app development

  1. How to develop augmented reality apps with Vuforia for Windows 10

    Augmented Reality is a way to connect virtual objects with the real world, making it possible to naturally interact with them by use of mobile devices like phones, tablets or new mixed reality devices like HoloLens. Vuforia is one of the most popular Augmented Reality platforms for developers...
  2. UWP Hosted Web App on Xbox One (App Dev on Xbox series)

    For the fourth installment in the series, we are open sourcing yet another sample app: South Ridge Video, an open source video app developed as a hosted web application built with React.js and hosted on a web server. South Ridge can easily be converted to a UWP application that takes advantage...
  3. Background Audio and Cross Platform Development with Xamarin (App Dev on Xbox series)

    We are back with yet another app, Backdrop, an open source sample media app developed to showcase a cross-device music experience. In this blog post, we will dive deep into the new background model in the Universal Windows Platform, and specifically focus on how to enable your application to...
  4. Battery awareness and background activity

    The Windows platform targets all kinds of devices: desktops, laptops, tablets, phones, HoloLens, IoT and Xbox. As a developer you want your users to have a great user experience with your app across the entire breadth of devices it is available on. Each of these devices has unique capabilities...
  5. Adding color to your design

    Link Removed What is your favorite color? Most of us have been asked this question for as long as we can remember. And for most of us, this decision probably marked our first and foundational experience with having an artistic preference. Color matters. Previous posts have touched briefly on...
  6. Offline Apps: what to do when your user disconnects

    You’ve just boarded your airplane flight, found a free spot in the overhead to store your carry-on and settle in for the journey by pulling out your Windows 10 device to check for status updates on your various social networks. Suddenly, you are aware of a polite flight attendant hovering over...
  7. Choosing the path forward for existing desktop apps

    Continuing in our series on using the Desktop Bridge to bring your existing desktop apps to the Universal Windows Platform (UWP), let’s follow up last month’s post on the path from a desktop app to a UWP app with more information on choosing the path forward. First of all, we want to highlight...
  8. FamilyNotes: (Spoken) words and pictures

    FamilyNotes is a Windows 10 Universal Windows Platform (UWP) app that implements a group noticeboard. The goal of this app was to showcase the various Windows 10 input and interaction features that enable a personal and individualized computing experience. This is the third of three blog posts...
  9. FamilyNotes: Using the camera to detect a user

    In our previous post in the FamilyNotes series, we introduced the FamilyNotes app, its features, and provided a brief history of the app’s development process. The FamilyNotes app is a sample app that is available on GitHub for you to look over and to use as a basis for your own apps, especially...
  10. FamilyNotes: Introducing a Windows UWP sample using ink, speech, and face recognition

    If you watched the Build 2016 keynote talks, you may have noticed how Microsoft is focusing more and more on improving how we humans interact with computers, by means of ink, speech, and other “more personal computing” features. Modern software is changing focus to using natural interfaces as...
  11. Debugging a background task on a time trigger

    Link Removed The TimeTrigger class is extremely useful when your Universal Windows Platform (UWP) app has background tasks you want to run periodically. For instance, if you are writing a mail app, you will want to regularly poll for new messages in the background with a time trigger. If you...
  12. Sharing your local app data

    In the first installment of this blog series we looked at the various options at your disposal to store your app’s local data. In this post we will be looking at how that local data can be shared, both between apps and users. When an app is installed, the system creates a per-user app data...
  13. How to prevent screen locks in your UWP apps

    After a certain amount of idle time, Windows 10 devices may dim the display, activate the lock screen, or power down the display in order to conserve power. The amount of idle time required before this occurs depends on a device’s user settings. Unfortunately, this can turn out to be an...
  14. Using speech in your UWP apps: From talking to conversing

    In the previous article, we introduced the idea of recognizing speech inside of a Windows 10 Universal Windows Platform (UWP) app and took a look at the SpeechRecognizer class and some of what it can do to enable speech recognition in our apps. In this article, we’re going to dig further into...
  15. Meet six inspiring students using Windows 10 to innovate and create

    When was the last time that you were truly inspired? The kind of inspired that gets you out of bed quickly, excited to start your day and tackle your list of ideas you’ve been dreaming about? For me, it was hosting our recent Windows 10 Student Showcase Dream. Create. Do event that featured...
  16. UWP Tile Generator Extension for Visual Studio

    Windows 10 comes on a variety of form factors, which means so do your Universal Windows Platform (UWP) apps. It’s important to make sure that your app looks great on whatever device the users are tapping, typing, or clicking on—even when it’s not open. One of the core experiences on Windows are...
  17. PowerApps 101 | Azure Friday

    Karthik Bharathy joins Scott on Azure Friday to teach him about Power Apps! You'll see how quickly you can create an app and connect it to the cloud using PowerApps. This is PowerApps 101. Link Removed Continue reading...
  18. Developers’ Guide to Windows 10 Version 1511 Update – new videos now available on Channel 9

    We’re happy to announce that the video recordings from last weeks’ Developers’ Guide to Windows 10 live event are now available on-demand on Channel 9. This half day event is an addendum to the existing Developers’ Guide to Windows 10 video series and covers new features for developers in the...
  19. NPR One on the Universal Windows Platform

    Earlier this year, NPR released a Windows 8 version of Link Removed, and recently, a Universal Windows Platform (UWP) version. They were eager to share their challenges and developer experiences in bringing the app to UWP. Link Removed provides talk radio personalized for each listener. NPR’s...
  20. November improvements in Dev Center: submission, promotion and developer agreement

    Starting this week you will see new capabilities in Dev Center. In this blog I’ll describe what’s new in more detail and share ideas how to make best use of them: App submission: new price tiers, and preview of a new age rating system that will start to be rolled out in December App promotion...