Developers

Microsoft was kind enough to release the software development kit for Windows Phone 7 Series on Monday, and although there was some fun to be had by scrolling around and exploring, much of the cool stuff the company showed off at MIX last week is not included — or is it? As it turns out it’s in there; only a little help is needed to unlock ‘em and then all those magical hubs start them Read More...

Google is looking to take the Android operating system to the big screen—the one in your living room, anyway. The company has partnered with Intel and Sony in order to bring a more interactive viewing experience to the TV in the form of (you guessed it) set-top boxes. The idea behind it is giving users the ability to seamlessly switch between Web apps Read More...

Currently, your contacts live in address books that are distributed all over the Internet and your desktop. Because of this, chances are that you have numerous address books on the web that are often “inconsistent and disjointed.” Contacts, a new Mozilla Labs project, wants to put an end to this. The Contacts addon creates a local database for all your email and Twitter contacts that can then be used by your browser and any website Read More...

iPhone developers can now schedule a release date for their apps through the App Store, as well as a time limit for certain price tiers. More control for devs is a good thing.

Read More: Amro Mousa’s Twitter update

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As much as startups want to launch their applications across all mobile platforms, it’s often more realistic to focus on just one. But which one? The iPhone has the biggest numbers in terms of both apps and app buyers, whereas Android usage stats are rocketing.

Earlier today we wrote about a new mobile analytics report that showed that Google is no Apple. We explained the difference between these two as relates to phone sales and Read More...

Hot on the heels of the recent DSi XL appearance, rumors are swirling that Nintendo is preparing to announce a second version of the DS — the DS2, if you will — at E3 in June. Over on RPad they’re spilling the beans about the supposed device, including the fact that it’ll boast two larger, higher resolutions screens, an accelerometer, and it will also supposedly run on an NVIDIA Tegra chip. Finally, RPad is also Read More...

Microsoft’s driving home the point that developers are going to know exactly what kind of hardware they’re targeting as they whip up Windows Phone 7 Series apps — and naturally, a biggie is screen resolution since that affects how UI elements are going to be placed, how cool they can look, and how small they can realistically be. In a session at MIX10, Microsoft’s Charlie Kindel has laid down the law that WP7S will be Read More...

You could argue that Steve Ballmer’s classic “developers, developers, developers” mantra is more important to the success of Windows Phone 7 Series than of any other product in recent Microsoft history, so it comes as no surprise that he’s pulled it out of his hat one more time for MIX10 today. Demoing how easy it is to take advantage of the platform’s many rapid-development features, the team showed off a gangly Silverlight version of Read More...

We just got out of a meeting with Microsoft’s Todd Biggs, who dropped a little bombshell on us: the only official way to get apps on a Windows Phone 7 Series device will be to download them from the just-detailed Windows Phone Marketplace. That means developers will have to abide by Microsoft’s technical and content guidelines in order to make it in, with the very real possibility of rejection — sound familiar? Todd told Read More...