Soon after Skype for Windows Phone beta came out (and went gold months thereafter), users were dismayed to discover the app didn’t work, well, like Skype. That is, it couldn’t run in the background to receive phone calls or IMs from friends and family. Circulating reports suggested that perhaps “push notifications were too slow” or that the problem was a result of “[…] how Skype works and how the Windows Phone OS works.”
The real reason? Well, it’s complicated…
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With yesterday’s announcement from Nokia describing a planned set of “exclusive” apps and even more games for their Lumia line of Windows Phones (and presumably anything else they have up their sleeve), Nokia has won both praise and some scorn for their bold move.
The concern, as echoed by some in the tech press, is that Nokia’s move will cause that dreaded “F word” to happen. No, no that one, the other one – fragmentation.
Fragmentation is the boogey word of the year due almost entirely to Google and their Android OS. But as ex-Microsoftie Charlie Kindel astutely pointed out, there isn’t just one type of fragmentation. Rather, there’s at least six ways you can divide up the terms with some of it being positive and some of it negative, affecting consumers or developers. Point is, they're not the same and what is causing problems for Android is not the same as what Nokia is doing.
The real question is, will Nokia’s strategy to get these apps and games on their hardware hurt Windows Phone? We say “no” and here’s why.
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Yesterday was quite the rollercoaster ride in the bubble word of tech-media. First there was a Microsoft employee stating on camera that yes, all Windows Phones will get the an update to Windows Phone 8 aka "Apollo" which is expected to drop on the fall. Then came a story on the Verge from our old boss and friend Dieter citing a trusted (but unnamed source) that no phones will be getting the update.
Well, that's certainly a 180 on the issue.
And what does Microsoft have to say? Well, not much of course. From a Microsoft spokesperson we were told the same thing as every other site:
“We have stated publicly that all apps in our Marketplace today will run on the next version of Windows Phone. Beyond that, we have nothing to share about future releases.”
Their contention is that Silva, the Microsoft Evangelist on video claiming all phones will get the update, was possibly mistaken or confused when talking about updates versus app compatibility. (Microsoft recently confirmed app compatibility with Windows Phone 8).
As our own Rafael Rivera said on Twitter: "Come on, we seriously believed a developer evangelist from Portugal had close guarded core information on Windows Phone? ". Indeed.
A few months ago we personally heard from someone with direct contact at Microsoft that jives with what the Verge claimed: no phones will get the update. ZDNet's Mary Jo Foley has also heard the same thing lending more credence to the claim. However, since none of us share our sources for all we know we're all citing the same person, which doesn't really confirm anything so long as they want to remain anonymous.
So why is there such a discrepancy in these stories?
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There has been a lot of talk today about Angry Birds Space and whether or not it will find it's way to the Windows Phone platform (see our earlier post). First we had reports from Bloomberg that Rovio were not bringing the new fowl-flinging iteration of the game to Microsoft's platform, information received from Peter Vesterbacka, Rovio's chief marketing officer. Analyst Richard Windsor speculated this meant that Rovio may not have confidence in Windows Phone looking into the future, more on that shortly.
However, the story has since been contradicted by Rovio's CEO, Mikael Hed as quoted on Reuters:
"We are working towards getting Angry Birds Space to WP7"
Whilst Mr. Hed's statement is somewhat lacking in detail one would be inclined to believe that the CEO's position on the company's intentions would be the more reliable source. No release date or expected time of arrival has been communicated.
Here at WPCentral we've been discussing this story in some detail, particularly around suggestions from the Bloomberg article that the lack of Angry Birds on Windows Phone would make it difficult for Nokia to "attract gaming-oriented users and persuade developers that [Windows Phone] is growing".
It's an interesting point, can one app make or break Windows Phone alone? The answer of course is no, but it is a very important game which will be seen as important to the average phone owner. Whether you're a fan of Angry Birds or not, the game is huge, successful and a marked influence in the rise of Smartphone popularity. Just look at what Rovio can afford to do for publicity:
Angry Birds Space is the first major innovation the game has seen since the original version found it's way on to mobile screens everywhere. The game is superb, new gravity mechanics genuinely do create a completely different experience to the game, this time it's not just some new textures or types of bird, it's an almost entirely new way to play.
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I like experimenting and tinkering with software. A lot like how a circuit bender tries to get electronics to emit beautiful music, I attempt to coerce software into doing things it wasn’t designed to do. Often, like my recent Windows Phone Hackathon, I fail spectacularly. But rarely, I do make notable progress. Cue Audible.
Audible.com (Audible for short) is a service owned by Amazon that provides digital audio books. They put out software that works across a slew of devices such as the iPod, Kindle Fire, Blackberry, and even PC. Old hats may even recall that Audible supported Windows Mobile 5 devices such as the HP iPAQ Pocket PC. One platform void of support, however, is Windows Phone.
We – along with our readers – have been keeping the pressure on Audible for quite some time now, to no avail. Support technicians would say an app is in the works but has no ETA. Now they're saying this month. Who knows when this is really coming out? More importantly, what’s taking so long?
I sat down one day and decided to figure out why this was taking so long, or at least try. I started by downloading the old Windows Mobile 5 software. In the dusty CAB were a number of skins and resources, to support the fragmented Windows Mobile market, along with some key application files. Disassembling the Audible Player executable revealed they all relied on a single dynamic link library (DLL) to perform all the needed functions: AAXSDKWin.dll.
AAXSDKWin.dll is a library compiled for devices containing a StrongARM processor, like the iPAQ mentioned earlier. Without going too deep, it was compiled using an instruction set (ARM4i) that is still used in today’s ARM (e.g. Cortex) processors. At this point, you’re probably thinking “Hey… doesn’t Windows Phone sit on top of ARM too?” Yep, it sure does.
I took the library and started weeks of disassembly, study, and boozing, excruciatingly dissecting bit after bit until I had enough of their APIs worked out to use the damn thing in a proof of concept. I jiggered it into a Silverlight for Windows Phone application project and deployed it onto my Samsung Focus test phone. I was able successfully parse an Audible book and light up my UI with relevant metadata (e.g. title, author, etc.). I remember thinking “Holy crap, it worked.” (The app shot below is not a functional application.)
How Audible for Windows Phone could look like.
I continued my research efforts, with the goal of playing a book in mind, but stopped short for two reasons: One, Audible’s books are protected with a DRM scheme. This meant I needed to reverse engineer their account activation, authentication, and decryption logic – something I wasn’t keen on doing. Two, we reported that Audible was warming up for a late March release. I had no intention of busting hump to later be superseded by a better and official application. But with the success of the concept application, I couldn’t answer the original question – What’s taking Audible so long to put out an app?
I can only surmise as to why. We know getting legitimate native access on Windows Phone is easy and possible. I also know that all the APIs they need are there. So from a technical perspective, an Audible app is possible. But perhaps Amazon, in a move to increase Kindle interest, decided to not continue porting Audible to newer mobile devices. Or maybe there’s some behind-the-scenes political or logistical clashing we’re not privy to. Or more likely, Audible just didn’t have the Windows Phone marketplace numbers to justify paying a team to rework their ancient source code into something usable on Windows Phone.
Regardless, an Audible application official or otherwise is coming.
Being a developer is tough, and every developer will agree. If they don't, they're in denial. We have long hours, we get no sleep, we spend hours tweaking things that 90% of users will never notice (much like designers), and often get no recognition for any of this. You don't just wake up one day and are suddenly a coder, it takes work.
I used to lecture Microsoft technologies at a University and the number one reason students gave as to why they were studying programming was: "I heard there was lots of money in it". Surprisingly, those were the same people that now work at McDonalds (and make amazing burgers I might add!). And as far as I can work out, it's also these types of people that make 5 minute apps.
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We previously assumed the Windows Phone Marketplace submission review team had a ritual to get unbelievably intoxicated every Friday night, return back to the offices and let through whatever humorous apps they saw, regardless of functionality. We've now had to revise our assumption, as it would appear that the team is simply having some giggles behind the scene throughout the week.
Introducing the app-that-shalln't-be-named (see above photo), no it's not an app dedicated to Lord Voldemort. This is possibly the most interesting submission due to the obscene graphic as the logo (we've actually censored it to keep WPCentral safe for work), which makes us wonder how on earth something this explicit can worm its way through, especially since Microsoft believes Xbox LIVE Avatar toy guns (that don't actually fire rounds or laz0rz) are offensive to the youngsters.
It's perfectly fine to decapitate heads on Skyrim, shoot aliens in Halo, check out some naked women on the Windows Phone Marketplace, but a toy gun on your Avatar is deemed 'unacceptable'.
"Hours of fun await your fingers"
Unfortunately, should you be looking forward to checking this app out via this article, you'll be slightly disappointed. While hours of fun for our fingers is certainly intriguing to say the least, the reviews of this 'crap app' provide an insight into the app's usefulness:
What's with this post, and why are we providing attention without firing out the Marketplace link left, right and centre? It's frustration. Pure and simple frustration. We have apps such as this making their way through while solid submissions such as the Carbon Twitter client and even our own WPCentral app had difficulties for various reasons. Not to mention Ffffound experiencing issues due to adult content policies. It makes one consider if all apps should have naked women as app logos to ensure a 100% chance of approval?
We've certainly been here before, and Microsoft has even responded to our cries out for tighter control with revisions being made to the limit of apps being submitted within 24 hours, but this is starting to get slightly silly now. Either the automated system needs working on, or we need some more human verification.
Thanks goes out to everyone who tipped us on this!
The name Jesse Dudley should be no stranger to the Windows Phone community by now. I mean, WPCentral has been writing about this Marketplace scammer since September. But rest assured you won’t be seeing another post on this subject; I’ve pulled all of his illegal NES games off the Marketplace. Game over, Dudley.
Read what went down, after the break.
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With the recent news of Google "streamlining" their privacy policies (Translation: data collected from their various Google services will now be pooled together for better advertising), there has been a bit of a backlash. Scratch that, outside of the bubble that is AndroidCentral, many are calling it the "end of do no evil". Why, just check this Bing News search for "Google" and "Privacy" to see what we mean.
So with that as a background, hearing this song parody from Tampa Bay's Q105 radio made us certainly chuckle. Maybe now is a good time to switch from Google to Live Mail? Speaking of, anyone remember Microsoft's 'Gmail Man' satire?
Source: Q105; via FX Shaw; Google image credit: World Under Watch Blogspot
So you got a Windows Phone for Christmas? Sweet. If you're a developer, you're probably itching to start writing code for the device. If an advanced hobbyist, homebrew software may be more of your interest. While the emulator -- a part of the Windows Phone SDK -- rocks for testing locally, you'll eventually want to try the real deal by loading up XAPs on your phone. We'll cover the pros and cons of each approach to do so.
