WP8 Devs - where are they ?

[ohgood]

logged into xda this morning, and hit the wp8 'general' section. not much happening, so i tried the 'dev' section. ghosttown.



on what forum are all the cool kids (developers) hanging out ?

 

[rob45]

logged into xda this morning, and hit the wp8 'general' section. not much happening, so i tried the 'dev' section. ghosttown.



on what forum are all the cool kids (developers) hanging out ?

 

[rob45]

It is a Catch 22 situation. I have asked several developers of my favorite apps if they are going to do WP versions. All have said the market is too small to justify the expense.

Rob

 

[ajua]

I'm just starting to write some test apps to get used to WP8 and WP overall. I think they will be more devs coming as time passes, specially once MS can unify some of the tools to write apps for Win8 and WP8 using the same code. As of now, we can share some code, but tru unification will help WP8 gain more devs.

 

[ohgood]

It is a Catch 22 situation. I have asked several developers of my favorite apps if they are going to do WP versions. All have said the market is too small to justify the expense.

Rob

i hear that too- but they _have_ to be hanging out somewhere. there are a TON of really smart guys/gals that code for m$ daily. the unification part seems to be key ( i guess ?) so they can write it one time and apply it to tablet/slate, desktop, and phone all at once ?


maybe that's going to be the big deal-io with wp9 / or blue, whichever ? pure speculation, here.

 

[MrA2Z]

Before WP8 there was lot of activity going on in xda forums for WP7. But now it is ghost town due to the following problems.

The first hurdle is developer account for which devs have to pay $100 to MS for testing their apps on their own phones. Some developers went for that though it was unfair.

For WP8 the big hurdle is supporting hardware and software. Most of the dev community is still using Windows 7 whereas WP8 applications can only be developed on Windows 8. They need latest hardware which should have SLAT and Hyper-V support to test their apps on windows phone emulator.

Due to all this, it is not attracting the homebrew community which was a big force behind the development of Windows Mobile and Symbian.

 

[AngryNil]

I don't feel XDA has ever been a huge spot for "ordinary" developers. It's always been about hacking and the development related to it; no one's really been able to crack open WP8.

 

[Shoulders]

For WP8 the big hurdle is supporting hardware and software. Most of the dev community is still using Windows 7 whereas WP8 applications can only be developed on Windows 8. They need latest hardware which should have SLAT and Hyper-V support to test their apps on windows phone emulator.

Exactly my findings. I upgraded my aging laptop to W8 Pro, so that i could start developing, only to find 32bit wasn't supported. Then Work bought me 64bit Pro laptop, only to find Hyper-V isn't supported on it. I can still develop on this machine, but cant use the emulator, so have to have a device attached.

This us why there are so many developing on Android. Eclipse runs on any version of anything (Win and Mac) and you only need a developer account to publish to the market. So you can code, test and run on your own device without it costing a penny.

 

[ChMar]

Exactly my findings. I upgraded my aging laptop to W8 Pro, so that i could start developing, only to find 32bit wasn't supported. Then Work bought me 64bit Pro laptop, only to find Hyper-V isn't supported on it. I can still develop on this machine, but cant use the emulator, so have to have a device attached.

This us why there are so many developing on Android. Eclipse runs on any version of anything (Win and Mac) and you only need a developer account to publish to the market. So you can code, test and run on your own device without it costing a penny.

Google app store has a lot of crap in it. 1 in 7 apps is a malware just because it's so easy and tempting to do such. That is why apple and Microsoft products are more secure and with higher return of investments for apps(people will more likely buy apps on those platforms while they perceive that android should only have free and add supported apps). So I won't bash apple or Microsoft policy on the annual developer account payments(Blackberry is doing that too).

I have a 64 bit Dual-core CPU on my laptop(My desktop rig is a different story) so it has no SLAT support so no emulator. But I can use the emulator just fine from the windows server without the need of SLAT support in my CPU. So there are options beside changing your hardware you just have to know your stuff and find workarounds. So consider using the SDK from the server edition of windows and you are good to go to use the emulator.

 

[finiterex]

I think we have to consider WP8 as a version 1 OS. The app and dev availability is much like it was for IOS when that was in its first versions. I think we'll see greater maturity in the SDK and DEV tools (including integration) when we're at version 2 (8.5?? 9??).

Another key question here is going to be whether current WP8 HW will be upgraded to WP8.5, 9 etc similar to IOS devices. I assume so as MS is so tightly controlling the HW platform spec.

On Android - its open source and yes this appeals to "quick and dirty" dev hence appealing to the low-end of the mass market and emerging economies (which long term means it may well stay dominant) but quality (inc security) as a result is a massive concern.

Where, IMHO, WP (likely later coming versions/SDK/Dev tools) will win will be the high-end consumer market (where IOS currently dominates) and more importantly - business who want a mobile end point they can easily dev for AND manage using tools in the MS portfolio (think EA Licensing here).

 

[Boris Gong]

I work with our dev team, but they also have difficulty finding a WP community.
Generally they just write to someone in Microsoft Developer Relation, and only a few problems can be solved.

It seems not about language,but the whole WP developer community has been falling apart.

We developed an open-API for inter app calls, so we can let other apps open downloaded files.
But we can't find a way to let other app developer know...

 

[rockstarzzz]

Have you checked MSDN forums?
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/ is for development.
XDA is for hacking, cracking.

For $99 a year, why would anyone hang out at XDA where it's mainly launcher and skins business?

 

[Boris Gong]

Have you checked MSDN forums?
MSDN is for development.
XDA is for hacking, cracking.

For $99 a year, why would anyone hang out at XDA where it's mainly launcher and skins business?

Yes MSDN is our main source. But it's more of a blog + document + troubleshooting site.
And most of the time MVP can only tell us "no can't do, WP don't support that/don't have that API/stay tuned"

We really need a place for discussion.

 

[rockstarzzz]

Yes MSDN is our main source. But it's more of a blog + document + troubleshooting site.
And most of the time MVP can only tell us "no can't do, WP don't support that/don't have that API/stay tuned"

We really need a place for discussion.

You can't discuss in their forums? - MSDN Forums
I thought they encouraged discussions of that sort. When I started with a dreamspark account, I was encouraged to involve in discussion back in 2010.

You can of course bring your friends here and hang out at WPC Devs corner

 

[Boris Gong]

You can't discuss in their forums? - MSDN Forums
I thought they encouraged discussions of that sort. When I started with a dreamspark account, I was encouraged to involve in discussion back in 2010.

You can of course bring your friends here and hang out at WPC Devs corner

Yes I know they encourage it. They are nice ppl and we appreciate their effort.
But we just don't find it helpful... Maybe WP was still new or something, most of the time our problems cannot be solved.
As our Known-Bug-List grows longer, they just felt reluctant to share and discuss any more.

 

[ammarmalik2011]

Google app store has a lot of crap in it. 1 in 7 apps is a malware just because it's so easy and tempting to do such.

So judging by how many total apps there are in the Play Store, we're talking 100,000+ malware apps? I find that impossible to believe.

 

[Shoulders]

Google app store has a lot of crap in it. 1 in 7 apps is a malware just because it's so easy and tempting to do such. That is why apple and Microsoft products are more secure and with higher return of investments for apps(people will more likely buy apps on those platforms while they perceive that android should only have free and add supported apps). So I won't bash apple or Microsoft policy on the annual developer account
.

My point was more to do with Eclipse being completely accessible. WP8 SDK is not, and as such, not only do you have to invest in a handset to test with, but at the very least an OS upgrade (which has now gone up to ?200) or a new machine all together. This is before the developer account charge.

If they'd had make it work on Win7 I think we'd have a lot more apps by now.

Also, I completely agree with apps being vetted before appearing in the App Store (as long as it's not acting like a dictator, as Apple has sometimes). This is the main reason Google Play is full of crap and malware, lack of approval.

 

[finiterex]

The more i read the more I'm thinking things will dramatically improve with Windows Blue which does sound like the full standardisation of the OS across platforms. It wikk be interesting to see how RT fits into that and how MS plans to continue to support the legacy. I run an app support team for a large UK wide logistics firm and trust me none of our LOB apps are Win7 compatible let alone Win8 and there is no appetite across the industry to spend the millions needed to reengineer these core line of business apps. This is the key question to me:

Windows is so intrinsic to the operation of millions of LOB apps across millions of businesses. It also has to move forward to a "utility" type offering to harmonise and allow true write-once-run-anywhere that we've all dreamed of for years. The key here is how to fully maintain the legacy (i mean jeez I'm not the only guy supporting mission critical vb6 apps!) while also harmonising the OS across all platforms resulting in a single dev environment, single design language, single app store and the holly grail so to speak.

MS have a lot to do to get there but remember they are the only real player here (google and apple being the others) who have a massive 30+ year mission critical legacy to support too.

 

[ohgood]

could we please move back to topic? :


if you know of a good wp developer community, post it! this is definitely not a thread for android vs apple vs wp vs cows or any similarity. not a comparison thread, not a poll, not a fan hangout. I'm trying to find the active, hot spots of developement for wp. thanks !

so far I see:
msdn

 

[ChMar]

So judging by how many total apps there are in the Play Store, we're talking 100,000+ malware apps? I find that impossible to believe.

Actually this is only for Play Store and not counting all other markets there. And It is not impossible but probably giving though that android has never taken security in consideration(and the list of capabilities is a joke for average joe).

1.7M mobile apps analyzed: Users tracked and put at risk, and it's unjustified | ZDNet