developer

Venetasoft normally makes appearances around these parts because of their Windows Phones apps such as Turbo Camera and Security Toolkit. But the company also works on Windows Phone development components and has recently released LiveMailMessage.

Nokia has already released two new Windows Phones, the Lumia 820 and Lumia 920. To celebrate the new Windows Phone 8 hardware, the Finnish manufacturer has teamed up with Windows Phone Geek, a developer resource we've covered many times here on Windows Phone Central, to offer a unique opportunity for developers.

We're back again with more spam (or useless app deployment) rants, folks. Apologies in advance but it really tickles the annoyed spot when we come across developers who either believe it's perfectly fine to publish copyrighted content with other owned properties, or simply launch themselves on a crap-posting-spree.

The last time we touched on spam itself, we were following the work of Eric_Rulz, but don't worry if you missed our coverage and investigation as his account is still present as well as the apps he produced. This is a developer who was obviously on a path to cause trouble by building and releasing apps that hold little (if any) functionality that's useful for consumers. In fact, he has an app called Spam.

Unfortunately we've noticed some more extreme levels of spam, from a developer called Bhavana Khatri.

71% of developers are optimistic about Windows Phone 8

A new survey today from RW Baird shows some promising news for the Windows Phone platform.  Despite some recent setbacks and still less-than-stellar adoption rates, devs are keeping their eyes on the prize with Windows Phone 8 and Microsoft’s future.

The poll shows that since the June 20^thWindows Phone Summit, 71% of respondents had an increased interest in the platform because of the new Windows Phone 8 capabilities.  That’s quite a high number and we believe a smart move as the promise of overlapping development for Windows 8 Desktop, Surface and Windows Phone 8 will offer some tantalizing opportunities for increased revenue.

Regarding developers long term outlook for Windows Phone 7, devs were less enthusiastic with a noticeable decline from 6.3 (out of 10) back in Q2 2011 to just 4.2 in Q2 2012.  Why the drop? It’s actually hard to decipher as it is far from clear just what devs understand as “the future of Windows Phone 7”. From a technical standpoint, the platform is winding down but Nokia and Microsoft have promised long-term support. Microsoft has also ensured that Windows Phone 7 apps will work on 8—so are devs turning from WP7 and looking to WP8 instead? That seems to be the case.

The worst news though is aimed at RIM and their upcoming Blackberry 10 platform. Developer interest for their next gen OS is precipitously declining with only a 3.8 (out of 10) now hopeful for its long term success. RIM has responded to this report noting that they’ve published 15K apps since January and their dev camps have had robust attendance. All of that may be true but image and perception are everything and people's view of RIM’s future looks negative—that is never a good thing and hard to turnaround. (But see Crackberry for an alternative analysis).

Perhaps it’s not surprising that iOS and Android remain strong with 9.3 and 8.7 scores for developers’ faith in their long term potential with Android taking a very slight dip.  The survey data comes from 200 developers culled from a sample set of 4,300 making the numbers seemingly reliable.

The takeaway from this news would be developers clearly see Windows Phone 8 as the third ecosystem for smartphones while webOS, Symbian and RIM’s future OS are clearly either dead or floundering. That's something to be hopeful about.

Source: RW Baird; via Crackberry, All Things D

Red Badger – Developer Insight

Back when Windows Phone 7 was new on the smartphone scene the choice of Twitter apps was limited. Birdsong was one of the most interesting clients of the time, it was 100% accurate in getting the aesthetics right for how an app should look and work on WP7. Making good use of smooth scrolling, panoramic slide overs whilst embracing the best feature of Windows Phone, Metro.

At the time Birdsong was innovative, indeed Red badger became a poster child for how Metro style apps should look and feel, receiving praise from its users and even Microsoft. I wanted to catch up with the team and see how their start-up is going and what brought them back to re-kindling development for Birdsong. I met with one of the founders, Cain Ullah and Red Badgers newest team member, Joe Stanton to see what’s happening...

Competition winners from a Windows Phone Developer Camp have been announced. The Dev Camp, sponsored by T-Mobile, saw a "huge" amount apps being submitted to win smartphones running Microsoft's OS. Much like we've seen elsewhere, these sessions aid developers who are new to the platform, who'd like to network and pick up on some skills and knowledge from more experienced personnel.

So what are the seven winning apps we speak of?

• AquaGuard - a tower defense game that puts the player in charge of preventing water pollution affecting populated countries with strategically placed defenses.
• Nastani Time.mk* - an event planner for residents of Macedonia. The app enables users to check out latest events, plan ahead and receive reminders.
• LiquidLab - a thought-intensive game that requires the player to measure liquid in glass beakers, sounds easy? How about doing this with now measuring instruments or guides?
• ColorFever - enjoy puzzles? You'll want to check out ColorFever. The object of this game is to paint the entire board with a single colour, but not everything is as straight forward as it sounds.
• ProveriBroj* - a simple app that enables users to check the mobile provider of any given number. Data is supplied by the AEC database.
• Najeftino* - this handy shopping app acts as a comparison tool, where consumers can compare the prices of multiple products.
• Be Humane - the last winning app is a charity based solution, which provides users with the tools to view upcoming charitable events (blood donation, etc.) and more.

* denotes apps in Macedonian only.

Source: Windows Phone Dev Camp; thanks Martin for the tip!

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.

The "Your App Here" marketing campaign is a venture by both Microsoft and Nokia that aims to help Windows Phone developers establish a foothold in the online media world with free advertising / promotion for selected apps.

We've previously covered the campaign at entry intervals, and it seems April 30th marks the closing date for the last known campaign in June. Microsoft has sent out a reminder email to developers that contains the following:

"Windows Phone & Nokia are looking for innovative new apps targeted for Windows Phone 7.5 to showcase in our promotional ad campaign. This opportunity is open to all developers with newly published Windows Phone apps relevant to the U.S. Marketplace. [...]  Tell us about your app today; the last submission deadline is April 30th."

Should you desire to get your app featured on the last campaign, be sure to get your app submission in by April 30th. Check out some photos below of the marketing in action (click for larger versions) for a handful of apps by Techark Solutions.

Thanks Pratik for the campaign images!