Windows Phone 7 : Final Release of Developer Tools!

do-epic-shit-3 The official and the final bits of windows phone 7 developer tools are now available, go download them from here. The installer bundles everything you need to develop for windows phone 7 in a nice little package that includes,

– Visual Studio 2010 Express
– Silverlight for windows phone 7
– XNA Game Studio 4 for windows phone 7
– Expression Blend 4 for Windows Phone 7
– Windows Phone 7 emulator

You also get a phone registration and deployment tool which you can use to register and unlock a wp7 device, if you’re lucky enough to have one that is.The deployment tool works both on a physical device as well as the emulator and can be used to deploy your xap’s directly.

Another interesting bit of news today was the release of Windows Phone 7 Ads SDK, check it out here. I got really excited by this until I installed it and dug a little deeper. The documentation accompanying the install clearly says that, as of now at least, this can only be used by developers in the US,

Capture

disappointing, but hopefully it will be available for others outside of US soon. Off to installing the tools now, ciao.

Update: Forgot to mention about the Windows Phone 7 Training Kit. The samples have been updated to work with the RTM version of the tools and new tutorials have been added for pivot and panorama controls. You can download the kit from here.

Windows Mobile Marketplace: Getting started, App statistics and other details

tempppppIf you follow me on twitter then this should not be news to you, the Mobile Minesweeper game that I’ve been working on (and off) forever has finally made it to marketplace and is available for download. There were a few surprises for me in store during the entire process. First, the amount of time it took for the app to be approved, one attempt and one working day! And second, the number of downloads! The app has been downloaded over 10,000 times since I made it available on the marketplace 10 days ago, even though the app is free I never expected so many downloads and it came as a pleasant shock. In this post I’ll share some resources that helped me to get started with marketplace and prepare for the entire process. And also some statistics related to my app.

Where do I begin?

To submit apps, you need to register for the marketplace and get a developer account. Go to http://developer.windowsphone.com and click on “Register for the marketplace”. Using this developer account you will also be able to submit apps for Windows Phone 7 when the marketplace opens for submissions early October. Here is a nice walk through the registration process,

Windows Marketplace for Mobile Developer Registration Walk Through

There are a few minor differences between the slides shown above and the present process, but it’s easy to figure out. So far, the marketplace experience for me has been really smooth. Apart from the initial hiccup during registration where my credit card wouldn’t work, app submission and an update have gone through without any problems.

Submitting apps to marketplace

Your application must meet all the application submission requirements and pass several test cases (like 2 hours of hopper test) to be certified. The Windows Mobile 6.5 Application Certification Requirements are available here (pdf) for download, and I suggest going through this document at least once. Here is a walk through the application submission process,

Windows Marketplace for Mobile Application Submission Walk Through

Another great resource is Joel’s article on marketplace, a must read;

http://www.codeproject.com/KB/windows/WiMoMarketPlc.aspx

App Statistics

From the start, I designed the app to support 3 resolutions 240×320, 240×400 and 480×800. I think that these are probably the most popular resolutions for windows mobile devices. The only other hardware requirement is that the device should have a touch screen. I had submitted the app for the US catalogue first, and after it passed certification I submitted the same for other English markets which include Australia, Canada, UK, India, and Singapore. Here are a few numbers,

EN-US Catalogue – available for 10 days

EN-US

 

AU, CA, UK, IN and SG Catalogue –available for 8 days

EN-AU

EN-CA

EN-GB

EN-IN

EN-SG

Clearly, US is by far the biggest market, no surprise really. If you happen to try out the app, do let me know what you think. Any suggestions or feedbacks are welcome. Goodbye. Until next time.