Good friend, Clinton Fitch has posted his Open Letter to Windows Phone developers asking them to update their apps. I agree with his intent here. Many developers that jumped on board at launch last year have still not updated their apps to support new features offered by Mango and fix all the bugs that have found by your loyal users. The issues that Clinton highlights with Netflix and TripIt are frustrating, but could be easily fixed with an update – and without the new features offered by Mango.

A great many applications were not designed very well – basically, I’m saying that a large part of the developer community didn’t correctly implment tombstoning. This is the idea of saving your applications state once the program has lost focus, so that it doesn’t have to restart from square one when it’s next called upon. Because developers didn’t take the time to get this right, apps like Netflix don’t remember where you are in a movie if you happen to leave the app to quickly check on something.

The solution here doesn’t require multi-tasking at all. It just needs better application design and understanding from the developer on how it should work. Don’t get me wrong, I agree 100% that developers should be upgrading their apps to leverage the cool new features exposed by Mango, but they need to fix the bugs and design flaws along the way too. In fact, this is almost more important in my opinion. I would rather see an application with proper handling of session state during the tombstoning process, than one that has a series of cool live tile updates but can’t remember anything about where you were in the app when launched.

Take a read of Clinton’s article and share your thoughts. Don’t forget to pin the developer of your favorite app and asking them when they plan to release a Mango/updated version. Let them know you’re interested and appreciate their work, and I expect you’ll get much better response from them.

The first thing you need to be aware of, is that not everyone can load an application on their device that doesn’t come from the marketplace. In order to do this, the first thing you need to do is developer unlock the device. There are a ways to do this – the only official way is to signup for Microsoft’s developer program and along with that you will get the ability to developer unlock a few devices. To do this, you’ll need to pay a $100 registration fee to Microsoft. You can learn more about this, and sign up over at Create.MSDN.com.

So now you have a developer unlocked device, and you have your XAP file. Next, you’ll need the Windows Phone SDK too kit. This will provide you with the development environment needed to create new applications. While you may not be creating your own application, we need this SDK installed so we can gain access to the deployment tool. You can find the tools over on here. Download and install the SDK on your computer.

Now that you have the Windows Phone SDK installed, we can deploy that application to your device. First, connect your Windows Phone to your computer and allow the Zune software to do it’s thing. Once the sync is done, close the Zune application. Click Start and type “Application Deployment” (if you’re running Windows 7, otherwise it’s located under Start / Programs / Windows Phone Developer Tools / Application Deployment).

You will now be presented with the window above. Simply browse and select your XAP file. Make sure the Target is set to “Windows Phone Device” and not to the emulator. Then unlock your device by sliding up the lockscreen and entering your password – if you have a device password. Once unlocked, press the Deploy button and the XAP will be transferred to the device and installed. And – Presto! You’re off and running with your custom app on Windows Phone.

I’ve run into a couple issues with this procedure. It seems that Microsoft has a few bugs lingering in the software. If you do have any weird errors, try and correct whatever the error says is wrong. Also, try disconnecting the device, and then connect it again and allow the sync process to finish before closing Zune and launching the deployment tool. Finally, make sure the device is logged in and sitting at the Today / home screen.  Nothing major here – a little fiddling and you should be off to the races!

Anyway, if you already have a validated App Hub account you should receive an email with details on how to go about downloading the ROM and flashing your device. Unfortunately, only 1 device can be flashed per account. It would make more sense to me, if this number was the same as the devices that can be application unlocked under the account – current set to 3. Also, the update is only available in 23 countries. I’m not sure how these countries have been chosen, but I would guess that it relates to the countries where Windows Phone has already launched and is about to launch.

I’ll be flashing my device over the next few days and you can be sure that I’ll have more than a few things to say about the process and Mango. If you have any questions, feel free to post them here and I’ll do my best to answer them once I have the update running on my phone.

Unlocking the device will not remove the carriers lock, but it will remove the restrictions around applications being installed only though the marketplace. Consider this the same thing as jailbreaking your iPhone or rooting your Android device. Although, for now this is just for development purposes. I imagine it won’t take long for the community to figure out what change is being made and then provide their own lockdown removal.

Time is ticking along and we’re getting closer to the release of Windows Phone 7. While Microsoft is still saying “Holiday 2010”, it’s expected to hit around the fall. As you very well may expect, we will be keeping our eye’s on the launch and we’ll bring you all the details.

Source = Windows Phone Thoughts

David Wurster does a great job of describing where you’ll find ruggedized devices and what they are being used for. He continues on in a post over at the official Microsoft blog to describe the future of Windows Mobile and Windows Embedded. While you may not be aware of these devices, a great number of them are powered by some form of Windows, like Windows CE, Windows Mobile, or even Windows Embedded.

In the past the Windows Embedded Business (WEB) has controlled Windows CE and all the embedded efforts. Windows Mobile was part of the Mobile Communication Business (MCB) at Microsoft. Moving forward, Windows Mobile will be brought under the WEB group. The MCB will be left to control the more consumer products like Windows Phone 7, while WEB will continue to provide solutions for industrial devices. 

Since Windows Phone 7 was announced, there has been some uncertainty in the rugged space about what will be powering the next generation of devices, because Windows Phone 7 is much to consumer and lacks the development freedom that Windows Mobile and CE have provided. David’s post helps to clear that up and define what we can expect in the coming months. 

In the past, 3rd party applications had limited access to what XNA had to offer. Not only do apps have full XNA access, but they also will have internet access, and hardware based 3D acceleration.

This is all pretty new, so there isn’t much in the way of apps available yet. However, OpenZDK is available and provides some examle programs that you can try out including a 3D demo showing what’s possible with hardware acceleration. Head over to ZuneBoards and get all the latest details!

Oh, and in other Zune news, the new 64GB models have started shipping. You can order a customized version from Zune Originals for $349.99. (Image below shows the Halo 3 ODST artwork, a $15 addition)

There’s a lot of focus on multitasking these days, so I wanted to run through what Apple announced and what it means for developers and the applications you use every day. Apple’s focus was to find a way to allow multitasking but without allowing background processes that end up killing your performance and battery life.

“How are we adding multitasking while preserving battery life and performance. We looked at tens of thousands of apps in the app store, and we’ve distilled the services those apps need to run in the background. So we implemented those services, and we’re providing those services as APIs to developers so they can add multitasking while preserving battery life.” – Scott Forstall, SVP of iPhone Software via live.gdgt.com

The announcement goes on to define the seven (7) background services they are providing – Background audio, Voice over IP, Background location, Push notifications, Local notifications, Task completion, and Fast app switching. These are the only multitasking services exposed to the developer. Let’s quickly run down what each one of these can do for you:

1. Background audio – obviously, great for listening to music while using other applications
2. Voice over IP – pretty straight forward again, great for services like Skype
3. Background location – this will enhance applications like FourSquare as the app can automatically grab GPS co-ordinates while you’re not actively using it. Also a great advantage for turn-by-turn directions.
4. Push notifications – this has been in the product for the last 9 months,
5. Local notifications – this is based on the push notifications, but there is no server, they are local to the phone
6. Task completion – this allows the developer to put a task in motion and forget about it. For example, think of uploading a large file. The developer could code the app to upload that file in the background and this frees up the user to browse away from that screen. There doesn’t appear to be any way for the application to interact with that process once it’s launched. So it would effectively run to completion or until it times out.

Those are the only multitasking processes allowed at this time. While they are pretty nice features, there’s still no way for me to open my RSS reader, start it updating and then switch to email or browse the web while it downloads in the background. It’s great that Apple has released multitasking, but to be clear, it’s not full on multitasking. It’s a limited scope of features. This approach allows them to keep tight control over processes and applications and ensure that the device remains fairly stable. Perhaps Apple will release more ability in the future, but for now, there is limited multitasking ability.

Apple also seems to think that there’s no need for a task manager. This could prove to be a problem as they’re letting developers spin off task completion treads but there’s not way for the end user to manage those.  If they hang or maybe there’s too many being generated by an app, there’s no way to kill that process.

More details should be coming out over the next little while as developers download and test out OS 4.0.

Now’s a good time to get your feet wet on development for WP7s.  You still have time before devices ship, so you can make sure that your application will be in the marketplace and read for customers when the devices start to ship late this year.

Here’s a list of the current resources available:

• Visual Studio 2010 Express for Windows Phone 7 Series (Link)
• Windows Phone 7 Series eBook (Link)
• Windows Phone 7 Series Developer Documentation (Link)
• Windows Phone 7 Series Icon Pack (Link)

Mobile development for Windows Phone 7 will be based on Silverlight and the XNA Framework. This will provide a rich environment for internet based applications and game development. As expected, Windows Phone 7 will use the mobile marketplace to deliver applications to the device and providing developers with a 70% revenue share for applications sold.

Perhaps the single best piece of news is that Microsoft has listened and will be providing free Windows Phone Developer tools. For those that have been in the Windows Mobile space for a while, you will recall that there was a free tool that allowed you to develop directly for mobile. Around the release of version 5, it was removed and replaced with Visual Studio – and not the free version. This has been a pain point for many developers over the years and it’s something that I repeatedly brought to Microsoft’s attention whenever possible. Thankfully, they have seen the light and returned to providing free development tools for the mobile space. Expression Blend for Windows Phone and a preview of Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Express for Windows Phone will be available as a download from http://developer.windowsphone.com.

The full press release can be found after the jump.

LAS VEGAS, March 15 – Today at MIX10, Microsoft Corp. showcased advancements in its platform technologies that enable the developer and designer community to deliver compelling user experiences across a broad set of devices. Building on the excitement of the recently announced Windows® Phone 7 Series, Scott Guthrie, corporate vice president, .NET Developer Platform, and Joe Belfiore, corporate vice president, Windows Phone Program Management, detailed the opportunity for developers to use proven technologies such as Microsoft Silverlight and the XNA Framework to build new mobile applications and 3-D Games.

“As the browser, server, Web and devices evolve, a focus on delivering consistently great user experiences has become paramount,” Guthrie said. “By extending our familiar platform technologies and tools to phones, Microsoft is delivering the premier application development experience across a variety of devices and form factors.”

End-to-End Application Development Platform for Windows Phone 7 Series

During the keynote, Microsoft provided the first deep dive into Windows Phone 7 Series application development. By combining Silverlight features for rich application development and the XNA Framework for games, Windows Phone 7 Series empowers millions of developers and designers to build visually stunning and immersive applications and games — one of the industry’s most profitable mobile application categories — while taking advantage of device-specific capabilities. Specifically, developers will be able to take advantage of the following features:

• Accelerometer, an intuitive control that responds to motion
• A Microsoft Location Service to provide developers with a single point of reference to acquire location information
• Microsoft Notification Service for pushing information to the phone, regardless of whether or not an application is running
• Hardware-accelerated video with digital rights management (DRM)
• Internet Information Services Smooth Streaming for the industry’s highest quality content viewing experience
• Multitouch
• Camera and microphone support

“Windows Phone 7 Series brings together a rich application environment, powerful hardware, a fresh approach to software and a smart new design,” Belfiore said. “It was designed to generate incredible opportunities for developers and designers to quickly and easily deliver compelling applications and games. With the best developer tools, an established ecosystem and marketplace, and a path for developers to use their Silverlight and XNA Framework skill sets, we are delivering an application platform that is simple, powerful and inspiring.”

Free Tools for Windows Phone 7 Series Developers and Designers

To further support an end-to-end development experience, Microsoft announced the availability of comprehensive tools support for Windows Phone 7 Series. The easy-to-install package includes previews of the following:

• Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Express for Windows Phone
• Windows Phone 7 Series add-in to use with Visual Studio 2010 RC
• XNA Game Studio 4.0
• Windows Phone 7 Series Emulator for application testing
• Expression Blend for Windows Phone Community Technology Preview (available as a separate download)

A Marketplace for Windows Phone 7 Series Applications

Microsoft also showed how developers and designers will be able to bring applications and games to market with a new Windows Phone Marketplace. The Marketplace features a panoramic design and active merchandising to increase the discoverability of games and applications, and supports one-time credit card purchases, mobile operator billing and advertising-funded applications. The Marketplace will also enable customers to try applications before buying them and allow developers to cross-promote their applications through deep linking.

Several leading companies will be creating exciting applications and games for Windows Phone 7 Series. They include The Associated Press, Archetype International Inc., AWS Convergence Technologies – WeatherBug, Citrix Systems Inc., Clarity Consulting Inc., Cypress Consulting, EA Mobile, Fandango Inc., Foursquare Labs Inc., frog design inc., Glu Mobile Inc., Graphic.ly, Hudson Entertainment Inc., IdentityMine Inc., IMDb.com Inc., Larva Labs, Match.com LLC, Matchbox Mobile Ltd., Microsoft Game Studios, Namco Networks America Inc., Oberon Media Inc., Pageonce Inc., Pandora Media Inc., Photobucket Inc., PopCap Games Inc., Seesmic, Shazam Entertainment Ltd., Sling Media, SPB Software Inc., stimulant, TeleCommunications Systems Inc., Touchality LLC and Vertigo Software Inc.

Continued Innovation With Silverlight and Expression Blend

Microsoft announced a release candidate (RC) for Silverlight 4, available for download today, which builds on the beta version released at the Professional Developers Conference in November 2009. The Silverlight 4 RC provides powerful media and enterprise application and media capabilities, out-of-browser flexibility and world-class tools support via Visual Studio and Expression Blend with Sketchflow to enable robust application development and rich interactive experiences.

In addition, Microsoft unveiled the Expression Blend 4 Beta, a design and development workflow tool. New features such as Path Layout enable developers and designers to build and animate innovative user interface design via a groundbreaking visual layout mechanism, without the need to write code. Expression Blend 4 Beta also adds support for Silverlight 4, .NET Framework 4 and Visual Studio 2010.

Silverlight Customer Adoption

Silverlight adoption has continued at a rapid pace with installations approaching 60 percent of all Internet devices worldwide — an increase of nearly 15 percentage points in just four months. Customers such as Major League Soccer, BBC, eBay Inc., Netflix Inc., NBCOlympics.com and CT Corp., a Wolters Kluwer business, demonstrated how they are taking advantage of the power of Silverlight to deliver compelling consumer and enterprise experiences.

“Microsoft Silverlight technology will be the backbone of the video platform on our newly launched MLSsoccer.com,” saidChris Schlosser, director of digital strategy for Major League Soccer. “Our work with Microsoft allows us to launch cutting-edge digital and mobile experiences for our loyal fans. As part of our increased focus on digital media, we view a rich video experience as absolutely critical to accomplishing our goal of ‘super serving’ MLS supporters.”

All the latest from MIX10 is available at http://live.visitmix.com/press.

Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) is the worldwide leader in software, services and solutions that help people and businesses realize their full potential.

For many, the issue with emulators is how to get your data or application on to it. So I thought I would run through installing emulators as well as how to copy your applications to the emulator. Before we begin, you’ll need to download the following things:

• Microsoft Device Emulator 3.0 – Standalone Release (Download here)
• Windows Mobile Emulator Images – Pick any 1 or all of the following:
  • 6.5 Standard and Professional (Download here)
  • 6.1 Standard and Professional (Download here)
  • 6.0 Standard / Professional (Download here)
  • 5.0 Smartphone (Download here) / Pocket PC (Download here)

Once you have the emulator and all the images downloaded we can begin the installation. The first thing you need to do, is install the device emulator. Once that’s installed, you can move along to installing the emulator images that you want to use. I have found that installing 6.5 over 6.1 tends to break the emulator image. This can be fixed by running repair on the 6.1 image. If you’re only installing 6.5 images then you don’t have to worry about that.

Once you have things installed, you will notice your have a couple new items in your Start Menu. In my case, you can see the Windows Mobile 6.5 Professional and Standard images listed. Each emulator image has the screen size and type of OS in the name. So you can be sure about what image you need to run before you actually launch it.

Upon running one of emulators, you will see an image of a device appear on your desktop. The screen will be blank, but if you wait a minute or so, it should automatically start booting up the device. I’ve found that initial boot on the emulators can take a good 4 or 5 minutes. Once you’ve started the image, you can always choose to save the state when you close it so that it doesn’t have to restart every time you want to use it.

Tip: If you’re running a tablet, feel free to grab your stylus and get busy with the emulator image. It works just like using a regular stylus on the device would.

Now that we have the emulators up and running, let’s get WMDC / ActiveSync setup so that we can easily get files to and from these emulators. To do this, launch Windows Mobile Device Center or ActiveSync (depending on your version of Windows). Edit the Connection Settings page and place a checkmark beside “Allow connections to one of the following:” and then select DMA from the drop down list.

Now we just need to tell the emulator to connect and we’re golden. For whatever reason, after installing the standalone device emulator, there is nothing added to the start menu. Which isn’t really a big deal as you can run the emulators just fine. However, in doing this, they missed providing an easy way for people to access the Device Emulator Manager. To run this, browse to C:\Program Files\Microsoft Device Emulator\1.0 and look for the file called dvcemumanager – this is the Device Emulator Manager. Launch it, and while you’re at it, copy a shortcut to the desktop or someplace handy. When the window opens you should see a list of all running emulators. If you don’t have one running, head back up a couple paragraphs and get one started.

Remember that you can only have 1 ActiveSync’ed device at a time. That continues to be true with the emulators. While you can run multiple emulators at the same time, only 1 can be connected over ActiveSync or WMDC at a time. To get this connected, right click on the emulator and select Cradle. That’s all there is to it. WMDC / ActiveSync will start the connection process and the emulator will appear in your file manager like any real device would. You can copy files to it, install applications, and tweak away without worry or causing harm to your everyday device.