App Quality Alliance Releases New Baseline Testing Criteria for Windows Apps
Monday, November 16, 2015 by Stuart Parkerson
As part of its testing criteria and resources program, the App Quality Alliance (AQuA) has released a new set of baseline and accessibility testing criteria for Windows apps. AQuA is a global association focused on helping the app development industry improve and promote mobile app quality across all platforms.When using the Windows testing criteria, AQuA suggests that ...
New App Monetization Capabilities With Microsoft Universal Ad Client SDK
Thursday, August 20, 2015 by Richard Harris
Microsoft is releasing several new capabilities that allow developers the opportunity to enhance app advertising revenues. These include a new Microsoft Universal Ad Client SDK for Windows 10; additional support for video interstitials on Windows 8.1, Windows Phone 8.1 and Windows 10; and ad mediation for Windows 8.1 and Windows 10 apps to manage multiple ad SDKs ...
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...
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...
Developers Can Now Use JavaScript to Create Cocos2d Games on Windows Platforms
Saturday, April 11, 2015 by Stuart Parkerson
MS Open Tech has announced that it has contributed JavaScript support for Cocos2d-x for Modern Windows. With this version of Chukong Technology’s Cocos technologies, named Cocos2d-JS, developers who program in JavaScript can now create Cocos2d games that will run on Microsoft Windows 8.1 and Windows Phone 8.1 platforms. The Cocos2d-x engine is exposed via a set of ...
Microsoft Releases First Windows 10 Technical Preview for Phones
Saturday, February 14, 2015 by Stuart Parkerson
Microsoft has announced its first build of Windows 10 Technical Preview for phones is now available for Windows Insiders. Windows 10 has the same core platform for PCs, tablets and phones, and participating in the program for phones will work much in the same way it has been working for PCs.Microsoft’s Gabe Aul says that this is the earliest publicly available preview t...
Windows 10: A New Platform and a Tantalizing Opportunity for Developers to Create Holographic App Experiences
Thursday, January 22, 2015 by Stuart Parkerson
Microsoft has unveiled Windows 10 and from an app development standpoint, the company continued to emphasize the opportunity the platform provides for creating apps across multiple devices. With the large numbers of PCs running Windows, that may ultimately be a winning proposition for the company.One very cool announcement is that developers have a chance to program new...
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...
Esri’s ArcGIS Runtime SDK Offers Online and Offline Mapping Functions for the Microsoft .NET Framework
Tuesday, October 28, 2014 by Richard Harris
Esri has announced the release of its first commercial version of ArcGIS Runtime SDK for the Microsoft .NET Framework. This software development kit joins Esri's line of runtime products, including iOS, Mac OS X, Android, Java, Qt, and Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF). ArcGIS Runtime SDK for .NET has been built as a new, shared API across native app platforms ...
Corona Now Supports Windows Phone 8 via CoronaCards
Thursday, October 23, 2014 by Richard Harris
Corona has announced support for Windows Phone 8 via its CoronaCards, which provides flexibility for developers using the Corona platform to develop for Windows Phone 8. CoronaCards is a version of the Corona platform (running the Corona Lua code) that can be embedded into any native app allowing developers to also hook in any native functionality via a native/Lua bridg...
Apache Cordova 3.6 Release Includes Windows 8.1 and Windows Phone 8.1 Support
Thursday, October 2, 2014 by Richard Harris
The team at Apache Cordova has announced the release of Apache Cordova 3.6, adding enhancements to one of the top go-to platforms to create native like mobile applications using HTML, CSS and JavaScript.This release includes the support of Windows 8.1 and Windows Phone 8.1 apps. The release introduces a new unified ‘Windows’ platform to build apps targeting Windows 8.0,...
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...
Smaato Updates Windows Phone SDK Now Supports XAML Apps
Tuesday, September 9, 2014 by Stuart Parkerson
Smaato, a mobile RTB ad exchange and supply side platform, has announced an SDK update for Windows Phone, now supporting XAML applications on Microsoft’s new Windows Phone 8.1 and Windows 8.1 platforms on phone, tablet and desktop.What’s new with Smaato’s Windows SDK:- Supports Windows Phone 8.1 and Windows 8.1.- Ad size handling has been improved, ensuring more consist...
New Marmalade 7.4 SDK Optimizes Cross Platform Development for Windows Phone 8.1 and iOS 8 and Xcode 6
Wednesday, September 3, 2014 by Stuart Parkerson
Marmalade has launched the latest edition of its cross-platform app development tool with the release of Marmalade 7.4.The updated SDK includes a number of new features to assist developers in deploying their apps to a broad range of platforms. Marmalade uses a core C++ tool to give game developers the ability to publish native like performance for games in the app stor...
Game Development Platform YoYo Games Announces GameMaker Marketplace Xbox One Support
Friday, August 29, 2014 by Stuart Parkerson
YoYo Games has unveiled the GameMaker Marketplace, a one-stop-shop for all of the assets and technology created by developers for developing games with YoYo’s GameMaker: Studio. The GameMaker Marketplace is now in open beta and is available to everyone who has licensed GameMaker: Studio license either through the product itself or from YoYo Games’ web site. Develop...
Microsoft Releases Developer Updates for Visual Studio 2013 and Windows Phone 8.1
Monday, August 4, 2014 by Stuart Parkerson
Visual Studio 2013 Update 3 and Windows Phone 8.1 Update emulator package are both now available for mobile developers. Visual Studio 2013 Update 3, is the latest full-featured update to the Visual Studio toolset. It contains many new features, including Application Insights updates, Git repository support in CodeLens and Release Management support for Windows Desi...
New Windows Phone 8.1 App Development Training for Absolute Beginners
Monday, May 26, 2014 by Stuart Parkerson
Microsoft is trying to encourage a new group of app developers with its new Channel 9 Absolute Beginner series designed to provide all the basic information needed to create apps for Windows Phone.The program features over 10 hours of tutorials as the Windows Dev Team walks users through all the fundamental building blocks of a Windows Phone app, with the goal of ultima...
May 2014 Issue of ADM is Here!
Friday, May 2, 2014 by Richard Harris
Okay first a little gloating, I'm proud to announce the 12 issue of App Developer Magazine, May 2014! The issue is over 80 pages and contains some excellent resources including everything from using Facebook to help promote your app, to knowing where to invest in the mobile industry, it's all right here!Here is the complete lineup:FEATURESGuide: Using Facebook To G...
Perfecto Mobile Offers Support for Windows Phone 8.1 App Testing
Friday, May 2, 2014 by Stuart Parkerson
Developers who are interested in testing their apps for Windows Phone 8.1 can do so with Perfecto Mobile within the MobileCloud for Visual Studio plugin. With MobileCloud for Visual Studio development/test teams have the ability to execute manual and automated tests on real mobile devices deployed around the world, directly from Visual Studio. Teams are ...
Microsoft to Roll Out Ability for App Developers to Respond to user Reviews
Monday, April 28, 2014 by Richard Harris
At Build earlier this month, Microsoft announced that the option would soon be available for developers to respond to reviews, beginning in May. The company is taking the first step toward implementing this feature with a small private pilot program that will expand over time. This new capability enables developers to respond to reviews of Windows Phone apps direct...
Unity Developers Can Test Drive Unity 4 Beta for Windows Phone 8.1 Gaming Apps
Thursday, April 24, 2014 by Richard Harris
Unity developers currently have the opportunity to participate in the Unity 4 beta program to create Windows Phone 8.1 apps. This initial beta program is only open to experienced Unity developers who have had Unity Windows Phone 8 or Windows Store apps games published. Existing participants in the Windows Phone 8 beta program will gain access to Unity 4 Window...
WinJS version 2.1 Available for to Develop Windows Phone 8.1 Apps
Wednesday, April 23, 2014 by Stuart Parkerson
Microsoft has announced that WinJS is now available on Windows Phone. WinJS 2.1 tailors the features of WinJS 2.0 (for Windows Apps) to fit the Windows Phone experience. The company has added new controls and new capabilities unique to Windows Phone without sacrificing performance on low-end form factors.Porting existing Windows Store apps is simple using the ...
Developers Can Test Out Windows Phone 8.1 with New Windows Phone Preview
Wednesday, April 16, 2014 by Richard Harris
As of this week, developers can now install Windows Phone 8.1 on their dev phone through the Windows Phone Preview for Developers and try out a lot features that were announced at Build a couple of weeks ago. Along with the tooling delivered in Visual Studio 2013 Update 2 RC, developers can now get everything they need to start building and testing Window...
Microsoft’s Bing Conversational Understanding Team Releases MSDN Voice Search App
Wednesday, April 16, 2014 by Richard Harris
Microsoft’s Bing Conversational Understanding team has released a new reference app, the MSDN Voice Search App, that demonstrates how to integrate your app into the new contextual voice capabilities available in Windows Phone 8.1.The app itself is very simple and straight-forward, surfacing the MSDN documentation library from the Cortana experience. Once you have t...
Microsoft Announces New App Developer Opportunities at Build, Along With Windows Phone 8.1
Wednesday, April 2, 2014 by Stuart Parkerson
Microsoft continues to woo the app development community and announced several new new developer opportunities at Build 2014. The emphasis was on the Windows platform as a common platform across devices, a single toolset, a common infrastructure across the Windows and Windows Phone stores, and a clear commitment to interoperability. The company also annou...
