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Calling all devs - Microsoft Details How to Port IPhone Apps to Windows Mobile

Hi All, Just thought i would share this here in a new thread. I posted it elsewhere in another thread but i thought it should receive more recognition. As iPhone does have a myriad of apps already that we could definitely use. If the developers here could read this and possibly help start porting some apps it would push our phones in the right direction and is the next necessary step in moving forward.
www.pcworld.com said:
Microsoft Details How to Port IPhone Apps to Windows Mobile
By Elizabeth Montalbano, IDG News Service
Microsoft has published a CASE STUDY detailing how to port an iPhone application to its Windows Mobile platform as it prepares to launch an online store for mobile applications to compete with Apple.
A post on The Windows Blog highlights a case study published on Microsoft's Microsoft Developer Network (MSDN) site containing a detailed technical blueprint that describes the porting of the iPhone application Amplitude to Windows Mobile 6.5. The report was created by a third-party consulting group, Crimson Consulting, and is meant to be a helpful document for developers as they build Windows Mobile applications for Microsoft's Windows Marketplace.
Amplitude is an iPhone app that picks up any sound in a user's immediate surroundings through a microphone, amplifies it and renders it on the device in a graphical representation. In particular, it can amplify sounds not normally picked up by the human ear, such as heartbeats.
According to the blog post by Constanze Roman, a Windows Mobile Community team project manager, Amplitude is well-suited for a porting project because it is difficult to port in a way that will provide a good learning experience for Windows Mobile developers.
"It combines a rich user interface with features such as alpha blending and transparency with specific audio and sound requirements, which makes it challenging to port the app but, at the same time, provides a number of helpful learning experiences," he wrote.
Microsoft plans to launch the Windows Marketplace for mobile applications in the fall, which in the U.S. means the late-September to late-December time frame. Last week Microsoft began accepting submissions of mobile-phone software applications for the site from registered developers in 29 countries. As an incentive, the company is offering prizes for the most popular applications as judged by downloads, revenue, usefulness and more. Apple already has a thriving marketplace for developers that build iPhone applications.
Microsoft President of Entertainment and Devices Robbie Bach acknowledged last week at the company's annual meeting of financial analysts that Microsoft's mobile business, centered around its Windows Mobile OS and development platform, did not perform well in the last fiscal year, losing market share while making modest gains in unit volume.
Apple's iPhone continues to leave most other competitors in the dust in the mobile space, and Microsoft has been struggling for some time to compete in this market. In fact, while Microsoft and most other tech companies continue to report declines across their business due to the recession, Apple is doing well financially, mainly because of its booming iPhone business.
In addition to the apps marketplace, Bach said Microsoft has a few ideas to improve its mobile business, including adding talent to the team and continuing to innovate on the platform without building its own hardware to compete with the iPhone, which analysts have suggested it should do.
Analysts agree that Microsoft needs more than an online store to boost its mobile business. Matt Rosoff, an analyst with Directions on Microsoft, said recently that Microsoft would serve itself well by making an acquisition in the mobile space, which is not completely unlikely given the company has been hoarding cash instead of buying back a lot of its stock, going against what analysts have expected.
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This kind of thread have been discussed many times & turn out to be a flaming thread instead.
There're many haters when you just mention the "iPhxne" in this forum, but too immature for their behavior.
Having great apps in any platform device have no wrong or restriction,
it's either users can accept it or not, like accepting another race in your own community.
But then let us see how many will these haters download the ported apps if was really done.
*Cheers*
Join me in here, so that there wont be any more flames.

This topic is currently being discussed in other threads. So... thread closed. Sorry.

Will WP7 help Microsoft set a high bar or play catch-up?

Many times Microsoft has promised and made it harder on the customers in the past when requirements were not met (which is quite normal) but it gets old. This time we are all excited about the new and improved ways of making things happen to satisfy the customers.Let's start with the release of Windows 7 - A new OS making the predecessor (Vista) an experimental stage. I personally am very excited with the introduction of WP7. Skeptics still reside but the satisfactory rates overwhelm the predicted fail rate by anti-Microsoft usersThe impressive displays of Windows Phone 7 mean well but the area currently failing ct will be the ease of creating apps and the approval process that's being reviewed. The application build process is changing along with the security and requirement. The platform itself can only make you want to see what this is about. With all changes the big question remains at the affordability mark. Yes it will be great to have from the beginning a great design and stable hardware to support the OS.The only competition to Microsoft at this point is not and never was Apple but Google with the Android. I mentioned those platforms because of the fast track they ran. The upcoming Windows Phone Series should set the bar at a level where no phone has been before. Yes it has been promised in the videos and demos but the actual users will determine if the product fits their needs or not. How does that issue get addressed without creating the same PC and Mac war?Microsoft has an edge on its competition (the integration of the Office products i.e. Exchange for Outlook e-mails and the whole Office suite management) with a platform already in place for the mobile devices management.Quite frankly, the Android Market makes the Windows Phone user nervous about their choice – It will be ideal to see an improvement from Microsoft since all hype is about the apps.Will the Windows Mobile Phone users be able to afford the new phones? Or will they have to wait in order to find out that the phone they were expecting to break records does not allow them the freedom fully explore all aspects?The competition is out there but delivering efficiently delivering to the customers. I am Windows Phone user and will expect more from WP7.

In my opinion I think it'll be both setting the bar high and playing catch-up at the same time. They're going to be playing catch-up in regaurds to features and APIs. However, I feel that the integration of all of their businesses into one platform can really be powerful if done right.
Xbox, zune, office, exchange, sharepoint, etc can be a deadly combination if done right.
You may notice how I keep adding that to the end "if done right". Because we don't have our hands on the finished product and they haven't had a chance to operate their app store the way that they are promising to. They have said that they are going to be a lot more transparent than Apple with approval.
I think that they have already demonstrated their desire to court developers so I'm not thinking that there will be an issue with a lack of applications. Sure, there won't be the 100,000+ of Android or the 200,000+ of iOS but there's going to be enough to launch the product.
As for the Mac vs PC war, I think Microsoft has all but won that but there is the issue of the "halo" affect. By putting out consistant hits with iProducts Apple has the chance of luring people away with Windows to their platform and I feel that Microsoft needs to step up their game in the consumer electronics field or when the kids that are obsessed with their iDevices grow up it could have an impact on their grip on the desktop OS market.

Bengal34 said:
In my opinion I think it'll be both setting the bar high and playing catch-up at the same time. They're going to be playing catch-up in regaurds to features and APIs. However, I feel that the integration of all of their businesses into one platform can really be powerful if done right.
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Exactly. It's already raised the bar in some areas - Apple is introducing its Game Center and adds Ping to iTunes, for example. Google is talking about improving the UI to make OEM shells unnecessary.
Yet in terms of features MS has a long road ahead.

WP7 has already set a higher bar. Apple went ahead and copied Xbox live and Zune Social. Created games center and ping.

powersquad said:
WP7 has already set a higher bar. Apple went ahead and copied Xbox live and Zune Social. Created games center and ping.
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Same thing I was thinking.

Nokia Maps comes to challenge Google Maps on iOS and Android

Nokia Maps is well known alongside Google Maps and Bing Maps though it’s been naturally exclusive to Nokia phones on the mobile scene. Starting today, the service is available to iOS devices (iPod Touch, iPad and the iPhone) and Android phones with HTML5-compatible browsers. This means that you’ll be able to use the browser-based Nokia Maps services (directions, searching for places, browsing maps) on your iOS or Android smartphone without the need to change camps.
Here’s the complete list of features you would get with the Nokia Maps HTML 5 website:
1. You can see where you are on the map, thanks to HTML5 support for positioning
2. You can find addresses, businesses and other places of interest, anywhere in the world
3. You can get to know the places: all the essential information about a place are presented on one page (pictures, user reviews, popular travel guides description, contact information)
4. You can plan the fastest route to your destination by car or on foot
5. You can see where the public transport lines go, and where the stops are
6. You can share your favorite places with your friends via SMS, email, Facebook or Twitter
This is a welcomed service and some even speculate it could bring some heat to its main competitors. If you’re browsing this article on your smartphone, feel free to check out this link below and see if the service is available for your device.
http://maps.nokia.com/#|42.696|23.4377297|11|0|0|normal.day?
source http://blog.gsmarena.com/nokia-maps-comes-to-challenge-google-maps-on-ios-and-android/#more-17632

Hahahahaha haha ha ha.
Some funny stuff that.
Its only on Nokia phones so hardware will spoil the experience.
But the main point is meego and symbian are being dumped/merged together for low end phones.
All high end Nokia phones will be running windows phone 7 so I can imagine micosoft will want their maps app on it.
I would if I paid 1 billion to a dying company.
Sent from my Tablet

[Q] Public Transit directions in Bing Maps?

Hey all,
I'm looking to get a WP7 in the fall, but I use public transportation and this will be a pretty crucial thing for me. Even my Palm Pre has public transit directions in its aged Google Maps app, and I know Bing Maps on the desktop has public transit directions, but I've heard that Mango will not have this feature. Any indication that it will be coming after all, or in a near-future update? Sadly, if not, I may have to reconsider WP7 just for that feature...
As an alternative, is there a WP7 app for SEPTA (Philadelphia) transit?

crassigyrinus said:
Hey all,
I'm looking to get a WP7 in the fall, but I use public transportation and this will be a pretty crucial thing for me. Even my Palm Pre has public transit directions in its aged Google Maps app, and I know Bing Maps on the desktop has public transit directions, but I've heard that Mango will not have this feature. Any indication that it will be coming after all, or in a near-future update? Sadly, if not, I may have to reconsider WP7 just for that feature...
As an alternative, is there a WP7 app for SEPTA (Philadelphia) transit?
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it has not been announced as a future feature, but I can't see why Microsoft would not add it in the future. Sadly, that leaves the question "when?".
As far as an app, you can always use Zune to search the Marketplace, or one of the many websites available dedicated to Windows Phone apps. Maybe they have what you are looking for, I know I've seen a few public transit apps before.

prjkthack said:
it has not been announced as a future feature, but I can't see why Microsoft would not add it in the future. Sadly, that leaves the question "when?".
As far as an app, you can always use Zune to search the Marketplace, or one of the many websites available dedicated to Windows Phone apps. Maybe they have what you are looking for, I know I've seen a few public transit apps before.
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Thanks for that. Maybe Ovi Maps will have it... and I was leaning Nokia, anyway.

Probably a little late, but gMaps for Windows Phone 7 has transit directions.

Nokia Maps has it. Just get a Nokia

Confessions of a Google junkie (or, Privacy? What privacy?)

the original link.....http://www.zdnet.com/blog/google/confessions-of-a-google-junkie-or-privacy-what-privacy/3553
Summary: A lot has been made of Google’s new privacy policy and terms of use. I say bring it on.
There are very few aspects of my life that don’t somehow involve Google. My phone runs on Android, my favorite tablet just got an OTA update to Ice Cream Sandwich (!!!), I use Chrome across all of my computers, I develop AdWords campaigns, I use Analytics to develop metrics for the day job and dive into SEO, I handle many of the CBS Interactive Google webcasts, I use Google Docs almost exclusively for productivity, and my wife doesn’t know where I am half the time until she checks my Google Calendar (which, in fact, aggregate two other Google Calendars).
I’m increasingly turning to Google+ as my source of relevant information and opinions, a function previously reserved for Twitter, and I’ve even dispensed with bookmarks, instead using Google Sites to organize important pages and resources.
I live, eat, breathe, work, and play Google and there aren’t many people more aware of Google’s business model and the amount of data it collects than I. So is it just sheer stupidity and naiveté that has me utterly embracing the Google ecosystem and relatively unconcerned about newly announced privacy policies that have caused so much consternation this week? Before you jump down to the talkbacks to tell me how stupid I really am, read on for another couple paragraphs.
As Larry Dignan pointed out in his post about the new policies last night,
Google noted that it already has all that data, but it’s now integrating that information across products. It’s a change in how Google will use the data not what it collects. In other words, Google already knows more about you than your wife.
From my perspective, though, I can live with Google knowing a lot about me. It knows, for example, that I’ve recently developed an obsession with the electric guitar and have been researching inexpensive models that I might just be able to justify as a birthday present to myself. It doesn’t judge, it just shows me the best deals in display ads on the three models of guitar and 2 models of amps I’ve been reading about the most. My wife isn’t aware of this obsession and her take on it would be judgmental (God love her!): “When will you have time to play guitar? And we’re supposed to be saving money! And what’s wrong with your acoustic guitar?”
Taking this a step further, as Google’s new privacy policies and terms of use do, I should expect to start seeing guitar-related apps in my suggestions in the Google Market and the Chrome Marketplace. Guitarists on Google+ should start appearing in suggested people to add to my circles and Google Reader should offer to download Guitar Player Magazine feeds for me. And, more likely than not, I’ll start seeing more guitar-related ads as well.
Google’s goal, of course, is to sell advertising. That’s about 97% of their revenue. By pulling people like me into their increasingly unified ecosystem, they can demonstrate very high click-through rates to potential advertisers and charge a premium to reach highly targeted and yet incredibly vast audiences.

They need to give me something in return
For me to buy into this, they need to give me something in return. Something to make all things Google really sticky. Like a wide array of free tools from Google Docs to Google Music to Google Voice. And cheap tools that I buy for my business like Google Apps and AdWords. Their new policies are designed to be more transparent, but also to pave the way for these tools to talk to each other better, making them even stickier through a unified experience and more relevant services.
Back to the wife comparison that Larry brought up. My wife knows that every Friday night is pizza night in our house. So does Google, since every Friday around 4:30 I pull out my Android and use Google Voice Search to find the number of whatever pizza joint we decide to patronize that week. Fine. Google, however, can actually do something more useful with that information than my wife can (”Where should I order pizza, sweetheart?” “Wherever, just not that place down the road. Or that other place. And make sure they’re having a deal!”).
Come Friday morning, the ads I see on Gmail or Google search should start being pretty pizza-heavy: Dominos, Papa Johns, and a place or two that has an active Google Offer. As I’m driving home that evening, the GPS on my phone should set off an alert when I drive past a well-reviewed pizza place (assuming I’ve set location-based preferences to alert me to destinations with at least four-star average reviews). And the minute I type a P in my mobile browser, Google Instant should leap into action and display nearby pizza places and a news story about a new place to get pizza in the next town.
We’re not quite there yet, but this is the sort of integration and experience that Google is covering in its new policies and terms of use. I know that my privacy red flags should probably be going off. Google has gigabytes of information about me and is using that information to help its advertisers sell products. That’s bad, right?
Guess what, folks? This is the semantic web
And yet, I don’t think it is. Many of the same techies who cry foul over these new policies have also been pushing for the development of the semantic web to make it easier to find what we actually need in the trillions of web pages floating around the Internet. Guess what, folks? This is the semantic web. When our search engines know what we actually mean, when data on the web automagically becomes information we can use easily and quickly, we’ve arrived.
And the semantic web can’t exist without “the web” (whatever that is) knowing a lot about us. It takes data for a computer to understand our needs and process natural language efficiently. Some of those data will necessarily be fairly personal.
Now, if I start getting spam from pizza places or calls on my Google Voice number from Dominos because Google has sold my contact information and preferences to advertisers, we have a problem and I’ll be waving my privacy flag as high as anyone else. However, when I opt in by opening a Google account and staying logged in as I surf the web, I’m not only consenting to the collection and aggregation of data about me, I’m asking that it be done so that the web and related tools can be more useful to me. This sort of data mining lets me work faster, play easier, and find the best pizza in a 20-mile radius.
For its part, Google needs to remain the trusted broker of these data. No, I don’t like the idea that our government could brand me a terrorist and seize these gigabytes of data under the Patriot Act. The alternative, though, is an ever-growing morass of web sites and tools that I get to dig through manually.
And, by the way, even if I’m not logged in to my Google account as I’m doing it, my ISP knows the sites I’ve visited, too, and could just as easily (if not more so) be compelled to turn over this information to the real Big Brother in all of this.
Far more trust in Google than the Feds
Honestly, I have far more trust in Google than I do in the Feds. Google is motivated by money: they need my trust to keep collecting those data to keep making it easier for me to buy things from Google’s paying advertisers. If that trust is broken by inappropriate sharing of data, then my eyeballs go elsewhere and so do the advertisers who target me via AdWords and AdSense. Our government has no such financial motivation. Money talks.
The fact that the speech recognition on my phone kicks ass because I use Google Voice all the time and it’s learned how I talk might be a little creepy, but it’s far more important that I can do a Google search or send a text while I’m driving without taking my eyes off the road.
Welcome to 2012, folks. The semantic web has arrived. Use it well and let’s keep Google’s new policies in perspective. And Google? Don’t be evil. I have a lot of colleagues who will be pointing, laughing, and saying I told you so if you ever are.

Nice article.
I think the key for Google's continued success is to keep the advertising passive, suggestions when you're searching etc. aren't in your face but they work.
You see a lot of people complaining that they've been searching for something online and then all of the adverts on the websites they visit contain something pertaining to that, and they grumble that it's annoying. Personally, I'd much rather see an advert to something that's relevant to me rather than a cluttered webpage of irrelevant information.
By targeting adverts and increasing their relevance to the individual, they are far more likely to be successful. This means that the revenue per advert is going to improve and websites aren't going to need to cover their website in adverts (at the cost of the user experience) to make it profitable.
Plus given the huge amount of free stuff that google gives you, it's a bit rich for somebody to complain that they're trying to get something back off you.

I too would much rather see things directly targeted towards me then just random ads. And everyone is up in arms about google recording what you do. Well i think of it this way, i'm fine with them getting to know me and my behavior and what i do, as long as they keep providing FREE products for me.

Ahh the good old "If they are going to screw me without consent, I would much rather they knew my name, stroked my hair and whispered sweet nothings into my ear while they did it."
I prefer to treat my online habbits like the strange neighbour a few doors down. Say "hi" in passing, and realise that while they probrobly know more than I would want them to from when I've invited them over for coffee and from peeking in my windows as they walk past, know that I don't actually have to put up with their $#!+ if they become too creepy.
Thats why its important there are alternitives and competition, and that we as consumers don't put our eggs all in one basket and be prepared to protest or move on if they stretch the friendship too far.
I know privacy is impossible in this day and age but that doent mean you have to lie back and take it. "because you know it means well and it does give you nice gifts once in a while"
My suggestion is cut your reliance on any one brand and spread out the load.

hungry81 said:
My suggestion is cut your reliance on any one brand and spread out the load.
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I like the author am reliant on Google these days. I'd be happy to look at alternatives. Granted they work on the platforms I needs them to, Android 2.X and 3.2, Linux+chrome, windows XP + chrome, and windows 7 + firefox or chrome. The linux requirement cuts out a lot of things, iTunes/iCloud for example.
Have any suggestions who/where i could go for:
Music
Docs
G+
Gmail
Needs a slick webUI, and the searching ability of gmail
Calendar
I need delegation and the ability for my wife to add me to events and share calendars.
Reader
works on all my devices, and syncs between them
I would very much like my phone to know when I leave work. Now i could do this with some sort of timer, but I end up working somewhat flexible hours, and have a leaving time of anywhere within an hour and a half. I would like it to know that since I now have "buy bread, milk, and eggs" on my to-do list (thanks hun!), that it needs to remind me of that on the way home. Even better if it can just direct me to a store with a deal on one or all of those things.
I like that the first hit in Google I get for cookies is the wikipedia page for http cookies and the second is to pythons cookielib module. Where as I bet my grandmother gets, chocolate chip cookies. The ability for Google search to know that I have a particular artist in my collection, and show me the bind's page near the top of the results without me having to add "band" to my search terms.
Anyways, if and when Google starts selling my data to 3rd parties, I'll export my data and move. Google makes it fairly painless to do that.