IntroductionWelcome| 00:00 |
(music playing))
| | 00:04 |
Hello I'm Michael Lehman, and welcome to
| | 00:05 |
distributing Windows phone apps through
the Windows phone store.
| | 00:10 |
In this course, I'll show you how to sign
up for a developer account with
| | 00:13 |
Microsoft, prepare all the artwork and
metadata you'll need to submit your app.
| | 00:17 |
How to tweak your app manifest to make it
accurately reflect your app's actual requirements.
| | 00:22 |
How to select and implement the optimal
business model, including trial mode,
| | 00:27 |
advertising supported apps and in app
purchase.
| | 00:30 |
We'll upload an actual app to the windows
phone store, including a beta test as
| | 00:35 |
well as publishing the app to go live.
And finally, I'll help you understand how
| | 00:40 |
to launch and promote your app once it's
live in the store.
| | 00:43 |
So, let's get started.
| | 00:44 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
1. Exploring the Windows Phone StoreWalking through the Windows Phone Store| 00:00 |
Your Windows Phone apps will ship through
the Windows Phone Store.
| | 00:04 |
Before we look at how to prepare and ship
your app through the store, let's take a
| | 00:08 |
walking tour through the store so we can
see what users see and understand which
| | 00:13 |
things you have to prepare in order to
ship your apps.
| | 00:16 |
The way to get to the Windows Phone
Store, of course, is the way you get to
| | 00:19 |
everything Windows Phone,
windowsphone.com.
| | 00:22 |
Here in the Apps and Games section, you
can see there's a number of sections.
| | 00:26 |
The Overview section, which is basically
this advertising thing that Microsoft
| | 00:30 |
includes here.
A Spotlight, where they show apps that
| | 00:34 |
they're featuring.
Hopefully, one of your apps is going to
| | 00:37 |
show up here.
The Apps section, where we find all the
| | 00:41 |
non-game apps.
The game section where we find all the
| | 00:45 |
game apps.
And finally, the purchase history.
| | 00:48 |
When you're logged in, we'll show you the
apps that you purchased for your phone.
| | 00:53 |
Let's go back to the phone store and
let's take a look in the spotlight at
| | 00:57 |
some of the apps so that you can see the
common things that popular apps do in
| | 01:02 |
their app descriptions and their setup.
Let's start out with this battery monitor here.
| | 01:07 |
You can see there's a large icon for the
store.
| | 01:11 |
There's description of the app for the
store.
| | 01:13 |
You get eight lines of data here and if
you click Show Details, you can include
| | 01:18 |
additional details in the description of
your app.
| | 01:21 |
You can include up to 8 screenshots for
your app in the store and users typically
| | 01:26 |
decide by the time they read the first 2
lines of the description and take a look
| | 01:30 |
at your screenshots whether they're going
to buy or not.
| | 01:33 |
And this is crucial if you're using
either a trial mode for your app or your
| | 01:38 |
app is simply a paid app.
Over here on the left-hand side, go back
| | 01:41 |
to the top, you'll see users see the
price of your app, the number of stars
| | 01:46 |
you've gotten from reviews, either the
Get or Buy button, depending on whether
| | 01:51 |
your app is free or paid.
The opportunity to like this app on
| | 01:55 |
social networks, your publisher name,
icons for other apps that you've shipped
| | 02:00 |
in the store.
And then information to the users about
| | 02:04 |
how big is your app, when you last
updated it, what version it is, whether
| | 02:09 |
it works with Windows Phone 8 or whether
it also works with Windows Phone 7.
| | 02:14 |
And what are the capabilities of your
phone that this app actually uses.
| | 02:19 |
For example owner identity, media
playback, microphone, data services and
| | 02:24 |
so forth as well as which screen
resolutions this app supports.
| | 02:28 |
Most apps support all of them, some don't
support the smaller resolutions.
| | 02:33 |
The screenshots you see over here if
you're logged in show you the resolution
| | 02:38 |
screenshots for the phone that you have.
And finally there's the supported
| | 02:43 |
languages and an opportunity to download
and install manually.
| | 02:48 |
And then at the bottom there's the
reviews.
| | 02:50 |
As you can see this particular app has a
couple of five star review a three star
| | 02:54 |
and a four star review.
Now those reviews are written by your users.
| | 02:59 |
And they're not something that you can
edit so its crucial to be able to read
| | 03:04 |
these reviews on a regular basis
understand whats going on in the minds of
| | 03:08 |
your customers.
And make sure that you keep your app up
| | 03:11 |
to date so you get the best reviews you
can.
| | 03:14 |
Let's take a look at a couple of other
apps, just so that you can see similar
| | 03:17 |
types of things.
Take a look at a game.
| | 03:20 |
If we go into that down here, you can see
that the screen shots are dramatically
| | 03:24 |
different than the ones in the battery
monitor route; which is more of a
| | 03:27 |
productivity app.
But again, those screen shots and this
| | 03:31 |
description up here is what people are
going to use to decide whether to
| | 03:34 |
download your app or not.
In addition, you can see over here on the
| | 03:39 |
left, you'll see that this app not only
has a Buy button, but also has a Try
| | 03:43 |
button, because this app has a trial
mode.
| | 03:46 |
Now let's go take a look at a free app.
So we'll go to Apps and Games, go to
| | 03:50 |
Apps, and I'll go to Top Free, and I'll
pick the Pandora app.
| | 03:55 |
And you'll see over here on the left that
for a free app it simply says install
| | 04:00 |
since there's no decision that has to be
made on the part of the user whether to
| | 04:04 |
buy your app or try your app.
Simply install the app and that's what I
| | 04:07 |
want to do.
Alright last but not least let's take a
| | 04:11 |
look at this section right here.
Microsoft provides five sections of
| | 04:16 |
featured applications.
The first one is called Featured, we
| | 04:18 |
looked at that before.
The Top Free apps, which is the most
| | 04:22 |
downloaded and highest rated apps.
New and Rising which are the ones that
| | 04:25 |
are not only new but being downloaded at
an accelerated rate.
| | 04:29 |
Top Paid, and Best Rated.
And as you can see, each one of these has
| | 04:33 |
its own sections of apps.
So here's the Featured apps.
| | 04:37 |
The top three apps, new and rising.
And you can see that Fidelity Investments
| | 04:42 |
was in both the featured and in the new
and rising, because it's a brand new app
| | 04:47 |
and getting a lot of downloads.
Top paid.
| | 04:49 |
You can see that in the Windows phone
store, just like in the iPhone apps store
| | 04:55 |
and the Google Play store.
A lot of the top paid apps or games and
| | 05:00 |
finally Best Rated.
So you can see that Windows Phone users
| | 05:04 |
watch movies, search Wikipedia, look at
YouTube and try to find their keys in the dark.
| | 05:09 |
Alright that's our tour through the
windows phone store.
| | 05:13 |
Next up, we're going to look and see what
you have to do to prepare your app.
| | 05:17 |
So that you can submit it to the windows
phone store and share it with the world.
| | 05:21 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Understanding the Windows Phone Store process| 00:00 |
Before you submit your app to the Windows
phone store, it's important to understand
| | 00:04 |
the whole store process before you start.
So let's take a look at it.
| | 00:09 |
The first thing is getting set up with
Microsoft.
| | 00:11 |
You need to make sure that you have a
Microsoft account.
| | 00:13 |
Now, as a Windows phone developer,
developing on Windows 8, you probably
| | 00:17 |
already have a Microsoft account.
But you need to decide if that's the
| | 00:20 |
Microsoft account you want to use for the
Windows Phone Store and the Dev Center.
| | 00:25 |
Specifically, if you're a company, your
company may have, or may want to have, a
| | 00:28 |
specific account that's shared among
multiple people for accessing the Dev Center.
| | 00:33 |
Once you've created a Microsoft account,
or acquired the appropriate credentials
| | 00:37 |
for the account you want to use, the next
step is registering for the Dev Center.
| | 00:42 |
This gives you the ability to register
app names, upload your XAP files, edit
| | 00:47 |
the descriptions, manage in-app purchases
and advertising, as well as monitor your
| | 00:52 |
app once it's released into the store,
using the dashboard.
| | 00:56 |
Next up, you want to decide if you want
to have an individual or a company account.
| | 01:00 |
The difference between an individual and
a company account is how it's handled, tax-wise.
| | 01:05 |
And how the verification of who you are
is handled when you sign up.
| | 01:09 |
If you're a company account, you have to
go through a formal process with
| | 01:13 |
Microsoft to validate that not only are
you a company but that you are authorized
| | 01:18 |
to operate the Dev Center on behalf of
your company.
| | 01:20 |
Of course, getting set up with Microsoft
if you're doing paid apps or if you're
| | 01:24 |
using advertising supported apps, you've
got to set up for getting paid.
| | 01:28 |
This also involves providing Microsoft
your tax information and your bank
| | 01:32 |
information so that you can get paid for
the apps that your users download.
| | 01:35 |
And finally, if you're creating an
advertising supported application, you'll
| | 01:40 |
want to create a Microsoft pubCenter
account for managing the advertisement.
| | 01:45 |
That way you can select the kind of
advertisements and the size of
| | 01:48 |
advertisements that will be included in
your app.
| | 01:51 |
In preparing your app, there are eight
steps to get ready before you submit your
| | 01:54 |
app to the store.
Step one involves writing a description
| | 01:58 |
for your app.
We'll go through this in detail, but
| | 02:01 |
you'll want to know that the first two
lines are what your users are going to
| | 02:04 |
almost always only read before they
decide to buy your app.
| | 02:08 |
But then you can put all kinds of
additional details In your app
| | 02:11 |
description the first eight lines of
which will show in the app store until
| | 02:15 |
the user clicks more details.
In addition to your app description and
| | 02:20 |
the name of your app and the name of your
company your app can show up in search
| | 02:24 |
results in the Windows phone store based
on keywords that you provide.
| | 02:28 |
These keywords don't need to include the
name of your app or name of your company,
| | 02:32 |
those are separate searches.
But, you want to include things like,
| | 02:36 |
flashlight, or battery, or fun if it's a
game, in order for it to show up when
| | 02:42 |
people do searches.
Mastering the art of keywords is beyond
| | 02:45 |
the scope of this course, but we'll talk
about the basics of how many keywords you get.
| | 02:49 |
And how to manage them in a later
chapter.
| | 02:52 |
Next up is artwork and artwork is a big
enough topic that requires its own step.
| | 02:56 |
Step two preparing your artwork.
First up is your app icon.
| | 03:00 |
This is the icon that shows up to the
user not only in the app's listing but
| | 03:05 |
also if someone pins your app to the
start page.
| | 03:09 |
Then if your app has any tiles, any live
tiles, you need to create the appropriate
| | 03:14 |
images for those live tiles.
Potentially, front side and back side and
| | 03:18 |
potentially in different sizes.
Because with Windows Phone 8, you can now
| | 03:22 |
have live tiles in small, medium and
large sizes.
| | 03:26 |
If your fortunate enough to have your app
selected by Microsoft as a featured app,
| | 03:31 |
they'll want to have a store background
image which is a larger image than any of
| | 03:35 |
the icons and something you want to
prepare and submit even if your app
| | 03:39 |
doesn't require it to run it gives
Microsoft the confidence that your ready
| | 03:43 |
for being featured.
Finally, you'll need to prepare at least
| | 03:47 |
two screenshots in every resolution in
which your app functions.
| | 03:51 |
It's highly recommended that you create
as many screenshots, up to the maximum of
| | 03:55 |
eight, that you can because, as mentioned
earlier, it's the first two lines of your
| | 04:00 |
description and those screenshots that
make up most of the purchasing or
| | 04:04 |
downloading decisions for any app.
Step three, we'll talk in detail about
| | 04:09 |
those screenshots.
The best way to create the screenshots is
| | 04:12 |
to use the emulator.
If it's not possible to use the emulator,
| | 04:15 |
you can actually use a device and do the
screenshots.
| | 04:17 |
But using the emulator works great,
because the emulator can emulate either
| | 04:22 |
of the three different resolutions that
Windows Phone supports.
| | 04:24 |
720P, WXGA, and WVGA.
Step four, before you submit your app, is
| | 04:32 |
you'll want to use the Windows Phone
Store test kit.
| | 04:36 |
This will ensure that you have all of the
appropriate graphics for bundling into
| | 04:40 |
your XAP file so that you don't get
rejected from the certification process
| | 04:44 |
for missing graphics.
It also runs a small series of automated
| | 04:48 |
tests, in order to ensure that your app
starts quickly enough and performs the
| | 04:53 |
minimum things that Microsoft can do
automatically for every kind of app.
| | 04:57 |
And it also provides you a long list of
manual tests, which you can exercise
| | 05:02 |
yourself, because the testers at
Microsoft who are certifying your app for
| | 05:06 |
the Windows Phone Store will go through
many of these same tests.
| | 05:10 |
And your app could get rejected for one
of these reasons if you don't go through
| | 05:14 |
at least once during the cycle of your
app development and run all of these
| | 05:18 |
manual tests.
Now, some of them apply to every app, and
| | 05:22 |
some of them only apply to certain kinds
of apps that use the microphone or the
| | 05:26 |
gyroscope or the compass or the location
services.
| | 05:31 |
But look through them all anyway.
That way you can know exactly what
| | 05:34 |
Microsoft is expecting from your app so
that you don't get rejected during the
| | 05:38 |
certification process.
Step 5 is about beta testing.
| | 05:42 |
Before you release your app to the world,
you'll want to, if nothing else, beta
| | 05:48 |
test it yourself so that you can verify
that the download experience is right.
| | 05:53 |
That the windows store page looks correct
that you've got the right number of lines
| | 05:58 |
of content in your description that your
screen shots look the way you want them
| | 06:02 |
too and that all of your capabilities are
properly listed.
| | 06:05 |
To begin beta testing once you've created
the information for your app, you start
| | 06:10 |
at the dev center dashboard and you
create a new app.
| | 06:14 |
Then you complete the necessary info for
the new app and choose more options where
| | 06:19 |
some additional information will drop
down on that web page, and we'll see this
| | 06:22 |
in action later.
Step six is more about beta testing.
| | 06:26 |
Once you've dropped that more options
down, you choose beta, then you enter in
| | 06:30 |
the email addresses for your testers.
These email addresses don't have to be
| | 06:35 |
the Microsoft account addresses for your
testers, but of course, every one of your
| | 06:39 |
testers has to have a Windows Phone
device in order to test your app.
| | 06:43 |
Your testers can't test your app in the
emulator.
| | 06:46 |
They have to have real Windows Phone
devices to beta test.
| | 06:50 |
Then you choose your publish date.
This publish date is just for your beta test.
| | 06:55 |
This is not the publish date for your app
to go live in the store, and only people
| | 07:00 |
who have the link which is sent to them
in their email address for the beta
| | 07:04 |
testers will be able to see that page.
If you have any other required
| | 07:08 |
notification certificates or push
notifications, you'll also have to enter
| | 07:12 |
them at this point.
What you have to do in Visual Studio,
| | 07:16 |
relative to your beta testing, is make
sure you set your required capabilities.
| | 07:20 |
Don't leave it with every capability in
the world selected.
| | 07:23 |
Because this is just like when you're
going to distribute your app through the store.
| | 07:27 |
You want to make sure that you've pared
that list down to the ones you're
| | 07:30 |
actually using.
Prepare all of your non-code,
| | 07:32 |
non-graphics resources, as we talked
about, descriptions, keywords, links and
| | 07:37 |
so forth.
And then you build your XAP file.
| | 07:40 |
You need to make sure that you build your
XAP file for release mode.
| | 07:42 |
You can't beta test by uploading a debug
mode XAP file.
| | 07:47 |
And then you upload the XAP file to the
store and submit it for certification.
| | 07:51 |
Microsoft knows that this is a beta test
certification, and does not put your app
| | 07:56 |
through all of the stringent tests that
your app will have to go through for release.
| | 08:00 |
Which means that on a typical day, you'll
be able to submit something for beta test
| | 08:05 |
and it will be available for beta testing
within just a few hours.
| | 08:08 |
As opposed to potentially a week that it
takes to go through the full
| | 08:12 |
certification process for a public
release.
| | 08:15 |
And finally, some applications require
some specific non-code, non-graphics
| | 08:20 |
resources such as a web page describing
the legal terms for your app.
| | 08:24 |
A privacy page describing what you're
doing with your user's private
| | 08:28 |
confidential information and a support
e-mail address.
| | 08:32 |
Some or all of these you'll need, when
you submit your app to go public.
| | 08:35 |
But you will need at least a support
email address in order to submit your app
| | 08:38 |
for beta testing.
All right, now, that's an overview of the
| | 08:41 |
whole Windows Store process.
Now, we're going to dig into the details
| | 08:46 |
of that business model, trial modes and
all the mechanics necessary to do all of
| | 08:51 |
these things.
So that you can ship your beta and you
| | 08:53 |
can ship your app to the windows phone
store.
| | 08:55 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Exploring the business models| 00:00 |
Something you've probably thought about
as you were developing your app.
| | 00:03 |
But something that you have to make a
firm decision on before you can ship your
| | 00:06 |
app, is what business model do you want
to use to support your app.
| | 00:11 |
Let's take a look at the various business
models in detail so that you can make
| | 00:14 |
sure you understand all the nuances.
First app, free.
| | 00:18 |
This means an unlimited number of users
can download your app, install it on
| | 00:23 |
their phones.
And you can find out how many people
| | 00:25 |
download your app.
But you can't find out who they are
| | 00:28 |
unless your app collects that
information, and you get no revenue for it.
| | 00:32 |
This works great for applications in
which you are using this to promote a business.
| | 00:36 |
Or just providing information, because
you're generating your revenue or your
| | 00:41 |
enjoyment through some other means.
This gives you the highest download possibilities.
| | 00:46 |
Because there's absolutely zero friction
for someone to download your app.
| | 00:50 |
People love free.
You're going to get lots of people who
| | 00:53 |
are going to come and kick the tires.
Now one of the challenges of free is that
| | 00:57 |
everybody will download your app, that
runs across it.
| | 01:00 |
And, if they don't understand it, or it
doesn't fit their particular cup of tea,
| | 01:05 |
they may give you a negative review.
So you need to make sure that it is very
| | 01:09 |
clear in your description who your app is
for.
| | 01:11 |
And what people are going to be able to
accomplish or enjoy by downloading your app.
| | 01:16 |
This is really great for connecting to
existing services.
| | 01:20 |
For example, the Facebook app is free.
That's because Facebook makes its money
| | 01:24 |
by selling advertising.
The Spotify app is free, because it's
| | 01:28 |
being supported by paid services on the
back end.
| | 01:32 |
So again, if what you want is the maximum
distribution, use free.
| | 01:36 |
And as I said, it's useful to promote
your business, your book your blog is a
| | 01:41 |
way of getting people to pay attention to
what you're doing.
| | 01:44 |
And provide them potentially ongoing
information.
| | 01:48 |
The next business model we're going to
look at is straight up paid.
| | 01:51 |
And paid this is going to be your lowest
download possibilities in the sense that
| | 01:56 |
people have to make a commitment and say.
I want to buy your app.
| | 02:00 |
Now, they're going to do that, as I
mentioned before, based on the first
| | 02:03 |
couple lines of your inscription and the
screenshots that they see of your app.
| | 02:07 |
On the other hand, mobile customers are
also very price sensitive.
| | 02:10 |
So as you decide if you're going to have
a paid app, you have to be careful to
| | 02:14 |
price your product properly.
People may be less sensitive to a product
| | 02:18 |
that sells for $0,99 then they would be
to a product that sells for $4.99.
| | 02:24 |
Your challenge is to figure out the
optimal balance.
| | 02:26 |
Because if people would buy your app at
$2.99 because they get sufficient value
| | 02:31 |
from the app.
If you price it at $0.99, you're leaving
| | 02:35 |
$2 for every download on the table.
So it's key to talk to a number of people
| | 02:40 |
and try to figure out before you price
your app what the price should be.
| | 02:45 |
Paid is very often used with utility
apps.
| | 02:49 |
That's because it provides actual time
saving value or productivity improvement
| | 02:54 |
value for the person that's downloading
the app.
| | 02:57 |
That allows you to say to the user for $2
I'm going to save you 10 minutes a day.
| | 03:02 |
And for many people that's a sale that
they'll do in a second.
| | 03:06 |
Its less useful for apps that are
informational and its also less useful in
| | 03:11 |
terms of the higher prices for games.
Your app must have an obvious perceived
| | 03:16 |
value, or people aren't going to download
it, even it it's 99 cents.
| | 03:20 |
Or if they do, they're going to give you
reviews saying, this wasn't worth a dollar.
| | 03:24 |
I wish I hadn't spent my dollar on this.
So, make sure that your description is
| | 03:28 |
clear; what people get from you app.
And that people do get value for your app
| | 03:32 |
before you choose the paid model.
The two ways in which that paid model can
| | 03:37 |
be of most value, are that it saves time,
or that it provides useful data storage
| | 03:42 |
or manipulation on the device.
For example, EverNote allows you to keep
| | 03:46 |
track of everything as you are going
through your day.
| | 03:49 |
So that actually captures things.
Photo manipulation applications allow you
| | 03:53 |
to take pictures either using the camera
or from the photo library, and do fancy
| | 03:58 |
things to them.
If those apps clearly do something that
| | 04:03 |
is useful to the user, and something that
the user is willing to pay money for.
| | 04:08 |
The next business model is paid with
trial.
| | 04:10 |
This is an option that's available to
every app in the Windows phone store.
| | 04:14 |
Unlike the Apple iTunes app store, you
can offer your users a chance to try your
| | 04:19 |
app out for a while before they make the
commitment to buy it.
| | 04:22 |
This gives you dramatically increased
downloads versus paid only.
| | 04:26 |
People are willing to kick the tires and
see what they think before they commit
| | 04:30 |
their $0.99 or $1.99.
In a lot of situations this allows you to
| | 04:35 |
price your app higher because people
that'll already receive some value from
| | 04:38 |
your app before they make the purchasing
decision.
| | 04:41 |
The key things here are that you can make
your trial limited based on time and you
| | 04:46 |
should also limit the functionality as
well.
| | 04:49 |
Don't make your trials based on just on
time.
| | 04:51 |
Because a user can use your app for a
while uninstall and reinstall it, and
| | 04:55 |
that resets the timer.
So if you are allowing people to test
| | 04:59 |
your app for seven days, they can try it
for seven days, uninstall it, re install
| | 05:03 |
and try it for another seven days.
All for free.
| | 05:06 |
Now for some apps where the data that's
being stored is part of the value that
| | 05:11 |
scenario doesn't work because when you
uninstall you also lose all of the data.
| | 05:16 |
So, if your app for example does photo
processing and doesn't allow you to
| | 05:21 |
upload the pictures anywhere.
Then if a user uninstalls the trial and
| | 05:25 |
re installs the trial.
Then they're going to lose all their pictures.
| | 05:29 |
So, in that particular scenario, for
example, you would probably want to have
| | 05:32 |
the trial allow you to do the photo
processing.
| | 05:35 |
But not upload until the user actually
purchases the app, thus implementing the
| | 05:40 |
share functionality in the app.
And again, that's another one of those
| | 05:43 |
limit functionality things.
So just be careful of how you decide what
| | 05:48 |
to make available and how long to make it
available for.
| | 05:51 |
A game, for example, you might want to
make available for day.
| | 05:55 |
Or you might want to make it available
for the first two levels of the game, and
| | 05:59 |
then in order to get to level 3 and
beyond, you have to purchase the app.
| | 06:03 |
So you need to make sure that you
understand what Trial Mode means for your app.
| | 06:07 |
And that you're not just giving it away
for free.
| | 06:10 |
Next step, let's take a look at the try
before you buy experience, in more detail.
| | 06:15 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Exploring Trial mode| 00:00 |
Let's explore the Trial mode.
There's two kinds of Trial modes.
| | 00:04 |
Time limit and feature limit.
As we talked about briefly, time limit
| | 00:09 |
means you can specify the user can
download your app and run it for free for
| | 00:13 |
two hours, fifteen minutes, seven days,
whatever is appropriate for your app.
| | 00:18 |
Feature limit means that some of the
features of your application are
| | 00:21 |
disabled, until the user buys your app.
Thus, fully licensing all the
| | 00:25 |
functionality of your app.
Getting the user to convert is up to you.
| | 00:29 |
It's your responsibility and your code to
check for Trial mode.
| | 00:33 |
It's your responsibility and your code to
be able to tell the user, hey, if you
| | 00:37 |
like the app, you can go to the Windows
phone store and buy the full version.
| | 00:41 |
The purchasing process is actually
handled by Microsoft, but the prompting
| | 00:45 |
process is handled by you.
And remember, uninstalling and
| | 00:49 |
reinstalling the trial is possible, so
don't rely exclusively on time limits to
| | 00:54 |
protect your intellectual property.
For non-game apps, you're responsible for
| | 00:59 |
using IsTrial() to determine the license
state.
| | 01:02 |
You can have multiple kinds of licenses,
especially when you get into in-app
| | 01:05 |
purchases, but for a trial, Trial will
tell you whether or not you should unlock
| | 01:10 |
the specific features.
Or whether the user has gone beyond their
| | 01:14 |
trial period and you need to prompt them
to buy.
| | 01:16 |
You need to call IsTrial on your app
startup and your app resume.
| | 01:20 |
And then when the user has selected that
they want to buy your app, you must use
| | 01:25 |
the MarketplaceDetailTask.Show method,
start to purchase.
| | 01:29 |
This is because the financial transaction
for some users will go through their
| | 01:34 |
carrier and not directly to Microsoft.
So you can't make the assumption of which
| | 01:38 |
direction the money flows.
You simply want to use Microsoft's
| | 01:42 |
built-in functionality for doing the
purchase process, and then your app will restart.
| | 01:47 |
And you'll be able to check IsTrial on
the next start-up, find out that it's no
| | 01:51 |
longer the trial, and enable the full
features of your apps.
| | 01:54 |
For game apps, it's a different API.
You need to use GamerServices.Guide to
| | 01:59 |
implement the trial mode.
And then use Guide.ShowMarketplace for
| | 02:03 |
the purchase experience.
Again, you're responsible for doing the
| | 02:07 |
prompting, but you're not responsible for
doing the purchasing part.
| | 02:11 |
You have to use Guide.ShowMarketplace to
do that purchase because it's gotta go
| | 02:14 |
through the Xbox game mechanism for
purchasing games.
| | 02:19 |
All right, that's a quick look at the
different kinds of Trial modes In Windows phone.
| | 02:24 |
Next up we're actually going to fire up
the dev center and look at the process of
| | 02:27 |
actually publishing an app to the Windows
phone store.
| | 02:30 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
2. Setting UpUnderstanding the Windows Phone Dev Center| 00:00 |
Now let's take a quick tour of the
Windows phone dev center.
| | 00:04 |
The dev center has five sections: Design,
Develop, Publish, Community and Dashboard.
| | 00:13 |
Design and Develop you've already been
through as you've been building your app.
| | 00:16 |
This course is focusing almost
exclusively on things in the Publish section.
| | 00:21 |
The Community section is where you can
interact with other Windows phone
| | 00:24 |
developers to talk about issues that
you're having, developing or marketing
| | 00:27 |
your apps.
And Dashboard is generally the place
| | 00:31 |
where you go once your app is in the
store to monitor its progress.
| | 00:35 |
In this course we're focusing almost
exclusively on the Publish section.
| | 00:39 |
This is where you'll be creating a
Microsoft account and making sure you've
| | 00:43 |
got your registration for the Dev Center
fully set up.
| | 00:46 |
It's where you make sure that you've got
your business relationship with Microsoft
| | 00:49 |
established, especially if you're getting
paid.
| | 00:52 |
This is where you interact with the
Microsoft advertising pubCenter.
| | 00:56 |
In order to be able to insert the proper
advertising into your app if your
| | 01:00 |
monetizing your app using in app
advertising.
| | 01:04 |
This is where you prepare them for
submission and then upload them.
| | 01:08 |
When your done using the Publish tab, you
will then move onto the Dashboard.
| | 01:12 |
There's a couple of processes which
require use of the Dashboard in addition
| | 01:16 |
to the Publish section once your app has
already been uploaded, for example, to
| | 01:19 |
create updates or to create in app
purchases.
| | 01:23 |
So let's take a look at the Dev Center.
This is the Microsoft Windows Phone Dev Center.
| | 01:29 |
As we mentioned before it has Design,
Develop, Publish, Community and Dashboard sections.
| | 01:36 |
Let's go into the Publish section.
Since I'm not signed in, information
| | 01:40 |
about joining the developer program is
available here.
| | 01:44 |
It allows you to setup your registration
information, renew your account and setup
| | 01:49 |
your business relationship with
Microsoft.
| | 01:52 |
In addition, it give you information
about how to submit your app.
| | 01:56 |
Defining which countries or regions
you're going to specify for paid apps.
| | 02:00 |
Understanding your app and in app product
submission.
| | 02:03 |
Creating all of that textual information
and all of those screenshots and so forth
| | 02:08 |
I mentioned earlier.
And uploading and describing your zapps/g.
| | 02:12 |
Finally, here in the Dev Center, there's
also information about how to help you
| | 02:16 |
with your marketing, how to define your
pricing, and how to add in-app advertising.
| | 02:21 |
And finally, Microsoft explains to you
here in the Dev Center how to use the
| | 02:25 |
dashboard, in order to be able to track
your uploads on a cumulative basis.
| | 02:30 |
And how to track your uploads on a daily
basis.
| | 02:33 |
And if your app is a paid app, how to
look at your money reports so that you
| | 02:36 |
can know when and how much to expect to
get paid by Microsoft.
| | 02:41 |
In the next few sections, we'll talk
about each one of these individual things
| | 02:45 |
separately, about creating a Microsoft
account.
| | 02:48 |
About registering for the Windows Phone
Dev Center and so forth.
| | 02:51 |
But before we move on to that, I'm
going to go ahead and sign in, so we can
| | 02:55 |
see what this page looks like if you are
already signed in as a Windows phone developer.
| | 03:01 |
Once you are signed in to the Dev Center,
you'll see not only is your user ID shown
| | 03:06 |
where you see the blurred out section up
here at the top of the screen.
| | 03:09 |
You can also sign out, and you can also
now come over here and highlight and
| | 03:14 |
click Submit App, and begin the app
submission process.
| | 03:18 |
Let's move on and look at each one of the
steps you need to go through in order to
| | 03:22 |
be able to set up so that you can submit
your app to the Windows Phone store.
| | 03:26 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Creating a Microsoft account| 00:00 |
As a Windows phone developer, you've
probably already gone through this process.
| | 00:04 |
But in case you're now setting up a new
Microsoft account, for your company to be
| | 00:09 |
able to sell apps through the Windows
phone store.
| | 00:11 |
Or you want to create a Microsoft account
so you can share with another developer.
| | 00:17 |
Or you can share this with other people
inside your company.
| | 00:20 |
We're going to briefly take a look at the
process of creating a Microsoft account.
| | 00:24 |
The information you need to sign up for a
Microsoft account is your name,
| | 00:27 |
birthdate, and gender.
And if you're a company, you still have
| | 00:30 |
to assign some single individual to be
responsible for the account.
| | 00:34 |
And you need an existing email address.
And a new password.
| | 00:38 |
The existing email address is going to be
the one that's going to be the email
| | 00:42 |
address the user ID for your Microsoft
account.
| | 00:45 |
You can use a Gmail address.
You can use an Outlook.com address.
| | 00:49 |
But you want to use something that's
different and unique from the accounts
| | 00:53 |
that you normally get mail on.
And specifically you want to make sure
| | 00:56 |
you use a new password.
Don't use the same password, for example,
| | 01:00 |
for your Gmail account as both the
password for your Gmail as well as the
| | 01:05 |
password for your Microsoft account.
Let's take a look at that signup process.
| | 01:10 |
When you click on the Registration Info
button in the Dev Center under the
| | 01:14 |
Publish tab, you come to this page.
And this allows you to get the link right here.
| | 01:20 |
To go create a Microsoft account if you
don't already have one.
| | 01:24 |
Let's go take a look at what it's
required to set up a Microsoft account.
| | 01:27 |
As I mentioned, you have to have your
name, your birthday, your gender, and the
| | 01:35 |
name you want to use for your Microsoft
account.
| | 01:38 |
As I mentioned before, this can be any
valid email address.
| | 01:41 |
If you don't have an email address, or
you want to get a new outlook.com email address.
| | 01:45 |
You can click on this link here that says
or get a new email address.
| | 01:49 |
You need to enter the password twice and
then finally enter in a phone number or a
| | 01:55 |
security question in order to be able to
help you reset the password when you will
| | 02:00 |
inevitably forget it.
Finally you need to specify your country
| | 02:03 |
or region and your postal code.
This will change if you, for example,
| | 02:08 |
selected United Arab Emirates they don't
have postal codes.
| | 02:12 |
If you selected United Kingdom you now
have a postal code as opposed to a zip
| | 02:15 |
code, and also privacy information for
residents of the European Union.
| | 02:20 |
And finally of course, you can unclick
that check box.
| | 02:23 |
It's not required to allow Microsoft to
send you promotional offers in order to
| | 02:26 |
sign up for a Microsoft account.
Once you've filled everything in, simply
| | 02:30 |
click the I accept check box right here
and your Microsoft account will be created.
| | 02:35 |
Next step, we're going to look at what's
required to register for the Windows
| | 02:39 |
phone dev center now that you've got a
Microsoft account.
| | 02:41 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Registering for the Dev Center| 00:00 |
One way or another, you've got a
Microsoft account set up now that you
| | 00:03 |
want to use for distributing apps through
the Windows phone store.
| | 00:07 |
Next thing you need to do is register for
the Dev Center.
| | 00:10 |
Registering for the Dev Center allows you
to do two things.
| | 00:13 |
One, it will allow you to actually test
your app on an actual Windows phone device.
| | 00:18 |
And second, it will allow you to upload
apps to the Windows phone store, both for
| | 00:21 |
beta testing and for shipping to the
public.
| | 00:25 |
The information you need to register for
the Dev Center is: the type of account
| | 00:28 |
you want to register, whether you're an
individual or business; a payment
| | 00:32 |
mechanism, because it costs to become a
member of the Dev Center.
| | 00:35 |
If you're a member of the student
program, Dreams Spark, you can also get a
| | 00:39 |
promo code in order to be able to allow
you to forgo this $99-a-year payment.
| | 00:44 |
And you also need, again, your name,
email, phone number and address.
| | 00:50 |
And finally, you need your desired
publisher name.
| | 00:53 |
Even as an individual, you can publish
under a publisher name that's different
| | 00:57 |
than your personal name.
If you are a company, part of the
| | 01:00 |
validation process is validating that you
actually have the right to use that
| | 01:04 |
publisher name.
So, let's go take a look at the signup
| | 01:08 |
process for registering with the Dev
Center.
| | 01:11 |
We're back here at the same registration
Info page that we got from the Publish
| | 01:15 |
tab in the Dev Center.
We've already been through the Microsoft
| | 01:18 |
account setup.
Now, let's scroll down and see what's
| | 01:21 |
required to register for a Dev Center
account.
| | 01:24 |
An annual Dev Center subscription is $99,
in U.S dollars, plus any applicable tax.
| | 01:30 |
For that, you get to submit unlimited
paid apps to the Store, you can also
| | 01:33 |
submit up to 100 free apps.
It's important to note that you can't
| | 01:37 |
submit paid apps in all markets.
Later on, we'll take a look at the
| | 01:41 |
regional info so that you can see which
countries allow paid apps, and which ones don't.
| | 01:46 |
But in order to sign up for a Dev Center
account, you want to click this link.
| | 01:51 |
And the way you create your Dev Center
account, you should come down here and
| | 01:55 |
click the Join Now button.
In order to sign up for your Dev Center
| | 02:01 |
account, you have to have your Microsoft
account and sign in.
| | 02:06 |
After signing in with your Microsoft
account, you end up at this page on the
| | 02:09 |
Dev Center.
So, you sign in by deciding where your
| | 02:12 |
located, for example, United States.
Which type of account you want: company
| | 02:20 |
or individaul, we'll get into more detail
about that in later sections about
| | 02:24 |
individual verses company accounts and
what are the requirements.
| | 02:28 |
And finally you must select this box
saying I agree to be bound the Windows
| | 02:32 |
phone store application provider
agreement, which is a legal agreement
| | 02:36 |
between you and Microsoft.
And specifically, if you're accepting on
| | 02:40 |
behalf of your company that you are
authorized to represent the company and
| | 02:44 |
act on the company's behalf.
So, I'm going to go ahead and select
| | 02:48 |
Individual in this case, click Next.
And here, you need to provide your name
| | 02:53 |
and address, email address, phone number
and so forth.
| | 02:57 |
In addition, you need to provide your
publisher name.
| | 03:00 |
So, for example, if we wanted to use
Doctor Who Tardis, we can go and see
| | 03:08 |
whether or not that name is available.
And in fact, that name is available
| | 03:12 |
though it sounds like a very large
trademark valuation so I probably
| | 03:15 |
wouldn't use that name.
But that's the process you go through and
| | 03:19 |
then you click Next, and you come to the
payment page.
| | 03:21 |
We'll go back one page here, and say that
we're a company.
| | 03:26 |
Click Next.
And you can see, there's a little bit of
| | 03:30 |
additional information you have to
provide here.
| | 03:32 |
Because as a company, you have to provide
information about someone in your company
| | 03:36 |
who has the authority to approve your
registration request.
| | 03:40 |
Now, if you're a single person company,
you can also provide this as you.
| | 03:43 |
But the idea here is that not necessarily
every developer who's signing up for a
| | 03:47 |
Dev Center account has the ability to
legally bind the company to pay the $99
| | 03:53 |
and so forth.
And so, in those kinds of situations, you
| | 03:56 |
have to provide additional information
here of another person.
| | 04:00 |
In any event, even if you're a one-person
company, you must fill out this section
| | 04:03 |
as well, before you go on to the Payment
page.
| | 04:06 |
Because it goes through a different
process at Microsoft for validating
| | 04:09 |
company accounts than it does for
individual or student accounts.
| | 04:14 |
That's the basics of registering for the
Dev Center.
| | 04:16 |
Next up, we'll take a look at the details
of individual versus company accounts.
| | 04:20 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Creating individual and company accounts| 00:00 |
When registering for the Windows Phone
Dev Center there is choice you have to
| | 00:04 |
make between registering an individual
account and registering a company account.
| | 00:09 |
This account type is a one-time choice,
and once you've made it it can't go back.
| | 00:14 |
So you can't register as an individual
developer, and then subsequently become a
| | 00:18 |
company and register as a company.
If you do that and you want to continue
| | 00:22 |
to ship your apps you'll probably need to
re-release your apps under your company account.
| | 00:27 |
So if you going to choose your company
that's four, corporations, LLC's,
| | 00:32 |
partnerships and anything legally
registered with a government.
| | 00:37 |
And has to go through the Microsoft
Account Validation process.
| | 00:40 |
This involves Microsoft checking to
verify that the company actually exists.
| | 00:46 |
Make sure that your website is actually
running.
| | 00:48 |
To make sure that you're registered with
whatever governmental body you say you
| | 00:51 |
are registered with.
If you're a corporation in Washington,
| | 00:54 |
they'll check with the Washington State
Department of Revenue.
| | 00:58 |
If you're a corporation in California,
they'll check with the Franchise Tax
| | 01:01 |
Board just to verify that that name is
registered to you.
| | 01:05 |
For an individual or a student account,
it's simply your name.
| | 01:09 |
You say you are who are and Microsoft
accepts that.
| | 01:13 |
And as we said before, you can specify a
publisher name that's different than your
| | 01:17 |
individual name.
But that's not a company account, and the
| | 01:22 |
differences have to do with how much
Microsoft validates your account in the
| | 01:26 |
first place.
And whether or not you have to go through
| | 01:28 |
two-step processes in order to make
changes in your account and manage
| | 01:32 |
approval of legal tax, and financial
status changes.
| | 01:37 |
If your a student and verify with dream
spark you can be a student account and
| | 01:42 |
not have to pay the $99 a year.
Once you've decided whether your an
| | 01:45 |
individual or a company let's talk about
getting paid.
| | 01:49 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Getting paid| 00:00 |
Unless your app is being distributed for
free.
| | 00:02 |
Whether you're a paid application or an
app that's making money through
| | 00:07 |
advertising or in-app purchases, you
want to set up with Microsoft so that you
| | 00:12 |
can get paid.
What this is, is a business relationship
| | 00:15 |
with Microsoft.
You have to choose an existing checking,
| | 00:19 |
savings or PayPal account into which
Microsoft will deposit the funds that you earn.
| | 00:25 |
Paid apps require a filled out tax
profile, because Microsoft has to report
| | 00:30 |
your earnings to the appropriate
government, in whatever mechanism in that
| | 00:33 |
particular government in that state or
that country requires.
| | 00:37 |
Both steps are required for pubCenter
ad-funded apps.
| | 00:41 |
So, even if you are getting money from
advertising, you still need to make sure
| | 00:45 |
you've set up a bank account or a PayPal
account into which Microsoft can deposit
| | 00:50 |
money and a tax profile.
Next step, we'll take a look at signing
| | 00:55 |
up with the Microsoft advertising
pubCenter, if you wish to use in-app
| | 00:59 |
advertising to support your app.
You'll also have to have a pubCenter
| | 01:02 |
account in order to be able to connect
the advertisements to your app.
| | 01:07 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Exploring the Microsoft advertising pubCenter| 00:00 |
If you're going to use In-app advertising
as a way of generating revenue from your
| | 00:05 |
Windows phone app, you need to set up an
account with the Microsoft Advertising pubCenter.
| | 00:10 |
In order to set up your account within
Microsoft Advertising pubCenter, you need
| | 00:15 |
to make sure that you have your bank and
tax info set up in pubCenter as well.
| | 00:20 |
And you have to add code into your app to
use your pubCenter account to retrieve
| | 00:26 |
the advertisements, so that the pubCenter
libraries can display the advertisements
| | 00:30 |
while your app is running.
This is the homepage for the Microsoft
| | 00:33 |
Advertising SDK for Windows Phone.
This is a library that provides an ad
| | 00:39 |
control that you can put into your app.
So that over time, in the background of
| | 00:44 |
your app, this control can go retrieve
advertisements from Microsoft's server
| | 00:48 |
and display them into your app.
Where hopefully, somewhere, sometime, a
| | 00:53 |
user will find one of the ads intriguing,
tap on the ad and you get paid based on
| | 00:59 |
the number of people that click through
or in this case tap through the ads.
| | 01:03 |
To the actual location where the full ad
is displayed.
| | 01:07 |
Once you've included the SDK into your
app, then you need to go to the pubCenter
| | 01:12 |
in order to be able to specify which ads
you want.
| | 01:16 |
On this page, you can learn about grading
in-app advertising for your Windows phone apps.
| | 01:21 |
You can learn about which kind of apps
you can provide in your app, and how to
| | 01:26 |
seamlessly handle the impression
reporting, again that's the tap-through,
| | 01:28 |
so that you get paid.
Here you'll find a number of links for
| | 01:33 |
things you need to learn how to put into
your app so that the actual
| | 01:37 |
advertisements show up, including
programming examples that will help you understand.
| | 01:42 |
How to integrate apps from the Microsoft
advertising network into your Windows
| | 01:46 |
phone app.
And finally, you need to sign up for pubCenter.
| | 01:50 |
And this is a completely different sign
in than the sign in that you did for DevCenter.
| | 01:57 |
So Dev Center and PubCenter are two
separate, different things.
| | 02:01 |
If you're not already a member of
pubCenter when I click on this button
| | 02:05 |
right here to sign up as a pubCenter
developer.
| | 02:08 |
Then you can connect up your account in
pubCenter with your apps that you deliver
| | 02:12 |
through the devCenter.
If you want to learn more about the
| | 02:15 |
pubCenter view of in app advertising for
Windows phone you can click on this link
| | 02:20 |
here which will take you to this
information which will help you learn.
| | 02:23 |
About how to register your application,
how to create mobile application ad
| | 02:28 |
units, and you'll hear that term ad unit
later on in the course here.
| | 02:31 |
You'll learn how to be able to add or
remove global exclusions to block
| | 02:34 |
undesirable urls.
And you'll be able to manage the ad units
| | 02:39 |
and your applications and run reports to
see whether or not you're making money
| | 02:43 |
from these in-app advertisements.
Alright, that's the basics of getting
| | 02:48 |
everything set up and signed up for the
Windows Phone Dev Center.
| | 02:52 |
Next up, let's take a look at the set-up
that we need to do for preparing each of
| | 02:57 |
the different applications for sale or
for distribution in the Windows Phone Store.
| | 03:02 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
3. Preparing Your App for the Windows Phone StoreSetting up a free app| 00:00 |
For each of the business models you can
use for distributing a Windows phone app,
| | 00:04 |
there's a unique set of steps for
preparing the app before you get to the
| | 00:07 |
publishing process.
First, let's take a look at preparing a
| | 00:10 |
free app.
For non-code related preparation, you'll
| | 00:14 |
need to do your app artwork, and your
description and keywords, and make your
| | 00:19 |
market selection.
This is deciding where you want your app
| | 00:22 |
to be distributed.
For example, you may choose to have your
| | 00:26 |
app distributed only in the United States
or everywhere in the world except certain
| | 00:31 |
countries that may have either
restrictions on the kind of technology
| | 00:35 |
you are using.
For example certain kinds of encryption,
| | 00:37 |
or restrictions on the certain kind of
content.
| | 00:40 |
There's a whole different set of
marketing regions in which certain things
| | 00:44 |
are acceptable and certain things aren't.
On the code-related front, for a free
| | 00:49 |
app, you simply want to make sure you
edit your manifest to trim down the
| | 00:52 |
capabilities list to the minimum set of
capabilities.
| | 00:56 |
Because the apps with the fewest
capabilities required will have the
| | 01:00 |
highest download in terms of people
making a decision whether to download the
| | 01:04 |
app based on those capabilities.
You don't want to leave the list of
| | 01:08 |
capabilities equal to the ones that come
out of the box when you say found new project.
| | 01:13 |
In general that's way too broad and we'll
potentially scare off some of you
| | 01:16 |
potential users.
And finally you'll need to update the
| | 01:20 |
packaging info, the app name the
description inside the manifest file.
| | 01:25 |
And we'll see more about that later as
well as making sure you've got your
| | 01:28 |
proper publisher name a proper good for
the application as well as icons and tile
| | 01:35 |
images and so fourth.
And that's what you need to prepare a
| | 01:38 |
free app.
Next up let's take a look at what you
| | 01:40 |
have to do to prepare an ad supported
app.
| | 01:42 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Preparing an ad-supported app| 00:00 |
Let's take a look at the steps for
prepaing an ad-supported ad for
| | 00:03 |
distribution through the Windows Phone
Store.
| | 00:06 |
In non-code related preparation, it's
simimilar to a free app.
| | 00:09 |
You have to do your app artwork, your app
description and keyword, and your market selection.
| | 00:15 |
But you also have to prepare your ad
units.
| | 00:18 |
This is the connection between your ad in
Pub Center and your ad in Dev Center to
| | 00:23 |
make sure that the right kind of
advertisements flow from the microsoft
| | 00:26 |
advertising network into your app, when
your user's actually using it.
| | 00:31 |
Preparing your ad units involves creating
your ad units in the Dev Center, making
| | 00:35 |
sure that each ad unit created has name
and a unique ID.
| | 00:39 |
Because that's being used by your code to
display the ads in the appropriate place.
| | 00:44 |
And make sure that each ad unit has the
right resolution, because you can have a
| | 00:49 |
large splay at the bottom and a small one
at the top.
| | 00:52 |
Or any combination of advertisement
placement that you want that's supported
| | 00:56 |
by pub Center and Dev Center.
But as you create each ad unit, you have
| | 01:01 |
to specify the resolution, because that
will be those ads that are shown only in
| | 01:05 |
that particular control.
So you want to choose the one that
| | 01:08 |
matches the visual slot you've reserved
on your sample pages.
| | 01:13 |
In ad-supported app set up, for
code-related preparation, you'll need to
| | 01:17 |
make sure, again you edit your manifest
to trim it down to the bare minimum.
| | 01:22 |
Update your packaging info, and once
again verify that your ad unit sizes
| | 01:27 |
match the visual sizes in your XAML so
that the apps will actually show up when
| | 01:32 |
the user's running your ad.
You can only add ad units during the
| | 01:36 |
submission process.
So, when we go through the flow of
| | 01:40 |
actually submitting an app.
I'll point out the step at which you can
| | 01:44 |
add ad units for this particular app.
You can't show that functionality just by
| | 01:49 |
itself it has to be shown in the context
of actually submitting the app.
| | 01:54 |
That's what's required to prepare and ad
supported app.
| | 01:57 |
Now let's take a look at preparing a paid
app.
| | 01:59 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Readying a paid app| 00:00 |
Preparing a paid app for distribution
through the windows phone store, as
| | 00:04 |
you've seen with both free apps and ad
supported apps, has both non code related
| | 00:09 |
preparation and code related.
For paid apps, the non code related
| | 00:13 |
preparation is similar in that you have
your app artwork, your app description
| | 00:18 |
and keywords, but now you have to choose
your base price.
| | 00:22 |
You can set up your base price which is
what it will be sold for in every
| | 00:26 |
country, except those countries in which
you create a custom price.
| | 00:29 |
So, you can create a different price for
every single country.
| | 00:33 |
If your app is going to have trial mode,
you specify during the non-code related preparation.
| | 00:40 |
That's both making sure that you've got
what text you want to have in your app description.
| | 00:46 |
That mentions that there's a trial mode
and specify what restriction trial mode
| | 00:50 |
imposes on the user.
And finally for paid apps as we saw in
| | 00:55 |
the registration set up information, you
can't have paid apps in every single
| | 00:59 |
country in the world.
You can also choose to have your apps be
| | 01:03 |
paid in certain countries and not be
available in other countries, because
| | 01:08 |
some countries have content restriction.
And so your app may include things that
| | 01:13 |
are not applicable or not allowed by the
governments of some countries.
| | 01:17 |
And you'll be able to specify that your
app is therefore not available in those countries.
| | 01:23 |
In the area of code related setups for
paid apps, as always you need to edit
| | 01:27 |
your manifest to trim down the
capabilities list.
| | 01:30 |
You'll need to update your packaging
info, and if you are using the free
| | 01:34 |
trials, make sure that you properly
implemented your license management code.
| | 01:39 |
As well as the code that's necessary to
evoke the Microsoft purchasing functionality.
| | 01:44 |
That's it for the basics of setting up
paid apps, next up we'll look at that
| | 01:48 |
actual setup that you need to do if your
app has a trial mode.
| | 01:52 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Setting up for Trial mode| 00:00 |
If your paid app that you want to
distribute to the windows phone store has
| | 00:05 |
a try before you buy or trial mode.
There is some additional set up you need
| | 00:09 |
to do in your app before you try the
similarity app to the store.
| | 00:13 |
This all falls under the heading of
license management, need to make sure
| | 00:17 |
that offer free trails as selected in the
App Info page when your submitting the app.
| | 00:22 |
And you need you to make sure that you
call either is trial or gamer services
| | 00:27 |
guide in the start up and the resume of
your app in order to manage the licenses.
| | 00:33 |
The management of whether or not features
in your app.
| | 00:36 |
Or whether the app is still valid to run
is up to you.
| | 00:40 |
The system does not do this for you.
As well as the management of when to ask
| | 00:45 |
the user to upgrade to a paid version is
also up to you.
| | 00:49 |
But you must do at least this.
You must make sure you offer the free
| | 00:53 |
trial's check box in the app info page in
order to be able to have the system be
| | 00:58 |
able to provide you information about
whether the app is still in the trial
| | 01:02 |
period and then you must call in your
code either Is Trial for a non-game app
| | 01:06 |
or Gamerservices that guide for a game
app in order to be able to test the
| | 01:11 |
validity of that license.
So that's what you have to do to your app
| | 01:15 |
as well as this setup in submission to
make sure that you get free trials enabled.
| | 01:21 |
Now, let's take a look at what you have
to do if you want to have an app, have an
| | 01:24 |
In app purchase.
| | 01:25 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Preparing an app for in-app purchasing| 00:00 |
One other way to generate revenue for
your app that still falls into the three
| | 00:04 |
basic business models, namely, free,
paid, or advertising supported is to
| | 00:11 |
combine free.
And paid by using in-app purchase, to
| | 00:15 |
provide paid functionality to your users
after they've downloaded the app as a
| | 00:19 |
free app.
In this case, they can continue to use
| | 00:22 |
the app as a free app forever.
But if they want the additional
| | 00:26 |
functionality, you can ask them to
purchase additional features or what are
| | 00:31 |
called consumable items.
For example, like game points, in order
| | 00:34 |
to be able to continue using the app.
In this case there's no trial period, its
| | 00:40 |
always free until the user purchase one
of the things within that purchase.
| | 00:45 |
So, in order to prepare for creating an
app that has in app purchase because you
| | 00:49 |
need to remember that in app purchases
only work for windows phone 8.
| | 00:53 |
An app that also works on Windows Phone 7
can't support in-app purchases.
| | 00:57 |
Next, your app is responsible to get the
product IDs from the store for products
| | 01:02 |
that are currently available for your
app.
| | 01:04 |
And we'll look at that in more detail
later.
| | 01:06 |
The important thing is that, you go get
the product IDs, you show the user
| | 01:11 |
whatever user interface you want to
suggest that they buy the in-app purchase updates.
| | 01:17 |
So you can have additional text, you can
have movies, you can have whatever you
| | 01:20 |
want to promote those particular
features, or you can just show the list
| | 01:24 |
of in-app purchases with their icons.
And their prices in your app, but you're
| | 01:28 |
responsible for not only getting the
product IDs from the store, the products
| | 01:33 |
that are available.
But also asking the user which pieces
| | 01:36 |
that they actually want to purchase.
As we saw before, with trial mode for
| | 01:41 |
paid apps, your app is required to
provide the promotional experience, the
| | 01:46 |
operating system provides the purchase
user experience.
| | 01:51 |
And finally, when you get a receipt from
the purchasing experience, you are still
| | 01:56 |
responsible for providing the content.
Now if the content is something
| | 01:59 |
intangible like points for a game or
lives for a character in a game, you can
| | 02:06 |
simply manage that internally to your
app.
| | 02:08 |
If your app requires new content, you
have to download that from your server
| | 02:13 |
Microsoft does not provide any hosting
for any content delivered via in-app purchase.
| | 02:19 |
You're responsible for manning your own
server infrastructure, and for going and
| | 02:23 |
doing the download once you've received
the receipt from the actual purchase
| | 02:27 |
inside the app.
In order to create products for in-app
| | 02:31 |
purchase, you have to go through the
submit process for your app, at least to
| | 02:35 |
the point where your app shows up in the
dashboard in the Windows phone Dev Center.
| | 02:39 |
And when you get there, you can go to the
Products tab, which we'll see a
| | 02:43 |
demonstration of later, to add additional
in-app products, to your product.
| | 02:47 |
This way, either when your app is in
testing, or even when your app is finally
| | 02:53 |
shipped into the hands of end users.
You can manage your in app purchases
| | 02:57 |
seperately from the release cycle of your
full app.
| | 03:00 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Choosing your markets| 00:00 |
In choosing a market for your Windows
phone app, there are some
| | 00:03 |
country-specific requirements.
Microsoft has created four unique groups,
| | 00:08 |
based upon national laws in various
countries which restrict the kinds of
| | 00:13 |
content that can be delivered via a
mobile device in those countries.
| | 00:17 |
The 4 groups are China, group of Mid east
and Islamic countries that specific requirements.
| | 00:24 |
And an additional set of Mid east and
Islamic countries that have even more
| | 00:28 |
stringent requirements group 3, and
everybody else all the other countries in
| | 00:32 |
the world.
Since the national laws change from time
| | 00:35 |
to time, please consult the Microsoft
page that involves choosing countries.
| | 00:39 |
When you go through the submission
process, I'll show you how to get to that
| | 00:42 |
page to find out exactly what those
restrictions are.
| | 00:46 |
So, that you can properly categorize your
application and make sure it's for sale
| | 00:49 |
only in countries where that's legally
allowed.
| | 00:53 |
If you have a game, there's additional
categorization and rating restrictions on
| | 00:56 |
how you can submit your app.
All game apps must be categorized as games.
| | 01:01 |
You can't categorize a game as tools and
productivity.
| | 01:05 |
For games that are distributed in Korea,
Brazil and Russia, they require a
| | 01:09 |
certificate issued by their national
government.
| | 01:12 |
In this case, by Korea, we mean South
Korea.
| | 01:15 |
All games require a certificate if the
game has been rated.
| | 01:20 |
And some game ratings could be acceptable
but could be blocked from download based
| | 01:24 |
on parental controls.
So if you have a game that has a lot of
| | 01:28 |
intense action or child inappropriate
visual content.
| | 01:33 |
A parent can say, I'm not allowing games
with ratings of teen to be downloaded
| | 01:39 |
onto a device that's being used by a
elementary school child.
| | 01:42 |
So that's a look at choosing the market
for your app.
| | 01:46 |
Next up, let's take a brief look at
pricing.
| | 01:48 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Deciding on pricing| 00:00 |
Let's take a look at pricing for paid
apps, or in-app purchases in the Windows
| | 00:04 |
Phone store.
Base pricing is the first thing you set.
| | 00:08 |
Base pricing is the price that your app
is sold for, or your in-app purchase is
| | 00:12 |
sold for, if you don't customize it by
country.
| | 00:16 |
The minimum price is $0.99.
The maximum price is $499.99.
| | 00:23 |
Now you won't see very many apps in the
store for that price.
| | 00:26 |
But the reason that highest price is
there, is because, right now, there's no
| | 00:31 |
way for enterprises to offer a line of
business app for their employees.
| | 00:36 |
Through the Windows Phone store unless
they do it for free, or they do it for a
| | 00:41 |
high price.
They can't side load the app onto the
| | 00:43 |
devices only internal to their companies
so, some companies actually price the app
| | 00:49 |
at $499.99.
And then reimburse their employees the
| | 00:52 |
cost of the app purchase, in order to be
able to basically discourage people from
| | 00:57 |
downloading the app.
Even though it requires access and
| | 01:00 |
credentials to their back-end servers to
properly function.
| | 01:04 |
Microsoft provides automatic currency
conversion, so if you're a US developer
| | 01:08 |
you'll always get paid in dollars.
If you're a European developer you'll get
| | 01:12 |
paid in Euros and so forth.
And finally, you can customize your
| | 01:17 |
pricing by country, so you can say, it's
$99 in the US and $499 everywhere else.
| | 01:23 |
But typically, the reason for doing this
is if your app has additional support requirements.
| | 01:28 |
For example, if you have to have a staff
or call center that speaks another
| | 01:34 |
language that you don't speak on call in
another country.
| | 01:37 |
You might actually charge more for your
app in that country in order to be able
| | 01:41 |
to defray the cost of that call center.
Setting up the base pricing is something
| | 01:46 |
that you do during app submission.
So, we can't look at it right now
| | 01:49 |
independently of everything else, but as
we go through the app submission process
| | 01:53 |
we'll revisit pricing.
And point out how to set the base price,
| | 01:57 |
and how to do the country customization.
Next step we're going to look at the last
| | 02:01 |
thing you got a take to look at for being
able to prepare your app for the Windows
| | 02:06 |
Phone Store.
Independent of the things you do inside
| | 02:09 |
your app or the non-code related pieces
and that is map services tokens.
| | 02:14 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Acquiring a map services token| 00:00 |
Map serviecs are something that are
provided in combination by Microsoft and Nokia.
| | 00:06 |
In order to be able to include Map
services, such as directions and so forth
| | 00:10 |
into your application, you have to
register.
| | 00:13 |
And you have to get a Map services token.
So, you have to register with both
| | 00:18 |
Microsoft and Nokia.
You'll need one token per app.
| | 00:21 |
And in order to do the app setup, you use
that token in the
| | 00:25 |
Microsoft.Phone.Maps.MapSettings API.
And there, you set both your app ID and
| | 00:27 |
the Map services token you get.
Again, like pricing, you can only look at
| | 00:32 |
the process of getting a Map services
token during the submission process for
| | 00:41 |
your app.
So, we will revisit that again, as we go
| | 00:44 |
through the submission process, once we
have everything else prepared for our apps.
| | 00:50 |
That's it for all of the Windows phone
Dev Center choices that you have to make.
| | 00:55 |
Next up, we'll talk about refining your
app manifest.
| | 00:58 |
And take a look inside the visual studio
at the pieces and puzzle of your app
| | 01:02 |
manifest, that you need to prepare before
you submit your app to the Windows phone store.
| | 01:06 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Refining your app manifest: Application UI| 00:00 |
Now that we've taken a look at all of the
things that you need to do to prepare
| | 00:04 |
your app for submission to the store,
let's actually do some of those things.
| | 00:07 |
And the first thing we do is refine your
app manifest.
| | 00:11 |
Your app manifest is stored in a file
called WMAppManifest.xml, which is in
| | 00:16 |
your solution.
It contains four sections.
| | 00:18 |
The application UI, which describes what
name is displayed to the user, defines
| | 00:24 |
your app icon, resolutions you support,
and so forth.
| | 00:28 |
The capabilities, which defines which
capabilities of the operating system your
| | 00:32 |
app requires.
Requirements, which defines which
| | 00:36 |
capabilities of the hardware your app
requires.
| | 00:39 |
And this is used by the Windows Phone
store To not show your app, two people
| | 00:44 |
who's phone can't run it.
For example there are some phones that
| | 00:48 |
don't have a compass and if your app
requires the compass.
| | 00:51 |
When those users are browsing the store
they won't see your app because if they
| | 00:55 |
downloaded it, it wouldn't run anyway.
So that's a good thing to be able to
| | 00:59 |
specify only the requirements that you
actually need.
| | 01:02 |
And finally, the packaging section, which
defines the author, publisher, version
| | 01:07 |
number, and languages.
Let's take a look at these individually,
| | 01:11 |
and then when we get through we'll
actually go into Visual Studio and look
| | 01:15 |
at how you actually edit these things.
So in the Application UI section you'll
| | 01:20 |
see the Name.
Now this is the name that's displayed to
| | 01:23 |
the user.
When we start looking at the actual
| | 01:26 |
submission process, there's an additional
name that's the name you use to manage
| | 01:30 |
the app in the store.
So for example, you could call your app
| | 01:34 |
My Best App, but in the Dashboard it
might just be called App number one, or
| | 01:38 |
MBA for My Best App.
You don't have to use the same name for
| | 01:43 |
the Dashboard that you use here, but the
name you use here is the name that the
| | 01:47 |
user sees in the Application list and in
the store.
| | 01:50 |
There's a description field in the
WMAppManifest, but that description field
| | 01:55 |
is not what's displayed to the user.
When you go through the submission
| | 01:59 |
process, there's a description field in
the web form that you fill out, and
| | 02:03 |
that's what's displayed to the user.
So this description's for your use only.
| | 02:06 |
You have to specify which file contains
your app icon and that's how you do it
| | 02:11 |
through this application UI tab inside
the app manifest editor.
| | 02:15 |
You have to specify what resolutions your
app uses, whether it's 720p, WVGA, WXGA,
| | 02:23 |
or some combination of those.
And, if your app supports live tiles,
| | 02:28 |
here is where you supply the tile
template backgrounds and images.
| | 02:33 |
In the capabilities section this is wher
eyou refine it to the absoltue minimum.
| | 02:37 |
For example every app out of the box when
you say file new project includes
| | 02:42 |
capability request for the built in web
browser.
| | 02:45 |
If your app doesn't need the web browser,
you should turn that off.
| | 02:48 |
And we'll take a look at all the
capabilities and which ones are on by
| | 02:51 |
default and which ones you need to turn
on for specific features.
| | 02:56 |
This list of capabilities defines the
messages the user sees when purchasing
| | 03:00 |
the app.
For example, you'll see the message, this
| | 03:03 |
app uses location services.
Well, that's only on if you have
| | 03:07 |
specified that you need the location
services capability.
| | 03:11 |
And since users are particularly
sensitive to location and privacy, you
| | 03:16 |
want to make sure that you only turn on
those capabilities that you actually use.
| | 03:21 |
In addition, the capabilities that you
require must be specified correctly or
| | 03:25 |
your app can crash.
In other words, if you use a capability
| | 03:28 |
and it's not turned on here in the
Capabilities tab, your app can crash.
| | 03:32 |
Next up is the requirements section,
where you define what hardware is needed.
| | 03:37 |
It helps the store not show apps to users
who can't run them.
| | 03:41 |
There's four options here, NFC, or near
field communication.
| | 03:45 |
That's what implements the wallet
functionality so that in some countries
| | 03:48 |
you can actually pay for things by
swiping your phone over a sensor.
| | 03:53 |
The front and rear camera, whether or not
you've got one, or the other, or both on
| | 03:57 |
your device.
The magnetometer, which is what
| | 04:00 |
implements the compass.
And the gyroscope which can be used to
| | 04:04 |
help implement the accelerometer so you
can tell what orientation the phone is in
| | 04:09 |
addition to whether or not its being
shaken.
| | 04:10 |
And finally we've got the packaging tab.
That's where you define the author the
| | 04:15 |
publisher the version of your app and
what langues are supported.
| | 04:20 |
That defines what languages are being
shown in the store as being supported for
| | 04:24 |
your app.
Let's actually switch to Visual Studio
| | 04:27 |
and take a look at this WMAppManifest and
the way you're going to edit it.
| | 04:33 |
Here's a sample app that I put together
just to show the process of editing the manifest.
| | 04:38 |
You'll find this manifest over here,
under the properties folder.
| | 04:41 |
Left click on this triangle and go to the
WMAppManifest and double click or open
| | 04:47 |
the file.
And here you'll see the four tabs we were
| | 04:50 |
talking about, application ui,
capabilities, requirements and packaging.
| | 04:55 |
Now let's go through these peices.
Display name this is the name users will
| | 05:00 |
see in the store.
This is the name you can search by, and
| | 05:02 |
this is the name users will see on their
device for your app.
| | 05:06 |
This description is for your purposes.
The actual description that is shown in
| | 05:11 |
the store is the one that you entered
during the submit process.
| | 05:15 |
Navigation page is the start page for
your app.
| | 05:18 |
And by default when you get an app from
File, New Project, it's mainpage.xaml.
| | 05:24 |
The app icon by default is set up to
point to the application icon PNG file
| | 05:31 |
here inside the Assets folder.
You can click the dot, dot, dot button
| | 05:35 |
here, better just highlight that, to
choose a different app icon, if you wish.
| | 05:40 |
The app icon however should be in your
project since the actual icon image has
| | 05:46 |
to be included in your XAP.
Next up you can look at three currently
| | 05:50 |
supported resolutions for Windows phone
WVGA WXGA and 720p.
| | 05:53 |
As you can see WVGA is the smallest
resolution and that's used on the lower
| | 06:02 |
end Windows phone.
WXGA is the standard resolution for most
| | 06:07 |
Windows phones, as of version 8.
And 720p is an expanded version that's
| | 06:13 |
used in some Windows phones for being
able to show HD video.
| | 06:17 |
You can select any or all of these, but
you have to select at least one.
| | 06:20 |
And again, users will be shown the screen
shot images that match the resolution of
| | 06:25 |
their phone.
Which ever resolutions you click here for
| | 06:29 |
supported you will have to supply at
least 2 screen shots for every single resolution.
| | 06:35 |
Ideally as we talked about before since
its the first 2 lines of the text.
| | 06:40 |
And the screen shots that influence
downloading and buying behavior.
| | 06:44 |
It's good, if you can figure out a way to
get eight screen shots, because it makes
| | 06:48 |
your app look more complete.
Scroll down here and take a look at the
| | 06:51 |
list of things here, which is all about
tiles.
| | 06:54 |
You can specify a tile template.
And there's three different kinds of
| | 06:58 |
tiles, Flip, Cycle and Iconic.
You can support large tiles and you can
| | 07:05 |
specify the title of the tile when it
shows up on the Start screen.
| | 07:09 |
By default, out of the box, you get small
and medium tiles.
| | 07:15 |
There's the large tile here in the tiles
directory, but it's not specified here.
| | 07:20 |
So if you want large tiles you actually
have to click this large tile here, and
| | 07:24 |
then you have to select this and go
actually to your project.
| | 07:29 |
We have to go into Visual Studio >
Projects > My New App > My New App >
| | 07:35 |
Assets > Tiles, and select the large tile
in order to include that into your app.
| | 07:41 |
Remember, this title up here, display
name, is the name of your app in the
| | 07:47 |
store and the name of your app in the
apps list.
| | 07:50 |
The tile title is the string that shows
up on your live tiles on the start screen.
| | 07:55 |
They can be different.
Most of the time you want to keep them
| | 07:58 |
the same unless the name of your app is
too large to show conveniently on the
| | 08:03 |
size of the tile.
You might want to have an abbreviated
| | 08:05 |
version here in the title title.
That's it for application UI settings in
| | 08:10 |
your app manifest.
Next up we'll look at the capabilities
| | 08:13 |
list and see how you can understand which
ones you have to specify and how to trim
| | 08:18 |
the list down to the absolute minimum for
your application in order to give the
| | 08:22 |
best possible opportunity for your app to
be downloaded or purchased by users in
| | 08:26 |
the windows phone store.
| | 08:27 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Refining your app manifest: Capabilities| 00:00 |
Next up, let's dig into Capabilities.
Here in Capabilities, we see a long list,
| | 00:06 |
and it specifies information about what
kind of operating system capabilities
| | 00:11 |
your app uses.
For example, access to appointment data,
| | 00:15 |
i.e., the calendar.
As you go through each one of these,
| | 00:18 |
you'll see a short description over here
on the right-hand side of what that
| | 00:22 |
capability refers to.
And a link here, for example, we'll click
| | 00:26 |
this one, which will open up a page that
describes the entire app manifest, all
| | 00:32 |
the capabilities, how to edit it, how to
edit it in XML, and so forth.
| | 00:37 |
However, that link is not unique to
whatever capability you're looking at.
| | 00:44 |
It's actually just the general app
manifest instructions.
| | 00:48 |
So we'll just go through these quick.
Appointments means access to the calendar.
| | 00:52 |
Contacts means access to contacts.
Gamer services is for games and provides
| | 00:58 |
you access to the Xbox Live services.
This can be things like your avatar and
| | 01:04 |
your achievements and so forth.
As it says here in the description this
| | 01:07 |
must be disclosed because an app could
share data with Xbox and therefore this
| | 01:12 |
could be a privacy concern for a user.
Identity device.
| | 01:17 |
This allows your application to get some
information about the device.
| | 01:21 |
It is not a unique device ID as it says
there because while it might be an
| | 01:25 |
operating system capability, that's not a
capability actually extended to you as a developer.
| | 01:31 |
There's actually a application ID and
there's more information about that in
| | 01:35 |
the SDK documentation.
Similarly, the user identity gives the
| | 01:40 |
app to see an anonymous Microsoft account
to identify the user.
| | 01:43 |
An app cannot identify you uniquely as
you, or even your Microsoft account name,
| | 01:49 |
but it give the app an ability to
communicate with you.
| | 01:52 |
ISV_CAMERA means that your app requires
access to either the rear primary camera,
| | 01:58 |
or the front-facing camera.
Location is Location Services.
| | 02:02 |
Whether supplied by GPS or by Wi-Fi.
Map allows you access to the mapping
| | 02:07 |
functionality; both the Microsoft mapping
functionality and the Microsoft plus
| | 02:11 |
Nokia mapping functionality.
Media, Library, Audio allows you to
| | 02:16 |
access the songs on the user's device.
Beginning with Windows Phone 8, it also
| | 02:21 |
provides the ability to add or delete
songs.
| | 02:23 |
MediaLib Photo allows read-only access to
the photos in the Media Library.
| | 02:29 |
It also gives the app the capability to
save photos in the Camera Roll.
| | 02:32 |
MediaLib Playback gives you access to
what's actually playing, so that you can
| | 02:38 |
see things that the user's playing from
the music app, while they're playing them.
| | 02:42 |
Microphone gives you access to the
phone's microphone.
| | 02:45 |
Without specifying this, if you attempt
to access the microphone, your app will crash.
| | 02:49 |
Networking, this allows you access to the
cellular network and/or wifi and as it
| | 02:56 |
says here in the description, you must
disclose this one because your app could
| | 03:00 |
incur charges if the phone's roaming.
Phone dialer means your app can bring up
| | 03:04 |
the phone dialer so the user can place a
phone call.
| | 03:08 |
Proximity provides access to the near
field communication services.
| | 03:12 |
And notice this is different than the
near field communication hardware.
| | 03:16 |
You could say that your app requires the
near field communication hardware.
| | 03:20 |
And then not use it.
But most likely you'll use both this and
| | 03:24 |
the requirement for NFC together both on
or both off.
| | 03:29 |
Push notifications means that the app
used the Microsoft push notification service.
| | 03:34 |
Again, you have to disclose this because
of incurring roaming charges.
| | 03:39 |
Removal storage only applies to some
Windows phone.
| | 03:42 |
Many Windows phones don't have separate
removable storage but if you have a
| | 03:46 |
device that does have that you have to
specify this in order to be able to
| | 03:49 |
access that storage.
Sensors are things like the compass and
| | 03:54 |
the gyroscope and other sensors that are
available through the OS API.
| | 04:00 |
Since those change from time to time I'm
not going to get into the details of
| | 04:02 |
which sensors those are.
But this is by default turned on so your
| | 04:07 |
app can detect things like motion and
heading changes.
| | 04:11 |
The web browser component capability
allows you access to the built in IE web
| | 04:16 |
browser component you can embed in your
application.
| | 04:19 |
This is another one of those things
that's turned on by default.
| | 04:22 |
If your app doesn't use the web browser
component, probably want to turn this off
| | 04:25 |
because it will make users feel more
comfortable that they can't possibly be
| | 04:29 |
affected by any scripts that run inside
those web browser elements.
| | 04:34 |
Beginning in Windows Phone 8, speech
recognition capabilities are now built
| | 04:38 |
into the OS.
And if you want to take advantage of
| | 04:41 |
those speech recognition capabilities,
you have to turn on this capability to
| | 04:44 |
indicate that so that the system can know
that this particular app is going to need
| | 04:49 |
to connect over the network to the
backend speech recognition services.
| | 04:53 |
In the rare case where your app is
actually a voice over IP or VOIP application.
| | 04:59 |
You need to turn this on.
And this allows your apps special
| | 05:02 |
functionality to be able to do things
like dial phone calls through the VoIP
| | 05:06 |
service rather than going through the
cellular service.
| | 05:09 |
As well as being able to answer incoming
VoIP calls even when you might not have
| | 05:13 |
cellular service to access, for example,
over wifi.
| | 05:16 |
Windows Phone 8 includes a wallet
capability that allows you to store
| | 05:20 |
money, and coupons, and payment
information.
| | 05:23 |
And if you have access to the wallet
built in to your app, you'll need to turn
| | 05:27 |
on this capability in order to make sure
that those things are allowed by your app
| | 05:32 |
at runtime.
And finally, while at payment instruments.
| | 05:36 |
I'm going to scroll back up here so you
can see the description.
| | 05:39 |
This is an additional capability that
says your wallet contains actual payment
| | 05:43 |
information such as credit cards and
debit cards.
| | 05:46 |
It doesn't grant you access to the secure
element for doing that, but it means your
| | 05:51 |
app has access to those things.
Again, so that can be disclosed to the
| | 05:54 |
user at the time they purchase the app.
For an app that doesn't do anything
| | 05:59 |
specific for example an app that might
just capture some data and save it
| | 06:03 |
locally on the device.
You'll want to turn off media library
| | 06:06 |
audio media playback networking perhaps
web browser.
| | 06:12 |
and that gives you the minimum set of
things you need in order to be able to
| | 06:17 |
support an app that's going to go into
the store.
| | 06:19 |
Next up we'll look at requirements in
packaging in the final 2 sections of
| | 06:23 |
refining your app manifest for submitting
your app to the windows phone store.
| | 06:27 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Refining your app manifest: Requirements and packaging| 00:00 |
Let's look at the Requirements tab.
As we mentioned, it basically supports
| | 00:04 |
four things that you can define whether a
device is required to support this
| | 00:09 |
particular kind of hardware in order to
be able to run your app.
| | 00:13 |
So, the first is NFC, and that's access
for the wallet functionality; though you
| | 00:18 |
can also have apps that access NFCs that
are outside of the wallet.
| | 00:21 |
Your going to specify whether your app
requires a front facing camera.
| | 00:25 |
For example, a video chat app isn't much
good if only you can use the back facing
| | 00:31 |
camera and have to turn the phone over
back and fourth back, and fourth to talk
| | 00:34 |
to somebody.
The rear camera is basically for example,
| | 00:37 |
if your app is a camera or some sort of
camera filter.
| | 00:41 |
Without the rear-facing camera, again,
you get the situation where you can't see
| | 00:45 |
what's in the viewfinder on the screen,
if you're using the front-facing camera
| | 00:48 |
and having to point that toward the
subject of your photo.
| | 00:52 |
The magnetometer is what implements the
compass functionality.
| | 00:55 |
And the gyroscope is a special feature
that allows apps to determine the
| | 01:00 |
orientation of the phone.
This is different than the accelerometer,
| | 01:03 |
which allows you to tell whether the user
is shaking the phone.
| | 01:06 |
This actually allows you to tell with 3D
orientation: up, down, left, right in 3D
| | 01:11 |
space of the device.
If your app uses any of these
| | 01:15 |
functionalities, be sure to turn on the
appropriate ones.
| | 01:17 |
Otherwise, people who have devices that
don't have the hardware, will still see
| | 01:22 |
your app in the store, even though they
can't run the app.
| | 01:25 |
And that provides a less than stellar
purchasing experience because they
| | 01:29 |
purchased the app and now they can't run
it.
| | 01:31 |
Finally, we'll take a look at the
Packaging tab.
| | 01:35 |
Here you specify packaging information
that's seen mostly by you.
| | 01:40 |
The first is the author.
That's a private thing for you so that
| | 01:44 |
you can specify whose the author of the
application.
| | 01:47 |
This publisher field should match the
publisher name that you've registered
| | 01:50 |
with Microsoft.
The version number, is the version
| | 01:53 |
numbers that's shown to the user in the
store.
| | 01:55 |
If you remember during our store walk
through, we saw a number of things on the
| | 01:58 |
left hand side and one of those was the
version number.
| | 02:00 |
And so this version number is different
than the version number that you find
| | 02:05 |
over here in the AssemblyInfo.cs.
These version numbers here are the
| | 02:10 |
version numbers of your binary files.
This version number is the version number
| | 02:15 |
of your app, which is how users identify
which version they have installed on
| | 02:20 |
their device.
And if they look at the information about
| | 02:23 |
the app, that version number is
accessible for app developers to be able
| | 02:28 |
to show to the user.
Product idea is a unique good and should
| | 02:31 |
be unique for this particular app.
And publisher ID should come from your
| | 02:37 |
store registration..
So, the publisher ID should be the same
| | 02:40 |
for every single one of your apps in the
store.
| | 02:43 |
The last two things here are the default
language of the application and supported languages.
| | 02:48 |
Again, these are things which are
specified by you and affect what the user
| | 02:53 |
sees in the Windows phones store before
they buy the app.
| | 02:57 |
So, for example, if the default language
is English, but you also happen to
| | 03:00 |
support Afrikaans for South Africa, users
will be able to see that listed out for
| | 03:06 |
every language that you say that you
support.
| | 03:08 |
And of course, you must have localized
support for those languages built into
| | 03:11 |
your app.
That's the process of going through and
| | 03:15 |
refining your app manifest.
Next up, we're going to take a look at
| | 03:18 |
writing your app description.
| | 03:20 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
4. Preparing Your Store ContentCreating an app description| 00:00 |
Now that you refined the capabilities for
your app in Visual Studio, now you're
| | 00:04 |
just about ready to submit your app to
the store.
| | 00:07 |
But you've gotta do some non-coding
preparation before you do that.
| | 00:10 |
First up, is your app description.
This is first of the three things that
| | 00:15 |
sells your app.
And by sells, even if we're talking about
| | 00:18 |
a free app, we're talking about inspiring
people to download your app.
| | 00:21 |
You get up to eight lines of text visible
in the store, before the user has to
| | 00:26 |
click the More Details button.
You need to grab potential buyers or
| | 00:30 |
downloaders in one line or two lines.
It's a good practice to leave a blank
| | 00:35 |
line after the intro.
Other words you've got those eight lines.
| | 00:38 |
Burn one of those lines as a blank line
in order for people to visually see when
| | 00:43 |
the intro's done.
because they're going to scan it, and
| | 00:45 |
then they're going to go look at the
screenshots.
| | 00:47 |
Beyond those eight lines are visible when
the user clicks Show Details.
| | 00:52 |
Let's go back to the Windows Phone store
and take a look at some examples again.
| | 00:57 |
As we looked at earlier in the course.
Let's go take a look at the battery monitor.
| | 01:02 |
Here's the text.
A great battery monitor for Windows Phone
| | 01:05 |
8 with a customizable Live tile, Usage
graph, Voice control, and Desk Clock mode.
| | 01:11 |
You know exactly what this app does.
Now you've got some additional lines of
| | 01:15 |
information here, and then when we click
Show Details.
| | 01:18 |
Got a whole bunch more detailed
information about what this app does.
| | 01:23 |
We can click Hide Details and make the
details go away.
| | 01:26 |
But this is very crucial.
As I said, it's the first of three things
| | 01:31 |
that determines whether people will
download and install your app.
| | 01:34 |
Now that we've looked at the app
description, let's move on and take a
| | 01:38 |
look at the process of creating keywords.
| | 01:40 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Establishing keywords| 00:00 |
Next up we'll talk about selecting
keywords for your app.
| | 00:03 |
This is crucial for when people search
for things in the Windows phone store
| | 00:07 |
that they want to be able to find a
particular kind of app or an app that
| | 00:10 |
does a particular function.
So its important to recognize what you
| | 00:14 |
want to put in there.
Its not necessarily the features of your
| | 00:17 |
app, its what people might search for in
order to find an app like yours.
| | 00:22 |
It's the second of the three things that
sells your app.
| | 00:25 |
The keywords are not visible to users.
The users can't see what keywords you've
| | 00:30 |
put in there in order to attract them to
your app.
| | 00:33 |
Microsoft guidelines require you to put
in things that are relevant to your app.
| | 00:37 |
You can't put flashlight into a solitaire
game and expect all the people who are
| | 00:42 |
looking for flashlight apps to show up at
your game.
| | 00:44 |
You'll get booted out of the store for
that.
| | 00:46 |
It needs to be relevant to what your app
is all about.
| | 00:50 |
Store searching automatically includes
your publisher name and the name of your app.
| | 00:55 |
So you don't need to put those in as
keywords.
| | 00:58 |
You get five keyword slots.
You also don't need plurals in there if
| | 01:03 |
the plurals are simply created by putting
an s on the end of the name.
| | 01:07 |
As keyword searching is one of the key
ways that people find your apps think
| | 01:12 |
carefully about the five keywords you
want to include.
| | 01:15 |
There's no particular order that you have
to put the keywords in but you get just
| | 01:19 |
five so choose carefully.
When we go through the process of
| | 01:23 |
submitting the app to the store, we'll
look at the process of entering the
| | 01:27 |
keywords its not something you can see as
an individual page but its coming up in a
| | 01:31 |
future video.
Now we've created the non graphic assets
| | 01:35 |
the description and the keywords.
Next up lets talk about creating the
| | 01:39 |
artwork for your app in preparation for
submission to the store.
| | 01:43 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Creating the artwork for your app| 00:00 |
We've done everything that we need to do,
in order to submit your app to the App
| | 00:04 |
Store, except create the artwork for your
app.
| | 00:07 |
When you do a File > New Project, you got
some artwork.
| | 00:10 |
But you need to create your own custom
icon, your own custom tile icons, as well
| | 00:14 |
as store icon for displaying in the
Window's Phone store.
| | 00:18 |
Let's go through the process of
understanding how to do that.
| | 00:21 |
There's two ways you can create your
store icon and your app icon.
| | 00:24 |
You can follow Microsoft's style
guidelines and use the Modern UI.
| | 00:28 |
And that works great for tools and
productivity apps and reference apps.
| | 00:33 |
But if you have an established brand or
you have a game, most likely you're
| | 00:37 |
going to want to create something that's
much more indicative of either your brand
| | 00:41 |
or the game.
A brand example is the Kindle app from
| | 00:44 |
Amazon or Facebook or the Pandora app and
a game example is like the Big Red Bird
| | 00:49 |
from Angry Birds.
It's fine to do it either way.
| | 00:52 |
It's best to use the Microsoft guidelines
for as I said tools and productivity and
| | 00:58 |
then use your best judgement for creating
icons for other kinds of apps.
| | 01:02 |
Remember, the icon that shows up in the
app list is quite small.
| | 01:06 |
So you'll want to keep the detail
involved in that pretty minimal so that
| | 01:09 |
users will be able to instantly recognize
your app in that list.
| | 01:14 |
When you're creating artwork for your app
icons or your store icons, think big.
| | 01:18 |
Some icons really work best by starting
with a 1024 by 1024 image and then
| | 01:23 |
scaling down.
If you start with a small icon and try to
| | 01:26 |
scale up you end up with a lot of jagged
edges.
| | 01:29 |
So for the most part it's better to start
at the big icon and scale down.
| | 01:33 |
Do you have very fine detail needs in
your smaller icons?
| | 01:36 |
Then do this manually using a paint
program.
| | 01:40 |
If you can start with a 1024 and scale
down.
| | 01:43 |
There's a great 3rd party free tool
called the windows market place icon
| | 01:47 |
maker this actually works for both
Windows Phone and Windows 8 apps.
| | 01:52 |
Let's go take a quick look.
This is something that you have to
| | 01:55 |
download in source code form either using
git hub or you can click here and
| | 01:59 |
download a zip and then run it.
This automatically generates all the
| | 02:02 |
required icons for Windows 8 and Windows
Phone 7 and 8.
| | 02:07 |
I've downloaded it, put it in Visual
Studio, and I'm running it.
| | 02:10 |
So let's take a look at it in action.
Here's the Windows Phone Icon Maker.
| | 02:15 |
Here's an image, and you can see now,
it's taken this, scaled it up to create a
| | 02:19 |
Store tile, and down for Windows Phone 7.
For Windows Phone 8, it's created an
| | 02:24 |
application icon.
Flip cycle tile in various sizes.
| | 02:29 |
And for Windows 8 it's actually a number
of different sizes.
| | 02:32 |
And when you say Save, you can go and
find all of these sizes for whatever need
| | 02:36 |
you have in your application.
So this is also handy for things that you
| | 02:40 |
do in your application.
So we'll just click here.
| | 02:42 |
Save Icons and there it goes.
It saved all the icons.
| | 02:47 |
If we come back to our Documents folder,
which is where the icon was; there are
| | 02:52 |
three separate folders for WIN8 icons,
WP7 icons and WP8 icons.
| | 02:57 |
If we go into WP8 icons, you can see that
we now have an application icon, a flip
| | 03:02 |
cycle tile medium, and a flip cycle tile
small.
| | 03:05 |
You notice that there's no store icon
here, but you can use the store icon from
| | 03:09 |
the Win 8 icons.
See in here you've got store logo in
| | 03:12 |
various sizes.
So you can use one of those for your
| | 03:15 |
store logo.
This is the third party tool it comes in
| | 03:19 |
source code form.
Should be available on Gethub when you
| | 03:22 |
see this source get it go grab the source
code and then you've got it forever.
| | 03:27 |
That's all the artwork you need to create
by hand.
| | 03:30 |
For your screenshots, you need to use
either the emulator or your device to
| | 03:34 |
create your screenshots.
This is the third of the three things
| | 03:36 |
that sells your app.
The first is your description.
| | 03:40 |
The second is your keywords, which is how
people find you.
| | 03:42 |
And the third are your screenshots.
You have to have at least two.
| | 03:46 |
And you have to have two for every
supported resolution.
| | 03:50 |
So for example, if you have a generic out
of the box XAML-based app, that works in
| | 03:55 |
WXGA, WVGA, and 720p.
Means you have to have at least two
| | 04:00 |
screenshots for each resolution, so
that's six total screenshots.
| | 04:04 |
If you're going for the full gamut and
you want eight screenshots, that means
| | 04:07 |
you're going to end up with 24 separate
screenshots you've gotta manage in order
| | 04:11 |
to be able to submit your app to the
store.
| | 04:13 |
Currently there's only three resolutions
supported, but this may change in the future.
| | 04:18 |
When you go to the Windows Phone Dev
Center, it will tell you exactly what
| | 04:21 |
resolutions and how many screenshots you
need.
| | 04:24 |
Let's take a look at the process of
gathering a screenshot from the emulator.
| | 04:29 |
So we'll head back to Visual Studio.
Up here, when you have the emulator,
| | 04:33 |
there's four choices.
There's the WVGA emulator with small memory.
| | 04:38 |
The WVGA emulator with 1 gig of memory.
The WXGA emulator and the 720P emulator.
| | 04:44 |
Most of the phones out in the wild are
variations of the Nokia 920.
| | 04:49 |
So, let's pick WXGA and let's run this
little app in the emulator.
| | 04:52 |
And here's our app running in the
emulator.
| | 04:57 |
Now, in order to take a basic screen shot
of this, you just click on this little
| | 05:02 |
double-chevron here on the right-hand
side, and you get the additional tools.
| | 05:05 |
And the additional tools are
Accelerometer, Location, Screen Shot, and Network.
| | 05:10 |
Let's go ahead and pick Screen Shot, and
all you do is navigate to the spot in
| | 05:15 |
your app you wan to take the screen shot
and click Capture.
| | 05:18 |
Now, you'll notice one thing about this
screen shot.
| | 05:21 |
Notice over here on the left, we've got
the frame rate counters.
| | 05:24 |
It actually captures that in the screen
shot.
| | 05:27 |
So, let's go ahead and stop this and I'll
show you how to turn that off protecting
| | 05:31 |
your screen shots.
Come back to Visual Studio.
| | 05:36 |
You open up your App.xaml.cs us and in
here there's a line that says
| | 05:41 |
application.current.host.settings.enable
frame rate counter equal true.
| | 05:46 |
So we'll comment that out and you see
that's in if debugger attached.
| | 05:51 |
So if we actually ran it again directly
we go to the application list.
| | 05:57 |
And we come up to MyNewApp.
It's not there.
| | 06:01 |
So you've got two choices.
You can either comment it out so that it
| | 06:04 |
never shows up, so you don't have to
remember to keep turning it on and off,
| | 06:07 |
or you can just run your app directly
from the app list as opposed to running
| | 06:11 |
it in the debugger.
So notice, when I take the screenshot
| | 06:13 |
now, all of that section goes away.
You get a nice clean screenshot.
| | 06:18 |
So after you've taken the screenshot, I
can click Save.
| | 06:21 |
And you get a Save As file dialog and you
can call that Screenshot 1 WXGA.
| | 06:28 |
Remember, you have to have two for every
resolution that you support, and
| | 06:31 |
potentially 24 in total, because you'll
have one for each of the 3 resolutions
| | 06:37 |
for each of your 8 screen shots.
Next up we're going to start looking at
| | 06:41 |
submitting your app to the store
beginning you with our pre-submission
| | 06:43 |
checklist and then actually walking
through submitting an app to the windows
| | 06:47 |
phone store.
| | 06:48 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
5. Submitting Your AppSubmitting your app to the Windows Phone Store| 00:00 |
Okay, everything we've done in this
course has brought us to this moment.
| | 00:04 |
It's time to submit an app to the store.
So we're going to go through the steps of
| | 00:08 |
submitting an app to the store, and then
we're actually going to submit an app
| | 00:11 |
live in the course to the store, just
like you'll be able to do.
| | 00:15 |
Because we're going to include the source
code for this particular app, including
| | 00:20 |
all the screenshots and everything else
in the exersize files.
| | 00:23 |
Just like if you were getting ready to
board the space shuttle and launch from
| | 00:26 |
Cape Canaveral, there's a pre-submission
checklist you should probably run through.
| | 00:29 |
To make sure you've got all the pieces
before you go to the Dev Center and start
| | 00:33 |
trying to submit your app.
First up is the display name, which is
| | 00:37 |
the name that will show on a users phone
and with which it'll be listed in the store.
| | 00:42 |
You'll want to have your description
already written out, carefully writing
| | 00:45 |
those first two lines, adding that blank,
and then all the rest of the text you
| | 00:49 |
want for your description.
And you want to have figured out your keywords.
| | 00:52 |
Then, you'll want to make sure you have
all your icons, and your live tiles, and
| | 00:56 |
your screenshots in all the supported
resolutions that you need.
| | 00:59 |
If you're going to do anything custom
with markets, figure that out in advance,
| | 01:04 |
so that you know which markets you're
going to put your app into.
| | 01:07 |
And maybe which markets you're not going
to put the app in, as well as decide what
| | 01:11 |
business model you're using for the app.
And if you're using a pay business model,
| | 01:15 |
what your pricing is going to be, and if
your going to have any custom pricing per market.
| | 01:19 |
Then you want to make sure that you
figured out in which markets your app
| | 01:22 |
will be available, if your app is a paid
app what your pricing is going to be and
| | 01:27 |
if you're going to have customized
pricing based on specific locations.
| | 01:31 |
If you're not using the standard
Microsoft legal text for an app you'll
| | 01:36 |
need to have a link to a legal URL which
has to be under the server that's hosted
| | 01:40 |
by you.
If you need a specific privacy URL,
| | 01:44 |
you'll need to have a link to that, and
again that web page has to be hosted by you.
| | 01:48 |
It's not hosted by Microsoft.
And, for every app, you have to have an
| | 01:53 |
email address for support.
This is always required.
| | 01:55 |
It doesn't have to be a unique email
address per app.
| | 01:59 |
But it has to be an address to which
users can send requests for support to
| | 02:04 |
you, and one that you monitor actively.
Part two of our checklist, your code.
| | 02:09 |
You need to have a XAP file.
And your XAP file has to contain a
| | 02:13 |
release build.
So most of the time when you've been
| | 02:16 |
doing your development, you've been in
debug mode so that you can catch crashes,
| | 02:20 |
and set breakpoints and so forth.
You'll need to make sure that you set the
| | 02:24 |
build mode to release and test your app
in the emulator, or, more preferably, on
| | 02:29 |
a device with the final release bits
before you upload to the store.
| | 02:34 |
And the final part of our checklist is
applicable if you're going to be doing
| | 02:37 |
beta testing.
You want to make sure that before you
| | 02:40 |
start the submission process, you have
the list of Microsoft ID's and email
| | 02:45 |
addresses for each beta tester.
Let's take a little deeper look at what
| | 02:49 |
the beta testing process is.
It's a private controlled list of users.
| | 02:53 |
You have to know each user, because you
have to have their Microsoft ID or email
| | 02:58 |
address for each user.
Only approved users, meaning those whose
| | 03:02 |
email addresses you put into the webpage,
can see the app in the store.
| | 03:06 |
Each one of them gets a customized email
with a unique link so that they can go to
| | 03:11 |
the store and download the app.
They download it to a device, just as if
| | 03:15 |
it was released.
But they can't review it or rate it in
| | 03:19 |
the store.
They'll have to communicate directly to
| | 03:21 |
you, so you'll want to provide them with
an e-mail address on which they can
| | 03:25 |
communicate to you about the beta test.
Alright.
| | 03:28 |
That's our pre-flight checklist.
Now let's go through the process of
| | 03:31 |
preparing our assets, our description and
submitting an app to the Windows Phone Store.
| | 03:35 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Creating the artwork| 00:00 |
So, one of the things we learned earlier
in this course is that creating the
| | 00:04 |
artwork is a key process of submitting to
the Windows Phone store.
| | 00:07 |
For this app I've already created the
artwork but I'm going to open up visual
| | 00:10 |
studio and show you where the artwork is
within visual studio and how its
| | 00:16 |
connected up to the app manifest.
So let's go to visual studio.
| | 00:20 |
The project we're going to open is in the
exercise files directory.
| | 00:24 |
We put the exercise files directory on
the desktop, so aside from the fact that
| | 00:28 |
there might be in the desktop here.
And in a different place on your system
| | 00:31 |
everything else in terms of folder path
should be the same for you if you're
| | 00:35 |
following along.
So, we're going to say open project
| | 00:38 |
solution, we're going to go to the
desktop.
| | 00:41 |
We're going to come down here to the
Exercise Files directory.
| | 00:44 |
Since this is chapter five of this
course, it's in the CH05 directory.
| | 00:49 |
Since this is movie number two, it's in
the 02 sub-folder.
| | 00:53 |
And there it is, SonnetsPlusDB-forstore.
Go ahead and open it up, and there's our
| | 00:58 |
SonnetsPlusDB solution file, so let's
select that and open it up in Visual Studio.
| | 01:03 |
Because I brought it over from another
system its probably just like you
| | 01:06 |
downloading it from lynda.com.
When you open up the solution for the
| | 01:09 |
first time visual studio wants to make
sure that you got the solution from a
| | 01:13 |
place that you know.
I'm going to turn this off so it doesn't
| | 01:15 |
keep asking.
First off, we've got our store icon.
| | 01:20 |
Since there's 154 sonnets written by
Shakespeare, and that's the sonnets that
| | 01:25 |
this app is talking about, we've made the
store icon in the nice modern new istyle.
| | 01:31 |
And CLIV is the Roman numeral for 154, so
that's our store icon that we used, and
| | 01:37 |
we created it with the Windows
Marketplace Icon Maker.
| | 01:40 |
And here's the application icon, it's a
smaller version.
| | 01:43 |
You can see it's a little jaggy, but
that's because Visual Studio is blowing
| | 01:47 |
it up to show it to us here inside the
solution.
| | 01:51 |
Inside our Images folder, we just have
our App Bar icons.
| | 01:55 |
We could have created a custom splash
screen, but we didn't for this particular app.
| | 01:59 |
If you're actually submitting an app to
the store for commercial purposes, you
| | 02:02 |
probably want to change that, as well.
As we mentioned earlier in the course,
| | 02:07 |
what you do with these images is that you
refine your app manifest.
| | 02:11 |
So, let's go open the app manifest.
And you can see, here's where we've got
| | 02:16 |
the display name for the app.
A description, we'll come back to that later.
| | 02:19 |
Here's the app icon that's connected up
to this app icon in the solution.
| | 02:24 |
This app supports all three resolutions,
WVGA, WXGA, and 720p.
| | 02:31 |
That means when we start taking
screenshots, we have to take at least two
| | 02:34 |
screenshots for each resolution.
And Visual Studio automatically connected
| | 02:38 |
these icons to the smaller tile images.
Those smaller medium tile images are used
| | 02:44 |
when you go to the app list, touch and
hold on the application and select Pin to Start.
| | 02:50 |
And in Windows Phone 8, you can have both
the small and a medium-sized icon for the
| | 02:54 |
Pin to Start.
This particular app doesn't have a large
| | 02:59 |
icon but if you had a really large icon,
which is most useful for things that are
| | 03:03 |
actually live tiles, like the people hub.
You could also specify a large icon here.
| | 03:09 |
But a large icon is not required to
submit an app to the store.
| | 03:12 |
So that's our artwork.
I'm going to show you one thing about
| | 03:16 |
setting up your system for dealing with
artwork for the screenshots, as it
| | 03:20 |
relates to submitting the app to the
store.
| | 03:22 |
I'm going to come back down here to the
exercise file.
| | 03:25 |
going to drill in, again, and I'm
going to take this folder and I'm
| | 03:30 |
going to drag it over here to my
Favorites.
| | 03:32 |
Because, when you click the Upload button
for screenshot or a store icon, the
| | 03:37 |
webpage always takes you back to the
Pictures folder or the Documents folder.
| | 03:43 |
It doesn't take you back to the last
place you were.
| | 03:45 |
So, you're constantly navigating around
through your file system to get back to
| | 03:49 |
your icons and your screenshots.
So, I highly recommend taking your
| | 03:53 |
project folder.
Putting over here in favorites to make it
| | 03:56 |
easier to navigate to there when you need
to go and grab the pieces for submission.
| | 04:00 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Creating a release build| 00:00 |
Now that we know we've got our artwork
set up properly, we need to make sure we
| | 00:04 |
create a release build.
Because you can't upload a debug build of
| | 00:08 |
a ZAP file to the Windows Phone store.
And there's two steps to do that, so
| | 00:12 |
let's switch back to Visual Studio.
Now there's two things we need to do, the
| | 00:17 |
first, as we talked about before, we need
to open up the app.xaml.cs file.
| | 00:22 |
And we'll come down here to line 84 which
shows the frame rate counter on the upper
| | 00:27 |
right-hand side of the screen in the
emulator.
| | 00:29 |
Since it's most convenient to take your
screenshots using the emulator, since you
| | 00:33 |
probably don't have a device of every
different resolution.
| | 00:36 |
It's good to comment this out to make
sure that you don't end up with those
| | 00:39 |
frame rate counters in the screenshot.
And the reason is, is because even though
| | 00:44 |
we were going to be building a release
build, it's oftentimes very easy to start
| | 00:47 |
out to do your screen shots by hitting F5
on your keyboard.
| | 00:51 |
And that has the debugger attached, even
though it's a release build so, therefore
| | 00:54 |
the frame rate counters would show up.
By commenting this line out it means the
| | 00:58 |
frame rate counters never show up.
So, that's what we needed to do to the
| | 01:02 |
source code.
Let's save that the next thing we need to
| | 01:06 |
do is come up to the solutions
configurations drop this down and select release.
| | 01:11 |
Now we can come up to our solution right
click and select Rebuilt Solution.
| | 01:16 |
Our solutions built, now lets go see
where you can find that zap file.
| | 01:20 |
So, we'll right-click here and say Open
Folder in File Explorer, and we'll go
| | 01:26 |
into the Bin directory.
And there's a Release directory, and in
| | 01:31 |
there is
SonnetsPlusDB_Release_AnyCPU.zap.
| | 01:38 |
When the time comes, when we're in the
Dev Center to upload the file, that's the
| | 01:43 |
file you're going to want to select for
upload.
| | 01:46 |
Let's close this.
That's all we need to do to make sure we
| | 01:50 |
have a release build for testing.
Once you've done your release build, it's
| | 01:54 |
a good idea to test on all the devices
that you have as well as to test in the
| | 01:59 |
emulator in all the resolutions that you
support.
| | 02:02 |
Next step, watch me go through the
process and take some screen shots.
| | 02:06 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Taking the screenshots| 00:00 |
Alright you're just ever that much closer
to submitting your app.
| | 00:04 |
Next up let's take some screenshots.
We'll use the Windows phone emulator and
| | 00:09 |
we'll do it in multiple resolutions and
save the screenshots so that we can have
| | 00:13 |
them ready when we go to the dev center
to do the upload.
| | 00:16 |
Once again, back to visual studio.
In this drop down here.
| | 00:21 |
Next to the solutions configuration.
You drop that down.
| | 00:24 |
You can see that you've got a variety of
emulators.
| | 00:27 |
The WVGA emulators which are the smallest
screen size.
| | 00:31 |
The WXGA emulator, which is the screen
size of the popular Nokia Lumia 920.
| | 00:37 |
And the 720p emulator, which is the
largest screen size that Windows Phone 8 supports.
| | 00:43 |
For every screen resolution that your app
supports you have to take two screenshots.
| | 00:48 |
So in our case we support all three
resolutions so its begin with the WVGA
| | 00:54 |
and we'll fire up our app in the
emulator.
| | 00:55 |
And here's our app running in the
emulator.
| | 01:01 |
Here we're in the WVGA emulator let's
move it over to the right hand side.
| | 01:05 |
And right here is double chevron when you
pop it out.
| | 01:08 |
You probably already know that it
includes the accelerometer and the
| | 01:11 |
simulated location services and the
network tabs.
| | 01:16 |
But the tab we're going to use here is
the screen shot.
| | 01:19 |
We run our app and take screen shots as
we go.
| | 01:21 |
So, we're first going to capture our main
screen.
| | 01:25 |
We'll click Capture.
And then we're going to navigate down
| | 01:28 |
here to Sonnet number 18, which is one of
my favorites and mark it as a Favorite.
| | 01:35 |
This is part of the functionality of the
app.
| | 01:37 |
Now, you can see that the app is marked
and Sonnet 18 is a Favorite with a gold
| | 01:40 |
star here.
And now we'll come back over here to the sidebar.
| | 01:44 |
I do another screenshot.
What do we find?
| | 01:47 |
We find out that it only took one
screenshot, so you have to take every
| | 01:52 |
screenshot and save after you've taken
it.
| | 01:55 |
So we are going to go back here to our
list, go back to the top, take our first
| | 02:01 |
screenshot, and save it.
Remember earlier when I told you to put
| | 02:06 |
the folder containing your source code
into the favorites over here.
| | 02:09 |
This is one of the reasons.
We're going to click here in sonnets plus db.
| | 02:14 |
And for the first time we're going to
create new folder and we're going to call
| | 02:16 |
it Screenshots.
So now we're going to go inside Screenshots.
| | 02:21 |
And since we have to take a bunch of
these pictures.
| | 02:23 |
It's good to name them appropriately.
So this is going to be WVGA1.
| | 02:26 |
We'll actually use the app, we'll scroll
over to the Favorites tab, there's our
| | 02:33 |
favorite sonnet.
Now we take another screenshot, capture it.
| | 02:40 |
And save it.
I'll call it WVGA-2.
| | 02:44 |
You can have more screenshots in some
resolutions than others.
| | 02:48 |
You have to have the minimum of two.
So in the case of WVGA, we're only
| | 02:53 |
going to do two.
For WXGA, which is the most popular
| | 02:56 |
resolution for Windows Phone, we'll come
back, and take a screenshot here of the
| | 03:01 |
favorites section of our pivot, showing
the one sonnet that's selected so that we
| | 03:05 |
have three screenshots for that
resolution.
| | 03:07 |
Having taken these screenshots for WVGA,
we now need to shut down the emulator and
| | 03:12 |
restart it in WXGA mode to take the next
set of screenshots.
| | 03:19 |
Select WXGA and run it again.
Here we are now in WXGA mode.
| | 03:24 |
Once again, we're going to hit the double
chevron and bring out our tab.
| | 03:28 |
We'll select Screen Shot and Capture.
And you'll notice down here it shows you
| | 03:30 |
the resolution of the screen shot.
So, we'll save our first screen shot.
| | 03:41 |
And this is WXGA-1.
And then, we'll come down, we'll scroll
| | 03:45 |
over to the Favorites tab.
Favorite sonnet XVIII.
| | 03:47 |
We'll take the screenshot of that, we'll
save that as WXGA-2.
| | 04:01 |
And then we'll come back to our main
screen and tap on our favorites pivot,
| | 04:04 |
and capture that, and save that as
WXGA-3.
| | 04:08 |
That's the screenshots we need for the
wxga resolution.
| | 04:14 |
Let's go through the process one more
time for 720P.
| | 04:17 |
From this emulator selector, we'll select
emulator 720P.
| | 04:22 |
And run the app one more time.
As a Windows Phone app developer, one of
| | 04:27 |
the things I'm sure you're very familiar
with is the fact that the 720P emulator
| | 04:32 |
doesn't fit fully on a screen if your
screen is the 1366 by 768 resolution.
| | 04:38 |
So we'll come over here and change the
resolution to say 50%, so we can get the
| | 04:42 |
entire emulator on the screen.
We'll bring out the Tools, Selected
| | 04:46 |
Screen Shot once again Capture.
And you'll notice this is 1280 by 720
| | 04:51 |
slightly smaller then the WXGA.
Save that and we'll call this 720P-1.
| | 05:01 |
Once again, we'll come over and select
Sonnet XVIII, Favorite Sonnet XVIII
| | 05:06 |
again, Capture, and Save.
720P-2.
| | 05:09 |
That's what we needed to do to capture
all the screenshots for this app that
| | 05:13 |
we're going to upload to the Windows
Phone store.
| | 05:18 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Running the Store test kit| 00:01 |
Before we go to the Dev Center and put in
our information, upload our XAP file, and
| | 00:06 |
submit for certification, it's a really
good idea to run your app through the
| | 00:10 |
Store Test Kit.
What this does is verifies that you have
| | 00:13 |
all the pieces you need before you go to
the Dev Center.
| | 00:17 |
So once again, let's switch to Visual
Studio.
| | 00:20 |
So, to run the Store Test Kit, you go to
the Project menu and select Open Store
| | 00:25 |
Test Kit.
The Store Test Kit consists of three
| | 00:29 |
specific sections.
The first is the application details.
| | 00:33 |
The second is the automated tests and the
third is the manual tests.
| | 00:38 |
In this, video we're going to look at the
application details and the automated tests.
| | 00:42 |
So, the first thing we need to do is to
tell it where the store tile is.
| | 00:45 |
Remember?
The store tile was here in our store icon image.
| | 00:50 |
So we'll browse, it's up one level from
where we were, and we have StoreIcon.
| | 00:57 |
Then, for the application screenshots, we
need to go through and add the ones that
| | 01:02 |
we just did.
So first, for WVGA, we'll go into our
| | 01:04 |
screenshots and select WVGA-1, and
WVGA-2, next we'll select WXGA.
| | 01:10 |
And browse for those so here's our WXGA1,
WXGA2, and WXGA3 and finally we'll select
| | 01:23 |
720p and select our 720p number one and
720p number two.
| | 01:33 |
That's all we need to do for the
application details.
| | 01:36 |
The reason that we want to do that is
because it's not going to validate that
| | 01:39 |
we have the proper screenshots for our
proper resolutions.
| | 01:43 |
Microsoft often updates the test cases.
So let's go ahead and say yes to make
| | 01:47 |
sure we have the latest list of test
cases in our Store Test Kit.
| | 01:51 |
So since we had to update we had to close
our Store Test Kit.
| | 01:57 |
And open it back up again so come back to
the Project menu and select Open Store
| | 02:01 |
Test Kit.
Now we've got our store tile, we've got
| | 02:05 |
our WVGA, our WXGA, and our 720p
screenshots all set.
| | 02:13 |
Let's go on to the automated tests.
These are three automated tests that the
| | 02:18 |
Windows Phone Store Test Kit can do for
you.
| | 02:21 |
It can make sure that your XAP file size
and the content's right, your icons and
| | 02:25 |
your screenshots are correct.
So let's go ahead and click Run Tests.
| | 02:30 |
It's going to run it against the data in
our solution.
| | 02:33 |
In order to further analyze our app and
get it ready for the store, we can run a
| | 02:38 |
Windows phone application analysis.
Which actually runs our app and allows
| | 02:42 |
you to interact with it to verify that
your app launches in the right amount of
| | 02:45 |
time and consumes the right kind of
resources.
| | 02:48 |
So let's go ahead and run our app through
application analysis.
| | 02:51 |
And we have our choice.
We can either monitor it or we can
| | 02:55 |
actually do full on profiling.
In our case we're just going to do app analysis.
| | 03:00 |
We're going to click Start Session.
The emulator will start and then the
| | 03:04 |
application runs.
And you can see in the background here,
| | 03:07 |
it's collecting data.
And so let's run our app.
| | 03:11 |
We'll scroll up and take a look at sonnet
five.
| | 03:13 |
Let's scroll up and take one more look at
our favorite sonnet 18.
| | 03:20 |
We'll mark it as a favorite, come back to
the main screen, and we'll take a look at
| | 03:25 |
our favorites list.
Since that's all the functionality of our
| | 03:28 |
app, that's all we need to do.
Once we're done, we come back to Visual
| | 03:32 |
Studio and click End Session.
That closes the app and stops data collection.
| | 03:37 |
Then it parses the log file and in our
case, it's showing us that the start up
| | 03:42 |
time is great but response is poor.
And that's a little bit because our app
| | 03:47 |
is running in the emulator.
If you were running the app on the device
| | 03:50 |
you wouldn't see this.
Your development machine is typically a
| | 03:53 |
lot more powerful than this machine is
here.
| | 03:55 |
You probably wouldn't see that app
responsiveness being poor for this
| | 03:59 |
particular app.
One of the things that's really a good
| | 04:02 |
thing to do, is actually test your apps,
using that analysis, on an actual device.
| | 04:08 |
That's the automated portions of the app
test kit.
| | 04:11 |
Next up we're going to take a look at the
manual test cases and then we're going to
| | 04:15 |
get ready to submit our app to the
Windows Phone Store.
| | 04:17 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Reviewing the manual test cases| 00:00 |
The last thing we want to do before we go
to the Dev Center and upload our app is
| | 00:03 |
look at the manual test cases.
It's not required to run any of these
| | 00:07 |
manual tests in order to upload your app
for beta testing.
| | 00:11 |
But you will want to look at these tests
and run a lot of these tests yourself, at
| | 00:15 |
least the ones that are applicable to
your app, before you upload your app to
| | 00:19 |
the store for distribution.
Because the Microsoft reviewers will
| | 00:23 |
manually run a lot of these tests against
your app before they certify it.
| | 00:27 |
Let's look at the categories of these
manual test cases.
| | 00:31 |
There's app policies, things that your
app must follow.
| | 00:34 |
There's content policies, things that the
content inside your app must follow,
| | 00:39 |
rules that Microsoft has established for
the store.
| | 00:42 |
There's submission requirements, things
like the screen shots and app description
| | 00:46 |
and keywords.
There's technical requirements,it's like
| | 00:50 |
accessing APIs that aren't part of the
official store API kit.
| | 00:53 |
And location-aware app requirements.
There are things that location-aware apps
| | 00:58 |
have to do that apps that aren't using
location services don't need to do.
| | 01:02 |
Let's head on over to Visual Studio and
take a look.
| | 01:06 |
So we're still inside the store test kit.
We've been through the application
| | 01:09 |
details, and the automated tests.
Now we're finally going to click on
| | 01:13 |
manual tests.
These are test cases that you can run by yourself.
| | 01:19 |
There's no automation.
When you've done it, you can then select
| | 01:23 |
either Passed or Failed on each test.
Once you've done all these things, you
| | 01:27 |
can then print the result of the manual
test cases, for example, if you are a QA
| | 01:32 |
person versus the developer going through
all of these things.
| | 01:36 |
Now, some of these things are things that
you can easily do.
| | 01:40 |
Like make sure that you have all the
images, verifying that you have an app
| | 01:44 |
images that's represented if as the app
that your start screen tile looks like
| | 01:49 |
the app and so forth.
Some of them are little more difficult
| | 01:52 |
especially for small developers such as
installing your app on two or more
| | 01:56 |
windows phone devices that are
compatible.
| | 01:59 |
What Microsoft will do is actually
install your app on every resolution
| | 02:03 |
device that you specify your app runs on.
And while they don't comprehensively test
| | 02:08 |
all the app functionality, they want to
make sure that you know that they could
| | 02:11 |
reject your app because you haven't
tested in all the proper environments.
| | 02:16 |
Now because Windows Phone 8 apps are
built with XAML, and things automatically
| | 02:20 |
scale, this is less of a problem in terms
of screen resolution.
| | 02:25 |
And more of a problem in terms of whether
or not there's enough performance.
| | 02:29 |
Whether it's the CPU speed or memory
available on the device, when you get to
| | 02:33 |
the lower-end devices.
Of course if your app isn't using XAML to
| | 02:37 |
create your screen such as in a game.
And you know you need at least a 1,280 by
| | 02:42 |
720 screen and you try to run your app on
a WVGA device your controls might be off
| | 02:48 |
the screen.
And so that's up to you to make sure that
| | 02:51 |
if you are going to run on that device or
you're running in the emulator that you
| | 02:55 |
properly scale things.
Microsoft will test that sort of thing so
| | 02:59 |
if we look down through these we can see
required app images, multiple device
| | 03:04 |
support, app closure make sure that your
app can launch and quit.
| | 03:10 |
App responsiveness, app responsiveness
after being closed and app responsiveness
| | 03:15 |
after being deactivated and the back
button.
| | 03:19 |
I'm not going to go through every single
one of these manual tests, but I highly
| | 03:23 |
recommend that you do.
So that you can understand what Microsoft
| | 03:26 |
might do in reviewing your app before you
submit it to the store.
| | 03:30 |
Because it's a time consuming process for
non beta submissions to go through and
| | 03:35 |
every time you have a rejection by
Microsoft you have to start all the way
| | 03:39 |
back over again.
So if you had two or three rounds, that
| | 03:41 |
could end up taking two or three or four
weeks to get your app into the store.
| | 03:45 |
And you want to do it on the first try if
at all possible.
| | 03:48 |
And that's what all of these manual tests
are there for, to help you validate
| | 03:52 |
things before you submit in order to give
you the greatest chance of succeeding on
| | 03:56 |
the first try when you submit your app to
the store.
| | 03:59 |
We've been through thinking about it.
We've been through setting up for it.
| | 04:03 |
The next step is to actually go to the
Dev Center and submit the app to the store.
| | 04:07 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Submitting to the Dev Center| 00:00 |
At long last, we've come to the spot
where we can actually submit to the Dev Center.
| | 00:04 |
So, let's go ahead and go to the Dev
Center and begin submitting our app.
| | 00:09 |
We're going to do it twice, the first
time, I'm going to go through the path of
| | 00:12 |
a paid app so that you can see the
screens that are involved in in-app
| | 00:15 |
advertising and map tokens and so forth.
Then we're going to back out, delete that
| | 00:21 |
submission, and then do it again as a
beta test and go all the way through the process.
| | 00:26 |
So, let's head on over to the Dev Center
and begin.
| | 00:28 |
So,we come to the Dev Center, make sure
you are on the Publish tab, and we click
| | 00:33 |
Submit an App.
Let's take a look at the steps before we
| | 00:37 |
begin, there's five potential steps.
The first step is when you give your app
| | 00:42 |
an alias, this is a name that you use to
manipulate it in the dashboard, not the
| | 00:47 |
name that the user sees on their phone.
This is where you set pricing and enter
| | 00:51 |
other important information.
The second step is where you upload your
| | 00:55 |
XAP file, and screenshots, and icons and
so forth.
| | 00:59 |
It's really crucial that if you want to
do In-app advertising or market selection
| | 01:04 |
and custom pricing or map services, that
you mark your app for publication, not
| | 01:09 |
for beta testing.
Those features aren't available during
| | 01:12 |
the beta testing phase.
So, let's first of all go ahead and give
| | 01:16 |
our app info.
We'll call our app sonnets plus db now we
| | 01:23 |
can select a category.
Remember all games have to go into the
| | 01:26 |
game category.
In our case we're going to call it
| | 01:29 |
entertainment and then we move down.
We can set our base price.
| | 01:35 |
In our case let's make this a free app.
Therefore we don't need to click Offer
| | 01:39 |
Free Trials.
If our app was paid, we could set it so
| | 01:42 |
that we could offer free trials, as it
reminds you here, you need to make sure
| | 01:45 |
you've implemented the trial experience
in your app.
| | 01:48 |
Under Market Distribution, you can
distribute to all markets, or all markets
| | 01:52 |
except China.
And if you want to learn more about why
| | 01:55 |
leaving China out may or may not apply to
your app, click on this link here that
| | 01:59 |
says Learn More.
Let's drop down the more options and look
| | 02:02 |
at that.
By default, all apps go into the public store.
| | 02:07 |
You can put things into the public store
but not allow users to browse or search
| | 02:11 |
it, meaning that they actually have to
have the URL from you.
| | 02:14 |
This is most applicable for line of
business apps in which only the employees
| | 02:19 |
of the company creating the app are
actually allowed to use the app.
| | 02:22 |
Beta, is when you're doing beta testing.
We're going to do that the second time through.
| | 02:26 |
Right now we're going to leave it as
public store, so that we can look at the
| | 02:30 |
other options for In-app advertising, and
map tokens and so forth.
| | 02:34 |
And finally, as we discussed, down here
under Publish, you can choose to either
| | 02:38 |
have it published automatically as soon
as it's certified or, manually anytime
| | 02:42 |
you want.
This MPNS certificate has to do with
| | 02:46 |
Microsoft PUSH notification service.
And while the use of the PUSH
| | 02:50 |
notification service is outside of the
scope of this course, if you have those
| | 02:54 |
certificates, they'll show up here, that
you've created separately.
| | 02:58 |
So let's go ahead and click Save.
And now we're back at the Submit App page.
| | 03:04 |
Let's scroll up a little bit, you can see
now that your available options are, not
| | 03:08 |
only upload and describe your app.
But now if you hover over In-app
| | 03:12 |
advertising, market selection, and map
services, these things are now available.
| | 03:17 |
So, let's drill into each one of those
and take a quick look.
| | 03:19 |
In-app advertising, this is where you
create advertising units that are
| | 03:24 |
associated with your pubCenter app alias,
remember pubCetner is a separate service
| | 03:29 |
from Dev Center.
And you have to have a pubCenter account,
| | 03:33 |
and you'll have to create an app in the
pubCenter that matches this app alias.
| | 03:38 |
When you do that, you'll get a pubCenter
application ID.
| | 03:42 |
And you'll use those two pieces in your
code to actually instantiate the ads.
| | 03:45 |
To create new ad units, you both put in a
name, for example AdUNIT1, and you can
| | 03:52 |
select the size.
And there are these five specific sizes
| | 03:57 |
for ad units.
And if we then say we're going to put it
| | 04:00 |
across the top of the screen.
You could generate ad unit ID.
| | 04:04 |
The process will go through and it will
create this pair, ad unit name and ID.
| | 04:11 |
Those two things now you can use to put
into your App to make sure that the
| | 04:15 |
advertisements show up where you want.
Close this.
| | 04:18 |
Then let's go take a look at the market
selection and custom pricing.
| | 04:24 |
Here you can decide whether you want to
distribute all available markets at the
| | 04:27 |
base price tier.
In this case our base price tier is free,
| | 04:32 |
whether you wanted to distribute all
markets except China.
| | 04:34 |
And again click on the learn more link,
learn more about why China is different
| | 04:39 |
than other markets or continued
distributing to current markets.
| | 04:42 |
And you can actually change the price on
a per market basis.
| | 04:46 |
So, you could say this app is free
everywhere except, let's say Luxembourg.
| | 04:52 |
And it's going to be 2.99 Euros in
Luxembourg.
| | 04:55 |
I don't have any idea why you would
necessarily want to do that.
| | 04:58 |
But, you might.
You'll also notice the i inside the green circle.
| | 05:03 |
And this is those other groups where your
application's content for the app or
| | 05:09 |
in-app product content, has restrictions
based on national laws in those countries.
| | 05:15 |
When you're all done making those
changes, come down to the bottom and
| | 05:18 |
click save.
Finally if you are using Map Service
| | 05:23 |
because the Map Service are a combination
of Microsoft and Nokia IP together, click
| | 05:28 |
on Map Service and click on Get Token if
you need a Map Service token.
| | 05:34 |
As it says Microsoft may share your
developer ID for using the Map Services
| | 05:38 |
because Nokia supplies some of the
services.
| | 05:41 |
Here's a link here to understand the
terms of use for the Map Services.
| | 05:45 |
And it says specifically there if you're
accepting on behalf of a company, then
| | 05:48 |
you represent you're authorized to do
that.
| | 05:50 |
Let's click Close.
We're going to stop at this stage because
| | 05:56 |
we're not going to upload the XAP file
here because we're going to do it for the
| | 05:59 |
beta test.
In that stage, we'll look at the XAP file
| | 06:02 |
and our screen shots and so forth.
So, let's go up here and go to the dashboard.
| | 06:07 |
I'm going to click on more here.
Now because it was required to use a live
| | 06:13 |
developer ID in order to record this
course, all of the other apps that my
| | 06:18 |
company produces are blurred out here.
But the Sonnets-plus-DB was the one that
| | 06:21 |
we were just working on, so let's drill
into that.
| | 06:25 |
We can see what the status of it is.
In our case, it's not submitted.
| | 06:28 |
And in order to delete this app from our
dashboard we first have to click delete
| | 06:32 |
submission, and click this confirmation
box.
| | 06:36 |
And then we have a link up here where we
can actually delete the app.
| | 06:41 |
And we'll click this box.
And then we'll end up back at the
| | 06:44 |
dashboard, looking at our list of apps.
Let's go through the same process again,
| | 06:48 |
but this time let's actually submit our
app.
| | 06:50 |
So, we're going to click on submit app
and start over again.
| | 06:53 |
We'll click App Info.
Now we're going to call our alias sonnets
| | 06:59 |
plus indb in order to differentiate that
from what we were doing before.
| | 07:04 |
Again we'll still call it category
entertainment.
| | 07:08 |
This will be a free app so we're not
going to do that.
| | 07:10 |
We don't need to do free trials because
its a free app.
| | 07:13 |
In this case, I believe Shakespeare is
legal in all countries in the world, so
| | 07:16 |
we're going to click Distribute to All
Available Markets at the Base Price Tier.
| | 07:19 |
And we're going to drop down more
options.
| | 07:22 |
And now, since this is a beta test, we're
going to click the Beta Test radio
| | 07:26 |
button, and you'll notice a few things go
away.
| | 07:29 |
Such as, the item we clicked up here in
market distribution, since only people
| | 07:34 |
whose addresses you put into this box can
actually see it.
| | 07:37 |
And what you'll do is put addresses down
here.
| | 07:40 |
So we'll say, betauser1@outlook.com, and
you notice it says right here that these
| | 07:48 |
addresses must be separated by
semi-colons.
| | 07:50 |
So now we'll put in another one
betauser2@outlook.com.
| | 07:55 |
When you're done with that, scroll down
here.
| | 08:00 |
You'll notice that the Publish
Automatically or Manual is dimmed out,
| | 08:04 |
because we're beta testing.
And only people who have he app they give
| | 08:08 |
the link from you can actually loaded on
to their phones.
| | 08:11 |
Lets click save and now we 're back at
the submit app page.
| | 08:15 |
Now you'll notice because this is a beta
test the other sections about InApp advertising.
| | 08:22 |
Markets and pricing, and about map tokens
are missing, because those things don't
| | 08:26 |
apply to beta tests.
You can do MAP actions without a token if
| | 08:30 |
you're in beta testing, and obviously
pricing in markets and in-app advertising
| | 08:35 |
don't apply to a beta test.
Because you're not actually delivering
| | 08:37 |
advertisements or setting custom pricing.
So, our only option here is upload and
| | 08:43 |
describe your XAPs.
Looks like a pretty sparse page, but
| | 08:46 |
we're going to start out by clicking
browse.
| | 08:48 |
And again, the website here always opens
to the documents directory.
| | 08:52 |
That's why it's a good idea to put the
directory containing your solution into
| | 08:57 |
the favorites list here.
So we're going to click on that.
| | 08:59 |
We're going to go into the bin directory.
We're going to go into the release directory.
| | 09:05 |
And there's the zap file that we're
going to want to upload.
| | 09:08 |
SonnetsPlusDB_Release_AnyCPU.zap.
Let's click open, and the XAP file will
| | 09:16 |
be uploaded and then saved in the cloud
on Microsoft's servers.
| | 09:20 |
They do a quick scan to make sure that it
actually looks like a XAP.
| | 09:24 |
They extract some things from the file,
like the XAP version number.
| | 09:28 |
Remember, that came from your
WP_AppManifest.
| | 09:29 |
And then they have a number of other
things, such as the name of the file you
| | 09:35 |
just uploaded, how big it is, what
capabilities your app requires.
| | 09:39 |
Now in the case of this SonnetsPlusDB, we
didn't require any capabilities except
| | 09:43 |
these three resolutions.
If you had location services or web
| | 09:47 |
browsers or other kinds of things, they
would also be listed here.
| | 09:51 |
It automatically detects your language of
choice, your OS of choice, and the
| | 09:56 |
detected resolutions.
Next up is where we're going to put in
| | 10:00 |
the app description and the keywords.
You can put in the app description in
| | 10:03 |
multiple languages.
In our case, we're just going to put it
| | 10:06 |
in, in English, and where we're going to
get it is we're going to come back over
| | 10:09 |
to Visual Studio.
I put a description here in this
| | 10:12 |
description section.
It doesn't automatically fill in that
| | 10:16 |
part of the webpage from here, but it is
a good idea to just put it here so then
| | 10:19 |
you can select it all like I've done
here.
| | 10:22 |
Right click and say copy, then we'll
switch back to the website, and right
| | 10:26 |
click here and say paste.
You might notice that the description
| | 10:30 |
here says this app is part of the Windows
Phone SDK Essential Training Course.
| | 10:34 |
That's true.
If you take the Windows Phone SDK
| | 10:36 |
Essential Training Course, you'll learn
how to build this and five other Windows
| | 10:40 |
Phone apps.
But we've taken an app from that course
| | 10:43 |
because it's something that you can
completely build from scratch.
| | 10:45 |
If you follow along in the other course,
and show how we're going to submit it to
| | 10:49 |
the store.
Now, we get to pick our five keywords.
| | 10:53 |
So, let's pick Shakespeare, sonnets.
We only have to pick sonnet, because it
| | 10:59 |
automatically does plurals.
Poetry, Lynda, and SDK.
| | 11:02 |
Now comes the magic moment when we get to
upload the images.
| | 11:09 |
If all of our images, including all of
our screenshots and our store icon were
| | 11:13 |
in the same directory, we could do them
all at once.
| | 11:16 |
In our case, we have all of our
screenshots in one directory and our
| | 11:20 |
store icon in a different directory.
And that's fine.
| | 11:22 |
So we'll do it in two steps.
As you can see here, there's a check box
| | 11:26 |
that says, Automatically Create Lower
Resolution Screen Shots From WXGA.
| | 11:29 |
That is a scaling algorithm that's built
into the Dev Center.
| | 11:34 |
Generally, it's not a great idea to use
that, it's better to use the emulator's
| | 11:38 |
actual implementation of the proper size.
So, in this case, let's un-check that.
| | 11:44 |
And now let's click Upload All.
Again, we'll go back to our project directory.
| | 11:49 |
Go into our Screenshots directory.
Select everything, and click Open.
| | 11:56 |
It's now going to upload all seven of the
screenshots that we built.
| | 12:00 |
Remember we did two for each resolution
and three for WXGA.
| | 12:04 |
So, let's scroll down here a little bit
and we can see there's our first one, our
| | 12:09 |
second one and our third one for WXGA.
Our two screenshots for 720p and our two
| | 12:17 |
screenshots for WVGA.
We need one more image as a minimum you
| | 12:22 |
can see that there's a asterisk here next
to this app tile.
| | 12:24 |
So, let's go ahead and click here.
Once again and go back to our project directory.
| | 12:30 |
And the one we want is the one called
store icon.
| | 12:32 |
So let's select that.
And there's our store icon.
| | 12:37 |
If we were submitting a commercial app
that we think that Microsoft at some
| | 12:41 |
point might feature, we could put in this
optional 1000 by 800 pixel background image.
| | 12:48 |
In the case of our beta testing, and in
case of these apps for the Windows Phone
| | 12:52 |
SDK Essential Training, we don't have a
background image, but you may choose to
| | 12:55 |
add one.
And if you do, click here in order to add
| | 12:58 |
it to your submission.
Now let's go to the bottom of the page
| | 13:03 |
and click Save.
We're ready to go.
| | 13:05 |
Lets click Submit.
Because this is a beta test, it doesn't
| | 13:12 |
go through the full Microsoft
certification process and in fact beta
| | 13:16 |
test usually go live within 2 hours.
And they'll send you an email with the
| | 13:21 |
private link to he place in the store at
that time.
| | 13:24 |
They'll also send an email to all the
other people whose addresses that you
| | 13:29 |
gave in the list of beta testers.
So, that they can have the link to the
| | 13:32 |
app to download it.
Now, in this case, let's go to the Life
| | 13:35 |
Cycle page for this app.
What you can see is this now is in the
| | 13:40 |
signing stage.
Now we're going to take a look at
| | 13:43 |
launching and promoting your app so you
can get the maximum number of downloads.
| | 13:47 |
And sales for the app that you've worked
so hard to build and now have in the store.
| | 13:51 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
6. Launching and Promoting Your AppGetting ready for launch| 00:00 |
Now that you're in beta testing, and your
app is in the Dev Center center and
| | 00:03 |
available to your testers on the Windows
Phone Store, it's time to get ready for launch.
| | 00:08 |
So what do you need to do to be ready to
really launch your app in a fully public way?
| | 00:13 |
Well, you need to have the web pages that
are appropriate for your app.
| | 00:16 |
Ideally, a sales page, something that
when users search on Bing or on Google
| | 00:21 |
and they find your app, they can read all
about your app, see screen shots, see
| | 00:24 |
some promotional verbiage.
And actually click the buy button to take
| | 00:28 |
them directly to the Microsoft Phone
store.
| | 00:31 |
You may also need a legal page if your
app has specific legal disclaimers that
| | 00:35 |
are different than the Microsoft standard
disclaimer.
| | 00:38 |
And you specified a URL in submitting
your route for legal page, you need to
| | 00:43 |
make sure that, that page is online and
publicly available.
| | 00:47 |
Similarly, if your app requires a
specific privacy URL, you have to make
| | 00:51 |
sure that that page is available on a
publicly available web server and hosted
| | 00:55 |
in a server that's owned by you.
Again, because that page is not hosted by Microsoft.
| | 01:00 |
And finally you'll need at least one,
maybe two email accounts.
| | 01:04 |
You may want an email account for sale
support.
| | 01:07 |
In other words, somebody comes to your
sales page, and you may want to allow
| | 01:09 |
them to email you with questions before
they decide to buy your app.
| | 01:13 |
Now this is typically not done for apps
that are 99 cents, or $1.99, but if your
| | 01:18 |
app sells for $9.99, or maybe you're the
$499.99 app in the Store.
| | 01:22 |
You may want to have that so people can
do pre-sales questions before they
| | 01:28 |
actually click the buy button.
But it is required that you have the
| | 01:32 |
technical support email, this must be up
and going and you must be actively
| | 01:35 |
monitoring it.
Because this is what users will click
| | 01:38 |
when they go back to the windows phone
store to request technical support for
| | 01:42 |
your app.
| | 01:42 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Understanding the final release process| 00:00 |
Let's talk about the final release
process.
| | 00:02 |
There's two phases, certification and
publication.
| | 00:05 |
Certification is where Microsoft
validates the bits, and also tests your app.
| | 00:11 |
If your app is a beta test app, the
manual portion isn't done.
| | 00:14 |
But, when you are ready to publish it for
real, Microsoft will go through and run
| | 00:18 |
one or many of those manual tests that we
saw in the Windows store test kit.
| | 00:22 |
When you get done there's one more step
depending on whether you've chosen
| | 00:26 |
automatic or manual publication.
The certification process is a three step process.
| | 00:31 |
The first step is static validation in
which Microsoft makes sure that your
| | 00:36 |
manifest matches your code.
That the content files you've referenced
| | 00:40 |
in your code are actually present in your
Zap file.
| | 00:43 |
And that the format for the dot net
assemblies in your code are accurate.
| | 00:47 |
The second step is cryptographic signing.
Microsoft signs your Zap file with a
| | 00:52 |
private key that allows your app on a
consumer Windows Phone device, instead of
| | 00:56 |
a developer device.
And finally, they do an API-level scan to
| | 01:01 |
make sure that your app is not referring
to any API's that aren't legal for store apps.
| | 01:06 |
And that it's clear your app's not trying
to access contacts or location or
| | 01:10 |
calendar entries or your photo library,
if you haven't specified that those are
| | 01:15 |
capabilities your app requires.
This is to prevent malware so that nobody
| | 01:20 |
downloads an app to their phone that
suddenly starts stealing all their
| | 01:22 |
private information.
And the very last step is publication.
| | 01:27 |
If you chose automatic publication your
app's visible in the store the instant
| | 01:31 |
Microsoft completes the certification.
If you want to have more control over
| | 01:35 |
that knowing that you're going to have
some PR or a launching event.
| | 01:40 |
Or it needs to launch on a specific day
because it's related to a specific
| | 01:44 |
holiday or a specific conference.
You want to select Manual.
| | 01:48 |
And what happens is that as soon as
Microsoft completes the certification,
| | 01:52 |
the app enters the ready to be published
state.
| | 01:54 |
And you have to go back to the Dev Center
and manually publish it for it to be
| | 01:58 |
visible to users in the store.
That's a look at the final release
| | 02:02 |
process next up we'll take a look at how
you handle updates to your app once it's
| | 02:07 |
live in the Dev Center.
| | 02:08 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Handling updates| 00:00 |
Congratulations!
You've got your app in the store.
| | 00:03 |
Whether it's for beta testing or live,
you know the time is going to come when
| | 00:07 |
either you've found a bug you have to
fix.
| | 00:10 |
You want to add some more screenshots to
increase your downloads, you want to
| | 00:13 |
change your keywords or you want to add a
new feature.
| | 00:15 |
And the way you do that is always by
using the Dev Center and creating an update.
| | 00:20 |
So that after you've uploaded this
update, the Windows Phone store will
| | 00:24 |
automatically notify your end users that
there's a new version of your app available.
| | 00:28 |
Creating updates is easy, it's just like
creating a new app.
| | 00:32 |
You can change your metadata, the store
will remember everything you've already
| | 00:35 |
entered, so you can simply make changes.
This includes your app icon, your
| | 00:39 |
screenshots, your background picture,
your keywords, your URLs.
| | 00:43 |
But if you added a feature, or you fixed
a bug, the new XAP containing that bug or
| | 00:48 |
feature has to have a higher version
number than the one that's currently in
| | 00:51 |
the store.
Alright, let's go over to the Windows
| | 00:54 |
Phone Dev Center and take a look at the
process.
| | 00:57 |
So, you come to your dashboard, in may
case, I have a whole bunch of apps, I'm
| | 01:00 |
going to click More.
And if I come down here, sometimes you'll
| | 01:05 |
find that the app you're looking for
isn't here.
| | 01:07 |
Well all of my apps are blurred out but
the one for this course, sonnets+db isn't
| | 01:10 |
here either.
We have to click on the all button
| | 01:13 |
because it's actually live in the store,
even though it's a beta test.
| | 01:16 |
Now we''ll scroll down here.
You'll see sonnets_DB and we can see that
| | 01:21 |
it was published today, it's in beta and
it's an app.
| | 01:24 |
As opposed to a In-App purchase product.
So, let's click on the link for our app
| | 01:29 |
and you'll see our app is in the store.
In order to create an update, we click on
| | 01:34 |
the link here that says, Update App.
It creates an update package, and now
| | 01:39 |
allows us to edit the app info and the
zap and its description.
| | 01:42 |
So, if we click on App Info, you'll see
that some things can't be changed.
| | 01:47 |
Like the app alias can't be changed,
because that's a name that's used for you
| | 01:52 |
in the dashboard.
And you've already drilled down in
| | 01:54 |
through the dashboard, so you can't
change that.
| | 01:56 |
But you can change everything else.
You can change the category.
| | 01:59 |
You can make it Government and Politics
and make it Legal issues.
| | 02:04 |
Now, of course, that doesn't necessarily
apply to Shakespeare's sonnets.
| | 02:07 |
So, let's go back and make it
Entertainment again, actually, let's make
| | 02:10 |
it Education, because you might be using
this in the class.
| | 02:13 |
Now, let's take a look at pricing.
Well, because our app is in beta test,
| | 02:17 |
you can't change the pricing.
Similarly, you can't change the market
| | 02:21 |
distribution or the distribution channels
because once the app is in beta all of
| | 02:25 |
your updates are also updates to your
beta.
| | 02:27 |
I'll come down here to the bottom.
You can add additional beta testers or
| | 02:31 |
delete existing beta testers.
And finally we'll click save.
| | 02:35 |
Next let's go to the upload and describe
your app section.
| | 02:38 |
Here you can see your existing XAP file
and its version number.
| | 02:42 |
If you're just changing meta data you
don't have to upload a new XAP file, you
| | 02:46 |
page down.
You can see it still has the details we
| | 02:50 |
detected from this app file, the file
name, size, capabilities and so forth.
| | 02:55 |
Those things aren't changeable, those are
extracted directly from the XAP or we can
| | 02:58 |
change however is all of the rest of the
stuff here.
| | 03:01 |
You can change your stored description.
We can say, instead of putting the number
| | 03:05 |
154 here, we could put one hundred
fifty-four spelled out in English, of
| | 03:12 |
Shakespeare's sonnets.
We can change keywords, we could say
| | 03:15 |
instead of poetry, we could say, poems.
You can add a legal URL, a privacy URL,
| | 03:22 |
and a support email address.
And finally, you can upload all the
| | 03:26 |
images all over again.
You can change your store icon.
| | 03:29 |
You can delete or add however it is you
want to adjust your screenshots.
| | 03:33 |
And when you're all done, come down here
and click the save button.
| | 03:36 |
And you can go back and forth between the
App Info and the Upload section and
| | 03:40 |
adjust everything exactly the way you
want it.
| | 03:42 |
And when you're ready, you can click the
Submit button, and it tells you your
| | 03:46 |
submission will go live within two hours
again, because this is a beta.
| | 03:49 |
But, this is an update to the beta.
So, if someone had the beta installed,
| | 03:52 |
they would now get a notification that
the update is available to that beta, and
| | 03:56 |
they could download it on their phone.
Alright that's the update process.
| | 04:01 |
While your app is percolating through the
final stages of certification and getting
| | 04:05 |
ready for publication when you're going
live there's a few other things you
| | 04:08 |
should do.
And we're going to start out by looking
| | 04:10 |
at those things beginning by looking at
an app specific website for your app.
| | 04:14 |
And before we leave the submission and
update cycle, I wanted to show you what
| | 04:19 |
one of the emails that you get from the
Windows Phone Dev Center looks like.
| | 04:23 |
When your app is ready to be downloaded
by your end users for beta testing.
| | 04:28 |
You'll get an email that looks like this
from the Windows Phone Dev Center that
| | 04:31 |
says congratulations, your app will be
available within two hours.
| | 04:34 |
And down here, even though this one is
blurred out, there'll be a link to the
| | 04:38 |
Windows Phone Store for you to be able to
actually go and download the app onto a phone.
| | 04:42 |
And here's a list of the users with whom
you've shared this app.
| | 04:47 |
Once your app is live in the store, this
is what it looks like.
| | 04:51 |
You've got your store icon, your screen
shots, your app description, your Install
| | 04:57 |
button and the other apps that you've
published.
| | 04:59 |
So, congratulations when you get this
far, your app is live in the store.
| | 05:03 |
And it's either testable by people in
beta test, or your app is ready to ship.
| | 05:08 |
All right, now let's move on to looking
at things that you need to do in addition
| | 05:12 |
to pushing your app through the store
such as an apps specific website and
| | 05:16 |
promoting your app.
| | 05:17 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Creating an app-specific website| 00:00 |
Alright maybe your app's in the store
already.
| | 00:02 |
Maybe your app's awaiting final
certification or maybe you want to build
| | 00:06 |
buzz before your app even launches.
The way to do that is with an app
| | 00:10 |
specific website.
Its all about promotion.
| | 00:13 |
I highly recommend you create a one page
website don't duplicate your store
| | 00:17 |
content tell your story.
With sonnets plus db.
| | 00:21 |
Remember the time that you really wanted
to quote Shakespeare.
| | 00:24 |
You wanted to say you are more beautiful
than a summer's day.
| | 00:29 |
But you weren't sure exactly how it was
said, and you didn't remember any of the
| | 00:33 |
lines after that so you wanted to know
how can I do that.
| | 00:36 |
And that's inspired you to write sonnets
plus db.
| | 00:40 |
So show the process of a user or tell the
story of a user who becomes inspired
| | 00:46 |
pulls out their phone picks up your app
and whoos their love.
| | 00:51 |
You can have more than just the screen
shots.
| | 00:53 |
You can have more screenshots than you
can put in the store.
| | 00:56 |
You can have a gallery of screenshots.
You can animate it.
| | 00:59 |
You can use an animated GIF.
You can even put in a YouTube video to
| | 01:02 |
get users excited about downloading or
buying your app.
| | 01:06 |
You can even include a direct link to the
Store page, so once their juices are all
| | 01:09 |
flowing, and they're ready to buy the
app, they can click right there and go
| | 01:12 |
get it right now.
Just understand that this is a place for
| | 01:16 |
you to be free to tell your story, to
theme the entire page exactly as you want.
| | 01:21 |
Now, if your app isn't launched yet, you
might want to tease some of the features
| | 01:24 |
of your app, especially if it's a game.
And then you might want to collect
| | 01:28 |
people's email addresses so that you can
keep them updated on the progress of the
| | 01:31 |
development of the app, keep them updated
on the progress of the app's progress
| | 01:35 |
through the app store.
And communicate to them directly when
| | 01:38 |
you've added additional in-app purchase
products such as new levels to your game.
| | 01:43 |
Or new content to your app.
This is one of the things whether you do
| | 01:46 |
press releases and publicity and review
sites.
| | 01:49 |
If you don't do anything else, build
yourself a one page website to promote
| | 01:54 |
your app because this is also the way
people will find it organically, when
| | 01:57 |
they go searching in Bing.
They go searching on their phone.
| | 02:00 |
They go searching in Google.
You want to make sure that there's a site
| | 02:03 |
there that they can land on that takes
them directly to your app, because you
| | 02:06 |
can put more keywords, of course, in the
content of your page.
| | 02:10 |
And you can put in the Windows Phone
store listing.
| | 02:12 |
This is the most useful and powerful way
to drive people to understand what is in
| | 02:17 |
your app and motivate them to click the
link and go download or purchase your app.
| | 02:22 |
Next up we'll talk about press releases
and publicity.
| | 02:25 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Prepping press releases and publicity| 00:00 |
In addition to an app specific website,
there are other ways to get attention for
| | 00:04 |
your app or your game.
Two of those ways are press releases and publicity.
| | 00:10 |
First up, let's talk about press
releases.
| | 00:12 |
Press releases are a way of telling your
story in a publishable format.
| | 00:16 |
Press releases have a formal format with
the title and the date and the release
| | 00:20 |
date and who it's for and a location.
That journalists bloggers and websites
| | 00:25 |
review on a regular basis.
You can create a press release yourself
| | 00:29 |
and direct email it to journalists
bloggers and websites.
| | 00:33 |
Or you can use an online service like PR
Newswire which will lead you through the
| | 00:36 |
process, gather the information in a form
in a webpage and create your press
| | 00:41 |
release in a variety of formats.
And automatically distribute it to
| | 00:44 |
hundreds if not thousands of outlets.
In addition, some of these services also
| | 00:48 |
offer additional paid services such as
telephone interviews or podcasts or in
| | 00:55 |
fact video interviews.
So, depending on how much money you want
| | 00:58 |
to invest in this particular kind of
online promotion, press releases are the
| | 01:03 |
gateway to that entire process.
And don't forget to send one to your
| | 01:06 |
local developer evangelist from
Microsoft.
| | 01:08 |
because you know, the Windows phone is an
up-and-comer, it's a contender you know.
| | 01:13 |
They're out there looking for every great
app that they can in order to promote the
| | 01:17 |
platform, and your app may just be the
one that they want to put their marketing
| | 01:21 |
muscle behind.
And you don't want to miss out on that by
| | 01:24 |
not just sending them an email with a
copy of your press release.
| | 01:28 |
Publicity, also known as public relations
or PR, can also help you.
| | 01:32 |
Here's some ideas of ways of doing PR.
Send direct email to influential bloggers
| | 01:37 |
and journalists.
Don't just necessarily send them a copy
| | 01:40 |
of your press release.
Tell them your story.
| | 01:42 |
Find something interesting about them,
that's unique about them abotu why they
| | 01:47 |
would care about your app.
Maybe they have a child that has a
| | 01:50 |
specific learning need that your app can
help them with.
| | 01:53 |
Maybe they love to travel, and your app
helps them record their travels or share
| | 01:58 |
their travels with the world.
Or maybe they're a, and you've got the
| | 02:01 |
world's best game filled with aliens.
This is a place where you can craft
| | 02:05 |
custom messages and get very significant
benefit.
| | 02:09 |
But do it carefully, and make sure that
you make it personal.
| | 02:13 |
You can create invite-only events.
If you've got a really big game that you
| | 02:17 |
know is going to be really, really
popular, one way to get news about it is
| | 02:21 |
to make it very, very exclusive even if
all you do is host a meeting at a local
| | 02:26 |
coffee shop.
If you make it clear that it's invite only.
| | 02:30 |
And you send that information out to the
journalists in your area, they'll start
| | 02:34 |
clamoring to get that invite, because
they want to be there and they want to
| | 02:37 |
get the scoop first.
If you're going to a technical
| | 02:40 |
conference, create some kind of little
swag that represents your app or your game.
| | 02:45 |
A card, a pen, some kind of a handout.
Just something that's unique that will
| | 02:50 |
help people remember when they get home.
Yeah, there was that thing that I liked
| | 02:54 |
in that place that I went and I need to
look through all these things and find
| | 02:57 |
something and jog their memory, help them
remember how valuable what you did is.
| | 03:02 |
So that they start writing about it or
investigate it or download it.
| | 03:07 |
Finally, one last thing you can do for PR
is if your app budget is big enough you
| | 03:13 |
can find people to endorse it.
If what you have is a song writing app
| | 03:17 |
try to find a local songwriter's group
and find somebody who has some published songs.
| | 03:21 |
Get them to try it out, maybe they'll
give you an endorsement.
| | 03:24 |
There's always somebody who's looking to
get press for themselves, and in addition
| | 03:28 |
would like to help you out.
So, be creative.
| | 03:31 |
Think about who might endorse your
product, and realize that it also is in
| | 03:35 |
their best interest, because then they
can say that they're endorsing something,
| | 03:39 |
and it helps build up their creditably
and their celebrity.
| | 03:43 |
Next up we'll talk about another way to
promote your app, app review sites.
| | 03:47 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Working with app review sites| 00:00 |
We've talked about creating an app
specific website, we've talked about
| | 00:03 |
preparing press releases, and public
relations.
| | 00:06 |
There are two more steps in promoting
your app.
| | 00:09 |
One is app review sites, and the other
social media.
| | 00:11 |
Lets look at app review sites.
There is a number of app review sites
| | 00:15 |
that are specific to Windows Phone.
The biggest is obviously windowsphone.com.
| | 00:20 |
The reviews you get from your users are
crucially important.
| | 00:23 |
So one of the reasons for having the one
page website and gathering email
| | 00:28 |
addresses from your customers or, even
gathering them from your customers on the phone.
| | 00:32 |
Is that, you can help promote the fact
that your app is being updated, it's
| | 00:36 |
being featurized.
You can help get their suggestions.
| | 00:39 |
And the more you can do that, the more
people are willing to come back to the
| | 00:43 |
Windowsphone.com site and put a good
review in.
| | 00:46 |
Also, you can put code into your app that
after they've used it for a while, you
| | 00:50 |
can ask them, Hey, would you like to
review this app?
| | 00:53 |
And take them to the Windowsphone.com
site inside your phone to allow them to
| | 00:57 |
review the app.
You should read the reviews regularly on
| | 01:00 |
Windowsphone.com to see what your
customers are saying.
| | 01:03 |
You can't edit them or delete them.
But it's great feedback and it's
| | 01:08 |
important to respond quickly.
You can respond on your blog.
| | 01:12 |
You can respond by putting on an update.
But definitely keep track of the reviews
| | 01:17 |
and the ratings you're getting from your
customer.
| | 01:19 |
There's a few other sites that are really
good.
| | 01:22 |
WPApp Info lists information about apps
and allows people to browse them in a way
| | 01:27 |
that's a little more convenient than the
Windows Phone store.
| | 01:30 |
WPCentral is a big Windows Phone fan site
that oftentimes publishes reviews of
| | 01:36 |
specific apps.
And finally, if your app is a tool or
| | 01:40 |
productivity app or something really
broadly applicable.
| | 01:44 |
Say, it processes office files (UNKNOWN)
at winsupersite.com loves to feature
| | 01:48 |
things that really help out the broad
base of Windows users.
| | 01:54 |
Alright that's a quick look at app review
sites.
| | 01:57 |
Next up we'll take a look at the final
pillar of promoting your application
| | 02:01 |
effectively using social media.
| | 02:02 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Effectively using social media| 00:00 |
The final piece in promoting your app is
social media.
| | 00:04 |
There's three major social media networks
and different ways to use them to promote
| | 00:08 |
your app.
The first is Facebook.
| | 00:10 |
You'll want to have both a company page,
if you're a company, and potentially an
| | 00:14 |
app group page just for your app.
That way your users can share
| | 00:18 |
suggestions, they can share their
feedback and things they like.
| | 00:22 |
And you can actually have a conversation,
which is different than the app reviews
| | 00:25 |
on the Windows Phone store.
Everybody knows about Twitter.
| | 00:28 |
Again, it's a good idea to have a company
account if you're a company, or a
| | 00:32 |
publisher acount if you're a publisher.
And then in individual app account just
| | 00:36 |
for announcements about your app.
You can remind people inside the app.
| | 00:40 |
Hey follow the app on Twitter because
people love to know about updates.
| | 00:45 |
They love to know about new features that
are coming.
| | 00:47 |
And if they're following you, you can
both again have a conversation on Twitter.
| | 00:51 |
Well, if a user has a question or if a
user has a suggestion.
| | 00:54 |
Finally, LinkedIn is really appropriate
for tools and productivity and utility apps.
| | 01:00 |
And you can have that for your company
account, so that you can post things there.
| | 01:04 |
That will inspire people who are in your
LinkedIn connections to check out your apps.
| | 01:09 |
And last but not least, one of the
challenges of social media is publishing
| | 01:14 |
things when people are ready to read it.
There's a website called buffer, which
| | 01:18 |
you can find at www.bufferapp.com.
And what it does, is it does timed
| | 01:20 |
postings to Facebook, Twitter, and
Linkedin.
| | 01:28 |
So let's say you have a new update for
your app.
| | 01:30 |
You can post something to Buffer, which
will at a certain time post something to
| | 01:35 |
Facebook when people are most likely to
read it.
| | 01:38 |
Post something to Twitter at a different
time or a collection of different times
| | 01:41 |
when people are most likely to read it,
and the same thing for Linkedin.
| | 01:45 |
The buffer people, have done a lot of
analysis about when people are actually
| | 01:49 |
are reading these different websites so
they can help you figure out.
| | 01:52 |
Which are the good times to do it.
And take a hint from Guy Kawasaki.
| | 01:56 |
Formally the evangelist for the Apple
Macintosh, and now an independent book
| | 02:01 |
author who has said he posts something at
least three times a day.
| | 02:05 |
The same thing, because there are morning
Facebook people and there's lunchtime
| | 02:10 |
LinkedIn people and there's evening
Twitter people.
| | 02:14 |
And so much is going by on everyone's
Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter feeds that
| | 02:18 |
it's very easy to miss something.
If you have a 150 friends you might have
| | 02:22 |
to take an hour to get through everything
that's been there since the last time you
| | 02:26 |
were on.
So, therefore it's one of these sorts of
| | 02:29 |
things that it's like important to get
your message out there but you never know
| | 02:33 |
when somebody's going to read it.
So think about using Buffer for doing
| | 02:37 |
this because it makes it look as if
you're not shotgunning and posting to all
| | 02:41 |
three of these services simultaneously.
You can use Buffer to post different
| | 02:46 |
things to different social media
networks.
| | 02:48 |
You don't have to post the same thing,
but just at different times.
| | 02:51 |
But the reason its called Buffer is
because it allows you to buffer things up.
| | 02:55 |
You could put together an entire week
worth of social promotion tweets or
| | 02:59 |
postings on Facebook or updates on
LinkedIn.
| | 03:02 |
And let buffer do it even when you're not
sitting there at the keyboard at the
| | 03:06 |
optimum times.
Alright that completes our chapter on
| | 03:09 |
launching and promoting your app.
Here's all the best to your app being a
| | 03:14 |
top 10 successful and showing up on one
of those top 3 or top paid or featured
| | 03:20 |
adds on the Microsoft windows phone
store.
| | 03:22 |
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ConclusionWhat's next| 00:00 |
Okay.
Your app's in the store.
| | 00:02 |
What's next?
Well, what's next is that you probably
| | 00:04 |
want to think about expanding your app
from just the basic app that runs on the
| | 00:09 |
phone to connecting up to both Windows
Azure and the all new touch interface
| | 00:14 |
through the Windows store.
Just like Windows Phone, there's a Dev
| | 00:17 |
Center for Windows.
Allows you to create a developer account
| | 00:21 |
the same basic process you just went
through here and simliarly there's a Dev
| | 00:24 |
Center for windows Azure which allows you
to connect up either your mobile devices
| | 00:33 |
or your back end systems to Windows
Azure.
| | 00:35 |
You can also use Windows Azure to create
your back end system and Microsoft provides.
| | 00:39 |
A number of prebuilt kits to easily allow
you to hook up your Windows phone apps to
| | 00:44 |
Windows Azure.
One thing that's going to be happening in
| | 00:47 |
future releases of Microsfot Windows
phone Microsoft is clearly working on
| | 00:52 |
converging Windows and Windows phone at
the API level and I'm sure eventually at
| | 00:57 |
the store level.
So, if you're not already a Windows store
| | 01:01 |
developer, it's a good idea to become
familiar with the new touch interface
| | 01:05 |
Windows Store, and the process that goes
along with that.
| | 01:08 |
So, you'll still be developing in SAML
and C# or VB.net, or perhaps C++ or HTML
| | 01:15 |
and JavaSCript for Windows Store.
But the same basic process of submission,
| | 01:20 |
certification, and distribution apply to
the Windows Store, as well as they do to
| | 01:25 |
the Windows Phone Store.
I hope this course has helped you
| | 01:28 |
understand the process of getting your
app from Visual Studio into the store,
| | 01:32 |
and then into the hands of your users.
I wish you the best of luck and great
| | 01:37 |
success, and a million downloads.
| | 01:38 |
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