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

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:

• In its latest report, Kantar Worldpanel confirms that Windows Phone is the fastest-growing mobile ecosystem. And the latest statistics coming from AdDuplex, an app cross-promotion provider, confirm the strong position of Nokia Lumia in the Windows Phone ecosystem.
• More and more developers and brands are joining the ecosystem or significantly revamping their apps. Try out the latest from Facebook, Hulu Plus, Zinio, GoPro, EA, Imangi Studios (Temple Run), AlJazeera, and Vyclone.

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.

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.

Many of the most popular applications are already available or in development for the Nokia Asha platform, including CNN, eBuddy, ESPN, Facebook, Foursquare, Line, LinkedIn, Nimbuzz, Pictelligent, The Weather Channel, Twitter, WeChat, WhatsApp, World of Red Bull and games from Electronic Arts, Gameloft, Indiagames, Namco-Bandai and Reliance Games. Many more will be available in the coming months.

You will also get easy-to-use development tools and more ways to sell and promote apps, including the new Nokia In-App Payment tool.

New Nokia Asha SDK 1.0 and Nokia Asha web app tools

The new Nokia Asha Software Development Kit 1.0 supports the development, testing, packaging and deployment of Java apps on the Nokia Asha platform.

New APIs in this SDK include:

• Mobile Internationalization (JSR238)
• Nokia Notifications
• Fileselect
• Image Scaling
• Network State
• Phone settings
• Contact

Learn more and download the Asha SDK 1.0.

The new Nokia Asha web app tools include a Web Development Environment (WDE) and an integrated development environment (IDE) that can be used to create and edit Nokia Asha web apps. In addition, a Web Inspector is included to help developers to debug and inspect elements, as is a new Web Designer Tool for creating great user experiences for your web apps.

Learn more and download the web app tools.

Nokia In-App Payment

We have also introduced the new Nokia In-App Payment tool, designed to make it easier for you to sell content from within your apps. It provides a simple and secure purchase experience for consumers and transparent payments for developers. Nokia In-App Payment will also be available for existing Asha and Series 40 phones*(from 6^th edition platform and above, except C1-01 and C1-02. Nokia will release a public beta of Nokia In-App Payment in the coming weeks, and you can sign up for the beta here.

Nokia Store

Publishing apps for the new Asha platform is easy as well via Nokia Store. And since its establishment, Nokia Store has now surpassed more than 10 billion cumulative downloads.

TouchMountain is a mobile tourist guide to finding mountain peaks. The app, which started as a 12-week university project, has been published by MIT-Innovation AG, a technology development company in Wollerau, Switzerland.

The TouchMountain app combines and integrates several mobile technologies to let Nokia Windows Phone users find and learn about nearby mountain peaks. TouchMountain uses the phone’s camera and Augmented Reality to let users discover local mountains. The app then uses data from the phone’s GPS sensor, accelerometer or gyro-sensor, digital compass, plus the Internet connection, to visualize recognized peaks on the phone’s display. Users can also find peaks on a map or text list. To learn more about any peak, users tap a mountain peak on the screen; TouchMountain then offers information on more than 750,000 peaks worldwide, including elevation, distance from the user, live webcams, Wikipedia articles on the surroundings, and local weather. TouchMountain also features a compass, navigation, sharing, and pictures of the landscape that include images of annotated mountains.

You can meet André and see the app in action in this TouchMountain video.

To develop the TouchMountain client, Meyer and his colleagues used a variety of programming languages, third-party libraries, and developer tools, including the Telerik RadControls, a suite of UI controls for creating engaging and interactive UIs for Windows Phone apps. (Access to the Telerik suite is among the benefits of the Nokia Premium Developer Program, of which MIT Innovation AG is a member.) Meyer describes the RadControls as ‘simply stunning’ and adds that the experience was so good, his team also bought a license for Windows 8 and WPF applications. Along the way, valuable help was provided by both Nokia and Microsoft. ‘Nokia and its employees do an amazing job with their developer platform’, Meyer says, ‘helping developers with questions, test devices, and other support.’

Next, Meyer and his colleagues are going to concentrate on promoting their application. They plan to use the geotargeted Promotions feature of Nokia Ad Exchange (NAX) to promote TouchMountain in other apps to users in countries where such an application is relevant. NAX is an easy-to-use, cross-platform ad exchange that links developers with more than 120 ad networks worldwide and enables payments in more than 200 countries.

Early feedback from TouchMountain users has been overwhelmingly positive, Meyer says, adding, ‘We get absolutely incredible feedback from our users everywhere around the world.’ Some users have even offered to add new features to the app, including translations into additional languages and new peaks for the database. Perhaps that’s not surprising; TouchMountain’s developers were also its first users. ‘As avid outdoor athletes,’ Meyer says, ‘we always wanted to know the name of the wonderful mountains we found.’ Now they, and other mountain fans worldwide, can.

Check out the TouchMountain app on Windows Phone Store.

Follow TouchMountain on Twitter and Facebook.

Learn more about developing apps for Windows Phone and the Nokia Lumia smartphones.

• Berhan and Hugh Gamble, both of Canada, and Tans of India will each receive a Nokia Asha phone.
• Teemu Sipilä of Finland won a Nokia Bluetooth Headset BH-610.
•  Nice Nokia T-shirts were awarded to: Benita Clarissa of Indonesia; Albin Anto Mathew of India; Robert Molloy of the U.K.; and SeqTre of India, who commented, ‘The webinars are good, and they provide great learning opportunities’.

Congratulations to our March winners, who join the ranks of those who won in January and February.

Through April, we will be giving away three Nokia Asha 305 phones, various phone accessories, and Asha T-shirts each month. We still have plenty of new and exciting webinars lined up for you, and Learn and Win for 2013 has more prizes than ever.

Learn more about Learn and Win, and register to enter. You could win a lovely Nokia Asha 305 phone.

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

What has been updated – an overview

• Updated Nokia Music API page with new content, including: How does it work, Explore samples, and Webinar: Using the Nokia Music Windows Phone APIs.
• Updated MusicClient class with new GetSimilarProducts method.
• Updated and moved Nokia Music API Quick Start to its own page.
• New example Nokia Music API Test App.
• New example Bands Around.

New Methods

The MusicClient class has been updated with the new GetSimilarProducts method, enabling recommendations for similar albums, singles and tracks. Prior to adding this method, it was only possible to get recommendations for similar artists.

We’ve also updated the documentation for the methods added earlier this year to the MusicClient class (GetArtistsAroundLocation, GetArtistSearchSuggestions, and GetSearchSuggestion). The GetArtistsAroundLocation method plays an essential role in the Bands Around example application, and search suggestions are demoed in the Nokia Music App Test App described below.

More samples

In addition to the Music Explorer example that had been provided earlier, we’ve added more examples to the Lumia Developer’s Library to give you more ideas for using the power of the Nokia Music API.

• Nokia Music API Test App – a definitive example application delivering an easily understandable and comprehensive learning experience for Nokia Music APIs.
• Music Explorer – example application demonstrating the use of Nokia Music APIs together with standard Windows Phone 8 audio features to create an immersive music experience.
• Bands Around – example application demonstrating the use of Nokia Music APIs together with the new Windows Phone 8 Map control in a location-aware manner.

What innovative ways will you come up to enhance your Windows Phone application with the Nokia Music API?

The winner is Rudy Huyn of Rennes, France, for his Wikipedia app, which uses the phone’s location to find relevant articles. Rudy’s app also supports search in more than 100 languages, speech recognition, NFC sharing, QR codes, and services that include Pocket and Instapaper. Rudy has been a Nokia Developer Champion since last May, and you can meet him in this video.

The runner-up was Eddie Kezel of Roseville, Calif., and his ProShot photography app. Eddie is a member of our DVLUP program and is also a member of the Nokia Premium Developer Program for Lumia, which is designed to improve Windows Phone developer productivity.

The Next App Star competition launched in January, and developers had until early March to submit their apps. In all, more than 9,100 apps from nearly 80 countries were submitted. These apps were then rated and scored on quality, and the top 64 were awarded Lumia 920 smartphones, app merchandising, and one year of the Windows Phone Dev Center. The public then voted on these top 64 apps, and in just three weeks, they voted more than 600,000 times. The vote was really close: Rudy’s app won by only 155 votes. During the competition, there were also 21 daily giveaways of free Lumia 920 phones.

Learn more about the Windows Phone Next App Star competition winners.

Congratulations, Rudy!

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.

ICS, based in Bedford, Mass., provides mobile app design and custom development services, specializing in the delivery of embedded and mobile devices with engaging user experiences (UX). Its new app, the official Windows Phone app for The Coffee Bean, lets users of Nokia Lumia Windows Phone devices browse, view, locate, search, map, and customize drinks. Users can also share information with other coffee and tea drinkers, read The Coffee Bean’s Twitter and Facebook messages, find The Coffee Bean stores with various amenities (including Wi-Fi, wireless charging, and catering), create in-store music playlists, and learn about seasonal drinks and other products.

The Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf is a privately held coffee and tea retailer born in Southern California. It operates specialty coffee and tea shops in  12 U.S. states, Washington D.C. and 27 countries, including Korea, Turkey, and Vietnam.

Nokia’s partner management team was instrumental to the app’s development, says David Jacobs, Project Manager at ICS. Nokia helped ICS set client expectations and deliverables, he explains, and also provided helpful developer tools. Adds Patrick Yi, Nokia’s global consultancy partner manager, ‘It was great to work with such a talented team at ICS, who were able to bring this app to life. ICS successfully captured key differentiators, such as NFC, to make this app and Lumia devices stand out.’

The development team used the Nokia Music library, Windows Phone toolkit, and MvvmLight Library. ‘The methodologies and technologies used by our UX designers and application developers allowed them to collaborate and take advantage of Windows to leverage and build this application with relative ease’, Jacobs says.

ICS developers say they were especially happy to use the App2App protocol in Windows Phone 8. ‘This protocol enabled us to take advantage of the features of other apps, such as Nokia Drive and Nokia Music’, he explains. ‘We used App2App to launch Nokia Music on a Nokia device to display The Coffee Bean Mix, as well as a Nokia Drive navigation feature. The application uses the current location finder to display the closest stores.’ Min Hsieh-Fraser, partner manager for The Coffee Bean at Nokia, adds, ‘We set out to deliver a high-quality app with a simple user journey and a clean interface. With the help of design and programming experts at ICS, we delivered just that.’

The Coffee Bean app shares the same code for both Windows Phone 7 and Windows Phone 8 devices, but can take advantage of Windows Phone 8′s new capabilities. These include NFC, Nokia Maps, Nokia Music, and live updates on touch-responsive Start screen tiles. A beta version of The Coffee Bean app was offered in late 2012, at the same time Nokia and CBTL announced a deal to offer wireless charging in the coffee chain’s U.S. stores.

Early reviews of the app on the Windows Phone Store have been overwhelmingly positive. ‘Perfect app, does what it says, works great’, says one. ‘This app is amazing! Very nicely done!’ says another. ‘Very beautiful with clean design’, says a third.

Check out The Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf app on Windows Phone Store.

Pooja is a frequent contributor to our discussion boards, where she is known as pooja_1650. In fact, since becoming a Nokia Developer member in late 2011, she has contributed nearly 300 posts. Pooja also recently posted on our blog an article about ‘Nokia Lumia Your Wish is My App’, a television programme jointly produced by Nokia and one of India’s leading TV news networks, NDTV.

She is also a creator of a Windows Phone app, IndianPilgrimages, which shows religious sites in India, along with routes and locations on maps. In addition, Pooja is currently organizing a full-day seminar for developers that will be conducted soon. Congratulations, Pooja!

Meet Champion of the month Pooja Arora.

The Nokia Lumia NFC workshop will be held at WIMA NFC Monaco on Thursday, 11 April, from 9:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. Learn how to implement NFC apps and solutions for our latest NFC-enabled smartphones powered by the Windows Phone 8 platform. The workshop has something for everyone, from technical NFC on Windows Phone 8 tips and tricks to advice on how to be successful in the business of delivering apps to consumers. Speakers from Nokia include Sami Pippuri, Head of Developer Product Marketing, Jure Sustersic, Developer Marketing Manager, and Nicolas Delabarre, Technical Support.

You can also hear Jure at a global stakeholders session on Wednesday, 10 April, at 2 p.m. Tomi Penttila, our head of Nokia gear, will participate in a CE devices and hardware session on the same day, 10 April, at 4:30 p.m.

Visit our booth (booth # 14) to see product demos of our latest NFC-enabled Nokia Lumia smartphones, Nokia NFC and wireless charging enabled gear, and other NFC demos and apps. Here’s a video of one of the cool apps we’ll be showing, NearSpeak, a Windows Phone 8 app that records voice messages, stores them on NFC tags and translates them automatically to play the messages in the recipient’s own language:

And to help you manage your budget, the event organisers are offering substantial discounts on your entry fees.  and we’re offering a special discount for Nokia developers who want the three-day Full NFC Experience pass. To get this discount, tweet to us (@nokiadeveloper) with tag #GoingToWIMA, and we’ll let you know your next steps.

Hope to see you at WIMA NFC Monaco!