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Windows Phone Marketplace Developer Newsletter: August 2010 - Plenty of interesting Ifo

August 30, 2010
Final Windows Phone Developer Tools Available September 16
The Beta developer tools for Windows Phone 7 have been available here since July 13 and are a great way to get started building apps for Windows Phone 7. The final toolset will be released via the Marketplace developer portal on September 16. Please note that you will need to recompile your app with the final toolset before submitting it to the Marketplace. Plan to submit your app to Marketplace in early October to ensure that it will be available to the first users of Windows Phone 7 devices. We will provide more specific guidance on timing as we get closer to the opening of Marketplace ingestion.

Make sure you take the following steps to get your games and apps prepped for launch:

  • Build your application or game using the Beta tools
  • Download the final Windows Phone Developer Tools from the portal when they are released on September 16.
  • Recompile your app or game using the final tools
  • Have your XAP ready for ingestion into the Marketplace when it opens in early October

With more than 300,000 downloads of the Windows Phone Developer Tools, we know we'll see amazing games and apps for customers this holiday season. Will yours be ready?

Windows Phone 7 Design Guidelines Now Available
Windows Phone 7 is based on a new smart design system that focuses on what is most important to the user. Although you can create your own design, many developers have asked for guidance, tools and controls to help build integrated app experiences that closely resemble the Windows Phone 7 phone design system. The UI Design and Interaction Guide for Windows Phone 7, version 2.0 now offers detailed information about UI elements and controls, UI system behaviors, and the interaction model for the touch interface. The new Design Templates for Windows Phone 7 provides a collection of 28 layered Photoshop template files and the Segoe WP font family for use in application layouts and UI development, or for pitching an idea. Check out these tools for help in creating an app that is well- integrated with the Windows Phone 7 experience.

Updated Windows Phone 7 Policies Now Available
The Windows Phone 7 application, content, and certification policies have been updated to provide greater clarity on the requirements for games, use of the Microsoft location service API, and a variety of application certification requirements. Download the new requirements here, and be sure your app meets all the requirements before you submit it to Marketplace in early October.

Windows Phone 7 Jump-Start: Born to Learn
Missed the July training courses or misplaced your course materials? Visit the Born to Learn community area to find additional resources for developing apps for Windows Phone 7. Course materials for all four sessions are available in Microsoft OneNote 2010 notebooks.

Get Your App Ideas Here
You can find great ideas for new Windows Phone 7 apps at Mobile App Match, where we connect developers with ideas submitted and ranked by real users. You can also get an early peek at the projects from other Windows Phone 7 developers and see how-to videos and Q&A from the Windows Phone team by entering the search term WP7dev# at YouTube.

Windows Phone 7 App Categories Finalized
App categories are our way of organizing applications so that users can more easily find what they are looking for. For Windows Phone 7, we have 41 categories and sub-categories to help organize applications for users. When you submit your app to Marketplace you can choose from one of the categories below to help users find your app. Apps can only be placed in one category.

1. Books & Reference
- eReader
- Fiction
- Non-fiction
- Reference
2. Business
3. Entertainment
4. Finance
5. Games
- Action & Adventure
- Board & Classic
- Card & Casino
- Family
- Music
- Puzzle & Trivia
- Shooter
- Sports & Racing
- Strategy
- Xbox Companion
6. Health & Fitness
- Diet & Nutrition
- Fitness
- Health

7. Lifestyle
- Community
- Food & Dining
- Out & About
- Shopping
8. Music & Video
9. Navigation
10. News & Weather
11. Photo
12. Productivity
13. Social
14. Sports
15. Tools
16. Travel
- City Guides
- Language
- Planning
- Travel Tools


Windows Phone 7 at PDC 2010, October 28 and 29
Microsoft's Professional Developer Conference, PDC 2010, will include sessions on building and selling apps for Windows Phone 7. PDC 2010 has already sold out but you can join the event live on October 28 and 29 at the PDC site. You can also join the PDC email list to get a preview of what's planned for PDC, as well as stay abreast of local PDC events.

Xbox LIVE Games for Windows Phone 7 Announced at Gamescom
Earlier this month at Gamescom, Xbox announced a number of Xbox LIVE games that will launch with Windows Phone 7 later this year. This announcement signals an excellent opportunity for app developers because these aren't just big game studio games; they also include smaller, independent developer studios. Read more about the games at the blog, get the tools that are already available to you, and find support at the XNA Game Studio site.

Updates on Understanding the Windows Phone Application Execution Model
Last month on the Windows Phone Developer Blog, you read about the various app life-cycle events and how they differ from one another. The third installment of the series discusses saving the transient state and navigating to the right page, and the post closes out with a full understanding of how to launch, deactivate, activate, and close your application. Next up for discussion: choosers and launchers.

Follow Us on Twitter!
Get to know the people on the Windows Phone team by following them on Twitter:

@ckindel
@ozymandias
@mklucher
@cschormann
@shawnhargreaves
@ai
@brandonwatson

Jeff Wilcox – Looking ahead: Panorama and Pivot controls for Windows Phone developers

Looking ahead: Panorama and Pivot controls for Windows Phone developers

Posted August 10th 2010 to Silverlight,Windows Phone

Apps in Windows Phone 7 make it easy to explore and experience information thanks to two similar navigation controls: panorama and pivot controls. We’ve made it easy for developers to build applications with these experiences by putting these Silverlight controls and associated tooling in the next release of the free developer tools (didn’t make the beta).

The controls are simple & easy to use, but I’ve seen enough rumbling on forums to know that developers are anxious to learn more about their capabilities. In lieu of bits, I’m going to introduce these controls and how they appear from a simple API & XAML perspective, so that you’ll have what you need while planning your apps to know how these experiences can fit into your apps.

Note: this post contains pre-release information and is subject to change at any time.


Panorama control inside of the Visual Studio design surface for the Windows Phone 7.

via jeff.wilcox.name

Awesome post by Jeff.

Petzold’s Programming Windows Phone 7 (Special Excerpt 2) - Microsoft Press (#wp7, #book)

via blogs.msdn.com

Windows Phone 7 Design Resources – UI Guide and Design Templates (#WP7, #Design)

With the Windows Phone Developer Tools in Beta and Windows Phone 7 in Technical Preview, now is the time for you to build Windows Phone 7 apps in earnest. We have refreshed our developer documentation to help you build those apps, and we have two, new design-focused documents to help you make them look beautiful.

First up, the UI Design and Interaction Guide for Windows Phone 7 v2.0 has been updated from the ground up for beta. With additional information and a new layout we hope you will find more readable, this guide provides detailed information about UI elements and controls, UI system behaviors, and the interaction model for the touch interface based on the design system internally named Metro. Designers and developers should read this guide to learn about the dos and don’ts of UI implementations for their Windows Phone apps. We've made it easier to find specific guidance by putting it in bold in the right-hand column of each page.

Also available are the Design Templates for Windows Phone 7. These are a collection of 28 layered Photoshop template files and the Segoe WP font family that can be used to create pixel-perfect application layouts, to help guide UI development, or to pitch an idea. These design templates showcase many controls that are a part of the Windows Phone Developer Tools Beta. They also include examples of controls that are a part of Windows Phone, but are not available as a part of the Windows Phone Developer Tools.

Let us know what you think. If you have suggestions or feedback about these design resources, please email us at wp7des@microsoft.com and help spread the word – if you find these resources helpful, please tweet about them.

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via windowsteamblog.com

Windows Phone 7 Developer #Training Kit | Learn | Channel 9 (#wp7)

Windows Phone 7 Developer Training Kit

Windows Phone 7 promises to be an amazing mobile phone operating system given its innovative user interface and functionality, as well as its great development platform upon which you can quickly and easily build games and applications. With a myriad of new devices, a powerful and immersive software platform, and a new marketplace to attract developers and provide easy access to applications, consumer demand for Windows Phones will be high, and developers will quickly adopt the Windows Phone platform to capitalize on this growing mobile marketplace. This Training Kit will give you a jumpstart into the new Windows Phone world by providing you with a step-by-step explanation of the tools to use and some key concepts for programming Windows Phones.

via channel9.msdn.com

Windows Phone 7 'preview' winning generally good #reviews (#wp7)

Windows Phone 7 'preview' winning generally good reviews

Microsoft expands release, ships thousands of prototype handsets
By John Cox, Network World
July 19, 2010 11:18 AM ET

Microsoft announced a broader release of the latest build of its Windows Phone 7 mobile operating system, and it's getting good reviews from developers. The company also says it started shipping thousands of prototype handsets to software developers around the world.

The new release is what Microsoft calls a "technical preview," meaning it's stable enough for use by a larger developer community and reviewers. The developing OS needs to achieve "release candidate" status before being released to manufacturing, possibly in late summer or early fall. The first production smartphones with the new OS are expected to be unveiled in October. Microsoft, through a spokeswoman, declined to be more specific about the next WP7 milestones.

via networkworld.com

Windows Phone Developer Tools Beta Released

Windows Phone Developer Tools Beta Released
8

First things first: go get the Windows Phone Developer Tools Beta. It has arrived!

The term “Beta” is understood to mean that things are close to being finished.  Well, that’s what we mean anyway. This Beta release represents the near final version of the tools for building applications and games for Windows Phone 7. 

Since the initial CTP release of the tools just this March, the Windows Phone Developer Tool CTP has been widely embraced by the community, and they have shown what’s possible on our new development platform.

It’s time to get serious about building the actual apps and games for Windows Phone 7 that consumers will be looking for starting this holiday season.

One of the things I really want to do is just take a step back and congratulate the entire Windows Phone 7 team.  They have done an amazing job of delivering code month after month on our path to releasing later this year.  Check out this timeline:

  • Feb 2010 – Windows Phone 7 was unveiled at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona
  • Mar 2010 – The application platform was unveiled at MIX 10 in Las Vegas.  With that, we had the first CTP of the Windows Phone Developer Tools.
  • Apr 2010 – The tools received an updated, and the CTP Refresh shipped.
  • Jun 2010 – Windows Phone Marketplace details unveiled at TechEd 2010.  Get the Windows Phone 7 Application Certification Requirements.
  • July 2010 – Beta release of Windows Phone Developer Tools, and the preview developer phones start shipping to ISVs

Whew! The Windows Phone engineering team has been crushing it.

Here’s a link to the release notes for the beta, but I wanted to talk about a few top level items:

  • Microsoft Expression Blend for Windows Phone – Blend is now integrated completely into the Windows Phone Developer Tools Beta.
  • Developer Registration Utility – Now you can unlock you Windows Phone 7 device for development purposes.
  • XAP Deployment Tool – if you want to deploy XAP files directly to an unlocked device, now you can.
  • The Windows Phone 7 API – we’re getting close to completion.  Many namespaces that were previously distributed over several different DLLs have now been consolidated into one.  In addition, there have been realignments and changes in several other namespaces as well.  Push Notifications, Accelerometer and App Bar APIs have all been updated.
  • Additional Controls – There are some additional controls coming in the next few weeks (i.e. Panorama and Pivot) which didn’t make the beta release.  They are coming soon.
  • Control Templates – Silverlight for Windows Phone control templates have been updated to match evolutions in the overall OS.

Get Trained – Windows Phone 7 Jump Start

Windows Phone 7 JumpStart is a FREE virtual live class for developers interested in developing applications and games for Windows Phone 7.  We’re providing this in partnership with our MS Learning team. The course is organized into four virtual instructor-led sessions that are of 3-hour duration.  They will be presented by forthcoming MS Press authors and MVP's, Andy Wigley and Rob Miles. It will provide developers a jump start for developing Windows Phone 7 applications.  The Labs will be completed offline with office hours access to the instructors.

The dates for these course sessions are:

  • July 20 – 8am: Session One: Getting Started with Microsoft Windows Phone and Silverlight
  • July 20 – 1pm: Session Two: Programming Game Applications with XNA
  • July 22 – 8am: Session Three:  Programming Applications with Silverlight
  • July 22 – 1pm: Session Four:  Review and Wrap Up

Go register for the course now!

Devices for Developers

We made a promise last month that we would be getting pre-production preview devices to developers this month. We are keeping that promise. In fact, the very first preview devices were awarded last week to a pair of pretty amazing high-school students who won the Windows Phone “Rockstar” contest as part of the Imagine Cup. When we saw what they had done, we knew we had to get them preview phones.

Starting next Monday (July 19th), we start shipping the devices more broadly. Sadly, we will not be able to meet all of that demand.  We are planning to set up deploy and test labs in major cities to make it a little easier for everyone who wants to have access to a preview phone to have it. More on that soon.

Lastly, to get your name in the queue, assuming you haven’t already sent in an email, you can now send an email to wp7req@microsoft.com.  A field representative will get back to you as soon as possible. Again, these are preview phones, so they are limited in quantity. When you send email, please include the following information:

  • Your name
  • Company name, if applicable
  • What city/state/country you are located in
  • App(s) you plan on developing (category and brief description)

Twitter

At some point, we had to mention Twitter, right? We strongly encourage developers establish a connection with their local field evangelist, since they will be the ones ultimately putting phones into the hands of developers, but they can also point you in the right direction for solving problems, get you connected to other partners, and generally help out. To make it easier to get to know your local evangelist, we’ve set up this list - wp7dev/champs (http://twitter.com/wp7dev/champs).

You can also follow other members of the team based on their area of coverage:

In Closing

This is a big milestone for everyone involved in Windows Phone 7 – inside and outside of Microsoft - and we hope you share in our excitement. With the Beta release of the tools, developers can build apps with a “ship it” mentality. There have already been so many amazing apps shown running on the emulator, and a lucky few who have been able to deploy to the phones at our developer events. We’re blown away by the early look at the apps, all of the sharing in the community, the blogging, and the screenshots. There’s a huge team of people here in Redmond who are all watching for new content tagged with “wp7dev” or “Windows Phone 7 Development.” It’s not uncommon for links to get passed around with a “wow, check out what these guys did!”  Keep it up, and keep the faith.

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via windowsteamblog.com