Connection Strings

Time to Pivot on Windows Phone Dev Skills

The death of Windows Phone, well, it looks like no exaggeration for now. It doesn't mean you're dead as a Windows Phone developer.

Windows Phone might be dead. I didn't say it, just reiterating it. Such news might seem disconcerting to Windows devs writing for mobile environments, but it shouldn't be. If you're writing mobile apps, it's all about targeting the right platforms that users are using, and users doing mobile are likely using an Apple or Android device.

So that's this week's big link, an iOS walkthrough for Visual Studio developers, that comes right from the Windows App Team.

The team takes a step-by-step approach through the process, which looks so simple it convinces me I might be able to write an iOS app. There's also a complement of links at the end to other resources for taking these steps a bit further.

See? They know what they need to do until there's an overwhelming need to Windows apps -- target iOS and Android devices.

Speaking of which, check out this editorial piece from Scott Bekker in VSM's sibling publication, Redmond Channel Partner. Microsoft has been on an M&A tear, and among the companies cited in Bekker's piece? You guessed it. Mobile app developers.

Here are ten more links I've run across that might be useful to you, in no particular order and definitely not conforming to any particular theme:

Taylor Southwick and Connie Yau peer into the .NET Portability Analyzer (Channel 9 video) - Finding the fault in our .NET code

Now Add Dashboard Widgets! VSTS Dashboard Widgets Preview (MSDN blogs) -- Widgets when you want them, not when you need them

The REST API and .NET SDKfor Azure Search Now at Parity (Microsoft Azure blog) -- Search in Azure, no matter where you're coming from

Why .NET? Why .NOT! (Pangea) -- .NET won against Go and Java in a deathmatch

.NET Plays Nice with Docker (Microsoft MVP Award Program Blog) -- One MVP can't contain himself with this Docker tip

Scott Hunter "Reimagines" ASP.NET (Channel 9 video) -- Meet the new ASP.NET, not the same as the old ASP.NET

Microsoft's Q2 Earnings Show Strong Cloud Earnings (Redmond Magazine) -- Windows Phone exists as a footnote

Did you know – you can save the Output Window content directly in Visual Studio? (Daily .NET Tips) -- Like you didn't know how to output file into to a text file...

Bits and Bytes: Getting Started with TypeScript (Drew5.net)-- You know JavaScript. Well, same thing

Microsoft Dunks the Datacenter (Redmond Channel Partner) -- Drowning in data, in the literal

Know of an interesting link, or does your company have a new or updated product or service targeted at Visual Studio developers? Tell me about it at [email protected].

About the Author

You Tell 'Em, Readers: If you've read this far, know that Michael Domingo, Visual Studio Magazine Editor in Chief, is here to serve you, dear readers, and wants to get you the information you so richly deserve. What news, content, topics, issues do you want to see covered in Visual Studio Magazine? He's listening at [email protected].

comments powered by Disqus

Featured

  • Visual Studio 2026 Gives Copilot Built-In Skills -- and Makes Them Prove Their Worth

    Microsoft is moving Agent Skills beyond bring-your-own instructions by shipping expert-authored workflows with the IDE, while keeping them off by default until testing shows their benefits justify the additional token use.

  • Copilot AI Billing Shock Met with Meters, Caps and Token-Saving Tools

    GitHub is layering spending limits, expanded credit allowances and increasingly granular usage reporting onto Copilot, while Microsoft is reworking Visual Studio and VS Code to expose -- and reduce -- the cost of agentic development.

  • The AI-Powered Software Development Lifecycle

    René van Osnabrugge makes the case that AI's biggest opportunity in software development is not faster coding -- it's reducing the friction everywhere else in the SDLC.

  • Copilot Usage-Based Billing Gets a Token Dashboard

    Microsoft is keeping Visual Studio's new built-in Agent Skills switched off by default while a public dashboard measures whether their performance gains justify the additional tokens they may consume.

Subscribe on YouTube