Apps will soon have to be compatible with over 100 devices
Friday, February 24, 2017 by Richard Harris
The Mobile World Congress 2017 has prompted AppFutura to release a report with keys to create a mobile app with the collaboration of development companies worldwide. Main conclusions show that apps will have to be more dynamic and adapt to the increasing number of devices and technologies available, still far from the mobile market full potential.Mobile applications hav...
Microsoft Teams Up with GameAnalytics
Thursday, December 29, 2016 by Richard Harris
Microsoft has revealed a technology partnership which introduces GameAnalytics, a tool that helps developers understand user behavior, to applications developed on the Universal Windows Platform (UWP).Microsoft first announced UWP with Windows 10, as a platform-homogeneous application architecture to simplify the development process across a range device types...
Windows Dev Center Tips Aims to Help With Common Windows Store Publishing Scenarios
Friday, May 20, 2016 by Richard Harris
The Windows developer team's new blog series called Windows Dev Center Tips to help app publishers through several common publishing scenarios associated with the Windows Store.Among the topics covered in the new series are:- Publish or update a public app- Package flighting- Third party and legacy distribution options- Publishing hidden apps- Side-loading and enterpris...
Sell Windows Apps in Bulk With Windows Store for Business
Friday, May 6, 2016 by Stuart Parkerson
Windows developers can now sell paid apps in volume through Windows Store for Business where companies will be able to purchase apps in volume with credit cards. Additional purchase options are planned for future releases, including invoicing, volume discounts, and organizational in-app purchases.In some markets, the price shown for an app in the Windows Store for Busin...
Microsoft Announces New Developer Tools at Build 2016
Friday, April 1, 2016 by Richard Harris
Microsoft made several announcements at Build 2016, the company’s annual developer conference. Among the announcements were improvements to the Cortana Intelligence Suite, previews of new cloud services and toolkits, and the release of Windows 10 Anniversary Update which will offers new functionality for the Universal Windows Platform.Cortana Intelligence SuiteMicrosoft...
First Insight Into Windows Store App Trends After Launch of Windows 10
Saturday, February 20, 2016 by Richard Harris
The Windows Dev team has announced the first reporting of the Windows Store trends since Microsoft announced in January that over 200 million PCs, tablets, and phones across the globe are now running Windows 10, making it the fastest growing version of Windows in history. This latest reporting period encompasses October – December 2105.Since the Windows 10 launch, over ...
Windows Dev Center Updates Coding4Fun Coding Site
Wednesday, January 6, 2016 by Richard Harris
The Windows Dev Center team has relaunched Coding4Fun with new content for the Universal Windows Platform. Coding4Fun is a site within the Windows Dev Center that’s offers fun and interesting code samples that feature the APIs available on the Universal Windows Platform. The site offers different, unique, and time-saving capabilities as you noodle around the project bas...
Mobilize.Net's Silverlight Bridge for Universal Windows Platform is Now Generally Available
Tuesday, December 8, 2015 by Richard Harris
The Mobilize.Net Silverlight Bridge has been released for general availability. The tool significantly reduces the work involved to transform Windows Silverlight Phone 8.x code to the new Universal Windows Platform (UWP) and is offered as a free add-on for Visual Studio.The Silverlight Bridge automates a big part of the conversion process from Windows Phone 8.x code to ...
Windows Dev Center Rolls Out New Age Rating Process and Other Updates
Wednesday, December 2, 2015 by Richard Harris
The Windows Dev Team is rolling out several updates for how developers work within the Windows Dev Center including a new age rating system, new app promotion and monetization opportunities and updates to the Windows developer agreementNew Simplified Age Rating ProcessIn December Microsoft will begin the rollout of a new process to simplify obtaining age ratings for app...
New Functionality for Windows 10 IoT Core Released Through Windows Insider Program
Wednesday, November 4, 2015 by Richard Harris
The Windows 10 IoT Core was first publically released in early August and Microsoft continues to add functionality to the platform. Among the most recent enhancements include new Windows 10 IoT Core support for the Qualcomm DragonBoard 410c offering additional capabilities of the DragonBoard 410c’s including onboard WiFi and Bluetooth and DirectX graphicsEarlier this ye...
Windows 10 Now Represents 50 Percent of all Windows Store Downloads
Wednesday, October 14, 2015 by Richard Harris
According to the September Windows Store trends report, Windows 10 represents over 50% of all downloads, achieving this number in just over 60 days since its release. This analysis and more is available as part of a report published monthly by Microsoft to show Windows developers various s app monetization opportunities across categories, markets, and more.The release o...
Microsoft Provides Sample Features and APIs for Universal Windows Apps
Wednesday, September 30, 2015 by Stuart Parkerson
To help developers learn app development for the Universal Windows Platform (UWP), Microsoft has made available a growing samples collection on GitHub. These samples can be used to learn about specific UWP features and APIs and as a source of working code that can be copied and pasted into projects.The samples include API and feature demos as well as some small but comp...
Automate the Conversion from Windows Phone 8.x to Universal Windows Platform
Wednesday, September 23, 2015 by Stuart Parkerson
Mobilize.Net has developed a new tool called Mobilize.Net Silverlight bridge that automates a lot of the conversion process from Windows Phone 8.x code to Universal Windows Platform (UWP). Prior to UWP, about half of all Windows Phone apps were written using WPS (Windows Phone Silverlight). These apps will need significant changes in order to be compatible wi...
Microsoft Streamlines Ad Management Process for Windows Store Apps
Tuesday, September 8, 2015 by Richard Harris
The Windows Dev Team has announced it has streamlined the process for app ad management in the Windows Store. In the past, for apps using any of the Microsoft Advertising SDKs, the ads-in-app creation, advertising reports, and financials have been managed in Windows pubCenter, while the app itself is submitted to the Windows Store and managed in the Windows Dev Center.N...
The Impact of Windows 10 on the Game Industry
Monday, August 17, 2015 by Stuart Parkerson
I recently discussed the impact of Windows 10 on the game publishing industry with Ethan Clark, Game Insight’s North American Manager of Strategic Partnerships. Founded in 2009, Game Insight is one of the world’s leading innovators of mobile and social games, creating exceptional gameplay experiences across casual to hardcore titles. With more than 300 million play...
Microsoft Provides First Look at Windows Bridge for iOS
Monday, August 10, 2015 by Richard Harris
In its continuing effort to encourage app developers to embrace cross platform development, Microsoft continues to roll out its bridging technologies to allow developers to bring existing code and skills for iOS, Android, web and desktop to the Windows Store.As part of that effort, Microsoft has released an initial version of the Windows Bridge for iOS (previously known...
Game Insight Bets Big on Windows 10 Game Publishing
Wednesday, August 5, 2015 by Stuart Parkerson
Global game developer Game Insight is planning to ride the wave of the Microsoft 10 release as it debuts four new titles alongside Microsoft’s launch of Windows 10, bringing its total lineup of games on the Windows platform to 15. These new games include Running Shadow, Paradise Island 2, The Tribez & Castlez and Maritime Kingdom. Running Shadow is the co...
Amazon Web Services Releases Version 3 of the AWS SDK for .NET
Monday, August 3, 2015 by Stuart Parkerson
Amazon Web Services (AWS) has released Version 3 of the AWS SDK for .NET. Version 3 is a new, modularized SDK and every service is a separate assembly and is distributed as a separate NuGet package. Each service has a dependency on a common runtime - AWSSDK.Core. This design gives SDK users better control when to upgrading to the newest service updates.The AWS team...
What is New in the Recent Release of Visual Studio 2015
Friday, July 24, 2015 by Richard Harris
Microsoft just released the highly anticipated Visual Studio 2015 just in advance of the impending Microsoft 10 release. Here is a rundown on what’s new for VS 2015:Cross-platform mobile device support - Android, iOS, and WindowsOut of the box, Visual Studio allows developers to use web technologies to build production quality mobile apps for iOS, Android and Windows us...
Microsoft Releases New Windows 10 SDK Preview
Saturday, July 11, 2015 by Richard Harris
Hot off the press Microsoft has released its latest Windows 10 SDK Preview and the associated Windows 10 Mobile emulators to be used in conjunction with the Windows 10 Insider Preview. This Preview SDK Build includes bug fixes and changes to the API surface area. This latest release is part of Microsoft’s goal is to release a Windows 10 SDK preview that corresponds...
Top Five Ways to Get Your Apps Ready for Windows 10
Friday, July 10, 2015 by Brian Alexakis
With the full release of Windows 10 right around the corner, now’s the time to ensure your app is ready for Microsoft’s biggest release ever. And here’s how you can do it.Expect Big Consumer Adoption Rates for Windows 10Microsoft expects that Windows 10 will see huge adoption rates by its millions of worldwide customers, from home users to small business and large enter...
Windows 10 Developers Prepare For Takeoff
Friday, June 26, 2015 by Richard Harris
With Windows 10 being released on July 29, 2015 the Windows 10 team continues to provide updates on things that are new for developers and things you can do to get ready now.There will be more rapid announcements as the team will start releasing previews of the Windows 10 SDK more often to Windows Insiders. Expect to see more rapid releases of the Windows 10 SDK preview...
Latest Version of WinJS 4.0 Released Out of Preview
Thursday, June 18, 2015 by Stuart Parkerson
Preceding the upcoming release of Windows 10, Microsoft has released WinJS 4.0 out of preview. WinJS 4.0 supports the latest versions of browsers, including the new Microsoft Edge. WinJS is an open-source JavaScript library to use for building HTML, CSS, and JavaScript applications for the Windows Store with a consistent look and performance across all Windows devi...
Microsoft Advertising Announces New Monetization Tools Including Preview Advertising SDK for Windows 10
Wednesday, May 6, 2015 by Richard Harris
Included in the announcements release at Microsoft’s Build conference was a number of new monetization tools including the availability of a new preview advertising SDK for Windows 10. Here are highlights of the announcement:- Preview advertising SDK for Windows 10 is now available. This universal ad SDK supports phone, tablet, and PC. The ad SDK also supports video int...
Highlights from Day One of Microsoft Build Developers Conference
Wednesday, April 29, 2015 by Stuart Parkerson
As you can imagine it was all about Windows 10 at the Microsoft Build Developers Conference. Ambitious in its size and scope of information, Microsoft is saying that it plans to have billion active Windows 10 devices by 2018.Highlights of the Windows 10 announcements include:- New Universal Windows Platform Bridge toolkits which enable developers to bring existing .NET,...
Windows and Windows Phone Store Trends for First Quarter 2015
Wednesday, April 22, 2015 by Richard Harris
Microsoft has released the latest Windows Store trends across categories, markets, and more for Q1 2015. Microsoft provides the quarterly analysis to help app developers understand general trends can help determine what types of apps to build or where to focus development efforts. Data from the Windows Store is presented alongside Windows Phone Stores.Windows and Window...
New Release of Intel Graphics Performance Analyzers Supports Windows and Android
Wednesday, April 22, 2015 by Stuart Parkerson
Intel has released the latest version (Release 1 2015) of its Graphics Performance Analyzers (GPA) which offers an analysis and optimization tool for Windows targets - including Intel Atom processors - from a Windows host. It also supports the latest generations of Intel Core and Intel Atom processors for applications developed for Windows or Android.Intel GPA provides ...
New Windows and Windows Phone Store App Dev Contest
Tuesday, February 10, 2015 by Stuart Parkerson
The Windows and Windows Phone Store app developer program has launched a new game developer contest running through March 20 offering $28,000 in prizes including a top prize of $10,000. Contest winners will be announced on or before May 11.Developers can submit games made with any technology. You can submit original games or port existing published games (from an altern...
Fortumo Now Offers Subscription Payments Through Carrier Billing for Windows Phone and Windows 8
Wednesday, December 31, 2014 by Richard Harris
Mobile payments company Fortumo has announced that it has launched subscription payments using carrier billing for Windows Phone and Windows 8. Developers building apps for these Microsoft platforms can now increase their subscription payment coverage by enabling carrier billing for users without credit cards in 83 markets.Fortumo is currently rolling out subscriptions ...
Windows App Store Announces Latest App Download and Monetization Trends
Saturday, December 27, 2014 by Stuart Parkerson
The Windows Development Team has released its latest report in a recurring series that provides details about recent Windows App Store trends across categories, markets, and more. Data from the Windows Store is included with Windows Phone Store, to provide information about apps regardless of the devices targeted.This latest update includes several new analyses includin...
Microsoft Releases Kinect SDK 2.0 Which Allows Developers to Deploy Apps to Windows Store
Tuesday, October 28, 2014 by Stuart Parkerson
Microsoft has announced the full release of the Kinect for Windows SDK 2.0, offering more than 200 improvements and updates to the preview version of the SDK. Kinect 2.0 is a free download, and there are no fees for runtime licenses of commercial applications developed with the SDK. With commercial availability of SDK 2.0, developers can create and deploy Kinect v2...
Microsoft Creates Lifetime Developer Center Account Packaged with New Benefits
Monday, September 22, 2014 by Richard Harris
Microsoft has introduced a new lifetime Dev Center account and a new Dev Center Benefits program. A lifetime Dev Center registration fee is now available as Microsoft continues its vision to integrate the Windows and Windows Phone developer experience. Now the Windows Dev Center requires only a one-time registration payment, which grants developers the ab...
Fortumo to Give Developers $5,000 to Integrate Mobile Payments SDK
Friday, September 19, 2014 by Richard Harris
Fortumo has announced a new developer program for Windows Phone and Windows 8 developers to help them acquire additional users for their apps. Developers who add the Fortumo in-app purchasing SDK to their Windows Phone or Windows 8 app will receive $5,000 in free advertising credits from Fortumo to drive downloads for their apps in emerging markets. “The bigg...
Microsoft Launches New Dev Center Partner Program
Thursday, September 11, 2014 by Richard Harris
Microsoft has announced a new Dev Center Partner Program which provides middleware providers access to devices, software, co-marketing, event support, and more. The program includes a new partner directory to help developers find a growing list of middleware partners targeting Windows.Current partners include Unity, PayPal, PhoneGap, Facebook, Localytics, Fortumo, Syncf...
Microsoft Releases Latest Version of Kinect for Windows SDK 2.0 Public Preview
Friday, September 5, 2014 by Stuart Parkerson
Microsoft has released an updated version of the Kinect for Windows SDK 2.0 public preview. This new SDK includes more than 200 improvements to the core SDK. This release includes the Kinect Fusion tool kit, which provides higher resolution camera tracking and performance. The updated SDK also includes substantial improvements in the tooling, specifically around Vi...
