Windows Store for developers

Meet the new Windows Dev Center

Windows Store team — Wed, 15 May 2013 20:27:00 GMT

The Windows Dev Center just got a whole new look. We’ve made it easier to find the right content at the right time, with key tasks and resources to help you design, develop, and market your apps called out prominently.

Our Windows Store apps content has a tighter focus based on role and scenario, with new resources to help at all stages of the app development process. From hobbyists to creative agencies to the largest enterprise software developers, the new site organization helps you achieve your creative and business vision with Windows. And it’s available worldwide in 22 languages.

Check out the post on the Windows 8 app developer blog for more details on some of the key changes, and please let us know what you think!

Using Windows 8 features to drive customer engagement: the Box app

Windows Store team — Mon, 06 May 2013 19:31:03 GMT

Box is all about content, according to Box VP of Platform Technology Matthew Self.

"Content is at the heart of every successful organization. Customers need to access their content wherever they are. They need to share, they need to collaborate, they need to move their business forward. Box provides the solutions to let our customers do that."

Box's Windows Store app takes advantage of several unique Windows 8 features to better engage users while letting them get to their content from anywhere. Let’s look at how they did it.

Live tiles

Live tiles are a great way to alert me to activity that I probably want to know about, but don’t need to act on right away. This is more useful than seeing a simple number on the tile, but is less intrusive than getting a full-blown notification.

Box has a beautiful tile that updates to show new activity. In this case, I can easily see that a new agenda has been shared with me.

Semantic zoom

Semantic zoom lets me quickly get a high-level view of my content, and Box has a particularly good implementation.

I can activate semantic zoom by pinching the screen (or clicking in the lower right corner). In the example below, I was originally looking at an alphabetical listing of all my files. By invoking semantic zoom, I get a high level view and can quickly jump to any letter to drill down further. I also have the option to get the same view sorted by date or by size instead of alphabetically.

Semantic zoom lets you expose more content to your users, driving deeper engagement and increasing the time spent with your app. Plus, it's really cool.

File picker

One of the unique features in Windows 8 is the ability to let apps expose their content to other apps through the file picker. This becomes particularly important for an app like Box. Certainly I can access my files from within the Box app, but sometimes I need access to my files from other apps.

For example, suppose I want to attach some files from Box to an email I’m composing. Instead of having to switch to the Box app and start a new email from there, I can simply hit the Attachments icon in Mail. This brings up the picker, which gives me a list of locations on my hard drive, plus the option to choose from apps that have implemented the file picker contracts. I choose Box, choose my files, and click attach.

Access to the file picker makes Windows Store apps significantly more powerful for many productivity-based scenarios. According to Simon Tan, mobile product manager for Box, "What's really exciting about our app on Windows 8 is that we have the ability to plug into the actual file system on Windows 8."

By building a well-designed app that takes advantage of unique Windows 8 functions, Box helps their customers be more productive, which in turn helps drive engagement and satisfaction.

-- Ben Thompson, Partner Marketing Manager

Register now for the App Builder Virtual Summit

Windows Store team — Tue, 30 Apr 2013 16:40:43 GMT

This Thursday, May 2, Microsoft hosts the App Builder Virtual Summit. The online event is free and will be held from 9 am – 12:30 pm PST. Register now to learn the why and how of designing, building, and marketing Windows Store apps.

You’ll get to hear from partners like Hitcents, Aviary, Qubop and Busy Bee Studios as they share their experiences and best practices developing apps that take full advantage of the Windows 8 platform. There are also sessions especially for developers with iOS or Android experience, as well as information about different ways to make money with your app. Check out the full list of sessions and sign up today!

Featured apps in the Windows Store

Windows Store team — Thu, 25 Apr 2013 18:30:00 GMT

Each week we showcase apps in the Windows Store that we think customers will love. We spend all day, every day, looking for apps to highlight and we’re excited to promote apps that are well-designed, innovative and offer unique value. We feature these apps in the Store Spotlight and on the Windows website, and we also blog about apps we love on the Windows Experience blog (as well as right here). Given the opportunity these feature placements represent for app builders, we thought we’d describe what we look for, in an effort to help you get your app considered.

Great design

The notion of a well-designed app encompasses a lot of different dimensions, from the app’s user model and behavior on the platform to elements of app aesthetics and personality. We look to highlight apps that embrace our design guidance, which helps customers get the most from your apps. We’re particularly excited to feature apps that do a great job implementing Windows Store app features such as:

Charms and contracts (Settings, Search, Share)
Placing commands in the app bar
Detecting orientation changes
Providing snapped and fill views

When planning your app, review the Microsoft design principles on our Dev Center when deciding the best way to include these features in your design. These topics cover core app design principles as well as approaches to navigation, commands, branding and other elements of user experience.

If you’re looking for a hands-on experience, we run App Labs and events around the world so you can get expert help on your app’s specific behavior and user experience. New events are scheduled all the time, so check here for the latest, including the upcoming App Builder Virtual Summit on May 2nd.

Now let’s take a look at two apps that we’ve featured before and consider how each takes advantage of the design guidance. Each makes great use of the Windows 8 features: eBay (in fill view) showing filtering and sorting controls on the app bar, and KEXP Artist Discovery (in snapped view) where you can see what’s playing, pause or restart audio, and click to get more info about songs, shows, and events.

In addition to the design, we also consider the quality of the app’s behavior on the platform, its responsiveness, and overall performance when we look to showcase.

Presentation and appeal

How you present your app in the Windows Store and the breadth of the app’s appeal are also important considerations for us. When looking for apps to feature, we choose high-quality apps that we expect will have a broad appeal in their market.

Offering unique value in terms of subject matter, functionality, and design expression is a great way to get noticed. Your app’s description should be engaging, clear, and immediately show customers what this app can do for them.

The app also needs to have great promotional images. These are not required for publishing your app to the Store, but they are a requirement for us to be able to consider featuring your app. Take time to design a great promotional image that we can use to help introduce your app to potential customers.

Beyond promotional images, you’ll also want to make sure that you use attractive screenshots that show off what your app can do. Here’s an example from an app we’ve featured before, Sudoku Free. This shows one of several screen shots that don’t just demonstrate how the app works, but also highlight many of its features.

For more examples of what we look for, open the Windows Store and check out any of the apps that are currently featured in the Spotlight section. These apps generally have nice screenshots and clear descriptions, and deliver a great experience.

Technical considerations

Aside from the overall app quality, there are a few additional considerations that can affect our decision to feature an app. Keep these in mind as you build your app.

The app should run across all Windows 8 platforms (ARM, x86, and x64).
If you want to offer a paid version of your app, or if you want fee-based options, use the platform’s built-in trial or in-app purchase capabilities. This will help customers and help your conversion rate. Don’t offer a free version separate from a paid version.
Given the diversity of Windows customers, we take extra precaution when considering promotion for apps that are age-rated 16+. Store policy requires that all promotional content be rated no higher than 12+, independent of the app’s age rating.

There are so many great apps coming into the Windows Store each day and it’s a privilege to showcase them and see app builders succeed on Windows. Hopefully, this post provides some insight into how your next app could become a featured app in the Store.

--Ted Dworkin, Partner Program Manager for the Windows Store

Startups unveil new apps for Windows 8 at DEMO Mobile

Windows Store team — Wed, 17 Apr 2013 19:00:00 GMT

Startups, entrepreneurs, and app builders are congregating at DEMO Mobile in San Francisco today. DEMO Mobile is the launch event exclusively focused on the best new mobile technologies based on design, innovation and market potential.

Today, a few startups showed onstage how their inspiration came alive on Windows 8, and launched new apps in the Windows Store: KinectHealth, a mobile fitness studio app, TouchMail, a modern e-mail app, and Envvied, an app where fashion meets shopping.

KinectHealth

Last year, Bob Summers, who has been programming since he was just eight years old, was looking for a way to stay motivated in his mission to stay active and lose weight. He wanted a solution that offered a variety of training programs, the ability to track progress over time, and help in keeping motivated with encouragement from his workout buddies. Eight months later KinectHealth was born. Think of the KinectHealth app as your mobile fitness studio.

Exclusively available on Windows 8 and powered by Azure Mobile and Media Services, KinectHealth helps you achieve your fitness goals with a variety of fresh workout videos, a fitness progress tracker, and a buddy system using TimeFit technology to bring others into your online studio via webcam. The diverse device support for Windows 8 also means that you can exercise with the device and screen size that works best for you, whether it is your PC, tablet, or all-in-one.

KinectHealth takes advantage of unique Windows 8 features like the Share charm, enabling you to share your fitness progress with family and friends. You can also keep track of your workouts with biometric data gathered through your webcam and share workout videos, goals, and progress with your Xbox or networked TV. With KinectHealth’s use of live tiles, you can keep your workouts fresh when new workout videos are available.

KinectHealth has already signed up a number of popular trainers including Amanda Russell, YouTube’s Next Fitness Personality with over 35 thousand subscribers and over 2.2 million views. KinectHealth is free to download in the Windows Store with the option to purchase a subscription for $14.99 per month, which gives you access to 24 new workout routines every month.

TouchMail

If you’re like me, you spend a lot of time with email. Trying to catch-up on mail after being out of the office, quickly searching and finding mail items, or simply keeping my inbox organized; it seems like the email deluge is never ending.

With more and more email activity occurring on mobile devices, Seattle-based startup TouchMail Inc. had an idea to help make email more productive and visually compelling on mobile, touch-based devices. The result of this idea and their work is an app that brings a uniquely visual and intuitive touch email experience to Windows 8.

With TouchMail, you search in the same way that you naturally scope information while you think, with filters such as people, attachments and priority. A quick touch on my boss’ profile picture and I can quickly see all the messages he’s sent me.

The app’s signature Horizon View feature, organizes mail items in a visual way, letting you see patterns and priority items that you wouldn’t normally notice in a list view. Moreover, one-touch delete, color-coded messages, and profile pictures make managing your inbox easy. TouchMail is a great example of how apps can help you be more productive, whether using touch on a tablet or mouse and keyboard on a PC.

Envvied

Envvied is also at the show in the Microsoft booth and is available right now in the Windows Store. This app marries fashion news and community with an interactive component that lets you shop for the latest trends on the web for the best price. Using this visually rich app, you can also submit pictures of your favorite fashions and have the Envvied community help you find the stores that carry the clothes you want. The team at Envvied is thrilled about the opportunity to get into the Windows Store early.

Windows 8 QuickStart Kits

We hope that these apps have inspired you and that you want to get started. If you already have Windows 8, head over to WindowsStore.com to get more information on how to get started creating your own apps for Windows Store. If you run a Mac, we’re making it a little easier with the Windows 8 QuickStart Kit. The Windows 8 QuickStart Kit is the latest program we’ve built with Parallels to enable iOS app builders and designers to build apps for Windows. To celebrate the opportunities for startups on Windows 8, we’re extending our initial QuickStart offer with 10,000 more Windows 8 QuickStart Kits for app builders to get access to the tools they need to bring their app to Windows.

The kit includes a Windows 8 Pro, Parallels Desktop 8 for Mac , and iOS to Windows porting support from top engineers. We’re offering 1,000 Windows 8 QuickStart Kits online today to iOS app builders. To get the Windows 8 QuickStart Kit, go to http://swishdemo.com/details/demo-devkit, to answer a few questions, pass our developer puzzle, and donate $25 to code.org, Khan Academy or Watsi.org.

We are offering an additional 10,000 kits at various app builder events throughout the year . Check here for a list of upcoming events in the U.S. or here for international locations.

The QuickStart offer is just one example of our programs that focus on helping entrepreneurs and startups get support and start building for Windows. With more than 50,000 startups from 100 countries in the program, BizSpark provides software, support, visibility and community to promising startups and visionary entrepreneurs at no charge. Through BizSpark, you gain access to a global community of advisors, investors and partners as well as Microsoft software and services.

So what is your next big idea? We’d love to see it come alive on Windows 8!

--Ben Thompson, Partner Marketing Manager

Feature Spotlight: Search

Windows Store team — Thu, 04 Apr 2013 20:22:00 GMT

Windows 8 contains powerful new technologies that Windows Store apps can take advantage of. These technologies not only provide a great user experience, but also drive engagement with your apps. Over the next few months we will feature several of these technologies, and show why they can make a difference for your business. To begin, we’re taking a look at the Search feature, which lets you engage with users when they most need your services. – Ben Thompson, Partner Marketing Manager

Search is one of the most powerful and useful features in Windows 8. Users can easily search by swiping from the right (or moving the mouse to the right corner) and clicking or tapping the Search charm. Alternately, from the Start screen, users can simply start typing to initiate a search. Not only can they search for apps or files, but they can also search directly within specific apps.

This is a powerful new way to access information: it starts with the query term, and then flows to the appropriate app, driving customer engagement and attachment. Let’s look at a few examples of how different types of app can effectively help customers search.

Reference apps

On most platforms, if a user wants to look up a word they need to first decide where to look, open the specific website, app, or search engine, and then input their search term. It’s a multi-step process that many users don’t want to bother with.

On Windows 8, users can immediately search for the word in question and then choose the search destination, such as the Dictionary.com app, from the list below the search box to display the search results.

The Search feature dramatically improves user engagement for Dictionary.com by surfacing their app in the place where it’s most relevant.

Shopping apps

Surfacing your brand where it’s most relevant to consumers is particularly important for shopping apps. Suppose someone wants to buy a new touch laptop. Searching on Bing will provide info from any number of retailers. Shopping sites like Amazon work hard to ensure that they are at the top of the search results, but there’s no guarantee.

However, a loyal Amazon customer that has installed the Amazon app can search for a touch laptop using the Search charm and immediately see Amazon as a search destination. They don’t have to bother with a search engine; instead, they just click on Amazon and get the results they need.

Integrating with search is a great way to increase engagement and loyalty; it allows your brand to appear in front of your users when they most need your product and leads them directly to your app.

Travel apps

When planning a trip, people need to find a booking site, figure out specific airport codes, and figure out what days have the best prices, just to get to a specific destination. It can be a lot of work.

Skyscanner is an app that considers the way users think. Users can simply search for a destination like “Chicago”, click Skyscanner, and get a great overview of what day is best to fly from the city they live in.

Smart integration with Search and location awareness earns Skyscanner new customers and provides a superior experience.

Productivity apps

Deep integration into a user’s life is critical for productivity apps. By integrating with search, productivity apps become more accessible and grow more natural and invaluable to use.

Evernote uses search to let users quickly look up old notes or articles they’ve saved. In this case, while watching football, someone who suddenly remembers an article they clipped in Evernote can find it in a snap.

Entertainment apps

Engagement is critical for entertainment and news apps. People hear about hot new shows or breaking news items all the time, but if it’s a lot of work to access them, they’re likely to forget and move on.

Since Netflix has implemented the Search contract, you can start watching the minute you hear about a movie or show.

By making it so easy to find and watch programs, Netflix increases interaction with their service.

Building a Windows Store app with a great Search contract implementation will help you connect and engage with your customers, meeting their needs in a way that makes sense and feels familiar. Search is just one example of the unique Windows 8 technologies that make apps better.

To learn more about adding Search to your app, download the Search contract sample and be sure to check out the guidance and examples on our Dev Center.

At GDC, game developers reveal early success on Windows 8

Windows Store team — Thu, 28 Mar 2013 18:11:18 GMT

This week is the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco. While we’re excited about all of the new titles coming to the Windows Store, what’s most interesting for app builders are the new ways to reach the millions of Windows 8 customers and make the biggest return on your investment.

Back in November we talked with Halfbrick Studios, Arkadium, and Oceanhouse Media about their experiences developing games for Windows 8.

This week at GDC, Halfbrick shared more about their success on Windows 8.

Halfbrick keeps 80% of every purchase. Once an app passes $25,000 USD in total revenue over the lifetime of a title, developers keep 80% of all sales. Halfbrick is one of a number of game developers who have already passed this mark.
Halfbrick supports both touch and mouse-and-keyboard control, allowing their app to reach customers across the vast array of Windows 8 devices. As Richard McKinney, the CTO of Halfbrick noted, “On Windows 8, supporting both touch and mouse is really the exact same thing. When we first moved to Windows 8 I was a little worried that there were so many form factors, laptops, desktops, but you’re really using one API to develop for all of these devices. Your game will work, it will scale out from some outrageously huge device down to the Surface tablets.”
Halfbrick uses free trials to convert to paid downloads. Fruit Ninja is offered both as a paid download and a free trial. You can try out the game for free, then simply click Purchase (or in the case of Fruit Ninja, “slice” over Purchase) to fully enable the game without any additional downloads or reinstallation. With support for free trials, Windows 8 saves app builders time and money by eliminating the need to create, test, debug and maintain two separate versions of an app. This also creates a seamless experience for a user, who can enjoy the trial and then pick up where they left off after they upgrade to the full version.

Halfbrick is one of the many game developers benefiting from the fact that Windows 8 has sold over 60 million licenses in the first three months – they earned over $100,000 from Windows Store app sales in a recent 30-day period. Many other indie developers are having similar successes. For example, Rebellion has seen great success with its Guns 4 Hire game on Windows 8. The average revenue per user on the Windows 8 version of Guns 4 Hire has been 75% higher than on their next most popular platform, and they are seeing 40% more downloads on Windows 8. Another indie start-up called Mudvark launched their first title, Mortar Melon, on Windows 8. Mudvark had expected 3,000 downloads, but Mortar Melon has already been downloaded more than 250,000 times.

There are some great new tools available as well. Just a few weeks ago, Unity released its beta SDK for the Unity 4 game engine for Windows 8, and we’re excited to welcome Unity’s 1.5 million registered developers to the Windows 8 platform. Game builders have already started integrating this SDK into their games and there are already a handful of Unity-based games in the Store.

There are many other compelling reasons to build games on Windows 8:

You can reuse your code and leverage your game development experience. It typically will be less than 15% of the original cost in terms of code to bring the experience from one Microsoft platform to another.
Great development tools, including new Visual Studio templates meant to speed game development.
New form factors, input methods, and flexible business models for your games, combined with an SDK that lets you write your game once and run it on any Windows 8 device.

To improve your experience moving your game to Windows 8, we recently updated the Developing Games section of the Windows Dev Center to include new guidance on setting up your game development environment, porting from DX 9 to DX 11.1, and porting from OpenGL to DX 11.1.

--Ben Thompson, Partner Marketing Manager

Mark your calendars: Build 2013 will be June 26-28 in San Francisco

Windows Store team — Tue, 26 Mar 2013 23:39:54 GMT

Today we announced that our next developer conference, Build 2013, is taking place June 26-28, 2013 at the Moscone Center in San Francisco. Save the date and mark your calendar for the opening of registration next week, at 9 a.m. PT on Tuesday, April 2 at www.buildwindows.com.

At Build, we’ll share updates and talk about what’s next for Windows, Windows Server, Windows Azure, Visual Studio and more. Build is the path to creating and implementing your great ideas, and then differentiating them in the market. Pay a visit to www.buildwindows.com, get yourself registered on April 2, and join us for three days of immersive presentations delivered by the engineers behind our products and services, while networking with thousands of other developers getting the first look at what’s next.

Twitter for Windows 8 now available in the Windows Store

Windows Store team — Thu, 14 Mar 2013 22:29:19 GMT

Twitter for Windows 8 is now available in the Windows Store. This app takes advantage of the unique Windows 8 experience (snapped view, live tiles, notifications, and charms) while retaining the look, feel, and functionality that customers have come to expect when using the Twitter service.

Learn more at the Windows Experience Blog, where Brandon LeBlanc talks about some of the app's great features, with a video demonstration of the app.

--Ben Thompson, Partner Marketing Manager

Delivering access to knowledge: Wikipedia

Windows Store team — Mon, 04 Mar 2013 19:28:00 GMT

Wikipedia needs no introduction: it’s the largest encyclopedia in the world, built by users, and has become a truly indispensable resource. With users all around the world, one of their primary goals is to make it as easy to access information from any type of device, from small mobile screens to full-sized laptops and desktop computers. Building the Wikipedia app for Windows 8 helps to accomplish this: it scales gracefully across devices and has been already been downloaded over a million times.

Recently, Wikipedia’s Kul Wadhwa (Head of Mobile) and Brion Vibber (Lead Software Architect) talked about their approach to building the Wikipedia app. “Windows 8 is definitely changing how we think about mobile,” said Brion, “because it’s not just small screens, it’s also large screens and beyond. Something that works on tablets and also scales up to a regular PC—it’s different, it’s interesting, it’s something that isn’t quite what we’ve done before.”

So what makes the Wikipedia app work so well? For one thing, it’s designed beautifully, with no unnecessary chrome, letting you can navigate quickly using familiar scrolling and tapping gestures.

From within an article, you can bring up the app bar to switch languages, open the article in your browser, find text on the page, or pin the article to your Start screen as a secondary tile.

However, where Wikipedia really shines is when you’re not using it, especially on a laptop.

Search

The number one way people interact with Wikipedia is through search, whether through a search engine or on Wikipedia’s own site. Windows 8 makes it much faster to launch a search of Wikipedia than any other platform. Try it out:

Using touch, simply swipe in from the right, type your search term, and select Wikipedia. Your search results display instantly in the Wikipedia app.
Using a keyboard is even faster: hit the Windows key to go to the Start screen, start typing your search term (Search will launch automatically), then select Wikipedia.

Wikipedia content is the same everywhere: on Windows 8, it’s just a lot easier and faster to get to.

Wikipedia has done something really creative with their Share target implementation that lets you quickly look up a term and get back to whatever you were doing.

In Internet Explorer, or any other app, highlight the word you want to look up.
Swipe in to select Share, then choose Wikipedia.
The Wikipedia app will display the article associated with that word in a flyout, without taking you away from the app you were using.

Wikipedia cares about reaching all users, and Windows 8 is a great vehicle for doing just that: it’s available in over 200 markets, and runs on all types of PCs. The Wikipedia app is a wonderful example of how developers can truly integrate with multiple form factors, including tablets, laptops and desktops. Windows 8 apps are for all of them.

--Ben Thompson, Partner Marketing Manager