A first look at the Windows Phone 7 and Xbox LIVE App Hub for developers

Filed under: Games, Microsoft, Mobile

Microsoft has just turned on its brand new (and beautiful) App Hub for WP7 and Xbox LIVE. Aimed at developers it provides an ideal starting point for students, those that want to bring apps or games to Windows Phone 7, or indie developers that want to produce the next big hit!

For the rather paltry sum of $99 per year developers can use the App Hub to submit their apps for both the Windows Phone and Xbox LIVE Marketplaces. Students, in a continuation of Microsoft's excellent DreamSpark initiative, get in free.

The main purpose of the App Hub, however, seems to be about educating developers. There's already a huge catalog of articles and code snippets to help you with WP7 and XNA development, and Microsoft certainly sounds dedicated in its drive to keep the new content coming -- those of you that have used the MSDN before will know just how good Microsoft developer resources can be! There seems to be a big drive to make sure WP7 apps comply with proper UI conventions, which confirms what we all suspected: Microsoft doesn't want Android's sucky-looking apps.

The App Hub underscores Microsoft's continuing, and now unified, push into the mobile-, console- and cloud-based projects -- and when Microsoft finally gets around to pushing its big-dollar chips in, it rarely fails to win the hand.

A first look at the Windows Phone 7 and Xbox LIVE App Hub for developers originally appeared on Download Squad on Wed, 13 Oct 2010 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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