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iPhone App Wins Microsoft-Campus Programming Contest
imamac writes "Startup Weekend was a 54-hour coding marathon held on Microsoft's campus last weekend. It was designed to encourage the use of MS programming technologies. However, the winner of the contest was an iPhone app: '"Awkward," whispered Startup Weekend organizer Clint Nelsen into the microphone upon announcing the top vote getter.'"
The parent used a poor choice of words. Startup Weekend in general isn't an MS program, only the BizSpark program that helped organize this particular event.
Luke, help me take this mask off
I haven't bothered to confirm it, but that's the claim.
Caveat Utilitor
It's called "Learn That Name" and it's found in the second link from TFS, not the first link.
Alexander Peter Kristopeit bought his basement from his mommy for one dollar.
Run 3rd party apps in the background?
Let 3rd party apps integrate with the core software?
Let developers distribute apps to real devices without needing Apple's blessing?
(while not always as nice looking, other platforms don't have these limitations)
No, the iPhone SDK is a free download from ADC (you have access to it from the free developer account).
The $100 is for a code signing key that allows you to put those binaries on an actual iPhone and to submit it to the app store
Sleep: A completely inadequate substitution for Caffeine.
Visual Studio Express is also free, as are the Windows and Windows Mobile SDKs. And you can develop in .net for WinMo using the .net Compact Framework, not only C/C++.
And it doesn't cost money to deploy to a real phone or list on an app store (and you dont run the risk of having your dev costs flow down the toilet entirely because Apple rejected your app).
You can get a copy of Visual Studio Express here (it's free): http://www.microsoft.com/express/download/default.aspx
And you'll also need this WinMo 6.5 SDK (it's free also): http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=20686a1d-97a8-4f80-bc6a-ae010e085a6e.
FWIW, I developed for Windows Mobile / Smartphone for several years. The tools were all free. Back then they had something called Visual Studio Embedded (free of course). The best thing was I was able to write a single version of the application (a non-trivial multi-threaded, multimedia application with network connectivity) which ran on my Windows desktop as well as on Windows Mobile (aka Pocket PC) and Windows Smartphone. I did the vast majority of my debugging and testing on the desktop. Very rarely did I have to do any mobile-specific debugging, other than wrestling with the &*%^$# cell network (this was from 2001 through 2005, when pushing data through the cell network was barely functional).
Oh, and by the way, deploying to phones is free also. I don't need Microsoft's permission, nor do I have to pay them a fee.
The more you regulate a company, the worse its products become.
um, you do know that you can write .NET programs in C++... right?
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
Insightful my fat arse. No, you cannot remove your appendix using a toothpick sticked into your left eye because your hand won't fit through the eye socket. But you can very well develop directly on a PDA which can be quite comfortable with a full keyboard and a large screen some of them have.
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
Minimum price for the ability to do it with supported compilers is whatever Visual Studio standard costs. Like $300.00 but you can get it free if you give up a weekday and attend the exact right launch party like I did.
There is a little known (I guess not anymore, now that I post it on /.) marketing twist that is presently in force with regard to Visual Studio: you can "upgrade" to VS Standard or Professional from any of the Express editions (which are of course downloadable for free), or from any "competing product" - e.g. Eclipse or NetBeans counts. This effectively means that you get to buy full license for upgrade price. For Standard, this is $200 - still not cheap, but I thought it's worth clarifying the number as it stands today.
Also, if you're going to write and sell applications - i.e. you're going to run a startup - you could apply for BizSpark (technically this is on a case-by-case basis, but I haven't heard of anyone turned away) and get VS and most other Microsoft developer offerings kinda free - the only caveat that you'll have to pay $100 when quitting the program, either in 3 years, or when you make $1M in profit - whichever one happens sooner.