Mark Arteaga

Yesterday I did a post on the launch of Windows Phone 7.  Well Today is that day and the phone is here!  It’s 1am so no I have not gone out to buy one yet.  Internally, we are currently working on finalizing the RedBit website and launching that today also.  The new website will help us tell the RedBit story and what we have delivered for customers.

While doing that, we wanted to link to some of our Windows Phone 7 applications and our customer applications so people can go straight out and download.

Unfortunately there is currently a problem where the deep links to Zune do not work in Chrome or Firefox.  I’m hoping that will be fixed soon or Microsoft releases a web version of the marketplace similar to the Windows Mobile 6.x marketplace.  But if you use IE, you should not have a problem.

If you want to link your products in Zune Marketplace, you may also want to use some standard assets that are provided.  Unfortunately again, I had a real hard time finding these online.  So I went ahead and created some from scratch.  Here are some images to use when deep linking to your apps in marketplace. 

Here is a link to Find My Bru which we ported to Windows Phone 7 and added some new features.  (details to follow)

Hope the images are useful! If you need the Photoshop version ping me via Twitter or via this blog!

We are in the process of submitting applications for Windows Phone 7 Marketplace and ran into an issue with one of our applications failing certification.  When we submitted our applications to the Windows Phone 6.5 Marketplace, our first submission failed because our icon was the wrong DPI.

This time around for the Windows Phone 7 Marketplace we failed because our Marketplace icon we submitted does not “closely match” the icon in the XAP file.  Section 4.5 of the Windows Phone 7 Application Certification Requirements state

4.5 Windows Phone Marketplace Iconography
For each application, you must submit one icon to represent your application in the Windows Phone Marketplace catalog. This icon must match closely the icon provided in the XAP package. Users see this icon when browsing the application catalog on the phone before making a purchase.

Here is our start menu icon

and here is our Marketplace icon which is also our Tile Image

There is a difference in the icons and can see how this could possibly cause confusion for end users.  They see an icon in Zune Marketplace but when installed they see a different icon.  In the end it’s all about the user experience. 

Not a big deal so we’ll fix this and resubmit.  Just want to make others aware so when you submit your app, you pass with flying colours and not delayed in entering Marketplace.  On a plus side, our customer apps have been approved and as long as they are happy I’m happy

If you are developing applications for Windows Phone 7 you might want to check out the Windows Phone 7 Application Certification Requirements document that is available and read through it. 

Here are a few items that I think may be potential gotchas when getting your app certified for Marketplace

• 4.1.1 List of Package Requirements
  The maximum size of the XAP package file is 500 MB.
  
• 5.1.1 Multiple Devices Support
  The application must run on any Windows Phone 7 device, regardless of model, screen size, keyboard hardware, and manufacturer.
  
• 5.1.2 Application Termination
  The application must handle exceptions raised by the .NET Framework and not terminate unexpectedly. During the certification process, the application is monitored for unexpected termination. An application that terminates unexpectedly fails certification.
  
  When handling exceptions, an application must provide a user-friendly error message. You may present a message that is relevant to the context of the application or use a Microsoft provided error message. The application must continue to run and remain responsive to user input after the exception is handled.
  
  An application that displays generic or unhelpful error messages will fail certification.
  
• 5.1.3 Application Does not Hang
  The application must not become unresponsive to user input because of an operation within the application. For time consuming activities such as downloading data over network connections, the application must display a visual progress indicator. When there is a visual progress indicator, you must implement a UI element that provides the user with an option to cancel the time consuming activity.
  
• 5.2.1 Launch Time
• The application must render the first screen within 5 seconds after launch.To meet this requirement, Microsoft recommends that the application provides a splash screen image in a file called SplashScreenImage.jpg in the root of the XAP package.
• Within 20 seconds after launch, the application must be responsive to user input.
  
• 5.2.3 Use of Back Button
• Pressing the Back button from the first screen of an application must exit the application.
• Pressing the Back button must return the application to the previous page. If the current page displays a context menu or a dialog, the pressing of the Back button must close the menu or dialog and cancel the backward navigation to the previous page.
  
• 6.2 Push Notifications Application
• 6.2.1 Configurable Functionality
  In the UI or settings menu, the application must provide the user with the ability to independently disable toast or tile notifications.
• 6.2.2 Initial Push Notifications Functionality
  On first use of HttpNotificationChannel.BindtoShellToast or HttpNotificationChannel.BindToShellTile methods, the application must ask the user for explicit permission to receive Push Notification Service.
  
• 6.3 Applications Running under a Locked Screen
• 6.3.1 Configurable Functionality
  In the UI or settings menu, an application must provide the user with the ability to prevent the application from running under a locked screen.
• 6.3.2 Launch Configuration of Running under a Locked Screen
  On first use of ApplicationIdleDetectionMode, an application must ask the user for explicit permission to run under a locked screen.

These are the things that jump out at me that could potentially have your application fail certification.  Have you started preparing for certification?  Anything else jump out?  Comment below or ping me via twitter.com/MarkArteaga.