I have been programming for windows since about v2.1 and am interested in some apps for the phone now that it seems to be coming of age.
Search as I might, I cannot find a developer's unlocked version of a phone other than CDMA one and I can't use that as there is only AT&T and TMo available out here in the boonies.
Buying a dev's version for Android was simple as going to Moto's site and dropping one in the shopping cart.
If msoft are wondering why there are so few win-phone devs and/or, they might start looking at how hard or easy it is to get started. I have installed the SDK and the emulator is OK, but not something I would trust enough without testing it on my own phone.
Any helpful thoughts and suggestion on where to get a phone that it is not against the warranty to unlock?
You can use any windows phone as long as it supports the OS version (windows phone 8/8.1 is not supported in the older models) you're coding for. You don't need a developer version of a phone.
You need a developer's account though (should be 20/year now) and take a look at this page for registering your device. For older devices you need Zune software but it's not needed for windows phone 8 and up.
And if you want to use a real device for testing, without wanting to buy a device, you could use the Remote Device Access service
With it you can use a real device (located in Tampere/Finland) over the internet with your browser. Limitations include the lack of physically touching/rotating the device, and that calls/SMS are disabled both incoming & outgoing ones.
Related
TLDR: Can the Chrome Bluetooth API be used on the Windows mobile platform?
I'm on a quest to find a solution for bluetooth connectivity across various platforms.
We plan on having native iOS and Android versions for our app, and a web app for other platforms (limited time and budget).
The setup of our product requires a one-time bluetooth connection to configure a wireless connection if necessary. This is fine for the iOS and Android versions of the app, but presents a problem for desktops/laptops or Windows mobile users.
The option for our device to act as an accesspoint has been considered, but it's not a very user-friendly solution. It needs to be easy enough your grandmother can set it up, and switching to another wireless network doesn't qualify.
In my research, I've come across the Chrome Bluetooth API available in Chrome Browsers starting in version 37. I'm wondering how accessible this would be for, say, the Windows mobile crowd. Or laptop and desktops running Windows, ChromeOS, etc.
Thanks in advance!
First, that api is not available to the web, it is available for Chrome Packaged Apps, which are published to and installed from the Chrome Web Store (they do not have a URL you can just visit).
Second, I do not think that Chrome Apps are available for windows mobile, though they are supported for all the desktop platforms. (Make sure that the bluetooth api support you need is fully support across all platforms, though, since there are some limitations).
Finally, there is ongoing work for an upcoming web-bluetooth api which will be available for the open web -- but that is some ways away.
Best of luck.
Is it possible to tap a windows phone to a NFC reader connected to a windows laptop running a windows store app?
what I want to achieve is to send a message from windows phone to windows store app, and trigger a registration action.
any advice will be greatly appreciated.
Yes, it's fully supported through the Windows.Networking.Proximity APIs. However, the problem you may hit is that it's difficult to find desktop/laptops that support NFC proximity. You can easily find NFC readers that can read smart cards and tags, but most of these don't support proximity.
The only USB dongle I've seen that supports proximity is this Sony one, however I've also heard that there are reliability problems with it: http://www.sony.net/Products/felica/business/products/RC-S380.html
I know this is a very basic question but I really want to know if regularly testing your app on windows phone 8 developer unlocked device adversely affects the device performance and working or in some manner can affect device?
I've done this on 3 separate phones and I've never noticed any difference!
If your apps are all well behaved and you don't reach the limit of 10 such apps installed on your phone then the answer is no. If you do have 10 such well behaved apps installed then you will not be able to test more apps until you uninstall one of the previous apps.
If your apps are badly behaved with memory leaks, battery hogging etc. then of course they will adversely affect your phone until you uninstall them.
If you develop very large apps which use large amounts of storage then you may run out of storage on your phone until you uninstall them.
If you are trying to develop some kind of phone app virus and you succeed then again installing (which will happen automatically if you test on the device) will install the virus on your phone. Hopefully such an app would fail MS certification.
I Have windows phone 8 And I want to Develop apps and Deploy it Freely.is this possible.
Ya, max 10 developer app or unsigned apps are allowed to install in your phone.
I assume what you want to do is sideload the apps . For that you need to developer unlock you lumia620 first , which obviously is going to cost you.Please check price for developer unlocking you phone with microsoft.
Other than that it is impossible to load apps freely ,if it is not through App store.
Hope my answer helped you.
It is possible to load any number of unsigned xap files onto a Windows Phone device provided it is fully unlocked (interop unlock). How you go about getting your device to that state presents a challenge. So far, only the Samsung ATIV S has been unlocked to that level for Windows Phone 8.
Once you have fully unlocked your phone you effectively have free reign over your device being able to fully access components such as the registry or file system.
Both Samsung and LG have provided back door diagnostic tools on their phones that facilitate making the needed registry changes to completely unlock their phones. Whether such features are available on other brands has yet to be discovered.
If you are a software developer, you will probably want to get your hands on an ATIV S before they disappear.
I'm using gears.js and geo.js in an attempt to cover all grounds, in terms of finding the user's geolocation. So if the user is using something less than IE9, I would possibly prompt install for Google Gears, so I know for desktop, IE7 + is covered.
For the mobile devices I'm looking at geo
which covers quite a few mobile devices.
I'm wondering if there is anything which accounts for WP7 geolocation as well using JavaScript, and if there is better ways of handling GeoLocation for all devices.
Not entirely sure how Google Gears work for IE7/8 also, so any elaboration on that would be great. (I'm not assuming Gears is the only/best way forward though for non geolocation supported browsers, so any correction on that is fine!)
I ran into this today: http://geosenseforwindows.com/ it basically gives Wifi based geolocation to the Windows 7 Sensor API:
Geosense is a Windows Sensor that
provides the Location and Sensors
platform in Windows 7 with accurate
and reasonably ubiquitous positioning
information without requiring or the
assistance of GPS hardware, enabling
more practical location-based
applications and scenarios on Windows
7.
Unfortunately I don't think IE can access that Sensor API without resorting to COM calls in your javascript.
We also use the free/commercial GpsGate, which lets any browser on a Windows machine directly access a real hardware GPS device on the computer.
In answer to the WP7 part of your question.
There is CURRENTLY no way to get geolocation from in the browser in IE on Windows Phone 7. This should change when the next version of the browser is released.