Update: Path’s CEO has apologized and promised to delete any collected data. See this entry.

It’s the top story on Techmeme at this moment: the socially-networked “lifestreaming” iPhone app known as Path uploads your entire address book to its servers.

This fact was discovered by Denso developer Arun Thampi when he decided that he’d build a Mac OS X client for Path at his company’s hackathon. To do this, he decided to observe the API calls that Path made to its servers only to discover that the data for his Contacts app – names, email addresses, phone numbers – was getting HTTP POSTed to https://api.path.com/contacts/add. To see the the full story, be sure to read Arun’s blog entry on the matter.

Path CEO Dave Morin sent a reply to Arun, explaining that the data is used only to help users connect to their friends and family and nothing more. He also said that they “proactively rolled out an opt-in for this” on their Android client a few weeks ago and will include the same opt-in feature on the next version of the iOS client. For anyone who has the current version on their iPhone, that feature came a little too late. This is bad, and the fact that Path has recently been working on “proactive” fixes suggests that they know it.

I have Path on my phone because it’s a gorgeous app and a number of my friends and coworkers were on the network and encouraging me to take it for a spin. That means that my contact info resides on Path’s servers. A good chunk of my life is public by my own choice, so I can live with Path having my own address and phone number, but nobody else on my contacts list signed up for that. Furthermore, inclusion in my contacts list doesn’t necessarily imply that they’re someone I want in my social network graph. But Path can’t discern between my friends and family and others like my ex-wife, my local cab company or that client in Australia who just had a couple of questions. You’d think that Path would’ve learned the lessons of “Fuck You Google”, in which a woman wrote about how Gmail overshared her info with her abusive ex-husband.

It’s an even bigger problem in the case of celebrities, who presumably have other celebs’ numbers in their on-phone Rolodexes. Take a look at this tweet from Alyssa Milano:

. @Path .. Is there an OPT OUT of you having my ENTIRE iphone address book on your server ?bit.ly/zKsLky /via @heykim

— Alyssa Milano (@Alyssa_Milano) February 8, 2012

The response, by the way:

@Alyssa_Milano shoot me a note at dave at path dot com.

— Dave Morin (@davemorin) February 8, 2012

And did it also upload my notes about people? (Yes, I’m one of those people who actually uses the “Notes” field in Contacts. For business contacts, it’s all part of the schmooze; for friends and family, it’s so I remember things like their likes, dislikes, birthdays, anniversaries and other little things.)

In the comments to Arun’s article, iOS developer Matt Gemmell suggests the following to Dave Morin:

Why are you uploading the actual address book data, rather than (say) generating hashes of the user’s email addresses locally, then uploading just those hashes? You’d be able to do friend-finding that way, and similarly if you uploaded hashes of all email addresses in the user’s address book, you’d be able to do your notifications of when a friend joins. At no point would your servers ever need to see the actual email addresses or phone numbers from our contacts.

He also points out that sending the entire Contacts database to their servers may be a violation of the App Store’s terms and conditions. In fact, section 17.1 of that T&C states:

17.1: Apps cannot transmit data about a user without obtaining the user’s prior permission and providing the user with access to information about how and where the data will be used.

Dave Morin’s been firefighting ever since the news about Path got out. He’s stayed on message with the “we’re not trying to be evil here” line, but with the faith in Google’s “Don’t be evil” mantra pretty much gone, it’s not very reassuring. On the bright side, he has made it clear that if you want your address book and even your Path account deleted from their servers, you have but to send an email to service@path.com.

Update (February 8, 2012): Mike Arrington has put online what I’d been thinking (but didn’t think Path would ever do without a lot of pressure): they should simply delete all the address book data they pulled. It would be an excellent goodwill gesture; let’s see if they take up his suggestion.

(Little hint, Dave: if you keep overusing “proactive” and “proactively” the way you have in your responses and tweets, it becomes a filler word, like “um” and “uh”. Especially when such “proactivity” seems limited to stating that you’re not doing anything wrong.)

There’s been some freaking out over Path in the comments for Arun’s blog entry as well as in other venues online, but it’s time to let cooler heads prevail. Let’s see what Path does in the next 48 hours – as Arun himself puts it, “I hope we can keep calm and continue to discuss this sensibly”.

If you’re developing software that makes use of people’s personal info, let this be a lesson!

Update: Newsy have put together a piece summarizing the tech news’ reaction to the Samsung Galaxy Note ad. It’s at the end of this article – check it out!

Even if you missed the big game, you can still catch the Superbowl ad for the Samsung Galaxy Note. Directed by Bobby Farrelly (one of the Farrelly Brothers, creators of high-larious films like Dumb and Dumber, There’s Something About Mary, and unfortunately, the upcoming Three Stooges Movie), it’s a continuation of the series of ads that poke fun at Apple fandom. It opens with a scenes from lineups outside Apple stores. The bored Apple fanatics are tethered to their white earbuds and awaiting their next gift from the gods when one of them sees a passer-by with a Samsung Galaxy Note.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa – what is that?” he asks.

“Here,” says the passer-by, walking towards soon-to-be-ex-Apple-worshipper. “It’s the new Samsung Galaxy Note.”

Then comes the kicker: “It’s got a pen?” That’s right: it’s bringing back the stylus, the very thing that iOS devices put out of style.

After that, the Apple fans break free of their self-imposed imprisonment in line – a line that Samsung probably wishes they had – and partying, powered by The Darkness’ hit I Believe in a Thing Called Love – ensues.

It’s a little hard to tell from the ad, but the Galaxy Note is bigger than your standard phone; in fact, it’s bigger than even the biggest of the notoriously oversized Samsung phones. Size-wise, it’s in Newton territory: smaller than a tablet, a tad too big to fit into most pockets. Perhaps they’re also trying to bring cargo pants back:

Photo from TechInferno.

I’m reminded of this promotional photo, where Sony tried to convince you of how portable their smallest VAIO was:

It sits somewhere in the “Zone of Suck” from my 2009 article, Fast Food Apple Pies and Why Netbooks Suck (I’m going to have to revise the graphic to include tablets as well as the Galaxy Note):

As for what it’s like to use the device, consider this review in TechInferno. The reviewer loves the Galaxy Note and says he’s never going back to an iOS device, but he damns it with his faint praise:

• “Is the Galaxy Note as smooth as an iOS device? Not really, it still has the android signature stuttering when you scroll and the occasional semi-freeze here and there.”
• “Is the Galaxy Note built as good as the latest iPhone? No, it is not, I think that a fair comparison would be to equal it to the build quality of the 3G/3Gs versions of the iPhone.”
• “Sure you can expect some hiccups here and there, not everything is so custom tailored to the device and to bring it to full functionality you need to invest some effort but in my personal opinion this phone is worth it.”
• “Who I would NOT recommend this device to:
  • People expect the device to “just work”
  • Women or men with small hands
  • People who like to operate the phone with one hand only.”

You know what they say about guys with big phones…

• “Build quality is very good and the device feels solid in the hand although iPhone 4 build feels better.”
• “Out of the box with all options at their defaults the device will eat through the 2500mA/h battery in less than 10 hours of normal usage.”
• “The stylus needs a fair amount of pressure to operate, otherwise it doesn’t work.”
• “I still haven’t found a keyboard that matches the precision of the iPhone, i can’t type as fast but maybe it’s a matter of getting used to it?”
• “I keep accidentally pushing the Back or the Menu buttons especially in landscape mode when trying to type/interact with the screen – a big design flaw.”
• “Expect surprised looks from people around when you put it to your ear to talk. It really does look a bit ridiculous, almost like holding an iPad to your ear.”

• “The text to speech compared to Siri is awful.”
• “Keep in mind that Ice Cream Sandwich update for the Note is around the corner and is expected to fix a lot of issues listed here and introduce lots of neat features.” That, and the Lord Jesus Christ is due back any day now, so look busy!

I think I’ll be sticking with my iPhone 4S and iPad 2 a little while longer, thanks.

Update

Newsy’s got a good piece summarizing the tech press’ and pundits’ reaction to the Galaxy Note ad. Check it out!

If you were to go to Microsoft Canada’s blog for mobile developers as of this writing, you’d still see my photo in the banner:

I really have no complaints about still having my face there, even though my last day at The Empire will be five months ago tomorrow. Being the Windows Phone guy was one of my favourite parts of my stint as a developer evangelist at Microsoft, and it’s always an honour to share a banner with Frederic Harper.

My real complaint is that the picture they’re using is from two years, and more importantly, twenty pounds ago (about the weight of a full-sized accordion).

Hey Microsoft: keep my picture up if you must, but could you at least use a newer, somewhat skinnier one? Perhaps one with me sporting my new, fashionable, I probably-paid-too-much glasses with Philippe Starck frames?

(By the bye, that’s my bathroom in the photo. I have a damn fine “re-bachelor” pad.)

If you’d much rather have a photo keeping with the mobile theme, may I suggest this one, where I’m posing with a phone and a wacky phone accessory? The pink says “Metro” – in every sense of the word!

That’s my friend and fellow ex-Microsoftie Verna Kulish’s Moshi Moshi Retro POP handset, which plugs into just about any smartphone. Feel free to Photoshop out Verna’s iPhone and replace it with an appropriate Windows Phone device – perhaps a Samsung Focus (my Windows Phone) or whatever Nokia’s releasing this fall.

Feel free to use either pic, Microsoft – as long as it’s current and skinnier, we’ll be cool.

This article also appears in The Adventures of Accordion Guy in the 21st Century.

Free Ebook: Programming Windows Phone 7

Charles Petzold literally wrote the book on Windows development, and he’s now doing it for Windows Phone 7. Programming Windows Phone 7 is published by Microsoft Press and covers Windows Phone 7 development from many angles: building apps with Silverlight, making games with XNA and making your programs even better by accessing online services.

Windows Phone is a lot of ground to cover, so the book is sized to match. Petzold’s been working on it since at least the start of the year and it shows – it’s over 1,000 pages on our favourite mobile operating system! Luckily, this book is free-as-in-beer: that’s right, you can download it in ebook form, along with the sample code, for no money at all. If you’re looking to seriously get into Windows Phone 7 development, you should have this book.

Downloads for Programming Windows Phone 7

• Download the book
• Download the sample code

XNA 4.0 Game Development by Example

Survey after survey shows that games are the most popular mobile phone apps, and Windows Phone is really good at games, and not just from the user’s point of view. The XNA framework, available to Windows Phone developers, takes Windows Phone 7 beyond mere informational apps – it’s like having an Xbox in your pocket!

XNA is also more than just about Windows Phone – it’s also for developing games for Windows and the Xbox 360. Better still, it lets you target three platforms – desktop, console and phone – with a single codebase and tweaks specifically for each platform. If you want to write games and reach a wide audience, XNA is your ticket.

Packt Publishing’s XNA 4.0 Game Development by Example is a great way to get started with XNA programming. It walks you through the development of four games, each from a different genre:

• Flood Control, a timed puzzle game where you have to quickly assemble pipes before time runs out and water flows through them
• Asteroid Belt Assault, a 2-D shooter that classic 80’s arcade gamers will find familiar
• Robot Rampage, a tank game featuring multi-axis controls, a scrolling world, particle effects and enemy AI
• Gemstone Hunter, which takes the Platformer Starter Kit to new levels

I just got the book, and have only done the most cursory of scans, but I’ve already picked up a few ideas for how to implement features in my games. If you’re looking to do game development for Windows Phone and beyond, this is a great starter book!

Get XNA 4.0 Game Development by Example

• Packt Publishing’s page for XNA Game Development by Example
• Amazon.ca’s page for XNA Game Development by Example
• Amazon.com’s page for XNA Game Development by Example

This article also appears in Canadian Developer Connection.

Keep an eye on Jeff Blankenburg’s blog for the rest of the month! Every day in October, he’s posting an article on Windows Phone 7 development in a series called 31 Days of Windows Phone 7.

As of this writing, he’s posted these articles:

• Day #1: Project Template
• Day #2: Page Navigation
• Day #3: The Back Button Paradigm
• Day #4: Device Orientation
• Day #5: System Theming
• Day #6: Application Bar
• Day #7: Launchers
• Day #8: Choosers
• Day #9: Debugger Tips
• Day #10: Input Scope
• Day #11: Accelerometer
• Day #12: Vibration Controller
• Day #13: Location Services
• Day #14: Tombstoning
• Day #15: Isolated Storage
• Day #16: Panorama Control
• Day #17: Pivot Control

Jeff talked about his “31 Days” series (previous;y, he did a 31 Days of Silverlight series and 28 Days of Did-You-Knows in Technology one as well) on show 5 of Silverlight guru Jesse Liberty’s podcast.

This article also appears in Canadian Developer Connection.

Are you a Canadian developer working on a Windows Phone 7 app that’s done or nearly done? We want to help you get a head start on everyone else. Contact me – Joey deVilla – by Monday, October 18th (and sooner is better) and let’s see what we can do to make your app one of the first in Windows Phone Marketplace!

This article also appears in Canadian Developer Connection.

You’re building apps for Windows Phone 7. You’ve tested them as much as you can on the emulator. You now need to test them on a real device. We can help!

Getting your hands on a Windows Phone is a very hard thing to do. Even those of us who work inside the company are having trouble getting our hands on them because there just aren’t enough advance devices to go around. We have a small pool of phones and a big number of people who need to test their apps on them, so we’ve had to get creative in order to help people test.

First, there’s Coffee and Code. Coffee and Code has traditionally been an event where we take advantage of our mobile worker status and work out of a café, where we’re easily accessible. Lately, we’ve been using them as a chance for you to drop by, impromptu, take a look at our Windows Phones and even deploy apps to them for some quick testing. These are pretty informal, with no appointment required, and first-come-first-serve.

Then, there are the Deployment Clinics. These are a little more structured – you book an appointment to drop by one of Microsoft Canada’s offices and spend some quality just-you-and-your-app time with a Windows Phone. You have to book time in advance, and you have the phone all to yourself for the appointment.

Take advantage of these opportunities to test your WP7 apps on a real phone!

Here’s the schedule for the upcoming Coffee and Code and Deployment Clinics:

To book an appointment, drop Samantha Wong a line and she’ll set you up.

This article also appears in Canadian Developer Connection.

It’s Canadian Thanksgiving today, which means it’s a day off here, but it’s a regular working day for our American neighbours, and it’s the day that a lot of big announcements about Windows Phone 7 get made at an event in New York City.

As Mary Jo Foley points out in her article on today’s event, today is about announcements and not about phones hitting shelves, but the day when you can go buy a WP7 phone isn’t far off. You’ll find out more about the phone today starting at 9:30 a.m. Eastern, and I believe a lot of your questions will be answered. (And if you have questions, you can always ask us, either here on the blog or in person at the various TechDays, Coffee and Codes or other opportunities to have a face-to-face chat with us.)

I think you’ll find that Windows Phone represents a tremendous opportunity for phone app developers and designers. Consider that:

• Gorgeous design. In starting from the ground up and redesigning what it means to be a Microsoft Phone, the WP7 team came up with a design that isn’t just “me too”. Even Jon Gruber, the ultimate fanboy for the Esteemed Competition, says it’s really nice.
• It’s early in the game. The phone app market for WP7 is a new one, and it’s your chance to make your mark and shape the app market with your ideas, designs and coding skills.
• You’re working with great developer tools. Even the most die-hard fanboys of the Esteemed Competition grudgingly acknowledge that Visual Studio is a great IDE. Combined with Expression Blend, you’ve got a killer combo for developing, designing and debugging phone apps.
• It’s not just great developer tools, but great frameworks. First, there’s the .NET framework, which gives you a big library with loads of built-in functionality. Then there’s the fact that you have not just one, but two app frameworks! You have Silverlight, for more “application”-like app development with controls and an event-driven model, and XNA for game development with its game loop programming model.
• Windows Phone Marketplace. It’s your chance to directly sell apps to customers, and it’s straightforward. The rules for submitting apps and what is and isn’t an acceptable app are spelled out clearly. If your app isn’t accepted, you’ll know why. Telling this stuff to app developers is such a crazy idea that it might catch on!
• Here’s something that we need to point out: You are important. As developers, you shouldn’t feel like pseudo-competitors who are barely tolerated by the people behind the phone platform. You should feel like a key part of Windows Phone 7, because you are! WP7 doesn’t happen without you. Your creativity, hard work and passion as app developers is as much a feature as anything else that goes into WP7. What you do is our best feature!

Keep an eye on the announcements coming out today, and if you have any questions, ask away in the comments!

This article also appears in Canadian Developer Connection.

Hey, Canadian mobile developers:

• If you’ve got an idea for a Windows Phone 7 app, whether it’s brand new or a port of an existing mobile app, start working on it now!
• If you’re working on a Windows Phone 7 app, get it ready for Marketplace, which will be accepting submissions soon!
• If you haven’t even tried the Windows Phone 7 developer tools, download them and take them for a spin!

And finally, if you’re planning on submitting a Windows Phone 7 app to Marketplace, get in touch with me! I want to hear from you, help you through the process and help publicize your app. Just drop me a line – the email address is joey.devilla@microsoft.com.

This article also appears in Canadian Developer Connection.

A test version of Smiles running on my WP7 device.

In between chatting with developers who dropped by today’s Coffee and Code in downtown Toronto and getting some work done, I’ve been playing Smiles (pictured above), an incredibly cute and incredibly addictive puzzle game by London, ON-based development shop Sykhronics.

Here’s a video of Smiles’ gameplay in its “Drop” mode:

Mike Kasprzak of Sykhronics was kind enough to send me an early test version of Smiles to show off the Phone’s game capabilities as well as the level of “polish” that Windows Phone 7 developers should be aiming for in their apps. Mike’s got some pretty high standards and is working to make sure that Smiles for WP7 meets them, and it shows! Even in this test version, Smiles looks and feels like a polished arcade classic, and when it’s done, it’s going to be a must-buy.

Keep writing those apps, and aim high! We’ll do what we can on our end to help out, which includes:

• Articles on Windows Phone 7 development in Silverlight and XNA
• Articles on good mobile user interface design and marketing your apps
• Announcements of upcoming Coffee and Codes and WP7 Deployment Clinics across Canada
• Coverage of “Phone Heroes”: People building apps for Windows Phone 7 – and hey, you could be one of them!
• Pointers to useful tools, resources and other things to help you build WP7 apps

This article also appears in Canadian Developer Connection.

Tonight, I’ll be in Kitchener speaking at the Canada’s Technology Triangle .NET User Group Meeting, where I’ll be talking about game programming on Windows Phone using XNA.

Assisting me – albeit indirectly – will be Justin Bieber, in sprite form. Starting from the humble “File –> New”, I’ll code up some simple 2D gaming fun where we’ll learn about XNA and 2D game development basics and play with pop’s most annoying star in the process!

Some details about the event:

• Where: Manulife Financial (25 Water St. South, Kitchener)
• Day: Wednesday September 29th, 2010
• Time: 6:00pm-8:30pm
• Note: Please Register for the Event as we order Pizza and Pop based on Registration as of 12pm (Noon) on the day of the Event.

Photo of Justin Bieber courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

This article also appears in Canadian Developer Connection.

Today, Wednesday, September 29th, join “les bons gars”, Developer Advisor Christian Beauclair and Regional Director Guy Barrette, who’ll be holding a Coffee and Code at Le Café de la Cité on 75 Queen. They put on a professional appearance, but we all know qu’ils vont ecrire des «fart apps»! They’ll be doing it in both official languages: Silverlight and XNA!

This article also appears in Canadian Developer Connection.

If you’ve been meaning to take up Windows Phone 7 development but didn’t know where or how to get started and you’re in the Ottawa area, this event is for you! Join Microsoft Developer Advisor Christian Beauclair and DreamDigital’s Colin Melia as they present a hands-on lab this Saturday where they show you how to write apps for our new phone.

At this lab, you’ll:

• Learn how to develop apps for Windows Phone 7 in Silverlight and XNA
• Follow along at a workstation as Christian and Colin walk you through WP7 development
• Get familiar with the software tools: Visual Studio 2010 or Visual Studio Express for Windows Phone, Expression Blend and the WP7 emulator
• Have an opportunity to try out a real live Windows Phone

This training lab will take place at Algonquin College (1385 Woodroffe Avenue, Ottawa). It’s free of charge, but you must register in order to be able to attend.

This is a hands-on lab, so space is limited – if you want to attend, register now!

This article also appears in Canadian Developer Connection.

It Makes Sense…

It makes sense, after all:

• You can develop Silverlight applications in Visual Basic.
• You can developer Windows Phone 7 apps in Silverlight.
• Why can’t you develop Windows Phone 7 Silverlight apps in Visual Basic?

That’s the question a number of developers have been asking, as Brandon Watson’s earlier tweet hinted:

Here’s What You Get

And we’re now one step closer to that becoming real. Today on the Windows Phone Developer Blog, Brandon announced the availability of Visual Basic CTP (that’s “Community Technology Preview”) for Windows Phone Developer Tools.

With it, you get:

• Visual Basic application templates for Windows Phone 7 Silverlight apps
• UI designer support for Visual Basic
• Emulator and phone support for Visual Basic
• and of course, Intellisense support for Visual Basic

In short, everything the Visual Basic developer needs to start writing Silverlight apps for WP7.

And Now, the Fine Print

Remember, unlike the C# tools, which have been Released to Manufacturing, Visual Basic for Windows Phone is CTP, and remember that the “P” stands for “Preview” and that CTP comes before Beta.

Be advised that:

• As a Community Technology Preview, this is an early access program to a work in progress. It’s meant for you to try out and give us feedback about it. It is not a final implementation, and as such, you should expect to use it to write apps that are ready for Marketplace.
• There’s no go-live license for this CTP. That means you can’t use this particular version to build apps for commercial release. It’s not ready for prime time yet!
• You need Visual Studio 2010 Pro, Premium or Ultimate. Sorry, but Visual Studio Express for Windows Phone isn’t going to work with this version. If you’re really itching to try writing VB apps for WP7, Brandon suggests downloading a trial version of Visual Studio Pro.
• Visual Basic for Windows Phone is for writing Silverlight apps only. If you want to write XNA-based games and apps, you have to do it in C#.

Why Visual Basic?

Visual Basic takes a lot of heat from developers, both within and outside the Microsoft developer community. Perhaps it’s because it’s derived from BASIC, back when the name was an acronym and the “B” stood for Beginner’s. It could also be that there is a history of some really atrocious code being written in VB. I think it’s because it brought the power of programming to everyone, which annoys people who are deeply invested in keeping programming a sort of “high priesthood”, a club where not everyone can be a member.

That’s snobbery, and it’s also a shame. One of the purposes of languages like Visual Basic is that it opened the world of programming to “domain experts” – people who know the ins and outs of the fields or businesses for which applications are written. People who’ll actually have to use those applications. Languages like Visual Basic empower these people who have the domain knowledge take their ideas and turn them into apps without having to always “outsource” it to one of us. They capture the best parts of the “DIY” spirit, and we should be encouraging the people who use them, not denigrating them for using a “toy”.

I think of this as the antithesis of programming for the Esteemed Competition’s mobile platforms, whether you’ve opted for the wide open but fragmented one, or the more closed one where you have to chase pointers, write method declarations twice and are a barely-tolerated “fourth party developer”. Phone development with Visual Basic makes it easy for anyone with an idea and the will to work – but not the programming background – to dive in and start seeing results quickly.

I think that’s a good thing.

This article also appears in Canadian Developer Connection.

I know that this is incredibly short notice, but I just heard about it myself:

Join us on September 21 2010 at 8.00 am PDT (11:00 EDT) for the first of two Office Live Meeting broadcasts.

The Microsoft Windows Phone 7 marketplace will open in October, and Microsoft wants to help you make your app the best that it can be. If you would like to ensure that you’ve considered key submission criteria and that your app is of the highest quality, this free live training is for you!

Join Rob S. Miles and Andy Wigley once again (both MS Press authors and MVP’s) for an engaging training on advanced topics for Windows Phone 7 application and game development.

We’re also including a session on Windows Phone Design and Designing with Blend, taught by Microsoft SME’s Bryan Agnetta and Jon Harris. Bryan is a Senior User interface Program Manager in the design studio for Windows Phone 7 team. His responsibilities include managing the Design Integration team and Program Manager for Application development in the studio. His 9+ year tenure at Microsoft has all been with the Windows Phone User Experience team. Jon is the Senior Product Manager for Expression Blend and SketchFlow. He joined Microsoft as the first User Experience Evangelist! And now 4 years later, 4 releases of Blend, 4 releases of Silverlight and a new release of Blend 4 for Windows Phone… you get the benefit of his expertise in this session.

The last hour is dedicated to the questions you have. We’ve pulled together a panel of Microsoft SME’s in addition to Rob, Andy, Jon and Bryan. Through the Live Meeting Q&A function, you can get all your Windows Phone 7 development questions answered real time.

Sign up for both Part One and Part Two to get full coverage.

Here’s the agenda:

Part One: Tuesday, September 21, 2010, 11 a.m. – 2 p.m. EDT

Click here to register for Part One.

Part Two: September 21, 2010, 3 p.m. – 7 p.m. EDT

Click here to register for Part Two.

This article also appears in Canadian Developer Connection.

Update (Sept. 21 @ 6:15 p.m. EDT): Made some corrections to the schedule.

We’re out there, and we want to help you with your Windows Phone 7 development by giving you a chance to deploy your apps to an advance-release Windows Phone 7 device for testing! We’ll be in the following cities on the following dates:

Wednesday, September 22 in Ottawa (Coffee and Code)

Colin Melia and Rick “Claus” Claus from Microsoft’s Developer and Platform Evangelism team will be at Bridgehead Cafe (224 Dalhousie Street) from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. to host a Coffee and Code there. Drop in, say hi, have a coffee, ask questions and if you’ve got an app, try deploying it to a real live Windows Phone 7 device!

Thursday, September 23 in Toronto (Coffee and Code)

Join Kate Gregory and me as we host a Coffee and Code at the Starbucks at King and Yonge (4 King Street West) from 11:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m., where we’ll merge with the Coffee and iOS group who are coming in at 4:00 p.m.. Want to find out more about WP7 or iOS development? This is the time and place!

See Kate’s blog entry about this Coffee and Code.

Wednesday, September 29 in Montreal (Coffee and Code)

Join “les bons gars”, Christian Beauclair and Guy Barrette, who’ll be holding a Coffee and Code at Le Café de la Cité on 75 Queen. They put on a professional appearance, but we all know qu’ils vont ecrire des «fart apps»! They’ll be doing it in both official languages: Silverlight and XNA!

Thursday, September 30 in Montreal (Deployment Clinic)

Deployment clinics are a little more formal than Coffee and Codes. You can book an exclusive timeslot to deploy and test apps to a Windows Phone 7 device, and there’s one taking place all day at Microsoft’s Montreal office (2000 Avenue McGill College, 4th floor) on the 30th. Email Christian Beauclair to reserve a time slot.

This article also appears in Canadian Developer Connection.

What is FITC?

What a week! On Thursday, I was in Vancouver at the Take 5 Cafe making an all-too-brief appearance at the Windows Phone 7 Coffee and Code, and on Friday I was at FITC Mobile 2010 in Toronto, minding the Windows Phone 7 booth.

FITC Mobile 2010 is part of a larger group of conferences called Mobile Innovation Week, which took place in Toronto last week and comprised:

• IN|10: The Interactive Exchange (Sunday – Tuesday)
• MXD 2010: Mobile Experience + Design (Tuesday)
• Mobile Biz Bootcamp (Wednesday)
• Mobile ThinkTank (Wednesday – Thursday)
• Mobile Media World 10 (Thursday – Friday)
• FITC Mobile 2010 (Friday – Saturday)

FITC (pronounced “Fit-See” by those in the know) is a descendant of the Toronto Flash user group FlashinTO, which I know from my old days as a Macromedia Director developer working at a little interactive shop called Mackerel. Local Flash/interactive media guru Shawn Pucknell started the group, and from it came a Toronto-based event in 2002 called “Flash in the Can”. Since then, the events have spread all over the world and expanded to cover more topics, so Flash in the Can became FITC. It’s great to see that Shawn’s still directing FITC, and it was good to chat with him – it’s been too long – and we’ve got to talk sometime about how Microsoft can participate in other FITC events.

(And now you know why the FITC logo features an old-school can opener.)

This was FITC Mobile’s second year. Its goal was to cover as wide an assortment of aspects of mobile development and content development as possible, with presentations, demonstration and panel discussions. The schedule was packed with all sorts of useful sessions, which covered:

• Mobile operating systems: Android, BlackBerry, iOS and Windows Phone 7
• Tools: Flash, HTML5, Unity and Visual Studio Express for Windows Phone
• Ideas: Marketing, usability, design, Canada’s place in the mobile world and the current state of Canada’s mobile industry

What I Saw

I spent most of my time at the Windows Phone 7 booth, showing off the phone and the development tools to passers-by. I did manage to get away and take a peek at some of the presentations, including:

• Tom Purves’ always-informative Canada’s State of the Mobile Nation address,
• Kunal “@kunalfrompolar” Gupta’s Canada to the World: From Front Street presentation,
• Adam Hunter’s Media Player Programming on iPad and iPhone session,
• Paul Trani’s Mobile Design That Doesn’t Suck talk
• and, of course, Mark Arteaga’s two-parter, Building Applications for Windows Phone 7 Using Microsoft Silverlight (here’s the session info for part 1 and part 2).

Here are the slides from Paul Trani’s Mobile Design That Doesn’t Suck session:

Here area couple of photos I snapped at Mark Arteaga’s Windows Phone 7 presentation:

The “Booth Brains”

On Friday, I minded the booth with my coworkers Mandy Kaur, Yue He, Paul Laberge and Anthony Bartolo, but I was the only one available on Saturday. I put out a call for “Booth Brains” and got a number of responses. In the end, these four local heroes came in for the whole day:

• Cory Fowler
• Sean Kearney
• Barranger Ridler
• Anthony Vranic

My thanks to you four (and Yue, who showed up for a couple of hours too!) I couldn’t have done Saturday without your help.

We had a great number of people show up to the booth, curious about Windows Phone 7. We showed them the development tools – Visual Studio Express for Phone, Expression Blend and the WP7 emulator – and they got to get their mitts on an actual Windows Phone 7 device. Everyone who came by was impressed by the look, feel and responsiveness of WP7; I think we changed more than a few minds there.

This article also appears in Canadian Developer Connection.

One of the hot topics at this year’s TechDays conference is Windows Phone 7. With a new user interface featuring a design that isn’t all “me too”, a “glance and go” approach that doesn’t have you riffling through pages of apps and not one but two programming models that meet specific (and very different) needs, it’s a very promising mobile platform. No wonder a lot of developers want to get in on the ground floor with WP7.

The buzz about Windows Phone 7 translated into a packed room for Mark Arteaga’s session, the first of a two-part series on WP7 development with Silverlight.

Here’s the room about a minute or so into his session, with all seats taken and the people still filtering in and starting to take “standing room only” spots in the back. The packed room got an intro to WP7 development with Silverlight, input goodies like the virtual keyboard, accelerometer and microphone and APIs to take advantage of internal features like email, phone dialer, contacts and more.

Later this morning (Pacific time), Mark will continue with Part 2 of his session, where he’ll cover the life cycle of apps on Windows Phone, control templates, themes and web services available to Windows Phone.

This article also appears in Canadian Developer Connection.

The idea behind Coffee and Code is simple: I, along with some of my fellow tech evangelists from Microsoft, take advantage of our status as mobile workers and choose a day to work at a cafe. We announce that we’re doing this and put out a general invitation to come join us – perhaps for a few minutes, a few hours or the entire time – to chat, ask questions, tell us what you think and get to know us. It’s us, working out in the open and making ourselves available to you.

With so few pre-launch Windows Phone 7 devices available, Coffee and Code is your best chance to see one up close and personal and test your apps before they hit the stores. Many developers have already joined us for coffee and a chat, checked out the phone and deployed and optimized their apps to an actual phone as opposed to the emulator. While you can get pretty far with the emulator, it’s no substitute for the real thing.

We’re taking advantage of our TechDays travel to hold Coffee and Codes in TechDays cities on the day after TechDays. Join us! Get to know your friendly Microsoft evangelists, find out about Windows Phone 7 and other parts of the Microsoft platform, and if you have Windows Phone 7 apps that you’d like to test on a real device, this is your chance!

We’ve got Coffee and Codes scheduled for the following dates, cities and locations:

…and yes, we’re confirming venues for December in Winnipeg and Calgary.

This article also appears in Canadian Developer Connection.

Last night, we held a night to showcase some cool Windows Phone 7 apps being written by developers in and around the Toronto area. We invited some local tech and mobile industry bloggers and developers to see these apps in action and try out a late beta version of Windows Phone 7 on the hard-to-come-by advance devices and check out the look and feel of our new mobile operating system on some actual mobile hardware.

King Street East, looking west from George Street (just east of Jarvis).

Rather than hold it in some bland “multi-purpose room” at the office, we chose to hold the event at Kultura, a nice little tapas restaurant on King Street, a short walk east of Toronto’s financial district, yet worlds away at the same time.

The front room of Kultura’s second floor.

We held the event in the back room of Kultura’s second floor, a lounge area with enough space to do a big presentation followed by a number of small hands-on sessions with the apps:

The back room of Kultura’s second floor.

Practice Run

Sure, seeing Steve Ballmer run around shouting “Developers, developers, developers, developers” is funny, but it’s also the truth. We’re a software platform company, and we know that a software platform ain’t nuthin’ without developers building apps for it. Windows Phone 7 is our newest software platform (coming soon!) and we want developers to build for it, so we decided to inspire people by showcasing local developers building apps for our phone and making them rock stars.

A well-run show requires a practice run. We asked the developers to come early and do a practice run through their presentations, and while they did that, I snapped some photos:

Alexey Adamsky shows off his 3-D Sudoku app while Barranger Ridler waits his turn.
This looks like an album cover.

Barranger Ridler demonstrates his “Where’s Timmy?” app,
which guides you to the Tim Hortons locations closest to you.

Shawn Konopinksy shows us his social music app, “Songbuzz”.

Mark Arteaga shows us his open data app, VanGuide.

Mike Kasprzak demos his match-the-objects-to-eliminate-them game, “Smiles”.

The Real Thing

With the practice run done, I had a little time to grab a drink and chat with some of the guests as they arrived:

Steve Syfuhs, Todd Lamothe and Colin Melia.

And soon after, it was time to start the presentations. I did the “opening monologue”, a quick three-minute overview of Windows Phone and what it means to both users and developers:

“…and the Twitter hashtag for this event is #WP7dev…”

“It’s like having an Xbox in your pocket.”

“I’m never without my Windows Phone and my Microsoft Office ironic hipster trucker cap.”

“Ever since Alexander Graham Bell, Canadian techies have always punched above their weight class.”

The audience sat in rapt attention, bedazzled by my scintillating oratory:

Must…hang onto…every word…

And then came the developers, showing off their Windows Phone 7 wares running on the emulator, which made it easy to show apps on the phone to an audience.

First up was Alexey Adamsky, who with Alex Yakobovich, built Sudoku 3D, which literally adds an extra dimension to the popular puzzle game.:

Alexey Adamsky and Sudoku 3D.

Alexey and Alex work out of Ryerson University’s Digital Media Zone, an incubator where Ryerson students and alumni with a technical bent and entrepreneurial ambition can work on their projects, start companies and take their ideas to market. Sudoku 3D started off life as a game for the Xbox 360 written using the XNA framework, but when they heard that Windows Phone 7 was going to be XNA-powered, they knew their project could be turned into a mobile game.

Sudoku 3D, running as both a phone app (in the WP7 emulator) and a Windows application.

XNA lets Alexey and Alex target Windows, Xbox 360 and Windows Phone 7. Alexey says that most of the code is the same across all three platforms and that porting Sudoku 3D from the original Xbox version to the phone was very easy.

After Alexey finished, it was Barranger’s turn:

Alexey Adamsky, Barranger Ridler and Shawn Konopinsky.

Barranger Ridler is an indie developer who’s done some work for utility companies, and this work sometimes took him to small towns. One of the questions he often asked when arriving in a small town was “Where’s the nearest Tim Hortons?” His app, “Where’s Timmy?”, answers that question:

Barranger Ridler demos Where’s Timmy?

Luckily for Barranger, Tim Hortons publishes their store location data as a static file saved in a number of formats. He took this data and put it into a database on a server that Where’s Timmy? can access. Where’s Timmy? uses this data, the user’s location (determined via the phone’s GPS) and Bing Maps to tell the user where the nearest ten Tim Hortons branches are and even provide step-by-step directions:

Where’s Timmy? shows us the way to the nearest Tim Hortons.

Next up was long-time Windows Mobile developer and MVP Mark Arteaga, who showed us a couple of his apps, including VanGuide. Mark is one of my “go-to guys” for Windows Phone, and he’ll be sharing his knowledge in two Windows Phone sessions at the TechDays conference, which will take place in eight cities across Canada.

Mark Arteaga shows the crowd his apps.

After Mark came Shawn Konopinsky of Nascent Digital, a Toronto-based company specializing in building applications based on touch technologies:

Shawn Konopinsky and Songbuzz.

Shawn demoed Songbuzz, a social music app that allows users to share what they’re listening to, find out what their friends are listening to and discover new music:

Songbuzz, close up.

The audience, still captivated.

Closing the demos was Mike Kasprzak, creator of the puzzle game Smiles:

Mike Kasprzak shows us Smiles.

The Jedi Mind Trick doesn’t work on games.

It’s a really cute game with gorgeous graphics and great animations featuring several modes, from a full-on arcade mode to a more relaxed “zen mode”:

A close-up of Smiles in action.

The Party

Everyone to the bar!

With the demos done, it was time for mingling and socializing. The audience could talk to the developers and get personal demos of their Windows Phone apps, grab a drink and some tapas, and work the room.

Everyone to the bar….again!

I got to chat with a number of guests, including Valerie Fox, Director of Ryerson’s Digital Media Zone, Emil Protalinski, who write for Ars Technica’s column One Microsoft Way and Nitin Bharti of DZone.

Mandatory arty shot.

I had my hands full chatting up guests, doing video interviews and answering technical (and some non-technical) questions, so I’m glad that my fellow evangelist Ruth Morton took most of these pictures. Also present was another evangelist on my team, Barnaby Jeans, who held court at a banquette as people came to him to find out more about Windows Azure:

Barnaby Jeans and Michelle Michalak.

Barnaby Jeans and Todd Lamothe.

It was a full and lively room…

Everybody to the tapas!

…with some of the brightest lights in our local tech scene…

Sandy Kemsley, Leigh Honeywell and Valerie Fox.

…and these guys, too! (I kid because I love, gentlemen!)

Colin Melia, Steve Syfuhs, Jean-Rene Roy, Mark Arteaga and a guy I can’t identify.

I’d like to thank:

• The developers: Alex Yakobovich, Alexey Adamsky, Barranger Ridler, Mark Arteaga, Mike Kasprzak and Shawn Konopinsky, for building those apps and showing them off so well.
• Our PR company, High Road Communications, and especially Chantelle Bernard and Allison Colalillo for organizing the event. I always say: if you’re ever invited to an event held by High Road, you must RSVP “yes”.
• Ruth Morton for helping me out by taking pictures and directing me to people who wanted to ask me questions or look at my Windows Phone.
• The people at Kultura, who were gracious hosts and made great food and drinks!

This is Only the Beginning

For the developers who showcased their apps, this is only the beginning. They’re going to continue polishing them, and soon the Windows Phone 7 Marketplace is open up and they’ll submit them for approval. For them, the next few weeks look something like this:

1. Register at the marketplace today.

2. Finish their application or game using the Beta tools.

3. Download the final Windows Phone Developer Tools when they are released on September 16th.

4. Recompile their app or game using the final tools.

5. Have their XAP ready for ingestion into the marketplace in early October when it opens.

For the Developer and Platform Evangelism Team at Microsoft Canada, this is only the beginning. We’ve got a cross-Canada conference starting next week, and Windows Phone 7 is going to be one of the big topics. It offers the most bang for the tech conference buck; if you haven’t registered for it yet, do it now!

We’re also looking for more Windows Phone 7 developers and their apps, and we want to showcase them! Do you have a Windows Phone 7 app that you’re working on? Drop me a line and tell me about it!

For you, this can be the beginning. The mobile platform is still new ground, and Windows Phone 7 is a great mobile platform for both developers and users. Download the developer tools today, check out some tutorials and make your mark!

This article also appears in Canadian Developer Connection.