Author Archives: Fred Patton

About Fred Patton

Senior Editor, Nokia Developer

Nokia Lumia documentation updates

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We’ve been busy making updates to the Nokia Lumia Developer’s Library.

To start with, a new article, How to adapt to Lumia phones’ hardware features provides best practices for adapting your apps for the hardware features of Nokia Lumia phones, and to make sure that your apps will run smoothly across Windows Phone 8 device portfolio. Besides providing techniques on how to deal with the varying hardware features and characteristics, we also discuss some of the UX aspects of adapting your app across devices. Furthermore, the article comes with a new Hardware Info example application demonstrating the implemention of checks for the availability and characteristics of device hardware features at runtime.

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The Windows Phone opportunity keeps on growing

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Today we introduced Nokia Lumia 925, the newest member of the Nokia Lumia smartphone family. The beautifully crafted phone with a metal/polycarbonate body creates a unique look and feel while delivering a terrific antenna performance.

With Nokia Lumia 925 we are further strengthening the imaging capabilities first shared with Nokia Lumia 920; the 8.7 megapixel camera on Nokia Lumia 925 is packed with the most advanced lens technology, latest generation of Nokia proprietary imaging software, and optical image stabilization. Read more about the announcement and check out the phone.

Nokia Lumia 925

Nokia Lumia 925

We have broadened the Lumia reach – from the Lumia 520 to the top with the new Lumia 925 – your Windows Phone opportunity continues to grow:

  • The Lumia ecosystem is expanding, with more than 145,000 apps for Windows Phone now available to consumers in 190 countries worldwide.
  • Operator billing is expanding rapidly, too. According to Microsoft, the average developer earns three times more in a market that supports operator billing than they do in a market that supports only credit cards. Check out this article from Microsoft’s Todd Brix.

And others have also noticed the benefits of the Windows Phone and Nokia Lumia opportunity:

If you haven’t started developing for Nokia Lumia, now is a great time to give it a try. With the Nokia Premium Developer Program for Lumia you’ll get access to a range of tools that will help you power-charge your development. Get started now.

Introducing the Nokia Asha platform: your new smartphone opportunity

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Nokia Asha 501Today we introduced a global initiative that will help developers unlock the market for affordable smartphones by launching the Nokia Asha software platform and the Nokia Asha 501, the first smartphone built on the new Asha platform.

The Nokia Asha software platform represents a major new opportunity for developers, as we expect to sell 100 million of the new-generation Asha smartphones over the next two years.

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WIPJam Nokia Min-hack winner: IdeaKnow makes NFC actions easy

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The NFC Actions app by IdeaKnow was one of two winners of the mini-hack we recently hosted at the WIPJam at Mobile World Congress 2013. The IdeaKnow team won for creating a Windows Phone app with near field communications (NFC). For their work, team members Candice Seenyen, Jordi Gaset, Cristian Ortega, and Alejandro Garcia each were awarded a Nokia Lumia 920 smartphone!

The NFC Actions app lets users read and write NFC tags that contain multiple everyday actions that users can conduct with their Windows Phone 8 devices. These actions include changing Wi-Fi settings, locking the screen, changing airplane-mode settings, send an email, opening a Facebook profile, and checking in on Foursquare. The user first selects the desired actions by tapping them on a list on the phone’s screen. Then the user writes these actions by moving the phone near a physical NFC tag. After that, whenever the phone is used to read the NFC tag, the application automatically initiates the appropriate actions.

Jordi Gaset, CTO of Barcelona-based IdeaKnow, says the team was inspired to develop the app ‘simply because we love Windows Phone’. Looking ahead, the team plans to publish NFC Actions on Windows Phone Store and to incorporate Nokia Ad Exchange (NAX) in the app’s next version. The IdeaKnow team also plans to develop more Windows Phone 8 apps using NFC, location and imaging technologies. ‘The most important thing’, Jordi adds, ‘is to love Windows Phone!’

Check out the video demo:

Get the app on Windows Phone Store

Nokia Music API for Windows Phone documentation gets a facelift

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Nokia’s Music APIs (“Music APIs” for short) are a collection of web service and Windows Phone APIs that allow you to offer elements from Nokia’s Music service (as available in Nokia Music for Lumia) within the look and feel of your own application. We launched the API in November 2012 and have been regularly adding new features. Today we’re announcing that we’re updating the documentation as well with new content and samples.

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NFC support for The Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf

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What do you get when you combine Windows Phone on Nokia Lumia smartphones, near field communications (NFC), and your choice of premium coffee or tea? If you are Integrated Computer Solutions, Inc (ICS), a long-time Nokia developer, you get the NFC-enabled The Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf® app.

The Coffee Bean app uses NFC to empower consumers to create, touch, tap and share their favourite custom drinks—and find their way to local stores. Users can create a custom drink, then touch, tap and share the drink they have customized with their friends. The app’s NFC capability also lets one person collect several drink orders from a group of people, then locate the nearest store and place the group order at the store.

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Join us at WIMA NFC in Monaco next week

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Attending WIMA NFC Monaco on 10-12 April? Then visit our booth, hear us speak, and join us for a special Nokia Developer workshop on Nokia Lumia near field communications (NFC). You could win one of the special prizes we’ll be giving away. And you can enjoy some of the special developer discounts we’re offering for WIMA admission.

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Asha Premium Developer Program introduced

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Asha Premium Developer Program bannerWe’ve been having a lot of fun lately—we launched the Nokia Premium Developer Program for Lumia back in October, and it proved to be our most successful developer program ever. Our rewards program, DVLUP, has also proven extremely popular with developers, and we recently expanded it to include developers in the UK.

So we decided it was time to bring some “Premium goodness” to Asha development. Today we are excited to introduce the Nokia Premium Developer Program for Asha.

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