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.
MEAP is short for “Manning Early Access Program”, a way for you to get an advance look at in-progress books by Manning Publications. Today only (Friday, October 1st), Manning’s .NET ebooks are going for half price! And yes, once the book is complete, you also get the final version of the book in ebook form.
Manning’s MEAP ebooks on .NET topics are:
ASP.NET 4.0 in Practice
Azure in Action
C# in Depth, Second Edition
Continuous Integration in .NET
Dependency Injection in .NET
Hello! Silverlight
IronRuby in Action
Microsoft Entity Framework in Action
Multitouch on Windows
SharePoint 2010 Site Owner’s Manual
SharePoint 2010 Web Parts in Action
SharePoint 2010 Workflows in Action
SQL Server DMVs in Action
Windows PowerShell in Action, Second Edition
All you have to do to get the discount is enter dotd1001 in the Promotion Code box when you check out. Now go get up to speed on some .NET topic and save money!
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
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.
Coffee and Code Today in Toronto
I’ll be at the Starbucks at King and Yonge (4 King Street West) from 11:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. with a Windows Phone 7 for you to play with and deploy your apps to. I’ll be at or near the big table in the back — come on down!
TechDays comes to Edmonton next week, taking place on October 5th and 6th, and with it will come CloudCamp Edmonton (October 4th) and Windows Phone 7 Coffee and Code Edmonton (October 7th). Watch this blog for more details!
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!
Today, Wednesday, September 29th, join “les bons gars”, Developer Advisor Christian Beauclair and Regional DirectorGuy Barrette, who’ll be holding a Coffee and Code at Le Café de la Citéon 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!
XNA is the game development framework that makes it easier to develop games for Windows, Xbox and Windows Phone, and it lets you do it with managed code – that is, using C# instead of C++. In this video, Microsoft’s Shawn Hargreaves and Charles Cox talk about all things XNA, including:
A test version of Smiles running on my WP7 device.
