What if your Windows Phone app idea got funded? Here it is!

My colleague Brian Hopkins introduced AppCampus!

Do you have a great idea for a Windows Phone app? Figuring out how you’re going to raise money for it? You’ve come to the right place for a fresh new way to fund your project. Microsoft BizSpark has teamed up with AppCampus to offer grants for select startups in the BizSpark program to build compelling Windows Phone apps. The program offers awards specifically to BizSpark startups, ranging from 20,000-70,000 euros. Even better, the grants are just that. AppCampus don’t take equity, revenue share, or IP rights.

Learn Windows Phone in Denver

Windows Phone Unleashed is the premier developer event for Windows Phone. If you live in Denver, don’t miss your opportunity to get exposure to serious know-how, labs, peers, and prizes.

What: Windows Phone Developer Camp

Where: Microsoft Offices in Denver

When: Saturday, May 5, 2012 @ 8 – 6PM

Register here.

Can Windows Phone pick up when Android drops off?

In a recent CNET article by Dan Farber (Android not Critical to Google? Really?), he talks about Google’s recent, strange comments about Android:

During the Oracle v. Google trial, the value of the Android platform to the Internet giant has been a subject of inquiry. When Google CEO and co-founder Larry Page was asked last week by Oracle's attorney David Boies about the value of Android, he responded that Android is "important, but not critical." 

On Wednesday, Google's head of the Android platform, Andy Rubin, was asked by Boies what purpose Android serves for Google, He responded that it "makes it easier to access Google services." 

Boies queried Rubin on whether he expected the Android platform to contribute substantially to the company's ad revenues. Rubin answered that he did not believe so. 

If it turns out Google doesn’t care about Android. If it turns out that Android is more trouble than it is worth to Google. If it turns out Android’s shelf life is shorter than anyone dreamed. If the number one mobile platform hits the wall. As a real, third player in the mobile market, can Windows Phone pick up when Android drops off? Signs point to yes.

Windows 8: Windows Phone SDK (7.1.1 update) Ready to Go!

Cliff Simpkins: I’m pleased to announce that the Windows Phone SDK 7.1.1 Update is now available for your download; it’s the final version of the CTP we released last month, and enables Windows Phone developers to do two things:

• Develop apps that work well on the new 256 MB devices
• Use the WPSDK 7.1 to develop on machines running Windows 8

While I’ll circle back to these two points in a moment, I’d like to take a moment and highlight what’s actually in this update.

The 7.1.1 Update is really just that – it’s an update to the existing WPSDK: it doesn’t add much in the way of new features to your WPSDK installation; it updates your existing install to do a few new tricks:

• The Visual Studio IDE is patched to enable selection from a list of emulators, and launching it (note that the WPSDK can only support connecting to one at a time, though)
• The Windows Phone [512 MB device] emulator image is updated to use build 8773
• A second, new emulator device image is included, allowing you to emulate running your app on a 256 MB device
• The Microsoft Advertising SDK is updated to the latest version (previously only available as a separate install), which fixes some issues devs were encountering at runtime
• IntelliSense now supports specifying the 512 MB device requirement in your manifest file, should you choose to opt your app out from running on the new 256 MB devices
• Language support is again consistent both in the IDE (the 7.1.1 Update supports all 10 of the WPSDK 7.1 languages) and in the emulator OS (Malay and Indonesian have been added)

Read the whole article here.

Nokia files Patent for “Phone in a Tattoo”

Unwired View is reporting on a recent Nokia patenting looking into haptic tattoos to help you feel who is calling.

Not satisfied with just getting its own flavor of slide-to-unlock patented, Nokia wants to take haptic feedback to a level you haven’t previously encountered. Haptic tech is employed, for example, when your phone vibrates as you type on its touchscreen. Haptics deal with appealing to your sense of touch by applying forces or vibrations to your skin.

Which is exactly what Nokia wants to do, proposing the application of tattoos with ferromagnetic inks, that will vibrate based on commands from your phone.

Read the whole article here.

Broken: Windows 8 and the Windows Phone SDK

We know many of our software developers are excited and eager to get started using the consumer preview on a daily basis, but Windows 8 is still a preview release, which means that there are going to be instances of software incompatibility. One of these incompatibilities is unfortunately with the current Windows Phone SDK.The good news is we are working to address these issues and should have more information for you in the coming weeks.

There are three issues with running the Windows Phone SDK on the Windows 8 Consumer Preview:

• XNA Game Studio. On an attempt at installing the Windows Phone SDK, the user will receive error messages with regard to components of the XNA tool chain. These components will fail to install on Windows 8; the workaround for this has been blogged about by Aaron Stebner.
• Windows Phone Emulator. Windows 8 cannot currently run the Windows Phone emulator, which will make it very difficult to debug your code. There are two issues in addition to the simple fact that the emulator does not run on Windows 8, having to do with specific emulator functionality.
• .NET 3.5. Capability.exe and slsvcutil.exe will not run on Win 8 unless you separately install .NET 3.5.

Read the whole article here.

WP7 Sample: a Settings Page in 5 Minutes

One of the things that distinguishes great Windows Phone applications is the ability to configure to the preferences of the user. Let’s pretend the user wants to enable or disable a feature – how do they do that?

The best way to provide this custom experience is through a settings page. In this article we will create a reusable setting framework you can use in all your Windows Phone applications.

Note: This is going to be one of the those blog posts that is just freaking handy. Every single application (practically) needs to do this. And without explicit guidance anywhere else, it will be nice to have something to base your solution. I’m not saying this is the only way, but it’s a great way.

The Windows Phone App Hub “Invalid Credit Card” Solution

We are aware that many of you have run into the issue of getting an "Invalid Credit Card" message when trying to register.  We apologize for this erroneous message and inconvenience.  While we work toward a solution, we do have a workaround that you may use.  Here are the steps:

1. Go to https://account.microsoft.com/PaymentHub/
2. Sign in with your Windows Live ID (the one used to register with App Hub)
3. In the upper-right hand corner, make sure your "Personal Account" is selected (NOT the "Business Account").
4. Go to Payment Options, where you will see "add payment option" near the bottom of the screen on the left side.
5. Add your credit card.
6. Return to App Hub and continue your registration.  If you are already logged into your App Hub account, click your name in the upper-right corner to walk through the registration steps to complete the process.

Also please be mindful that your country information must be aligned between your Windows Live ID (including any other services, such as XBox, associated to it), the information entered into App Hub and the Credit Card.  Any inconsistencies may cause an issue with the process.

Read the full post here.

Windows Phone: Go Underground

It’s more than once I get asked the question “Where should I start to learn C#?” So often I start my blog posts from the point of view that we all know the .Net framework and we are rushing forward from that point. Indeed that does describe 99% of my audience.

If you are new to software development. Even if you are not – here’s a resource for you, the technology student:

Join thousands of student developers. Start building awesome apps for Windows Phone. Find code, support, fun surprises, and more. Download a Getting Started Guide (Basic or Advanced) to learn how.

Go to the site.

WP7 Sample: A GPS-enabled Phone App in 5 minutes!

One of the best parts of Windows Phone application development is how fast you can add sophisticated functionality to your solution.

In fact, I was teaching a weekend crash course on Windows Phone at Brigham Young University a few weeks back. Here’s a room of 100 smart, young developers following along with their laptops and Visual Studio. In a matter of hours (literally) – they had 5 sample Windows Phone applications running in their environments. Presto!

How many apps can other platforms build in a single day? Aw, snap! How many apps can other platforms build in 5 minutes? I am not kidding when I say Windows Phone development is rapid. Windows Phone developers are happy developers. Not only do they get to use Visual Studio (game changer), but the framework, Silverlight, and the OS provide them many of the tools other platforms make them jump hoops for.

In this article we will show how to use the GeoCoordinateWatcher. To be clear, I do not discuss how to use the native Bing Map control, but I do discuss it in detail in this article.

Proven Marketing Strategies to Promote your Windows Phone App

Creating a Windows Phone Application is straight-forward. The rich and robust Silverlight environment gives developers the tools a controls they need to create compelling user experiences.

But what do you do once you have your application? What draws people to discover your new creation? What pays you back for the investment of development? Telerik has created a guide to application owners to market their application. No strings attached.

The “Learn how to promote your WP7 app” paper offers practical tips and tricks from both the developer and marketing perspective for which you don’t need any marketing background and hopefully should not take too much of your time. The topics discussed are: presentation of your app and tracking your statistics, ideas about how to build your most loyal users’ core, how to increase downloads through in-app tricks, in-apps ads, external promotion and links to currently running Windows Phone competitions.

Read the White Paper here

WP7 Sample: An Accelerator-based App in 5 Minutes

As I have discussed in previous posts, there are lots of great sensors at the disposal of the Windows Phone application developer. One of them is the Accelerometer. The accelerometer measures the tilt of the device in both the X axis and Y axis.

You can read my previous article about the Accelerometer in more detail.

This can be quite useful for game scenarios. It can also be useful in productivity applications where the developer is using additional forms of user interaction to offer greater usability or innovation.

Customize the WP Emulator’s Skin!

Yeah, I’ll say it. This is awesome.

On CodePlex, there’s a new project, the Windows Phone 7 Enulator Skin Switcher.

The Windows Phone 7 emulator skin switcher is an application that gives you multiple skins to use on your Windows Phone 7 emulator. Start the application, select one of the 25 available skins and you're done!

Who doesn’t want the pink Nokia? I mean seriously?!

Find the project site here.

WP7 REST without Sleeping

My colleague Developer Evangelist for Windows Phone in California, Daniel Egan, has posted a helpful article on the step-by-step implementation for consuming REST data in a Windows Phone application.

Over and over again, I see developers that have this great idea for an application that pulls cool data from a  great services BUT get tied up in the implementation of “Getting It Done”.  So I thought I would show you a quick and easy way to get REST data from a service, transfer the JSON data to a POCO list and Bind it to a ListBox.  (In under 3 minutes)

Read the article here.

WP7 Sample: A Microphone-enabled Phone App in 5 Minutes!

There are a lot of sensors on the Windows Phone. We’ve got:

1. Microphone
2. GPS Location
3. Camera (front & back)
4. Gyroscope / Accelerometer
5. Magnetometer / Compass

I suppose we could also say the touch panel is a sensor, but it is so ubiquitous that we just assume it’s there anymore – yes, it’s that world we live in now, the “of course it’s touch enabled” world. Wonderful.

But how do you use the Microphone?

Registration is required to continue using Visual Studio 2010 Express for Windows Phone?

Did you try to run Visual Studio 2010 Express for Windows Phone and were promoted to register it?

Like this:

Did you think Visual Studio 2010 Express for Windows Phone was free?

WP7 Sample: Use Location Services *and* get Certified!

Allow me to draw your attention to this Windows Phone application Certification Requirement:

Requirement 2.7.2 The privacy policy of your application must inform users about how location data from the Location Service API is used and disclosed and the controls that users have over the use and sharing of location data. This can be hosted within or directly linked from the application.

Should you submit an application that uses Location Service API and do not provide a privacy policy you will get a friendly response from the certification something like this:

Fail: It appears the application uses location services but does not include a privacy policy describing how the application uses the Location Service API and what control users have over the usage and sharing of information obtained through that usage.

Did you know Microsoft employs more Attorneys than Developers? That’s totally not true! We have a platoon of attorneys and a battalion of developers. We’re a software company. But don’t screw with us! Just kidding – sort of.

Why do you need a Privacy Policy?

A Privacy Policy is necessary when you deal with personal information. A person’s current location (from the Location Services API) is considered personal information. And, of course, because the marketplace certification requirements say so.

Consider: Yes this may seem like a pain! But consider the user. They don’t know what mysteries you are tinkering with behind the scenes. You are their friend. You are their advocate. And, frankly, if you aren’t – who is? The user isn’t bashful to click that UNINSTALL button on apps they don’t trust. At the same time a policy is also for you, the developer. You need to help the user – but you also need to establish the rules you are playing by. This makes the user happy and far less shocked or angry when they realize you are doing something (anything!) with their personal data. The certification requirement is for the user; hopefully, you can see why it is also for you.

Mango Sample: Give your app the Finger!

My colleague Developer Evangelist, Sam Stokes, in California has written a compelling article on dragging items in Windows Phone.

But I have a problem with Sam’s approach

Maybe it’s because I have a problem with Sam – but probably not; he’s actually one of my top 90,000 people @ Microsoft. So, let’s talk about moving things in XAML!

Sam moves objects around by incrementing and decrementing an item’s top/left dependency property inside a Canvas.

Like this:

In the code above, Sam is using the ManipuationDelta event. This awesome event allows an individual UI element to track the movement of finger gestures on it. It simplifies the typical events that have to handle and track.

A Phone App on every Platform?

My colleague Windows Phone Developer Evangelist, Daniel Egan, has set out to do the impossible. Only kidding. He has set out to measure the real differences between building an app on Windows Phone, the IPhone, and Android. I am excited to see his conclusions.

I certainly have my opinions on operating systems, and ease of development, and best IDEs etc… but I thought I would put this to the test with a multi platform development approach.  Starting next week, I will be doing the same application on all three platforms (or possibly 6 if I include IPad, Android Tablet and Win 8 later).   The application is called Uncorked, and it is a way to log and rate your wine collection.

Read the article here.

Mango Sample: A Cloud-based Phone App in 5 Minutes

When you create a Windows Phone application you might have some data to store. Where do you store it?

• Well, there’s always Isolated Storage. I discuss that here. 
• There’s always a local SQL Database. I discuss that here.

But, what if on-the-phone isn’t good enough? …to the cloud! I discuss that here [there’s no link because this is the article! :)].

Why the cloud?

There are lots of great reasons. Here are a few:

1. Your data needs to be updated or refreshed, call the cloud
2. Your data needs to be saved for roaming users, call the cloud
3. Your data is huge and phones only need a bit, call the cloud