Wednesday, October 31, 2012

Announcing the new Windows Phone 8 Developer Platform

Announcing the new Windows Phone 8 Developer Platform:

I’m proud to launch the Windows Phone 8 Developer Platform. After years of planning and development, today we’re making available the most important advancement of our dev plat to date, including a new SDK and a refreshed Dev Center now open for Windows Phone 8 app submissions.

Here at the //BUILD 2012 conference, developers are seeing firsthand how we’re delivering close alignment with Windows 8 via a common core. Moving to a common Windows core meant that almost every major underlying subsystem had to change. For example, for the .NET Framework, we moved from using .NET CF to Core CLR, two different versions of the Framework that forked from each other over five years ago. This gives developers far more capability. Our colleagues in the Developer Division have two new blog posts that go into more details on new tools and .NET enhancements.

This investment, in turn, allows developers to take advantage of support for native C++ programming, familiar tools, and common APIs to target phones, PCs, and tablets for an estimated combined opportunity of roughly 500 million units next year.

image

New home: A refreshed Windows Phone Dev Center rolled out Tuesday

The phone market alone represents a tremendous opportunity. Competition is strong, but people are ready for a phone built around them. With a new Start screen, more customizable Live Tiles, and the innovative new features like Rooms and Kid’s Corner all revealed in yesterday’s launch, Windows Phone 8 is the world’s most personal smartphone. Early industry and customer response has been fantastic, and Windows Phone will be available through 50 of the top mobile operators worldwide starting next month. The expansion of phone hardware options and Windows Phone Store to 191 markets equates to a 90 percent increase in addressable market for your apps in 2012.

And, of course, there’s the developer opportunity. Frankly, this was the easy part: we just delivered what you asked for. You told us you wanted native code, in-app-purchase, and more ways to reuse and port code—done, done, and done.  More than 90 percent of the things you asked for, we added. These capabilities combined with new phone features like better Live Tiles, Lenses, NFC support, and custom app notifications and wallpaper on the lock screen mean that apps do more—and do it in more markets—on Windows Phone.

Today is about giving you what you need to immediately start taking advantage of this opportunity, including dev devices from our friends at Nokia for those attending //BUILD. We wouldn’t be here without the patience, feedback, and support of our dev community and great partners (including the 30-plus announced today) —thank you.

I hope you’ll take this opportunity to learn about the new platform and its capabilities by installing the new SDK. If you’ve already got an app, now is the time to start doing things like adding large tile support (to take advantage of the extra Start screen real estate and show more info on the tile) and experimenting with native code.

vs

New tools: Using the new Windows Phone 8.0 SDK

Visit the Dev Center for guidance on how to get started with the new SDK and to locate a Developer Camp in your area where you can get one-on-one hands-on time with our experts. You can also check out the //BUILD conference technical session recordings on Channel 9 and watch this blog for more posts from my team providing guidance and additional details on the new platform.

Windows Phone 8 is out, the tools are available, and devices are about to be released—it’s time to get coding. As an added incentive, for the next 8 days individual developers can register for a Dev Center account for just $8 (a 92 percent savings). Please note because this is a very limited time offer. You’ll be charged $99 USD or equivalent in your local currency, and we’ll refund the difference in the next 30 to 45 days. Watch for more details on Dev Center soon.

There’s never been a better time to be a developer for Windows Phone. As the lead for the developer experience, I’d love to hear your questions and feedback here or at #wpdev.

Kevin



DIGITAL JUICE

New tools for Windows Phone 8 save developers time and money

New tools for Windows Phone 8 save developers time and money:
The Windows Phone developer ecosystem is enriched every day by companies, communities, and people who are creating offerings and resources to help developers quickly and easily build or port great apps for Windows Phone. Over the past year, we’ve started collecting these offerings, and we’ve created a list of Windows Phone Developer partner resources, in which we identify commercial and open-source resources in the following categories:

  • Tools: Development environments, utilities, frameworks, and libraries to help you build, generate, and debug apps during the development process.

  • UI components: UI elements like list controls, button, charting, and other visual components,

  • Web API: Cloud-based services like notification, mapping, back-end processing, ad networks, and leaderboard services that developers can consume through a web API.


ThirtyPlusPartnersWe’ve seen strong response to these offers, so we’re focusing even more attention in this area for Windows Phone 8. We’re thrilled to highlight today more than 30 commercial and open-source offerings by companies and organizations that have jumped on board.
On the open-source front, we engaged with communities early in the process so they could add Windows Phone 8 support in popular tools and frameworks. Read the details.
Let’s take a closer look at the partners who are announcing today their support for Windows Phone 8 at the //BUILD conference.
Native gaming
One significant feature of the Windows Phone 8 development platform is support for the native C++ programming model. Native code offers a number of benefits related to code reuse, and it opens up opportunities for game engines, physics, animation, audio libraries, and more. The following organizations are announcing Windows Phone 8 support:

Tools, cross-platform frameworks, HTML5, libraries, and UI
We’re seeing growing support for Windows Phone 8 among cross-platform tools, frameworks, and libraries vendors. Many of them take advantage of extensive support for HTML5 in Internet Explorer 10. Here’s what’s new:

On the C#/XAML development side, partners and communities have been getting ready. Here are the early birds who are supporting Windows Phone 8:

  • MVVM Light Toolkit gets a fresh new version that supports Windows Phone 8. Read the details on Laurent Bugnion’s blog.

  • Telerik today released a new version of its RadControls, with new, unique controls for Windows Phone 8.  //Build attendees can visit Telerik on the Expo floor.

  • Infragistics now includes Windows Phone 8 support with its NetAdvantage offering. //Build attendees can visit Infragistics on the Expo floor

  • XAML Spy, the visual runtime inspector debugging tool from First Floor Software, adds support for Windows Phone 8 today.

  • Xamarin releases Xamarin.Mobile, a single API developers can use for common device services like contacts, camera, and geolocation, with Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8 support. //Build attendees can visit Xamarin on the Expo floor


Web API, back ends as a service, cloud services
Cloud-based service providers are essential for developers to be able to expand app capabilities, connect users and scale, promote and monetize, analyze usage, and track issues. Today at //Build, we’re presenting the partners who are aligning with Windows Phone 8 in this area.

bsquareFinally, Bsquare, a Microsoft Gold Certified partner that specializes in providing engineering services and production-ready software products for the smart device market, launched today a porting service publishers can use to port existing apps from various platforms to Windows 8 or Windows Phone 8 quickly and affordably, with prices starting at $10,000 (USD).
Welcome, everybody, to the Windows Phone 8 developer ecosystem!
Here’s a snapshot of today’s partner announcements:
WPDevEcosystem
If you want to suggest a resource, feel free to contact me on Twitter @jccim, include the hashtag #wpdevecosystem with a description and link.




DIGITAL JUICE

Video: Mapping Tech Uses Flu to Show Why HIV Vaccine is Taking So Long

Video: Mapping Tech Uses Flu to Show Why HIV Vaccine is Taking So Long: Microsoft Research explores mutations of HIV in an attempt to help create a vaccine.

DIGITAL JUICE

Free Library Converts 2D Image to 3D

Free Library Converts 2D Image to 3D: Microsoft researchers, working with a colleague from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, have developed a library of code that converts a 2-D video or still image into a 3-D depth image.

DIGITAL JUICE

Theorem Proof Gains Acclaim

Theorem Proof Gains Acclaim: Georges Gonthier of Microsoft Research Cambridge, working with colleagues from Inria, recently delivered a computer-assisted proof of the Feit-Thompson Theorem, which when first published 50 years ago, took two volumes and 255 pages to contain it.

DIGITAL JUICE

What Comes After the Touch Screen?

What Comes After the Touch Screen?: Gesture control, devices that recognize different people, and tricks to make a screen feel as if it has physical buttons could be coming to your gadgets.

DIGITAL JUICE

Dancing Chairs and 3-D Puppets Will Make Kids Love the Kinect

Dancing Chairs and 3-D Puppets Will Make Kids Love the Kinect: KinEtre, a 3-D animator from Microsoft Research, lets you control virtual objects on a screen with your body.

DIGITAL JUICE

Why Your Password May Not Be as Secure as You Think

Why Your Password May Not Be as Secure as You Think: Microsoft researcher Cormac Herley, who specializes in computer security, says that running up-to-date software and antivirus software can help thwart password-based security exploits.

DIGITAL JUICE

Excellent Idea of the Day: Cheap Classroom Polls

Excellent Idea of the Day: Cheap Classroom Polls: Teachers could get an instant read of students' comprehension with a new, low-cost polling technique being developed by Microsolft Research India.

DIGITAL JUICE

Project Hawaii - SDK for Windows Apps

Project Hawaii - SDK for Windows Apps: Microsoft Research has released an SDK for Windows 8 that you can use to develop Windows Store apps that take advantage of cloud services and Windows Azure.

DIGITAL JUICE

ChronoZoom Receives Digital Education Achievement Award

ChronoZoom Receives Digital Education Achievement Award: ChronoZoom, a dynamic, zoomable timeline for visualizing Big History, has been named the winner of the Digital Education Achievement Award.

DIGITAL JUICE

Video: Managing Our Digital Legacies

Video: Managing Our Digital Legacies: Microsoft Research's Richard Banks introduces the reality of online selves and what they mean for our future.

DIGITAL JUICE

Microsoft Researcher: Effective Visualizations Require User Trials to Test Design Choices

Microsoft Researcher: Effective Visualizations Require User Trials to Test Design Choices: The most effective way to ascertain which visualization is best is to test it with live subjects, Microsoft researcher Mary Czerwinski told the audience during a VisWeek speech in Seattle on Oct. 16.

DIGITAL JUICE

Talent, Collaboration Key to Innovation

Talent, Collaboration Key to Innovation: Microsoft chief research officer says Moore’s Law is a statement of human optimism.

DIGITAL JUICE

Women and STEM Careers: How Microsoft Is Building a Bridge to Future Innovation—One Girl at a Time

Women and STEM Careers: How Microsoft Is Building a Bridge to Future Innovation—One Girl at a Time: Microsoft is not only seeking answers to how to fill all available jobs in the fields of science, engineering, engineering, and math, but also is focusing on the group believed to be a key solution: women.

DIGITAL JUICE

Computer Technology for the Advancement of Science

Computer Technology for the Advancement of Science: The Microsoft Research Institute-FAPESP in IT supports a variety of cutting-edge projects, attendees of FAPESP Week 2012 learned in Toronto recently.

DIGITAL JUICE

Inside Microsoft Research: 14 Years of Inspiring Asia Pacific Ph.D. Candidates

Inside Microsoft Research: 14 Years of Inspiring Asia Pacific Ph.D. Candidates: Microsoft Research Asia’s Fellowship Program has been an inspiration to Asia Pacific computer-science Ph.D. candidates for the past 13 years, and that tradition continues in 2012.

DIGITAL JUICE

Inside Microsoft Research: N.Y. Workshop Caters to Emerging Field

Inside Microsoft Research: N.Y. Workshop Caters to Emerging Field: The Workshop on Computational and Online Social Science, held Oct. 12 in New York and organized by a couple of researchers from Microsoft Research New York City, focused on a uniquely 21st-century area of exploration.

DIGITAL JUICE

Microsoft delivers Windows Phone 8 software development kit

Microsoft delivers Windows Phone 8 software development kit: The long-awaited Windows Phone 8 SDK is out today.That's not all Microsoft delivered at its Build developer conference on Day 1.

DIGITAL JUICE

Microsoft's Windows Phone 8: What's new for business users

Microsoft's Windows Phone 8: What's new for business users: Microsoft has revealed some new and updated Windows Phone 8 features that are meant to appeal to business users of all sizes.

DIGITAL JUICE

Where and when can users get Microsoft's Windows Phone 8 devices?

Where and when can users get Microsoft's Windows Phone 8 devices?: Here's when and how Microsoft and partners will make Windows Phone 8 handsets available.

DIGITAL JUICE

Microsoft's Windows Phone 8 has live tiles and live apps

Microsoft's Windows Phone 8 has live tiles and live apps: At the Windows Phone 8 launch, Microsoft officials are talking up not just live tiles, but also live apps.

DIGITAL JUICE

Microsoft's Lync and OneNote apps for Windows 8, Windows RT now in Windows Store

Microsoft's Lync and OneNote apps for Windows 8, Windows RT now in Windows Store: October 26 is not only the day Windows 8 and Windows RT tablets and PCs go on sale, but also the date a number of new and finalized apps are hitting the Windows Store.

DIGITAL JUICE

Microsoft Design Language: The newest official way to refer to 'Metro'

Microsoft Design Language: The newest official way to refer to 'Metro': Microsoft has published its Build 2012 developer conference session list, a day before the show is set to kick off. And 'Microsoft Design Language' mentions are all over it.

DIGITAL JUICE

Microsoft Office 2013 hits MSDN, TechNet

Microsoft Office 2013 hits MSDN, TechNet: Microsoft has made the RTM versions of its new Office client and servers available to TechNet and MSDN subscribers.

DIGITAL JUICE

Microsoft Surface RT: A review roundup

Microsoft Surface RT: A review roundup: The reviews of Microsoft's Surface RT and the version of Windows tuned to run on ARM are mixed. The hardware largely gets higher marks than the software.

DIGITAL JUICE

PrivateCloud Business Priorities Deck

PrivateCloud Business Priorities Deck: Private Cloud_Business Priorities Deck




DIGITAL JUICE

BusinessOperations Solution Implementer Guide

BusinessOperations Solution Implementer Guide: Optimizing Business Operations_Solution Implementation Guides




DIGITAL JUICE

Office 365 Single Sign-On with Shibboleth 2 whitepaper

Office 365 Single Sign-On with Shibboleth 2 whitepaper: Through its support for the SAML 2.0 protocol, Internet2 Shibboleth 2 provides claims-based (Web) single sign-on (also known as identity federation) with the Microsoft Office 365 offering and its Web application and e-mail rich client applications (like Outlook).




DIGITAL JUICE

Online Fraud: A Consumer’s Guide to Prevention, Detection, and Recovery

Online Fraud: A Consumer’s Guide to Prevention, Detection, and Recovery: Educational booklet for consumers on protection from online fraud




DIGITAL JUICE

Windows Help program (WinHlp32.exe) for Windows 8

Windows Help program (WinHlp32.exe) for Windows 8: WinHlp32.exe is required to display 32-bit Help files that have the ".hlp" file name extension. To view .hlp files on Windows 8, you need to install this application.




DIGITAL JUICE

Web Pages 2

Web Pages 2: ASP.NET Web Pages with Razor Syntax is a web framework and part of WebMatrix which gives you everything you need to build Web sites using Windows.




DIGITAL JUICE

Visual Studio Team System 2005 Team Explorer

Visual Studio Team System 2005 Team Explorer: Microsoft Visual Studio Team System 2005 Team Explorer is a simplified Visual Studio Team System 2005 environment used solely to access Team Foundation Server services.




DIGITAL JUICE