Windows Phone Developer Story

Windows PhoneDeveloper Story
Alan Mendelevič
AdDuplex, amCharts
ailon@ailon.org
@ailon

@ailon

(Personal) [Hi]story

Prehistory
In professional software development since 1995
.NET developer since 2001 (beta)
WPF & Silverlight developer since 2008

Mobile development “experience”
Downloaded Symbian SDK in 2005
Read a book on Windows Mobile development in 2007

The Road to Windows Phone

January 2010 – MIX10k
Won a trip to MIX10 conference with Silverlight 3 game called Tic-Tac-Toe 3D

February 2010 – MWC 2010
Windows Phone 7 Series announced at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona
Developer story to be detailed at MIX10

March 2010 – Silverlight and XNA
Silverlight and XNA announced as developer platforms for Windows Phone before MIX10

Excited!

March 2010 – MIX10

Can’t let go
Following #wp7dev community on twitter
Blogs
Events

August 2010 – amCharts Quick Charts
Open source charting controls for Windows Phone released
http://wpf.amcharts.com/quick

November 2010
Purchased LG Optimus 7 phone
ChevronWP7 released

December 2010 – Tic-Tac-Toe 3D
Port of web (Silverlight 3) version
Published through a virtual friend in Germany

December 2010
Pushing for wider Marketplace expansion
Created a developer survey for Brandon Watson (Director of Developer Experience, Microsoft)
International Windows Phone 7 App Marketplace Petition (1600+ signatures)http://petol.org/wp7intl

January 2011 – AdDuplex
Launched AdDuplex – ad exchange network for Windows Phone apps

February 2011 – Mango
Next major release of Windows Phone OS code-named Mango announced at Mobile World Congress 2011

March 2011
Speaking at Login 2011 and other events
Yalla Apps announced

April 2011 – MIX11

May 2011 – ToMetric
User experience oriented unit converter
Reuses core logic code from web site developed last year
Published through Yalla Apps

May 2011
Interview on Windows Phone Dev Podcast
Speaking at Mobile Monday

Development experience & tools

Great and free tools
Expression Blend, Visual Studio, XNA Studio
http://create.msdn.com

Expression Blend

Great tools
“Truth be told, I had fun with the Windows Phone SDK. Whereas the Android tools and APIs frustrated me to no end, I had little trouble picking up Windows Phone and translating many of the paradigms and lessons I’ve learned on the Apple platform to Microsoft’s”
Justin Williams, iOS developer
http://carpeaqua.com/2011/01/02/from-iphone-to-windows-phone-7/
“The more I make things with the WP7 SDK, the more I like it. I feel safe writing all the XAML from scratch”
“… I'd certainly prefer it to Android's SDK”
StevenTroughton-Smith, iOS developer
https://twitter.com/#!/stroughtonsmith/status/67125106463350784
https://twitter.com/#!/stroughtonsmith/status/67130744719409152
“It’ll take me 2 to 4 times as long to build a similar app in iOS versus Windows Phone.”
Kelly White
Yet Another Podcast #33
“I am a Java Profesional by day, #wp7dev and #android game developer by night. I prefer WP7 over Android.”
AndrewPostma
http://twitter.com/#!/AndrewKPostma/status/70501048619507712

Some issues
Limited APIs in current version (no sockets, no raw camera access, no local DB, etc.)
Some performance issues (lists)
No multitasking
All (supposedly) solved in Mango

Experience developing Tic-Tac-Toe 3D
From web to phone in 10 minutes
Tombstoning – substantial amount of time to implement
Adapting for touch
Publishing via a virtual friend

Marketing, Distribution, Monetization

Marketing channels
Twitter #wp7
Windows Phone blogs
wpcentral.com
wmpoweruser.com
1800pocketpc.com (bestwp7games.com)
Podcasts
Windows Phone Dev Podcast
Windows Phone Radio

Distribution
Official Windows Phone Marketplace – inaccessible to Lithuanian developers
Global Publishing Partners
appamarket.com – recommended by Microsoft for CEE
YallaApps.com – focus on MEA region
Friends, family, business partners

Monetization: Free vs. Paid
Free get 10x more downloads than paid (even with fully functional trials)
Paid apps with trials get 70% more purchases than without trials
Free with ads works better for long running apps (for US developers)

Monetization: Advertising
Microsoft’s pubCenter
Pays by impression
US-only (expanding this year)
Google AdMob, Smaato, etc.
Pay by click

Monetization: Public info
$200-400 per dayElbert Perez (11 games)http://www.occasionalgamer.com/
$28,000 in 4 monthsRichard Foster (14+ apps)http://advertising.microsoft.com/foster-windows7apps
$30Alan Mendelevich ;)

Ad Exchange – promote apps for free
Advertising – commercial ad campaigns
Mixed model – exchange + monetization

Why develop for Windows Phone?

Easier to get to the top
Huge market
Small market
VS
Small player
Huge player

Market share WILL grow
Nokia
Basically no missing features in Mango
Heavy investments from Microsoft

Tools are great and getting better
Accelerometer/gyroscope emulation
GPS emulation
Profiler

Great community
Large and friendly community on Twitter (#wp7dev, #wpdev)
Active forums at App Hub http://create.msdn.com
Accessible product teams
Intersects with general Silverlight and .NET communities

Summary
Modern platform which is a joy to develop for
In it for a long run
Main pain-point: distribution and consumption in Lithuania

Thank you!

@ailon
ailon@ailon.org
devblog.ailon.org

Image sources
http://www.flickr.com/photos/digital-noise/3725891305/
http://www.maxima.lt
http://www.flickr.com/photos/tonyjcase/2591754028/

Windows Phone Developer Story

by Alan Mendelevich on May 27, 2011

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