Windows Phone App Policies - windows-phone-8

I'm trying to publish an app for Windows Phone 8.1 and 10 (Only Mobile),
I already published a lot of apps on the same account. This is the same of another already on the store with just a different icon (different customer, it's B to B) and name, but from the 16 of october the policy for the windows store changed and now my app is blocked with the following reason:
App Policies: 10.1 Inaccurate Representation
Your app and its associated metadata must accurately and clearly
reflect the source, functionality, and features of your app.
•All aspects of your app should accurately describe the functions,
features and any important limitations of your app, including required
or supported input devices. Your app may not use a name or icon
similar to that of other apps, and may not claim to be from a company,
government body, or other entity if you do not have permission to make
that representation.
•Your app must be fully functional and must provide appropriate
functionality for each targeted device family.
•Keywords may not exceed seven unique terms and should be relevant to
your app.
•Your app must have distinct and informative metadata and must provide
a valuable and quality user experience.
Locations: Metadata
Notes To Developer
The app's "pin to start", "app list", or "games hub" icon does not
accurately represent the app and/or is a default icon. The
"pin-to-start" tile submitted in the submission package, which is
different from the icon and tile images in the app metadata, must
uniquely represent the app so users can associate it with your app.
For information about icons and tiles in Windows apps, see
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windowsphone/develop/hh202948(v=vs.105).aspx.
I searched on the internet but I didn't find anything useful for this problem and I don't get what are those "pin to start", "app list", and"games hub" they are talking about in the Note to Developers.
Anyone knows the solution?
Thanks in advice

Based on your description, it seems that you haven’t set the title images for your app. So I would like to suggest you to delete all of icons in your project and open Package.appxmanifest in Visual Studio and select the Visual Assets. Please make sure to replace all default titles with the correct size image that represents your app. And then you could need to create your app package and resubmit your app again.
By the way, if your project is UWP, you could use UWP Title Generator tool to generate correct size title quickly.
Update:
As your project is Windows Phone Silverlight 8.1, firstly, please prepare the correct size title, and then right-click Assets--choose Add--Existing item, you can choose the correct size title to replace the default title.
Then right-click Package.appxmanifest, choose open with--XML(Text)Editor, then you could need to make sure that the path of title is correct.
Finally, you may need to rebuild the project in order for the tile titles to show up properly.
Hope it is helpful to you.

Related

HTML5 website running while phone screen is off?

Basically, my question is the same than this topic but it's now 2018. So, how can I still have ECMAScript executed on my phone (to send geolocation position) even if it is asleep? We now have Open Web Apps and Progressive Web Apps (PWA) with service workers, even Apple is jumping in, I'm sure there are ways to do that.
While we can hope that things should've changed on this, unfortunately, it has not.
This article from Google on PWA GeoLocatoin API dated Jan-2018 says clearly that this API works "only while the page is open".
Why not available yet (in my opinion)? Thinking of users privacy, it makes sense. Think of tons of wep pages we visit and for how many we tend to five permission accidentally or we intend to give for a while(until we finish some transaction/booking). Currently there is no way for us to go and check on all location permissions that we've given to web sites in a browser, like we do for Native/Hybrid apps and having option to change it.
We can expect to have tracking option for PWA when it is installed to home screen, where native app like permission handling will be possible to user.
End of the story, we are not there yet!!
Alternate option: While you can use navigator.geolocation.watchPosition to track the user when he is actively using the app, You can complement your app with a separately installed (Native) Android service to update the users location to your back end server, till PWA supports naively.

Difference between Hide and Unpublish in Windows Phone Dev Center

I want to remove/hide my app from the public Windows Phone Store.
In the Windows Phone Dev Center, on the app page, there are two different options:
Hide app in Store
Unpublish
What is the difference between these two? How should I choose, or maybe do both?
Hide from Store: The app is in a unlisted state, this means users can't find it using built-in seach function of the Store, moreover the app won't apper in Store spotlight. Actually users are still able to download/rate it and, if search engines (Google, Bing...) indexed the Store page, users will easily reach that page.
Unpublish: It really removes the app package you previously uploaded, so that new users won't be able to download it. However,
neither this option can perform a forced uninstall of the app from
users who have it on their phones. If they decide to uninstall it,
they can reinstall as your app still appear under "My
Apps" section of the Store.
So I would exclude the first option, usually it's used when you want to limit distribution of the app. Go with the second one, but keep in mind that old users can use the app whenever they want.
Hiding an app only removes it from the search. Someone who knows the direct url to your app will still be able to download it. Unpublishing removes the app entirely, making it impossible to be found or downloaded.
If you unpublish the app, it'll be hidden de facto, so you don't have to do both.

AppManfiest.xml vs WMAppManifest.xml

Can any one explain me the difference between AppManifets(to my understanding it is .net package info) and WMAppManifest(to my understanding information about the app) ?
Thanks.
AppManifest.xml describes the deployment of your app (libraries and such).
This page describes it better than I can.
What is AppManifest.xaml in Silverlight?
WMAppManifest.xaml describes the
Application UI
Change your display name, and icons here.
Capabilites
Change what permission you want to ask the user to allow your app to do.
Requirements
Set a specific settings that the phone must meet, like having a front camera.
Packaging
Set various settings for submitting to the App store.

Not able to install app made using App studio Windows phone 8

Initially I was able to install on my lumia 620 apps made using app studio.
Now I'm getting the following error.
"We haven’t been able to contact the Microsoft Corporation company account to make sure you can install this app. Make sure you’re connected to a mobile or WiFi network, and we’ll try again as soon as we can.
Unfortunately, it may take a couple of days before we can make that connection. If you continue to have trouble contact your company’s support person for help."
I'm in India and I'm using the same live account I used earlier.
Take a look at this : How do I get my app on my Windows Phone device?
It explains in details all the steps you need to do.
For Windows Phone 8.1
As well as various 3rd party QR Code readers you can use, you can also use Bing vision by doing the following. Open your camera on your Windows phone. Press the “Lenses” button Search icon( Sometimes the lenses button won’t be bound to your screen, you can do this by pressing the three dots and adding it to your bindings ) From here, a new menu will appear with various lenses listed. Choose Bing Vision.
Remember that by clicking “install” you download the app. By clicking Tap to open, you add the company certificate. It pushes you back to “Install company app” at that point, but you do not have to do it a second time. At this point, go to your app menu and you will see your app. Point the phone’s camera at the QR code that opens with the certificate link, and the phone will automatically scan it. Click “add” and the certificate is successfully installed once it returns to the original Install the certificate page.
...... CAN'T UNDERSTAND THIS FULLY. PLEASE EXPLAIN

WP8 Folder Access

Can an app access and create a specific folder in the Windows phone 8 environment? I'm looking at building an audiobook player app and want to allow the user to drop these into an audiobook folder on the phones drive itself instead of mixing with the music folder. Could an app at least read from a specific folder outside its isolated storage?
Secondly, if so, is there any equivalent of the ".nomedia" file in Android that my app could insert into the folder to exclude the audiobook folder from being scanned by the music players on the phone?
I'm struggling to find the appropriate documentation that will answer my questions, as most documentation seems specific to WP7
RE: .nomedia file
Overall what you're asking for isn't supported and isn't complimentary to the zen of WP8. While I understand your need to create a unique music experience the WP8 media ecosystem is centered around the Music+Video hub and apps should work with it. Creating an experience like you were describing would just feel disjointed and jarring on WP8.
RE: letting users drag & drop files in file explorer
Some WP8 phones support having a Micro-SD card added to the phone. That uSD card can be accessed from File Explorer and WP8 apps can read files from it. The uSD card can have a folder called "Music" which would be used by the Music+Video app and invisible to 3rd party apps. However, your app can read any files that aren't in those uSD reserved folders. You can signup to file extensions but most media WP8 file extensions are reserved for 1st party experiences.
RE: Music Hub Integration
Please make sure to integrate your music player into the Music+Video hub otherwise it'll likely get downvoted to oblivion.