windows Phones for compatibility testing.

Additionally, the registration of the device expires annually and used to require re-registration from the original account. Now, all developers need to do is re-register the Windows Phone from an active App Hub account.  For more information on starting an App Hub Account, you can find all the details here at the App Hub Website.

Source: App Hub Forum

Today, in conjunction with the plethora of E3 announcements, Microsoft has revealed the final plans for the June 20th Dev Summit happening in San Francisco. 

The event initially spanned a couple of days but is now down to one and while details are unannounced, Microsoft teased that this will be a "a sneak peek of of the future of Windows Phone". That can of course only mean one thing, Windows Phone 8 aka Apollo will be revealed, at least in part.

In speaking with some publishers here today, we can expect some demonstrations of some new games for the new OS as well as details for developers. Windows Phone 8 is thought to be introducing 4 display resolutions, dual-core support, native access for gaming, integrated Skype, NFC and other more "high end" features in addition to a new base layer for the OS. Make no mistake, this is a new OS not just an update.

The big questions on everyone's minds revolve around device updates and how much of a "break from the old" developers should expect. No word if this summit will answer all of those questions but at least we'll get a "sneak peek" of what's to come.

Of course, myself and Rafael Rivera will be there to cover the event, providing perspective of what the new changes mean in layman terms. So stay tuned.

If you're a Windows Phone 7 developer, you would probably have heard us talk about this Kirkland, Wash. startup. To recap, it was founded by David McLauchlan (CEO), and Jeff MacDuff (CTO). Both are former Microsoft employees with Dave doing work on the Zune hardware business amongst others, and Jeff working on a range of products including that Windows Phone 7 you're clutching.

Although the platform has been out since last year, up until now it has been in beta. But today they have finally hit v1, along with a bunch of exciting announcements.

So what's new? Well, in addition to the info in the quote below, Buddy has now got support for the Aviary image filters - which has recently been included in Rowi. Along with that, there is now a native .NET SDK which makes it absolutely painless to use the platform in your own app, plus is the first SDK that supports Windows 8! I have personally used the SDK in a Windows 8 app, and it was simpler than the time I stole candy from a baby (I didn't really, promise). The SDK also successfully passes the Windows App Certification Kit (WACK), which is required to publish apps into the Store, and is failed by pretty much every other 3'rd party library due to broken dependencies.

We know what you're thinking though...what good is a press release without an infographic? So we have two, just for you (and the thousands of others like you)...

The AdDuplex team have announced on their blog today a new referral feature, which Windows Phone developers can now take advantage of. The advertising service is available for all developers on the platform and offers a more effective way to promote apps, while making use of any in-app advertisement positions. 

We previously interviewed Alan Mendelevich, who heads up the network, and we were also fortunate enough to meet him at a previous WPUG meetup. Should you be interested in the presentation Mendelevich provided, we covered the slides used. Back to the newly announced referral feature. To say "thank you" to those who bring other developers to the network, AdDuplex now offers a small impression bonus when referring a friend.

As one can see from the above chart, the referrer receives 5% of the impressions served by apps developed by this user for the next 6 months. To incentivise the referral to actually sign-up using the link, they will also receive 5% more impressions, as opposed to using a normal link. Refer a number of people and you'll begin to see a substantial increase of impressions, which should help with promoting your Windows Phone app(s).

Read more about the new referral feature on the AdDuplex blog.

Source: AdDuplex Blog

Big news for the Windows Phone platform today as Aviary announced their SDK is now available for developers, allowing the integration of their free, highly regarded and powerful photo tools for apps on Windows Phone.

What this means for developers - you'll now be able to insert into your application a powerful photo editor to greatly enhance user experience, all with very little effort.

What this means for consumers -  you'll soon see an array of apps that will allow you to edit, crop, enhance and tweak your photos before sending them out for the world, all at no extra cost

The Windows Phone Aviary SDK has the following features:

• Redesigned SDK from the ground-up to take advantage of the Metro design principles of Windows Phone
• The same, easy integration process: add our editor to your project in as little as 15 minutes, with just a few lines of code
• Customizable color theme
• Controllable output size based upon developer preferences — you decide what makes the most sense for your app or service
• … Not to mention that Aviary for Windows Phone has all the standard features as the rest of our mobile SDKs

What's more, we're pleased to announce the following launch titles will have Aviary integrated into their apps very soon:

• Rowi Twitter
• 4th & Mayor
• Postcard on the Run (brand new launch title from iOS)
• rekap

As you can see in the video above, Rowi is one of the first apps to be getting the Aviary SDK treatment. Though version 2.1 looks like the current app in every which way, the change occurs when you try to attach a photo. You now have the option to hop right into a sophisticated photo editor which allows you to manipulate everything including brightness, sharpness, add filters, stickers, text, cropping and more.

The photo is then saved and you can Tweet as usual all without having to ever leave the Rowi Twitter app. Did we mention how good the photos look too?

More info can be found at the Aviary Blog and developers can grab the SDK here right now.

It’s time to talk developers and apps again. Over at the Windows Phone Central Forums, we have spotlight forums dedicated to developer discussions on their apps.This week our developers have been putting out the good stuff. Here's just a sampling of what all is being discussed.

TalkBox for Windows Phone is soon to be released and developer gilmanyu is bringing it to us in the forums. What is TalkBox? Check out our review: TalkBox gets teased for Windows Phone This is what gilmanyu has to say about this application.

“TalkBox Voice Messenger, one of the most popular multi-platform messenger apps, is now bringing its signature push to talk feature to Windows Phone.”

If TalkBox is the app for you, then you won’t have much longer to wait.

WayTwoGood is seriously way too good and if you like daily deals this is the app for you. Developer Alkasai made this Windows Phone app and it aggregates all your favorite daily deal websites. If you like deals give WayTwoGood a try.

Birthdays Diary developed by lemonez is a nice utility app with a rich feature set. If you’re like me and couldn’t remember your Mothers’ birthday if your life depended on it then you need this app. This is how lemonez describes his app.

“Birthdays Diary is a great free app for browsing and managing your friends' birthdays. You can easily see birthdays coming soon or find the birthday of a particular friend. Birthdays Diary features a nice, customizable live tile, allowing you to peek at coming birthdays from your home screen.”

Fun Conversions - Fun with unit conversions is a new twist on an old favorite. This app by rbrunner offers unit conversions in a fun new way. I’ll let rbrunner tell you all about this app.

“Have you ever wondered how many ants would be needed to equal your weight? Or how many times one would need to stack Mount Everest on top of each other to reach the moon? Or how many times faster you walk than a common snail can crawl? If yes, Fun Conversions is the app for you”

There are many more apps available in the WPCentral Applications Spotlight forum.  Feel free to stop by and get you some application goodness. If you see something you like, help support our developers by giving there apps a try and post feedback on what you think of their efforts. Like it, don’t like it, let them know what you think.

Verious Inc is a leader in connecting developers with components and services for mobile app developer and they have a strong presence with iOS and Android development. Today the company has added Windows Phone development to their lineup giving developers even more tools at their disposal.

What's this mean? Hundreds of pre-built mobile app components, open source projects, HTML5 components and SDKs are now available to Windows Phone developers. It opens up the pool of resources developers have to tap into.  Verious has reportedly worked closely with Microsoft to identify the most valuable components to help accelerate mobile app development.

As described by Anil Pereira, founder and CEO of Verious,

"From Metro-styled icons to charting controls and mapping tools, we’ve worked with Microsoft to compile the world’s most comprehensive catalogue of pre-built components, open source libraries and SDKs for Windows Phone development. Now mobile app developers can leverage these resources to get their apps to market faster—just as they do for other leading smartphone platforms.”

Seeing that Verious already has a presence with iOS and Android development, the addition of Windows Phone to Verious's catalog may see more cross platform apps hit the Marketplace.

You can catch the full press release after the break and find out more on Verious here at their website.

Recently, Microsoft announced some recent changes to the Windows Phone Marketplace for developers that would also affect consumers. The changes were divided into four areas, including trademarks, bulk publishing, keywords and content policy. What concerns us here is the trademarks section.

In short, apps that violate trademarks of other companies are now subject to more restrictive oversight in the Marketplace. Microsoft had this to say on the matter, which is a fair position:

"When a trademark or copyright owner contacts us about a suspected violation, we investigate and pull apps when the complaint is valid. Lately we’ve been doing more of this, especially for trademark misuse. Sometimes the requests come from the owners of big, well-known brands. Other times they come from new brands. Either way, we often find trademark violations are unintentional: some developers just aren’t clear on what constitutes a violation. But these investigations—and the time and money they can cost—can be avoided by doing a little homework before submitting or updating your app."

A few curious examples of this actually do exist in the Windows Phone Marketplace, some of which you'll be familiar with including YouTube Pro, gMaps, YouTube Live and YouTube Downloader.

Did you notice anything in common with those? If you said those sound like Google names, you would be right and evidently Google are rightly flexing their muscle on the matter, sending out copyright infringement complaints to numerous developers over their use of their trademarked names.

The developer of YouTube Live, which we've covered before, just received such a notice which is partially re-printed below:

"This message is to notify you that Microsoft has received Content Infringement Complaint (“Complaint”) regarding your application Youtube Live. A copy of the Complaint is attached for your review.

Remove Application Access Immediately

You must remove access to the application from the Marketplace within one business day.  If your application is still available for download after one business day,Microsoft may remove the application without further notice.  Please note that under certain circumstances Microsoft may remove your app immediately without providing you the opportunity to remove it."

While this is certainly a blow to many of our favorite developers on the platform, it should not come too much as a surprise that these apps infringe on Google's ownership of those names. Of course, being as we're more of a Microsoft site and Google is not on good terms with Windows Phone this will certainly rub people the wrong way. Especially since Google has not bothered to support Windows Phone at all with their services.

Having said that, Google is technically in the right here and we don't begrudge them for taking action. We also want to let devs know that Microsoft is serious about this copyright stuff so give some thought to your app's name before Marketplace submission, m'kay?

We hope to see these outstanding apps back in the Marketplace soon but under new names.

The Windows Phone User Group, a meetup that's organised by platform developers for developers, is changing for the next calendar entry. On Saturday, May 19th, the WPUG will be held at the same premises as the previous event, but instead of starting in the evening and only lasting the best part of two hours, WPBarCamp will kick off at 9:30 in the morning for a beer-centric 6 hours.

So who's invited to such an event? Experienced Windows Phone developers - ie. those with either an app in development or available on the Marketplace. The main goal is for Windows Phone developers to learn from one another to improve quality with end results for consumers. WPBarCamp will be held at The Vibe Bar on Brick Lane with nearest stations being either Aldgate East (London Underground District and Hammersmith & City lines) or Shoreditch High Street (London Overground services).

You can register your interest (and seat) at the next Windows Phone User Group meetup at EventBrite. WPCentral will be there to cover the event, so if you're an attending developer be sure to say hello so we can look to help with app promotion and reach, as well as possible interviews and reviews. Our Jay Bennett will also be providing a presentation that will cover his previous experiences on the platform.