Unified Windows Dev Portal, Documentation (and more)

Building Apps for Windows - New Opportunity: Kinect for Windows + Unified Windows developer portal and documentation and 21 additional payout markets

Earlier this week Microsoft released the Kinect for Windows Public Preview which represents a new opportunity for Windows developers, as apps created with the new SDK may be published to the Window Store later this year. We’re making plans to prominently feature Kinect-enabled apps to provide customers with an exciting new Windows experience. I’d like to encourage you to download the preview today and be one of the first to publish a Windows app integrating the Kinect experience.

Today we are also taking the next step in the journey to a single unified Windows platform which began last November with unified developer registration, and continued at Build with universal Windows apps. With this release, we are bringing together Windows Phone and Windows Store online developer resources including education materials, guidance, code samples and reference documentation. We now have a single Windows Dev Center website – dev.windows.com – to aid those of you developing apps and games across phone, tablet and PC.

Finally, this week we’re also expanding the number of payout markets to include 21 new markets from which you can submit paid apps. This includes apps with in-app purchase, the fastest growing Store revenue model, representing nearly 50% of Windows Phone developer payout and over 30% of Windows payout – and growing.

New opportunity: Kinect for Windows

[GD: Check out my Channel 9 Coding4Fun Kinect Gallery post, It's Kinect for Windows v2 Day!]

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dev.windows.com, the one place to learn about Windows app development

In the unified site you will find the content and guidance for both Windows Phone and Windows Dev Centers consolidated in to a single location. Learn about design, find the tools you need for development, and understand the steps to publish universal Windows apps. We’ve also combined code samples and forums into a single, convenient location.

Unified documentation: You will now see a comprehensive, combined documentation set to help you learn how to build apps for Windows devices (phone, tablet and PC), with API and feature distinctions clearly called out. Documentation is now available in 11 languages: German, English, Spanish, French, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Brazilian Portuguese, Russian, Simplified Chinese and Traditional Chinese.

Single location for code samples: The code samples for Windows Phone and Windows Store apps, as well as for universal Windows apps, continue to be published in the MSDN code gallery. The difference is that they are now easily accessible directly from one Dev Center page.

Single location for developer forums: The Windows Store apps and Windows Phone developer forums have been merged into one streamlined set of forums. The dashboard forums have been combined so that they appear together in one location, while the technical forums remain specialized for each form factor.

The dashboards will remain separate for Windows Phone and Windows. When you first click the Dashboard link in the Dev Center, you’ll be able to choose which one to start with. After that, switching between the two is simple. Just use the link in the left-hand navigation pane.

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Nice to see the Windows/Phone unification continue. It's investments in things like this that gives me hope (you know, how the doc's are always last'ish? So if doc's are being updated, then it looks like this might stick... :)