There are two types of people in Microsoft’s world, those who know Visual Studio and those that do not. Still, the company continues making efforts to increase the number of apps on the Windows Phone platform, on a regular basis.
One of the best attempts in this regard is the recently launched Windows Phone App Studio.
This web based service allows users to create apps for the company’s fledgling mobile platform even with no programming or coding experience.
And now the company has announced that it is a bone fide and certified success!
Some 160,000 users have signed up for the free service, and have created more than 150,000 projects. This ultimately resulted in the creation of over 65,000 Windows Phone apps in the first two months, though it is not yet clear how many have made their way to the Windows Phone Store.
Nevertheless, the company has promised more features for Windows Phone App Studio, based on developer feedback, of course:
“For external data sources, with our new cache implementation, you can access dynamic data or RSS feeds even if the user’s phone is not connected. We’ve optimized Visual Studio projects to remove external references when they are not being used–this significantly reduces project size and complexity. With “Fast Resume” you can set a default language for easy publication in the Windows Phone Store.”
Redmond also confirmed that it has added Near Field Communication (NFC) feature to the service to share apps with other beta developers. Additionally, options to integrate phone functions in the created mobile applications like opening maps, making phone calls and more are also in.
The team is now working to integrate support for third party SDKs into App Studio, which will surely be a major new addition once this feature goes live.
