Thursday 24 October 2013

Windows Phone from Android and iOS - An Amazing Journey!

        We would like to bring some of the real world details, which we have gained from many of our Windows Phone app project. The journey actually started from Android and iPhone apps and finally ended up in developing apps for Windows Phone The Launch of Latest Windows Phone 8.1 OS resulted many more choices for phones and tablets. Though there are many Android and iPhone app under our belts, Windows Phone development world may seems quite different. Especially the user who have used various platforms to Windows Phone may feel it by experience. And also the new OS provide a wide range of opportunities for developers both in terms of design as well as in development.

         The frequency change in other Platform's OS and update happens often ,which results the QA and designers to work on More form factors and a wide range of hardware configurations, where as in Windows Platforms its quite opposite and would lead developer to develop quality app and create a chance of getting spotted in the marketplace. Windows Phone has Clear and Strong visual style formerly knows as Metro. Windows Writing doesn't rely only on sparse, monochrome UI, instead uniqueness of each app could be gained using intelligent color and visuals.



          Regardless of platforms, the user must not be pushed to learn new habits, new gestures and interaction modes. Instead there should be some common controls where the user find it easy to work, so that they will be able to focus on useful things. Windows Phone design stands as an inspiration and also a helpful guide which restricts the restrictions. Although Windows platforms still lags in app numbers, still they stand high on the market due to its improved user experience.

          Happy to hear that Windows Phone is getting lots of attention and also looking forward to see more new ideas and improvisation in it. Looking into the other side Microsoft should also work on delivering best lifestyle apps for Windows Phone

Wednesday 23 October 2013

Microsoft - Now developers can add speech recognition to windows 8 apps!

Bing is not only a search engine but it has more to it. Bing is also a development platform which allows controls, back end services and development kits to the developers. What was lacking in Bing developer toolbox was a speech recognition control. The speech recognition control was a much awaited and belatedly introduced feature. This will now be a boon to the developers because they can now include speech recognition as one of their inputs alongside other forms in their Windows 8, Windows 8.1 and Windows RT apps.





Additionally, we can expect an upgrade for Optical Character Recognition Control and Bing Translator Control to be supportive with Windows 8.1. Already there is speech recognition inside the Windows phone where the user presses the microphone button and gives speech input that appears as a text on top part of the device. This can be used for navigation and controls inside the phone. However, with the speech recognition been added to the Bing developer toolbox developers can now add speech recognition input to their apps for Windows 8, 8.1 and RT.

Microsoft always encourages its windows phone 8 developers in licensing their services such as mapping, speech, translation, APIs. Even the Bing search engine by itself is powered by these services that are listed above.

With this new and suave update, Microsoft yet again proves to its users, rivals and developers that Windows doesn't have just static API but it has constant, up to date and elegant updates. These updates are not only up to date but are very useful and efficient. The recent speech recognition addition to the Bing developer toolbox albeit being belatedly released is very essential as this will create a new change over in the way Windows 8, Windows RT, Windows 8.1 apps are being designed, developed, downloaded and used.