Windows Phone 8 SDK — By Appointment Only 153
mikejuk writes "Developers worried about the changes that might be waiting for them in the new Windows Phone 8 API are going to have to wait even longer to find out. Microsoft has just announced that the SDK will be available soon, but only to the developers it approves. If you already have a published app, then you can apply to be part of the program. The announcement says, 'But I do want to set your expectations that program access will be limited.' The public SDK will be made available 'later this year,' which is behind the timetable that developers were led to expect. As you can imagine, the developer community, judging by the comment stream, is less than happy. What makes this whole development even stranger is that the announcement was made on the day Nokia previewed a range of WP8 devices. The Nokia launch got most of the publicity, so perhaps the idea was that a little negative news wouldn't be noticed. The real question is: why the limited availability?"
Re:Who cares (Score:2, Interesting)
Yes. I own one and am currently working at a Microsoft consultancy and am MS cert, yet I doubt I'll poke it with a stick or buy another one.
Android next time...
Possibly,... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Google Does This Too (Score:4, Interesting)
This is even worse than it first appears if you get past the hype and look to history. In the past pretty much every developer Microsoft could find would have development tools a year before a new OS launched to ensure apps would be ready to drop on release day. Nokia just announced product with Windows 8 and select brown nose devs will be getting complete dev tool support SOON? What?
Balmer may still be there but he ain't the same Monkey Boy who did the sweaty, bouncy, "Developers! Developers! Developers!" dance. It is clear that not only the hardware partners are going under the bus, the future for 3rd party application developers is dimming. Which of course is the way it must be. Microsoft currently has as close to a total monopoly on the desktop with Windows and Office as can be. So if they are to grow the topline they won't be doing it by doing more of what made them big. So they have to take in the hardware profits and eventually try to suck in the rest of the application space's profits. Dell's profit margins aren't huge but it makes serious coin on the gross revenue line and it will look good on the topline to keep the institutional investors happy a few more years. Plus, in the long run it is probably the only way to truly lock the platform, which is the only way to cut off the penguin's oxygen supply.
They could take out Netscape by making IE free but that doesn't work with Linux since it is already Free. But what it does need is a plentiful supply of commodity hardware and thus that is it's oxygen. Cut that off and it dies. Android can be dealt with later, assuming they don't end up just monitizing it through patent trolling to the point it makes them so much money they can't afford to kill it.
Likely the SDK just isn't 'ready'. Seen it before. (Score:4, Interesting)
I've seen this so many times before, from both sides. When the SDK is usable but not 'done' (locked down, polished up, fully documented) you restrict it to eager early devs with caveats like 'API calls subject to change!' The early devs also act as free beta/QA testers, which is the single biggest reason to do the pre-release at all. Then when it's Finished finished you release it to the wilds.
This doesn't tell you whether just the SDK isn't done or whether the OS APIs aren't locked down yet either. The latter would be bad if they're intending to get the SDK out this year.
Re:Obviously not ready (Score:5, Interesting)
Not only that, but the rapid path to market that Microsoft promised Nokia, was the excuse Nokia's CEO Stephen Elop wrote as the reasoning behind the 'Burning Platform' memo in February 2011. Since then Elop has gone out of his way to fire any in-house developer that is not assigned to work on Windows phones. Elop burned all that Linux expertise, because of the Microsoft Fast-track promised. Nokia also burned all those QT developers, Intel, etc. after Elop went gangbusters for Microsoft. In fact at the time Elop said the amount of bugs to ship a Linux platform was greater than the Windows Phone fast-track, (nevermind the Nokia N9 team totally proved him wrong by delivering a most-excellent phone, before they were all fired by Elop).
FWIW, Elop has also demonstrated zero Plan B, because no doubt he doesn't expect to be there for Plan B should the Plan B option even exist once he's finished.
Re:'You know the problem with the other app stores (Score:3, Interesting)