Target Windows Phone 7 or Windows Phone 8?

[JoelBennett]

One of the things I've been a little curious about is the market share of Windows Phone 7.x vs Windows Phone 8 (in comparison to each other). Given that devices like the Lumia 520 are running Windows Phone 8, and they seem to be picking up in popularity, I'd be curious to see the effect that it is having on the number of WP7.x devices vs. the number of WP8 devices.

I guess getting to the real root of the question: Is it generally better to target WP8 vs. WP7.8? I can see the appeal of going straight to WP8, but is there still enough market for an app that will run on WP7?

 

[crash1989]

The last I head WP7 was at 30% ... I personally went with WP8 for my apps. It depends, if you are using storage api and other stuff there might be differences but overall it is not too difficult to develop for WP 7 and WP8 together.

 

[Chris_Kez]

Latest AdDuplex data shows WP8 with 70% share worldwide, 80% share in the U.S. Ideally you'd support both 7 and 8, but if you could only support one for some reason then it would be 8.

AdDuplex Blog: AdDuplex Windows Phone Statistics Report for October 2013

 

[Coreldan]

Indeed, WP8 has already passed WP7 a while back and it will obviously keep doing so in the future too. I don't see any apparent reason to target WP7.

 

[xandros9]

are there any compatibility problems between WP8 and apps built for WP7?

Also, I guess it depends whether you would need the additional capabilities of 8

 

[JoelBennett]

Awesome! I wasn't aware that there were actual usage stats on 7 vs. 8. By the looks of things, I think I'll target WP8. Of course, I may be using this as an excuse to get myself a new phone...

One of the features I will be using heavily is the mapping services. I understand that with WP8, they ditched the Bing maps control and replaced it with something considerably better. There's also the improved speed of the new GeoLocation functions, which would also be very nice to use.

In case anyone is wondering what I'm up to, I'm looking at making a Windows Phone client for Pylons (an online service I'm starting): Pylons

 

[crash1989]

Awesome! I wasn't aware that there were actual usage stats on 7 vs. 8. By the looks of things, I think I'll target WP8. Of course, I may be using this as an excuse to get myself a new phone...

One of the features I will be using heavily is the mapping services. I understand that with WP8, they ditched the Bing maps control and replaced it with something considerably better. There's also the improved speed of the new GeoLocation functions, which would also be very nice to use.

In case anyone is wondering what I'm up to, I'm looking at making a Windows Phone client for Pylons (an online service I'm starting): Pylons

You can use Nokia's Developer Tools too like Here Maps Api, Nokia Music Api etc ... easy to plugin to your apps too and you get cool rewards on dvlup too

 

[JoelBennett]

You can use Nokia's Developer Tools too like Here Maps Api, Nokia Music Api etc ... easy to plugin to your apps too and you get cool rewards on dvlup too

Someone else linked to that this morning as well, so I signed up. Pretty slick way of motivating devs...