Publishing a free app on WP8 store then make it not free - windows-phone-8

I need help with publishing an app me and my team developed. It currently is in beta phase and we need testers. We thought of publishing it in the store as an open free beta app and ask for people to download it and report their bugs. After all the testing bugs are fixed the app will go public as v1.0 but not as free. We do however want the people who originally downloaded it to get all the updates for free as a reward for their help of testing our help and never have to pay for the app. How can that be done?

As you probably know Beta App is different than 'Normal' App - so after finished test you need to publish new application (you can't change beta to normal).
What you are asking is called targeted distribution - you can hide App (you will need to submit one more App for that purpose) from users browsing the store, and send a link to those who you choose (Beta testers). But you cannot prevent such a situation when a beta tester send this link to other person. So you have to cosider it.
EDIT
You cannot do such a thing like in beta version - create a list of user that will be able to use it.
The other solution that comes to my mind - you can create 'Beta' App that is the same as Normal App and alow specific user to use it. The disadventage of this method is that Beta expires after 90 days.

Related

Updating a Windows Store App

I have an 8.1 app in the Windows Store and it is currently being bought and used by customers. I have made some changes to the app that I want to deploy out to my testers. From what I've read, I should update the app and set it's distribute and visibility to Hide and Prevent Acquisition so that only my testers can download it.
If I change the visibility in the update, does that mean that no one can download the previously deployed version anymore? The goal here is to involve testers in an automated fashion via the store without affecting the app in production until it's been tested and approved.
As far as I know, you can't do that.. if you, this will effect the whole submission (even the public)..
What I suggest to do (and all the beta apps providers are doing including me) is to create another app -submission- marked as preview and thought this you can submit any beta versions, and when a release is ready.. you can push the last beta to the public app :) .

How to deploy private apps to Windows Phone?

I'm looking to buy a Windows Phone smartphone, and am looking into the possibility for 'deploying' private apps. I currently own an Android system, and it's a simple as building an APK file, and adding it to the filesystem of any phone I want to install it on.
I realize there have been some questions around this subject 1, 2, 3. They seem to say you either need a developers account, or an enterprise edition. These questions are old, and possibly outdated. I've tried to find more information on the topic, but all I could find was related to enterprise, or beta testing.
I have no interests in getting a developer's account, because I don't intend to develop or sell larger applications on the marketplace. It's mostly for private use.
If there is no way to do this by default (without paying any fees), are that alternatives that don't involve losing warranty?
You can register yourself in Windows App Studio and you will get to unlock one phone for development and side load up to 2 apps.
Currently that is the only way to put custom apps in your Windows Phone for free and without losing warranty.
If you, however register for a developer accout (which as you know has costs) you will be able to side load up to 10 apps in 3 different devices.

Windows phone 8 - maintain free and paid app versions

I am developing an windows phone 8 application and want to maintain two versions of my app - free and paid. So that my app appear in both free and paid app sections.
Since these two applications will have different Product IDs, is it possible to buy paid app from inside the free app.
I know that if we use Trial API of WindowsPhone, we can purchase paid version from app itself and can unlock the features using IsTrial of LicenseInformation. But in this case your app doesn't appear in free section.
I want to allow user to buy paid app from free version say by clicking BUYNOW button in app and get the free version replaced by paid one automatically.
This is the exact scenario that Microsoft wants to avoid. They don't want to see duplicate apps in the market because it destroys the consistent user experience. Instead, you need to either use the Trial Library or release it for free and put an in app purchase to remove ads or add functionality.
Your only option is to maintain 2 apps one that limits functionality using IsTrial and the other with an in app purchase.
Some people have suggested this isn't allowed, but I've yet to find anything in the requirements documentation that says you can't do this. There's also quite a lot of examples of apps already in the store doing this.

What should I do to support testing of in-app purchases for the Windows Store App certification process?

I am building a Windows Store App using HTML5/JS (for Windows 8). I will be adding In-App Purchase capability to the app. I need to provide a way for them to test my app during the certification process but, I don't know what (if anything) I need to do to support this. MSDN and Google/Bing have been no help so far. Any help, guidance, or direction towards resources regarding this is greatly appreciated.
Let me narrate further in case my question is "too broad":
I need to add testing information during the Windows 8 App submission process to inform the testers at Microsoft how to test my app (this includes such things as test credentials for logging into the app). My problem is two fold:
I don't know if anything extra is needed on my part for them to adequately test my in-app purchase capabilities
If so, what do I need to provide? I'm not finding any information about this. If I need to provide testing information for in-app purchases, what information do they need?
This question is asking about what information (if any) I need to provide to the testers at Microsoft to adequately test the in-app purchase capabilities of my Windows 8 app during the Windows Store App certification process.
Please let me know if you need more details. I'll try to scrape some up.
You don't need to provide anything in my experience. I've had one app pass without anything explicitly called out for testing in-app purchases and I've seen several other apps that also passed without.

How do I deploy my box.net application

I have create an box.net application according to the documentation.
Now, I would like to share the application with my colleges. Does anyone knows, how I can make it? IMPORTANT, I dont want to deploy it in public.
Thanks in advance
It really depends on what kind of Application you've created. There are fundamentally 2 types of apps in the Box "App Marketplace"
1) Apps that run on a server at a URL you own. Box sends calls to you, either for file-actions (think right-click, open-with kinda stuff), or for webhooks.
2) Apps that are built for a specific device (like an iPhone or Android). They show up in our marketplace, but the download links take users to the itunes or an android store to download the app. These apps call into Box via APIs (see https://developers.box.com/docs)
If you've built a #1, then you need to figure out where you want to host the software you wrote. Box makes it easy to host it on Heroku, or CloudFoundry, or Parse, so you can get going quickly, without having to provision your own hardware, etc.
So, it really depends on what kind of application you've built.