Month: October 2010

Ottawa-based developer Peter Henry (you might have seen him speak at TechDays Ottawa last year, and he’s also presenting this year) wrote a simple Windows Phone 7 app called miFlashlight, submitted it to Marketplace and documented the experience for the benefit of his fellow programmers. When it comes time for you to submit an app to Marketplace, be sure to have Peter’s article, Anatomy of a WP7 Application Submission, handy – it’ll help!

This article also appears in Canadian Developer Connection.

Smiles is a matching-puzzle game developed by London, Ontario-based Mike Kasprzak that you’ll probably see in Windows Phone Marketplace. It’s got the gameplay, graphics, animation, sound and music that you’d expect from a puzzle game, and unlike most puzzle games with falling objects, rotating the phone changes the direction in which the pieces fall (this can get you out of a tight spot). This video shows Mike playing Smiles on a Samsung “Taylor” prototype Windows Phone 7 device that we loaned him so he could properly test it.

Mike got the opportunity to deploy his app to a real live Windows Phone (hard to come by – you could cut off both your pinkies and still have enough fingers and toes to count all the Windows Phones we have) and the opportunity to show off his app at the Windows Phone 7 blogger night in Toronto and here on this blog because he contacted me. If you’ve got a Windows Phone 7 app that’s done or nearly done, Drop me a line before October 18th and let’s see what we can do to make you a mobile app rock star!

This article also appears in Canadian Developer Connection.

Last month, we held a little party where we invited Toronto-area tech press and bloggers to meet some local Windows Phone 7 developers and see what they were working on. This video was shot at the party and features Yours Truly and the developers:

The developers featured in this video are:

• Mark Arteaga: Owner/developer at Redbit Development. He’s been building Microsoft-based phone applications since the Windows Mobile days, and he’s got some pretty interesting apps lined up for some pretty interesting customers – I’m sure you’ll see them soon. You may have seen him (or you will see him, depending on when you’re attending) at TechDays, where he’s doing a two–part series of sessions on WP7 development with Silverlight.
• Mike Kasprzak: Owner/developer at Sykhronics and the guy behind Smiles, a very charming, very addictive puzzle game.
• Barranger Ridler: Indie developer who built Where’s Timmy?, an app that tells you which Tim Hortons are closest to you, and the guy who wrote a WP7 app that won the August Twilio API contest. He now works with Mark Arteaga.
• Alexey Adamsky: Based in Ryerson University’s Digital Media Zone and working with Alex Yakobovich, he developed a 3-D version of Sudoku. If you thought Sudoku was a lot of work in two dimensions…
• Shawn Konopinsky: He’s with Nascent Digital and built Songbuzz, a social music sharing app.

We’re very happy to showcase the work of Canadian developers building Windows Phone apps. Want to join the ranks of the developers in the video? Got a Windows Phone 7 app that’s done or nearly done? Want to get a head start on everyone else trying to submit an app to Windows Phone Marketplace? Drop me – Joey deVilla – a line before Monday, October 18th!

This article also appears in Canadian Developer Connection.