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Showing posts from July, 2014

Towards cross-platform development..

There are lots and lots of Apps. In fact there are over a couple of million Apps including all of the major brands, Apple, Google, Blackberry, Microsoft with Apple at the top and Microsoft in the bottom. But this is a growing market. The variety is truly bewildering, different size devices; different operating systems(OS); different programming languages;  and different orientations. This post is not very recent but you can see how the various mobile operating systems compare: http://www.ibtimes.com/android-vs-ios-whats-most-popular-mobile-operating-system-your-country-1464892 The interactive image in the article really shows the popularity of a given OS/device among different geographical regions. Windows Phone Apps is for example based on Microsoft's Window 7, 8, 8.1 OSs using .NET. With Windows OS and Visual Studio one can build Apps for all of Microsoft devices covering Phone, Tablet and Desktop. However Microsoft Windows Apps sans Html5/CSS/Javascript is OS specific. E

Windows Phone 8.1 ???

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I received in my email a message from Microsoft Store that a Nokia Lumia 635 is available with Windows Phone 8.1. I tried to find if my Nokia Icon 929 gets the update. At this point Microsoft (chat) could not say anything positive. My carrier VERIZON is also unable to confirm, they think probably towards the end of August. I do not find Windows Phone 8.1 Upgrade on the store. It is very interesting that the Nokia Icon was touted as the most current device and it is funny that there is no update. My guess is it is something to do with the contract between Nokia and the carriers, because for Nokia Lumia 635 there appears to be just two vendors, AT&T and T-Mobile. Verizon says they are not responsible and that Microsoft should be contacted and I drew a blank with Microsoft.  

Cross platform app development with Apache Cardoba APIs

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It is now possible to work with PhoneGap on Windows using PhoneGap Developer App available from the Windows Store. PhoneGap is a free, open source framework based on the Open Source Apache Cardova project that allows developing mobile apps using standardized Web APIs.You can create apps using HTML, CSS and Javascript. PhoneGap bundles up your code for the device of your choice. You start here: http://phonegap.com/ PhoneGap Developer app can be used to develop both Windows Phone 8 app as well as the soon to arrive Windows Phone 8.1 store app. With PhoneGap you have full access to the PhoneGap APIs and there is no need to install platform SDKs, registering devices etc. Get the information guide relevant to your platform from here: http://docs.phonegap.com/en/edge/guide_platforms_index.md.html Watch video here for additional motivation:

How do you convert your blog to a Windows 8.1 APP?

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Why do you need to convert? Well, you cannot lug along your 17" (OK 14") Laptop, Notebook to an interview, but definitely you can take your Windows Phone and show what you are capable of. I am talking about going to an interview and getting a job. Your blog can show on a smart phone browser but an app has lot of other things like app bar, charms etc. The Web App Template provides you those extra things needed on an app. This post shows you how without even having the fancy software like Visual Studio. But if you have VS you can do more. Read along.. In the previous post here, http://hodentek.blogspot.com/2014/06/web-app-template-2.html the procedure to download and install the Web App Template was described with a few of the key features. If you do not have access to Microsoft Visual Studio 2013 Express Update 2 , you could still create a project based on Web App Template at the Windows App Studio Beta site here: http://appstudio.windows.com/Projects When you a