Race2Surface

 

[Update 2 ]

The promotion is over. Check out my other promotion WriteOneGetOne

 

[Update]

Race2Surface has started. Here the leaderboard:

Developer	Number of Apps	Points
Dev1	6	12
G4MB10R	2	2
DYY	3	4
vivanov	4	7
yamspog	3	7
RAMP	1	1
Total	19

 

I’m back with an even more exciting promotion. After the great success of Phones4Apps, I’m spicing things up a little bit. Since Windows Phone is as awesome as Windows 8, you should develop for both platforms and you should own the best devices for both platforms. That’s why I’m giving away brand new shiny Nokia Lumia 800/900 and one Surface 64GB with touch cover as Grand Prize. Here the facts:

• The promotions starts January 1st 2013 and ends March 1st 2013
• For each app you submit you get points that count for the Grand Prize.
• The developer with the most points at the end of the promotion gets the Surface. (In case of a draw the submission date counts)
• The Grand Prize is only given if a total of 30 apps are submitted by March 1st, 2013.
• If you submit 2 apps you get a Lumia 800
• If you submit 4 apps you get a Lumia 900 (4 devices available – First-come, First-served)
• A leader board (anonymous if wished) will be posted as the apps coming in.

Some rules:

1) You must be a resident of British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Washington* or Oregon*

*Developer in US have to pay shipping and import fees for your prize.

2) The app must be submitted after November 1, 2012 to the Marketplace and must not submitted to any of my previous promotions.

3) Only one phone per developer.

4) The app must be a QUALITY app… What does that mean?  It means:

a) Must pass Marketplace Certification,

b) No Hello World, Picture Catalog / Resizer or Flashlight apps.

c) No more than 1 of your apps can be an RSS Reader

d) No multiple variants on a theme (travel/tourism, etc.)

e) The app must have a useful function.

5) You must be a member of DVLUP and your apps must be visible within DVLUP. (Ask me for registration codes.)

6) All Apps will be assessed by me and my decisions regarding validity in this promotion are final.

• 1 point for any app or game
• 2 points if it’s your very first app in the market (newbie reward)
• 2 points for each D3D or XNA game with multiple levels and game stats
• 3 points for each app that is available for Windows 8 as well
• 3 points for each app that is a companion app for a Windows 8 app

7) This promotion is being held by me, without any express written or implied consent or participation from any third party.

8) By submitting your apps to me for evaluation, you agree to hold me not responsible for any promotion, remuneration or other, expectations whether implied or inferred.  I am doing this to help developers, not looking for any problems.

9) The winners will be chosen by me.

How to Submit an App:

As soon as your app is in the marketplace, email me the deep link to your app to nokiaguy@outlook.com. Keep in mind that the quality of your app counts. Let’s start folks it’s a race!

Don’t forget that you can get submit you apps in DVLUP and the Developer Movement as well.

The shift from WPF/e to Windows/e

“Our strategy has shifted”  – the most famous statement in the Silverlight community. Here the quote form MJF’s post “But when it comes to touting Silverlight as Microsoft’s vehicle for delivering a cross-platform runtime, “our strategy has shifted,” Muglia told me.” That was one year ago but yet nobody really understood what the shift was about. One could think the HTML5 bandwagon Microsoft jumped on was this shift but we talking about app development here and not websites. In this environment HTML5 loses his platform independence and we are not talking cross-platform anymore. Apple knows it, Google knows it, everybody knows it; if an app wants to become native on a certain platform and wants to take advantage of its characteristics then the development model needs to be platform specific. HTML5 doesn’t change a thing on this fact.

So if the shift wasn’t about the programming model, what was it then? In my opinion the shift happens on a different layer, it happens right know with Windows 8 and is driven by WinDiv and Sinofsky. It is not about running WPF everywhere (aka Silverlight), it is all about running Windows everywhere. Windows 8 is just the first step on this journey and will be most likely a transition with its problems and flaws. However, the long term vision is to form a trinity of processor architecture, devices and application development. The first important steps to make this happen was to port the NT kernel to ARM, creating a new UI layer (Metro) and to unify native C++, .NET and HTML development into WinRT. Yes, this strategy causes some collateral damage (Silverlight /WPF) but we also get rid of some old enemies like Win32. However, since Silverlight got its genes into WinRT it will live on and run everywhere. While I should put a “highly speculative” – tag on this post, I have some facts that support my thesis.

• Microsoft constantly optimized MinWin to run on low-spec hardware
• Rumours about WP8 (code name Appollo) going to run Windows kernel
• Metro UI is the new standard WP7, Windows 8, XBox Dashboard
• MinWin port to to other CPU architectures makes it fit for XBox720
• DirectX is part of WinRT which is a must have for XBox

If I’m right ten Microsoft has to show us that MinWin performance well on different architectures and low spec hardware. They also have to show us how to implement business apps with Metro. At least in there future vision video  it is possible, which is all Metro by the way. It is hard to imagine but a unified Windows could drive all the devices in this video.

P.S. Oh WPF/e got a better name when it was released, maybe Windows/e gets also a new name. The name Windows 8 is not confirmed yet and as far as I know, there are no windows in Metro.

Update: Some more post backing up my thoughts here.

http://www.g4tv.com/thefeed/blog/post/718132/next-gen-xbox-rumors-points-towards-windows-9-and-arm-functionality-codename-loop/

http://www.pcworld.com/article/243321/microsoft_to_align_windows_phone_future_windows_oses.html

http://hal2020.com/2011/11/04/windows-phone-8-and-windows-8-cousins-or-siblings